followandreblog asked: Unka Glen! I read your quote from the podcast about soul ties. Does that cancel out the idea of deliverance all together? Megachurch practices aaaahhhh!!!!!
i-amneveralone asked: Were you the one who said soul ties are not real? If you are, can you explain why?
Unka Glen answered: For those of you who don’t know, “soul ties” involves the idea that human beings can be spiritually bound to one another (generally as a result of premarital sex), and that these “ties” will somehow prevent us from having healthy connections with our future marital partner, because we are supposedly still “tied” to someone else.
If you’re not already rolling your eyes at that, I’ll add that the “deliverance” comes in when you want to “break” the soul ties. Of course, if you want to do that, you’ll need to buy my book, come to my seminar, or come down front, put money in the offering plate, and let me smack you on the forehead.
The manipulation of that should be obvious. If I say you’re in bondage, and then I say that I can get you out of it, that puts me in between you and God. And that’s a space NOTHING AND NOBODY belongs in.
2 Corinthians 3:17 says, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” God gives me the power to break EVERY stronghold in my life. Now, to be sure, I’m not always using that power in every area of my life, but I can overcome any attack, temptation, or bondage according to power available to me from God right now in infinite supply.
My deliverance came when my Savior was nailed to a cross, and I accepted His free gift of eternal life in Paradise.
So let’s be honest, all this bad theology is really about scaring young people into not having sex. If that’s the goal, then let’s tell the plain truth about that: sex creates emotional intimacy out of the physical intimacy that two people share. This is what makes it beautiful. When you have sex and you don’t have a committed marital relationship, you deny the best part of sex from doing its thing.
This is why people chase after sexual thrills, because they feel the physical pleasure, but they can’t quite feel the full benefit of the emotional connection. It just isn’t as fulfilling as it’s meant to be. Does all that create some kind of weird spiritual bond? Nope.
I’m not pleased to admit it, but I had sex before I was married, and what I’m telling you here is based on what I’ve personally learned from dealing with my own past.
Jesus said “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He’s the vine, we are branches on that vine, but it’s all one plant, if you see His meaning.
We draw everything we need in our lives from this connection— peace, love, patience, grace, joy, wisdom, and so much more. I’m really uncomfortable with the idea that anyone else could create that kind of connection that we have with God.
Sure, I know about how the Bible says David was “knit” together with Jonathan, but there’s another way of looking at that. In a sense, if I’m connected to God, and you’re connected to Him, then we ALL share this connection together. And I think this is a very cool thought.
When something happens to me, certain brain cells fire off, when the same thing happens to you, a subset of those same brain cells fire off in my brain. That is to say, there’s a part of my brain that can’t tell the difference between what happens to you, and what happens to me.
We share all kinds of mental, emotional, and physical connections, some are healthy, some are not, but if you’ve accepted God into your heart, your soul is tied to God, and nothing else can tie you down, ever, period.
TheBridgeChicago 