 God is good and he's got good plans for you today. He's got good plans for you every day. Sometimes we don't see it. Sometimes we go through that dark time. We're gonna talk a little bit about those things today, but let me tell you, God is always good. Thank you for joining us for Hope Today. I'm Tom, I'm here with Amanda and Sydney. Tell us about that, Sydney. You know, coming up on Hope Today, overcoming mind battles, you don't wanna miss our conversation with Kathy DeGraw, who has insight and keys she wants to share with you about emotional restoration and spiritual deliverance so you can root out mental triggers and experience peace. You know, Amanda, I think God is really pinpointing and highlighting things with the mind because we gotta get our mind right in this season and understand the root of things so that we can live out and be all we're called to be. And I know this weekend was a really big moment for your family. You had some fun this weekend celebrating. We did, so our son Andrew, he turned 23, but for those of you who have been on the journey with the Brockers and many of the prayer partners praying for us, he was our son who had gone wayward and all I can say is the glory of God. When I look at his life and, you know, Sydney and Tommy, he serves in many of the ministry outlets through the Dream Center and just watching him care for other people and share his story. He works at Recovery Centers of America and he's able to share his story there and we got to go to an open house there and they referred to him as their young pastor. I was like, so it's just, but this is a miracle of God. So we celebrated his life, his birthday with him and we love him so much and look forward to all God has. You posted on Facebook a picture of him with this Bible and I'm like, good looking young man there preaching the word of God. And five years ago, it was a different story. God's taken him on this journey and taken him through. You know, I love that because, you know, we all go through different difficult times and you know, I just want to offer to you if you're going through that difficult time today. First of all, you're going to love what you hear today about the things that God wants to do in your life, but maybe you want some prayer. Our prayer partners are always there. They're always standing by. They have this, we've had this ministry since the first show went on in the air in 1979 because we know that we want to connect with you. We want to see God make something happen in your life and prayer is the way to do that. So you can call the number on your screen and get some prayer with the prayer partner today. And just like Tom said, we love, this is the way we love to honor and serve you is having these conversations because we know that God wants to do a work in you and through you so you can be a blessing to others. Well, you know, the mind can be a battlefield and the enemy loves to wage war against it. Kathy DeGraw's a prophetic deliverance minister whose experience is firsthand is on a mission to help others be set free from the bondage of tormenting thoughts so that people like you and me can be all that God has called us to be. She's the author of the new book, Mind Battles, Root Out Mental Triggers to Release Peace. Kathy, we're so glad to have you back with us on Hope Today. Thank you, Sydney. It's an honor and a privilege to be back with you again. Well, it's such a joy to have you with us today. And you know, Kathy, before we dive in, can you just highlight what is a mental battle, the mind battles that we face every day? We all face mind battles. It can be rejection. It can be stress, anxiety, fear. A mind battle is any place that we can't move forward and get the freedom and fullness that Christ has purchased for us. Those struggles, those thoughts that are negative, that are unproductive and unfruitful, and we continually ruminate and think about instead of the victory that we have in Christ Jesus. And Kathy, you have a personal experience with this. Can you just share a little bit of your story and your journey with us? Yes, I had a lot of fear. I had fear for probably 40 years of my life. And I usually say I was raised to fear. And unfortunately, I think a lot of us can relate to that. But if there was a thunderstorm or tornado, our first reaction was, hurry up, get down in the Michigan cellar. And so everything that happened in our life, it was really a pessimistic negative attitude. Always the worst was gonna happen. If you had a headache, it could be a brain tumor. If you had a heart palpitation, you were gonna have a heart attack. And so all these things instilled fear in me. And so even as an adult, I had to get over the fear of thunderstorms and even strong winds. I had to get over the fear of when I had a health or a medical ailment because my mind would always go to the worst instead of towards good in God. And praise God, through the victory in Jesus Christ, the renewing of our mind, capturing every thought, I was able to do that. But it's a continual work in progress for a lot of people's lives. And still my life because I think the thief always is gonna come to steal, kill and destroy. And a lot of us are always gonna hear those words in our soul from our childhood and even our adulthood of the way that we were trained, the behavior patterns that we took on. You know, Kathy, one thing I love that you get really personal in your journey and story. One thing I love is like, you're a prophetic deliverance minister. You've been all over. And there's a part you talk about, you would lay prostrate on the floor, like your family knew that you were just trying to get before Jesus. But through those moments, those intimate moments with God that he began to impart and give you revelation for how to obtain deliverance when it comes to mind battles. Can you share a little bit with that with us? Well, I think one of the common questions that I always have is, Kathy, I don't know how to get deliverance. I don't know where there's deliverance ministries or how do I do this? And I was in that same situation. And so I just went to the Lord and I laid prostrate on the floor for actually two years and I would just seek the Lord because I wanted him in the process I got deliverance. But in the process, I also got a prophetic anointing to really help people accelerate the process of deliverance. And he showed me how easy it could be. And we talk about that in the book, such as time-lining, finding that root cause that legal right. And so I had to find that even in my own ailments, such as the medical fear. You know, why was that such a torment for me? Well, you know, my son almost died at birth. My husband had a burst appendix and the hospital sent him home. So I had a lot of things that I could say, okay, these are triggers. And so as I was going before the Lord, the Holy Spirit would bring to remembrance what these triggers were. And then he would show me how I could use what I learned to deliver myself to deliver other people. And Sidney, we went from doing eight hour deliverance sessions to be able to deliver people in five minutes to an hour, depending on what they had in their life. And so spending that two years on the floor was worth it now for what I could impart into others. And I liked being at the Lord for two years. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that carpet for two years, but I'm too busy, you know, sharing the gospel and doing everything else now. That's so powerful. I love how he's like expediting, excuse me, the process of just like, okay, there was like eight hours, you know, with like deliverance sessions, but now it is just like a quicker process that he's doing because he's given you the tools and the insight Kathy to help so many. So one thing that you like alluded to and you spoke about is that coming into legal agreement, can you talk about that for a moment? Because a lot of times we don't understand, even as Christians, how we open the door, allow the enemy to come and flood our mind. And then we start having all these thoughts. Can you talk to us about that? What are some of the open doors that we allow for the enemy to come in that is not in agreement with God and His word? Well, first of all, legal agreement was in my case, it started out as a generational curse of fear because I was taught how to fear driving on ice, fear of the storms, fear of health ailments. But over the years, I never pressed through to my breakthrough. I didn't know I could be free of it. And so I took on those characteristics and behaviors and my daughters were afraid of wind and storms because when they would come around, I would arise in fear. And that's coming into agreement with it. And so when we don't root it out, we come into agreement with it. If we have a health ailment, we're afraid of that and we don't cast it down and out. We don't rebuke it, say, by Christ stripes, I'm healed. I'm a walking manifestation of my healing, declaring out those positive things. We come into agreement with that. And so we have to break agreement. And I think that's one of the most powerful things that I can tell people. The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities. And some of this warfare in our mind is self-inflicted. It's things that we took on, it's our flesh that we need to get control of, but some of it is demonic attacks. And so in the case where it becomes a demonic attack because we have taken on that characteristic for so long, it can become a demonic stronghold in our life. We need to audibly break agreement and we need to allow the spiritual realm to hear that we're taking authority over our situation and saying, fear go in the name of Jesus. I break agreement with tormenting thoughts. I break agreement with negative thinking. I break agreement with generational depression. I break agreement with generational anxiety. I break agreement. We're coming out of agreement with it and then replacing it with the word of God and what the word of God says. And the word of God says that we have the mind of Christ. The word of God says in 2 Timothy 1-7 that we've not been given a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind, which actually means self-discipline and self-controlled. And so we have to come out of agreement with the things that are happening and into agreement with the word of God. And we do that by keeping the word of God, by keeping scriptures in front of us. I mean, so much so, Sidney, that I'm still looking through the book of Psalms to try and grab more nuggets and more scriptures to memorize so that I can always be putting those out and keeping the positive in the forefront of my mind. Kathy, I'm the same way too, like looking for the word to stand in agreement, to break off the lies of the enemy because there is such a rampant spirit of fear. But one thing I love that you pointed out in your book, excuse me, is that you said that there's another side of fear that we oftentimes we don't look at or we don't consider and you say fear exists to keep us safe and God created fear to protect us, give us energy and help us react and act. So can you talk to us about the healthy side of fear when we have it in the context when we look at through the vein of God? God actually created fear to be a defense mechanism. Think about like when you're driving down the road and you think you're gonna get in an accident and you overcompensate driving so that, you know, that fear that starts to trigger, it actually saves you from the accident. And so fear was really intended to help us. Now think about if you have like a little feeling inside your soul, something's gonna happen, maybe I shouldn't turn down that road. You know, some of these ways that fear is actually good, it's designed, Sydney, to protect us and keep us safe, okay? But man and the enemy has distorted what God designed. And so I think what we have to do, and I want you to really hear me, is we have to embrace fear. Not in a negative way that, oh, I'm in fear, but we gotta embrace them, we gotta look at it and renew our mind that fear is actually a good thing when used properly in alignment with the way that God intended. And so that comes by, you know, taking each situation and saying, okay, I shouldn't fear this. Now God created fear to be a good thing. How can I take this negative storm that I'm fearing and have it be this good, you know, godly, reverential fear of the Lord is what we're supposed to have, but also towards our situation. And so in that situation, when a storm is predicted, my husband and I get up, we walk around the house, we anoint the house with oil, and we decree and we declare that no trees are gonna fall on the house, that we're not gonna get any water damage. And so we take that fear that was intended to make us scared of something, and we use it for that reactionary, that positive thing that God called it to be in the beginning. Oh, I love that so much, is like changing our mindset over fear and looking at it as proper context with God. And the other thing I want you to dive into, because this was like so mind blowing in such revelation, when you were talking about the mind binding spirits, can you define what they are, how they cripple us, and how do we overcome them? I really believe identifying the mind binding spirits is gonna be the key to many people's breakthrough. So when we have fear, or we can even say for this case, rejection, depression, anxiety, stress, any kind of emotional torment and trauma, this is first of all, torment, okay? It's a lie that we're believing, it's a way that we're reacting. But as Christians and people of God, what do we try and do? We try to arise above those feelings, and we try and pull our thoughts in good in God directions. But let's be honest, it doesn't happen. And we feel like there's this force, so pull into that negativity, into that very thing we're fearing, and we keep trying to draw it back, but we can't, why can't we? It's because a demonic spirit is at work. A demonic spirit is targeting your mind. Think about someone who's in rejection. What are your first thoughts? I'm gonna get rejected again. You're constantly, our mind does loop and ruminate, so it goes in circles into the same negative direction. But as people, we can pull our mind back into good in God thoughts. But when you're feeling like this force, like I am locked down, I am shut up, I cannot get my brain out of this negative way of thinking. You almost feel like spiritually, emotionally paralyzed, because you can't pray, you can't worship, you're trying to read your word, you're trying to renew those thoughts. There is a greater force at work, and it's called a mind-binding spirit. And I believe this is a reason why a lot of people don't have freedom from depression and rejection and fear, as because we've cast out the demon of fear, rejection and depression, but we haven't cast out the mind-binding spirit. And as I've delivered thousands of people internationally, what I've seen is as we've cast out that mind-binding spirit, people are getting their freedom because they no longer have that pole that I call it a lure seducing into that wrong way of thinking. And so if you don't have that, even those simple times that your thoughts do go in an unproductive, unfruitful negative direction, now you don't have a demon, a demonic spirit coming and drawing your mind away. So it's easier for you to capture that thought and put it in a good, godly direction. Kathy, can you just, I really just feel like God just wants you for a moment, just to speak directly to the viewers out there that somebody can totally say, this is me, I'm having these ruminating thoughts, my mind is all over the place. So can you just take a next couple of minutes just to let the Lord, Holy Spirit, use you however you felt led and just to speak to the person out there because this is critical for someone's breakthrough. Amen. First of all, I wanna tell you, no matter where you are, no matter how many times you've tried to get breakthrough, you can have it. Jesus is no respecter of persons. And maybe you feel down, maybe you've been depressed, maybe you feel fearful and you're like, Kathy, I've tried this, I've tried that, I've tried this. You know what, try one more time because the Holy Spirit wants you free. Jesus purchased your freedom and no matter where your mind is, if we look at Mark five, the man of the gathering, he was sitting in his right mind after Jesus cast out the legion and you too can be in your right mind. So right now in the name of Yeshua Messiah, I speak comfort into you. I speak shalom peace into you in Jesus Christ's name. Every lie that you are believing, I command it to be abolished and vanquished by the blood of the Lamb. I command that spirit of fear to go and get out of you in Jesus Christ's name. I command stress and anxiety to leave you in the name of Yeshua. I speak in decree to that mind-binding spirit. I take authority over you right now by the blood of the Lamb and I command you out of our friends right now in the name of Jesus Christ. I come against procrastination in your life, those of you that are feeling stagnant who aren't pressing through to your breakthrough because you feel defeated or victimized. I command that victimization, that defeat feeling to leave you in the name of Jesus Christ. I speak in decree that you will prosper in everything that you set your hand to. I declare over you that you have the mind of Christ, that God is working on your behalf, that Jesus came to purchase your deliverance. I prophesy right now that this is your transformation day. This is your Kairos moment that God is moving. He is coming in right now and removing all that negativity from you. All those word curses spoken over you and I speak in decree peace to come into you right now. I annihilate every, every demonic principality and power that's coming against you. Anyone that's spoken fear over you in the name of Jesus Christ and I call forth your full freedom in Jesus' name. Ooh, Kathy, I could just, when you were just declaring and decreeing, I just like literally could feel in my body just things, this shift that is happening right now in people's homes that are watching it. That is you and you are saying that is me what Kathy just declared, what she just prayed. Give us a call at our prayer line at 888-665-4483. This is D-Day. This is Deliverance Day because we wanna see you set free. And you know, I just think it is so important in this season, Kathy, that we just have an understanding of our identity in Christ and Him and that Yeshua is the one that sets us free. Thank you so much for all that you shared for your ministry and what you poured out. The book is called Mind Battles, Root Out Mental Triggers to Release Peace by Kathy DeGraw. We'll have a link on our website at ctvn.org. Thank you so much, Kathy, for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Whew, you know, we are so, I'm just like still sitting here, talking to Amanda, just trying to take all that in. I think there's certain moments where the Holy Spirit just starts to begin moving and a wooing that we feel right in our spirits, Amanda. I know, I just love how she talked about wanting Him. And I think, you know, that's where she was. That's how her freedom came. And so today we wanna encourage you to want Him like nothing else. Just want Jesus, want His Word, desire Him. And when you sit with Him, you're gonna have that freedom. Like she said, you know, the mind-binding spirits, that's something that we walked our Son, watched Him walk through because He had a lot of wrong mindsets and it led Him down a pathway of destruction. But God, when He started to want God, that is what we watched and this Word became real to Him. And today we see the life that He's living and that this is possible for you. I'm telling you, as a parent, when you watch your child be on death's doorstep and you feel like God, if it's not you doing something, I don't know what we're about to walk through. And God did something. Something happened inside of our Son, inside of His heart, that He began to want Jesus. And the words were no longer words from the Bible that mom and dad were just saying. It became bread of life to Him. And that's what this needs to be for you today. Bread of life, begin to want Him. God can do the impossible, I promise you. He does not fail. Well, I mean, what she says is so true that we might start off just hearing fear, fearful things from our parents, from others around us. We hear these fearful things and then they become settled in there and they become a stronghold of the enemy. And you know, that prayer is, that she just prayed was so powerful, but it's the beginning. I mean, it's the beginning of what God wants to do. And then we're walking in those things and we're placing all those fears that we had with the truth of God. She mentioned that too. I think that's so key. Cause I've talked to so many people with her on the prayer line or praying at church or whatever. There's fear, Sidney. There's things that have locked in that have almost irrational, really irrational in some cases that have gotten that stronghold. That stronghold needs to be broken, but then there needs to be a walking in it as well. You know, this is a topic that means so much to me because I walked in this and I can say that I received deliverance. And there was even something recently that was at Covenant Church of Pittsburgh. I was at this women's conference, the Holy Spirit broke out and it was talking about the spirit of rejection. And sometimes I think a lot of times in our walks as Christians that we don't want to admit that we have things that are inside of us, things that are holding back. And I'm telling you, there was, we had this breakout session and there was this, we were just going in on the spirit of rejection and going back to the root where it happens. Like just different things. We had to go back and like asking Holy Spirit like take us back to where the door was open. And can I tell you, there was in that room, we were wailing, we were screaming, we were crying. But from that moment, that spirit of rejection, I felt something list off of me. And I know a lot of you that have walked through trauma that maybe it's been sexual abuse, whatever abuse, domestic abuse, that you are dealing with a spirit of rejection, that you are dealing with a spirit of fear. And can I tell you that, yes, it's like getting therapy, but also the spiritual component because it is real, you gotta get to the root. I really believe Amanda, the reason why God is there, I feel like even on Hope Today, we've had so many people now talking about mental health, mental wellness, about the mind battles is because God has got to deal with us first. If we have to be revived, revival first starts within us. If we are carrying things that we don't know, we can leak and bleed on other people without knowing it and it's casualties. So I think in this season, everything that Kathy shared, it is so important that we fight and understand the battle that's going within so that we can go out. So when we're on the streets that we can say, I've walked through this, I can see what it looks like, I can identify that spirit and then we can help other people. Point them to the cross, point them to Jesus and knowing that because Jesus got up and He was resurrected, we have that resurrection power in us and there's nothing that when we are in Christ that can hold us back and take us down. Such a powerful word Sid. And you know, just talking about wanting Him, we're gonna want Him right now as we go to the Word of God. We're gonna go to 2nd Corinthians 10, verses four and five. And it says, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And this is the living Word of God. This is the bread of life. And I love how, you know, Kathy said we can't just realize the bad thought. You've got to take captive of it but then you've got to replace it with the Word of God. And the only way you're gonna be able to do that is by hanging out with Jesus and getting into the Word. And I encourage you from the bottom of myself to seek after the kingdom of God and His righteousness. He will not fail you. I just hear Him keep saying that, Tom. He will not fail you. Well, isn't it interesting in that verse? It says, because I think about spiritual warfare pulling down strongholds. It says casting down arguments, okay? Casting down arguments, casting down things that have been put upon you, those arguments from the devil, those arguments that those wrong thoughts, it doesn't mean actually arguing there. It talks about, it's a wrong thought, a wrong teaching, a wrong fear, a wrong thing that's been put on you. That's the thing that's being cast down. And then what do we do? It says it there as well. Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. That's the next step. Once that argument's cast out, we don't wanna pick it up again. We don't wanna pick up that thing that has been like a, it's been a chain, but it's also been a comfort in a way. And we pick that thing up again. No, we're gonna continue to take every thought captive and believe that God has freedom for you today. So this is the plan and the purpose of God. You're watching this program today because God wants you to have freedom. God wants you to walk in that newness of life. We come to Christ and praise God for all the miraculous things he does. But some things that have been ingrained, they take time to work their way out. God's got that for you today. You know, one thing that comes to those thoughts is like I've heard it said that one time I was in a therapy session, I remember this Christian therapist, she told me, she said, talk back to the thought. When it starts coming in your mind and you hear it addressed and it's like, okay, I hear you and replace it with the truth. Replace it with the word of God. And maybe that's something you need to start doing today because we all have sometimes these mind binding thoughts, these ruminating thoughts that just don't let up and they don't quit. But can I tell you friend, when you start placing it in Jesus' hands, when you're saying like, God, like there's been moments, I've been like, God, take these thoughts away from me. I'm like screaming like, oh my goodness, that he will meet you and he will give you step by step how to walk it out. Maybe it's like going to therapy, having community, having a safe place to go where you can release those things. But in this season, we truly believe that God wants you to have a well-mind, a well-mind because I can tell you that going through my own process, that there is hope on the other side of it, that you can be set free from that tormenting and those thoughts and that Jesus will be with you every step of the way. You know, I just think of the apostle Paul. He was persecuting the church. He meets Jesus and everything changes. And things, that's the power of God. The power of God unto salvation. But as we follow Christ, he continues to grow us. He continues to change things. He continues to heal us. It's not all at once. It's a progression. So walk in that progression today. Seek God. He's got newness of life for you today. On tomorrow's Hope Today, learn how to see the good in everyday life and embrace gratitude as a way of life. Author Michelle Howe encourages us with how to hone a grateful, grace-filled heart no matter what the circumstances. That's tomorrow on Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.