Acts 16:16 As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling.
In the original Greek manuscript of the Bible, the “spirit of divination” is the “spirit of python”. This salve girl had a fortune telling-python spirit or in modern terms she was a “psychic”. A python or “puthon” in Greek mythology relates to the power to predict the future. Below the snake line we also encounter pythons that slowly sneak and slither into the lives of the naive and suffocate them. Pythons have an interesting way of killing their prey. They constrict and squeeze the prey until it can no longer breathe, literally suffocating the life out of it.
Python spirit in the spiritual sense will slowly slither into our prayer life and plant seeds of doubt about the existence of God; distrust in the truth of the scripture and disbelief into the authenticity of the promises of God before it viciously attacks and completely squeezes the faith out of us. As oxygen is to our body, prayer is to our spirit. Python spirit, if entertained, will suffocate our spiritual life to death.
Beware of these three signs of attack:
1. Shortness: The first attack will be in our prayer life. Paul and Silas encountered this slave girl with the python spirit when they were on their way to the prayer mountain. Once when we were going to the place of prayer (Acts 16:16a). When we make a decision to increase our prayer time, wake up early or do a prayer walk, an overwhelming sulkiness, tiredness and weariness seems to overtake. This is clearly an attack of the python spirit. The struggle to find the right time for family or personal prayer is also an attack of the python spirit. When our prayer life is swallowed by busyness, there is very little oxygen left in the lungs causing shortness of breath to keep the spirit man alive.
2. Starvation: The second attack will be in our Bible reading. Our profession and position could sometimes eat into our Bible reading, devotion and meditation. When activity outwits the intimacy, there will be calamity! A body that is not fed with nourishment will become weak, a soul that is not fed with spiritual nutrients will become weak and succumb to the python spirit. A half an hour sermon once a week will not feed the soul with strength to resist the python spirit. As hunger pangs demand food for the stomach, our spiritual appetite should be fed to nourish the soul. Lack of appetite for the Word of God, is a sign of the attack of a python spirit.
3. Suffocation: Suffocation is the stage where the python spirit has already coiled around the spirit man and is squeezing the oxygen out of the lungs. Occult practices, sorcery, witchcraft, superstitions, fortunetelling, horoscopes, black magic, zodiac signs, crystal balls, wedgie board game, lucky charms, magic spells, incantation, yoga meditations, drugs, pornography or any other sexual perversion opens the door for python spirit into the lives of the ignorant, uninformed and susceptible. Lust incubates and hatches the python’s eggs in the mind and soul. Any kind of involvement with the occult or superstition will allow the python spirit to coil in and suffocate the spirit man to death.
Only the name of Jesus, the blood of Jesus and the Word of God will snap the hold of the coiling python spirit. Strangle the python spirit and claim over the snake line.
Acts 16:18 Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!”.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, help us to be aware of the slithering python spirit that is trying to loop in through busyness, lack of spiritual appetite or superstitious occult beliefs. Amen
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