Richard and Brittni De La Mora talk overcoming tormenting spirits
Ex-porn star Brittni De La Mora and her pastor-husband Richard De La Mora shared why tormenting spirits provoke Christians and how believers can overcome spiritual warfare.
In a recent episode of their "Let's Talk Purity" podcast, the De La Moras said tormenting spirits that can provoke Christians include the spirits of fear and anxiety.
Brittni recalled a time in her life when she struggled with the tormenting spirit of anxiety, which stemmed from a violent incident in her life.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
“Before I became a Christian. I was dating a guy that was killed in front of me. And so after that, I became very afraid. I was always looking over my back. It was a very trauma-based fear that I had to work through,” she said.
Over time, Brittni said she learned to “continuously combat fear” and learned to not act in fear even when she's afraid.
“Christ is covering you. You are in Him. But sometimes, when the enemy attacks and you feel that fear, rather than staying under the covering of Christ, you basically enter into that fear, and you say, 'OK, I’m going to allow this realm of fear to now dictate my moves,'” Brittni added.
She learned to combat the tormenting spirits of fear and anxiety by not allowing them "to grow in my mind."
"Whatever you focus on will grow in your life," Brittni stressed. "Whenever a fearful thought comes into me, I instantly say, ‘Nope, not going to go there. I'm going to do it anyway.’”
Listen to your favorite podcasts on the Edifi Podcast Network
“It's almost like, ‘I'm going to prove you wrong, fear,’ right? But sometimes, when that fearful thought comes, and if we receive it and allow it to dictate that move, guess what? It comes back stronger the next time, stronger the next time, to eventually you’re in a place where now your brain has been rewired, and you just operate in fear.”
When it comes to the tormenting spirit of discouraging thoughts, Richard said a Christian must act fast to eliminate any thought before it becomes stronger.
"You have 15 seconds to cast that thought down from becoming a feeling to an action," warning that if a Christian doesn't reject it, the thought "turns into a feeling, then the feeling starts to become an action."
“I've been learning that, too, because I’ll be like, ‘Alright, you’ve got 15 seconds. Cast that down.’ Because, if not, if you stay there ... it starts growing and growing and growing," he continued.
"I just think, for a lot of us, everybody has different fears. But learning how to cast those down and stepping in Christ in faith, is really going to help us and challenge us and grow us to be able to be that person that God has called us to become."
One of the tormenting spirits that can hinder Christians in their walks with God is the spirit of torment itself, according to the De La Moras.
Brittni said she dealt with the spirit of torment during a season in her life when she was having a drink of wine every night to decompress from the day.
At that time, she said she felt God was calling her to stop drinking at night. Instead of obeying what she believed God was calling her to do, she wasn't able to sleep at night and wrestled with a spirit of torment that provoked her every night. She chose to drink a glass of wine before bed instead of just going to sleep.
“I would say, ‘I'm going to have one drink because my schedule is so busy, life is overwhelming, and I just want to debrief.’ But God was saying, ‘No Brittni, you don't need to have a drink. You need to rest in Me,” Brittni recalled. "I was refusing to surrender. I would have a drink. And then boom, I started getting tormented."
”I would have one drink and I would not sleep all night. I might get one hour, if I was lucky, and I would take Melatonin. I was taking a Benadryl to help. Nothing worked.”
After some time of being tormented in this manner, Brittni said she surrendered to what she felt God was calling her to do, stopped drinking at night and was finally able to sleep peacefully since then.
The couple said that Christians should evaluate their lives to see if there are any areas of disobedience against God that might be leading them to be spiritually attacked.
“A tormenting spirit will try to invade your life when you're not living a surrendered life because the torment comes in a place that you're not surrendered at. For me, I used to get tormented in my mind, literally anxious thoughts … because I wouldn't surrender. I wouldn't surrender to fully lean on God,” Richard detailed.
“I leaned on my distractions. And I think that's the open door we're talking about. Because of that spirit of torment, the open door of that is when you don't surrender. And it sits there tormenting you.”
Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post.
