EXCHANGING SOUL TIES

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In this message, let’s explain soul ties. Soul ties are idols! Idols are sin! Soul ties hold you back from spiritual freedom. Some love their soul ties more than they love their spirit. God made us to worship Him. PERIOD. But He has given us a choice, and because of that, this is what makes our worship a sacrifice and a sweet aroma to HIM. Anything we think we need above Jesus is a soul tie! It will control or lead our souls. Anything we put above Jesus is a soul tie! Soul ties turn into idols. Soul ties keep us from worshiping in Spirit and in Truth! 

This will be a long message, but it will be sound and in-depth for great understanding. I have heard some people saying that soul ties are not mentioned in the Bible. The problem must be that they do not read their Bible. Many say, “I have never heard about that,” but because you have never heard about it does not mean that it does not exist. Sometimes God has not revealed something to someone because it was not the time for it to be revealed. Read Numbers 30:1-3 and start to understand once and for all how a soul can easily have a tie. “And Moses spake unto the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. If a man vows a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.” Sometimes how we say something may be not exactly how we are supposed to say it, but the meaning of what we say is what matters the most. From Genesis to Revelation and until now, many have tied their soul with a bond! Soul ties are ever-present! Be ready to see it and to break it or them! 

One thing that the soul tie consists of is in the soul realm. The soul consists of 3 parts: mind, will, and emotion. When we put our mind ahead of the mind of Christ, we can create soul ties. When we put our will above the will of the Father, we create soul ties. When we are ruled by our emotions instead of the Truth, we are ruled by the soul. We end up being directed by the soul instead of by His Spirit. That is why God gave us His word to renew our mind because our mind is part of our soul. God wants to restore our souls just as He said in Psalm 23:3, but He will never do that without us submitting to His power, Words, and ways! Though we have these precious promises from Him in the Old Testament, He has given us the New Testament to teach us how to obtain them. Jesus was bruised and beaten on the cross to heal us, but not everyone is healed in their hearts. He came to restore the wounded soul. False grace tries to get something even when they are not a candidate to receive it. To make Jesus just savior and not Lord means that you will not obtain the promises that are for now. To have Him as savior may give you the access for the blessing of later, but not of now. The blessings of now, for this season and time, are for those who hearken and obey His words, His voice, and His ways, for those who submit to Him. If healing and restoration were automatic then that would mean that relationship does not have an important place with the Father because He is changing us from glory to glory and He is getting the glory. If it was automatic that means you do not need to abide in him, so you come against His own words.

Whatever is stopping your soul from following your renewed spirit is a soul tie. It is impossible to follow Him if we don’t bear our cross. We can follow Him in the flesh, but our souls will never change. If we follow Him with all of our soul, mind, and all that is within us, we will be transformed forever. Transformation starts with a renewed mind. Transformation does not happen by hearing the Word, but by doing the Word. The Word says that hearers only it says deceive themselves by not doing what they hear. This is where we go from being preached at the church instead of eating the Word. How do we do the Word? We apply it by faith, this way we will not be making our own choices. When our own choices come against His word, we are exalting ourselves above the Word of God. We are just like the Pharisees and Sadducees. We have a name that we are alive – when we actually are dead on the inside. Many say they are alive, but they are dead. But when we are corrected and feel that Godly sorrow and we turn to Him and we yearn for help, His life comes back inside our lungs! 

Soul ties – According to the passage already mentioned in Numbers 30:1-3, what we say and what we do shows clearly what our soul is tied to. Many people cannot advance the kingdom of God because they are not willing to break these ties. These ties are holding them back. Even when man died in the garden, their souls remained on the Earth because their bodies had not died, but what died instantly were their spirits. All souls are born but without the Spirit of God since the fall of man, but once we are born again that Spirit of God, the breath of God is breathed back into man. Souls do live or die forever. 

The soul died when Adam and Eve sinned, and Jesus, as the second Adam, revived that soul and brought it back to life. So, basically, all souls belong to God. Some souls will be gathered and sent to hell, and some will be sent to glory. To be absent of the Spirit is to be dead because it is the Spirit of God that brings us back to life. Read Genesis 2:1-7, Genesis 2:17-19, and Genesis 3:19-20.

God breathed His breath in man and made man a living soul. That breath is the essence of His very image! To be as His image means that we will be thinking, moving, and making decisions like Him. When God created man, he decided “I am not creating a man of instincts. I will make them like Me. And I will breathe in their nostrils and turn their soul into a living soul. But if man eats from that one tree, My breath will be removed out of them.” Some people cannot find life because they are looking for it among the dead. “Why do you do that?” Jesus asked in Luke 24:5-6: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” Jesus came on the Earth but through a heavenly seed, not earthly or through man’s seed. He never came into the Earth-like anybody else. He came through the womb of Mary. She was impregnated from above from the seed of God Himself. He was the only one able to take back what was lost. Soul was lost in the garden because God’s life was removed. Because of the disobedience of one man, all men (souls) die; because of the obedience of one man, many shall become alive. To understand the end, you must know the beginning. To really know the beginning, you must know THE ALPHA and THE OMEGA. Many tried to teach the Bible without knowing Christ. Many read the Word, but they don’t know the Word (Christ). Many are trying to explain their mind, but it does not make sense. Only dead people can understand dead people. Those who are alive cannot understand them and vice-versa. The more I read the scriptures, the more I will be able to see it clearly. I am laying a strong and sure foundation so we all can be free today! 

To know what Truth is we must know the Word, we must have a deep relationship with the Word and become one with it. Many people think because something is true, it is THE TRUTH. Not everything that is true is THE TRUTH. For example, everybody will die, but I won’t die. I will live forever. We need to understand the TRUTH to know the TRUTH but that will only happen through the Seven Spirits of God. God is life, without Him we all are dead and will die! Apart from God, there is only death. Though we breathe oxygen, we are still dead without Christ. God said to Adam and Eve, “If you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.” They ate of it. Though they looked alive still in the flesh, and they were walking and talking here, but they surely died. Death was born out of the disobedience of one man, now life can be renewed through another man and His blood.

That is why we must not be led by our souls (mind, will, emotion) because all of these that are part of our soul will produce death in us. Soul ties keep us lost even if we are found. Because if your soul is bound, your soul is still looking back to whatever you are tied to. Jesus said, “If any man looks back - this one is not fit for My kingdom” (Luke 9:62). 

We were born dead, and right from that minute we are born, we start to make choices, and a choice of a dead man (a man absent from the life of God) will always produce death. It is not a lie to say that who the Son sets free is free indeed (John 8:36). But many can look at us and see that we are not free. Because many hold on to their culture, family, themselves, things, places, or people. Soul ties are anything we hold on to, anything that tosses our emotions or makes us do things in direct opposition to the plans and the will of God. What we hold on to will be what we are led by. When they told Jesus that his mother and brother were around, He answered, “Who is my brother and mother? Those who do the will of my Father.”(Matthew 12:50). The soul is always leading you by emotion. Jesus was always led by the Father and by the Spirit. Jesus never had a soul tie! He was living from another dimension. Things that today hold us back did not hold Jesus back. He had a great head start, but He was still tempted by every opposition of the soul. 

In Luke 12:51-53, Jesus said, “I came to bring division. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother-in-law.” What He was saying is this: I am making you free from anything that will hold you back from Me. God said said “Honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12), but he was not talking about love. He was talking about spiritual matters! Soul ties will not allow you to move on with Christ! Carnal people will never understand this! When people in our family die among us, there is that soul web being disrupted. Then people start getting connected trying to find another soul to tie because the other person is gone. Soul ties will always manifest the fruits of the flesh shown in Galatians 5.

Baby Christians and religious folks will say there are no soul ties in the Bible. But the whole Word from Genesis to Revelation talks about being connected to God or to the world, about following the devil or Jesus, following our soul or our spirit. When Jesus said in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing,” that was back then. Because once we are born again, blood-washed under the Spirit of Truth, we know exactly what we are doing. People under false grace will say, “Oh, they don’t know better,” but this is when the judgment from the white throne comes in. If you are still dead, there will be grace for not knowing better, but if you are born again, there is no excuse. We have this amazing power to overcome the world with the helper and the comforter – the Holy Spirit. When or if we sin, being born again, we start to die again. We start cutting ourselves off from the life of God, so we go boldly to his throne of Grace. Why do we feel that way? Because we feel the separation between us and life! But this is the beautiful thing about mercy – we can repent right away. Otherwise, we will start seeing all the fig leaves and the shame of our nakedness! Pride wants to cover everything up really fast so nobody can see it. Satan cannot repent and neither can a prideful person. Once we don’t have any soul ties, satan will have nothing in us (John 14:30). 

This is why the Word says in Luke 14:26: “If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” What is a disciple? A copy, a student, an image of someone. Many have carnal relatives, and they don’t understand anything, they don’t know the Word, they only know a few scriptures. They are not spiritual. But in their eyes, your spiritual discernment turns into critical judgment. We cannot show the blind anything until they are born again. Don’t waste your time with the dead; spend your time with the living. Nothing that God created was created to take His place. If someone’s soul is bound to a principality, and if you are bound to their soul, then you start to be affected by the same principalities that they are under. The cross is not my way to heaven but my doorway to transformation. Religious people see the cross one way, but the spiritual ones know its power. The new man is always being renewed every day and the old man is decaying. What does the soul consist of? Mind, will, and emotion. Every single one of us is led by them until we have the mind of Christ. Have you been renewed by the word of Romans 8:5-7? When we have a soul tie, we can never love God with all of our soul, heart, and mind? Read Matthew 22:36-38. So, why would God ask us to do something that we would never be capable of? That would be cruel. When we are born again, we can.

 

OUR VOWS BIND OUR TIES! When we exalt our soul over the Word of God, we create a soul tie! What is the Word? It is spirit. Jesus said, “His word is spirit and life” (John 6:63). The early church was in one mind, one spirit, and one accord. What does that mean? They had no soul ties! They were all together: spirit, soul, and body! That is why God wants to break all soul ties. If we are part of the Body of Christ, your decision, your sin, and your soul ties will affect the whole Body. We must get out of Babylon, and Babylon must get out of us!

The end-time church with a restored soul is a church where the gates of hell will not prevail. Where God wants to take this church, there is no place for soul ties. The gate of hell is prevailing because of soul ties. Something else is first, something that He gave us took His very first place in our lives. Read Matthew 10:36-38. He that puts anything above Him is not worthy of Him! He is not telling us not to love people because He even told us to love our enemies. He is telling us don’t love them to the point that we are held back! Some people don’t want to hurt someone with whom they have soul ties, but then you hurt the Holy Spirit. You grieve the Holy Spirit because you don’t want to grieve man. That is when man-pleasing comes in. Nobody should be connected to any other soul because all souls belong to God! Jesus said that two shall become one, one spirit! But husbands and wives should not be one soul, otherwise, husbands and wives would have to be judged together. Soul mate is not even biblical! Man has created this. Soul mate is soul ties. They are not just a sexual connection. They are binding one’s will, one’s emotions, and one’s mind to another when all of these belong to God! We must only be controlled by the love of God.

When we put our own emotions and feelings against God’s will and God’s love, we have a soul tie with ourselves! When your emotions, feelings, and lives are not stable in Christ then you start finding other idols! Where is your identity coming from? When people look at you, what is the first thing they relate to you and about you? “She is a mother; he is a teacher; he is this; he is that; he is Brazilian; he is American; he is a family man; a great businessman; he is a carpenter.” 

Whatever you spend more time on, that is most likely your idol and your passion! Jesus does not want people to recognize us by the natural nature of who we are, but by our heavenly identity. Dead people will not know who you are. Therefore, the world will never see who you are, nor will the religious people. They are all carnal. 

Many times, God has convicted us about our soul ties, but we don’t want to break these ties. Then we start exchanging our soul ties. We go from one soul tie to another. Never giving God and His kingdom first place. We can’t find peace in Him, but we try to find peace for our soul in our soul ties. When soul ties are found out, when they are made known, if we do not repent, we just replace them. So, pride makes it look like we overcame them, but we only just replaced them! But our hearts are still tied to the soul, and you cannot move in the spirit!

Here are some things we have soul ties with: hobbies, passions, obsessions, desires, ministry lust, politics, family, children, career, pets, people, inordinate affections, movements, causes, sports, self, physical exercise, our past, people, places, and things, family heirlooms, and even our old man! Soul ties are from the carnal. No man can serve two masters – You cannot serve your new man and your old man. Old ties are soul ties! Remember Lot and Abraham? God had to separate them, and only when they got separated, only when that soul tie was broken, God released a specific blessing over Abraham. “And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever.” Genesis 13:14-15.

When your past confronts your future, that stops the reality of 2 Corinthians 5:17 – the reality of a new creation in Christ. Jesus said, “If any man looking back is not FIT for the kingdom.” (Luke 9:62). Why did lot’s wife look back? Soul tie to a place. Why did she turn into a pillar of salt? Pillar means “she got frozen.” She could not move forward to where God wanted her to be! There was something in Sodom to which her soul was tied. Even if something does not have a soul, you who do have a soul end up binding your soul to that something. Not even children are excluded from having soul ties. Stuffed animals, toys, blankies, baby teeth, pacifiers, etc. Parents think it is something normal. They even collect baby stuff, like clothes, baby teeth, baby locks of hair, and the Word tells them, “This is a soul tie.” The world will call normal what God calls carnal. 

Soul ties are like chickens… Spiritual beings are like eagles… You have to make a choice of being earthly or heavenly, carnal or spiritual, a living soul or a dead soul. Remember, Jesus said you have a name that you are alive but you are dead on the inside (Revelation 3:1). He told the religious that they were whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23:27-28). You have a body and you are walking around, but you are blind and dead, meaning that you have a soul, but you are dead because your soul is moved, controlled, and motivated by emotions. Then you end up doing something because of guilt, shame, or hidden agendas. But your spirit is moved by God, motivated by the word, and led by the Spirit.

If you love the world and the things of the world, the love of the father is not in you (1 John 2:15)! That means you are trying to serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). So, is your soul led by your flesh or by your Spirit? Is it being restored or is it just dying? One of the biggest lies is to think that because we are breathing, we are alive or we have eternal life. Satan lied to Eve, “You won’t surely die.” She continued to breathe, but it was not the breath of God. It was just oxygen, not the breath of God! She did not die, but she did. After she sinned, her eyes were shut. The word said that their eyes were open, and they saw their nakedness, but their eyes were shut to see God as they were seeing before. That natural man with the five senses began to rule them and their spiritual man died. Now we – who are born again – have this struggle, this war going on the inside between soul and spirit! 

Read Matthew 8:22 – it clearly said, “Let the dead bury their dead!” What a lack of compassion some would say. In Matthew 23:27, many look so good from the outside but they are bound because of their soul ties. They are dead, according to Revelation 3:1, even though they look alive. They call themselves Christians, but they are dead! Many are breathing oxygen, but they are dead churches. God already took His life out of them, but they think they are alive. They keep trying to save what is already lost. Jesus said, if any man saves His life, he shall lose it but if he loses his life, he shall save it (Matthew 16:25)!

We must have no soul ties. Read Luke 9:57-62. Many have made a vow to God, “I will follow wherever you go,” but they can’t fulfill that vow because of their soul ties. Remember in Numbers 30:1-3, they are bound by their word, but they completely ignore their vow done unto the Lord or unto men. Once you say something, you better do it! A man of his word is a man of the spirit. A man that does not follow his word is a man of another master. “I will follow you wherever you go, Lord.” How can they follow Him if they are all tied up with their soul ties? 

They are not letting the dead bury the dead. Jesus is saying you cannot follow Me and follow your old man. He said, “Come and preach the Gospel…” They had to drop their nets. We always say “Yes” to Him, but we carry our nets wherever we go. Webs of soul ties. These nets are like soul ties, Jezebel’s nets. Many can’t even preach anymore because their nets are filled with dead fish, dead people, and dead things. It is like a preacher preaching on Sunday wearing his soccer team shirt, a hat of another soul tie, and a net with another soul tie on his hands. This is how it looks when someone with soul ties is preaching the Gospel. Therefore, when Peter was asked to follow Jesus, he dropped his net and followed Him. Net represented his old life and who he was before Jesus. They said Peter was a fisherman, then Jesus said I will change your name and make you a fisher of men – we see a promise of a new identity right there. Jesus told Peter later that those who have “dropped their nets – their soul ties” will receive a hundredfold in this time and in the age to come (Mark 10:30). They are trying to preach God and preach man - trying to please their family and God, trying to please their boss and God, trying to please themselves and God! We cannot serve two masters! People are trying to work out their vows with God without letting their vows with their soul ties go! It won’t work. 

Another man in this passage said, “Lord, let me go to my house and say goodbye?” Who is in your house? Do you see how strong this soul tie is with your family that you must go back and say goodbye? Jesus is saying to you, “If you look back, you are not fit for His kingdom.” Some of us are so unfit for His kingdom because of our soul ties. And you wonder why this Christian walk is so hard for you – the reason is that you are trying to walk in joy, peace, and righteousness as you are bowing to your soul ties. You are walking according to your will, mind, and emotions (all part of your soul). The greatest soul tie is done with your own self. One day you are led by what you want, another day by your mind, and another day by your emotions. You keep exchanging ties! Some are not even aware of their ties. Your traditions become your own soul ties. Tradition is not only ceremonies. Tradition of visiting parents, tradition of your culture, tradition of your surroundings. Your traditions make the gospel of Christ of no effect! 

Good things can become bad things when they no longer are God’s things! When your life revolves around that one thing, that is a sign of soul ties! Many keep revolving their lives around themselves, their family, their job, their nations, even politics. They are exercising their old man as their spiritual man is dying. Soul ties break off as we walk in HIM in the Spirit! See, God will convict you of something, then you work hard, renounce it, or put it off, but if He is not replaced for that thing, you will find another tie or will be back to yourself! That tie must be HIM. That is the fruit of a covenant! 

Idols are not just figures or statues. This is where the word idolatry comes from. It is exchanging your soul for another that is not God. They are anything you exalt above God or above the Word of God! Look at these examples: Hannah (1 Samuel 1:16) - She gave up her son for the sake of her soul vow. Imagine if she did not do the vow she made to God, Samuel would have never lived the destiny he had in God! Moses’ mother gave her son up and laid him in a basket in the Nile River (Exodus 2). She put her son before herself. She put the kingdom of God above her kingdom. How many would place their newborn baby in a lake in their city? Imagine if his mother would not have broken that soul tie with Moses? Let’s look at the widow and her son (1 Kings 17:17-18)! She gave the last meal to a prophet and sacrificed her son’s last meal to give to God. Imagine if she had not done that? Imagine if she felt entitled to that loaf of bread? Imagine if she had put her son first? That miracle would have never happened! Look at Abraham. God said, “Abraham, take your idol,” I mean, “Take your son” (Genesis 22:2). 

Abraham had turned his son into an idol. Abraham exalted his son above the reason why God gave him Isaac. He wanted so bad that God’s promises were fulfilled, then the miracle became the idol, the miracle became the soul tie. When the purpose of Isaac became all about Abraham and Sarah, God asked Him to break that tie because that soul tie became the reason for their lives when Isaac’s purpose had to do with a whole nation, Israel! But thank God that He who is not a soul BUT Spirit gave His son for the sake of all souls to free every soul from soul ties. Obedience is better than sacrifice! Abraham was doing many sacrifices for God, but that act of obedience breaking his soul tie with Isaac was better than all the sacrifices done by Abraham. 

Many of us are holding on to soul ties that are more dead them ourselves! Now, we are supposed to be that living sacrifice! Never forget - whatever you revolve around the center is a soul tie. 

If it comes from creation and is not the Creator, it is a soul tie! He said: “Have no other gods before Me!” (Exodus 20:3) You will never be able to enjoy the blessings of God if you are a god. What is a god? Anything you worship! Anything you put before Him, the one true and living God! An idol is a god! Any soul tie is a god! Today is the day to break all of the soul ties! 

It is better you say to God, “I will not follow You,” than say to God, “I go,” and you never go. It is better for you to be honest now and repent later than be a liar now and never repent. That man in Matthew 21:29 repented later and left everything behind. Which one is right with God? The religious always taught us to say things to God out of our soul, our flesh. Our word is our bond to God. When we break our word, it breaks His heart. If He is not our treasure, our heart is very far from Him! 

Will you allow soul ties to hold you back from freedom, from the treasures, from the blessings, from putting Him first? I don’t have a soul tie with a nation, constitution, not with a flag, and my allegiance is not with a nation, a person, just with a kingdom, the kingdom of God. Some people say, “You are not allowed to make a vow,” but when we say, “I do,” that is a vow! When you marry your spouse, you say, “I do.” That is a vow. And a spiritual vow in the kingdom, Christ, and in the Church of Christ is a way higher marriage! A way higher vow! God is asking you to break soul ties. He is coming to divide carnality, to divide what is earthly because he has called us to sit with Him in heavenly places. We must have His mind, act like Him, to be like Him! Jesus not only saved us from eternal damnation, but he saved us to renew our souls. Though we walk in this world, we were living in Babylon, Baal was our god, but there is a line in the sand: Who are you going to serve? “ If Baal, serve him. If your soul ties, serve them. If Me, serve Me. You cannot serve two masters. I am a jealous God. Or you will ignore Me and pay attention to the other gods. “There is no way to be tied to God and to any other god. That will rip you up from the inside. You will be defined by your soul’s wounds and not by the wounds of Christ. Your earthly bloodline will define you, not the blood of Jesus. 

God told Abraham, in Genesis 12: “Leave your country, your people, and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” Jesus Christ told the disciples, in Matthew 19:29, “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” The Holy Spirit is telling us, in Revelation 2:2-5, leave everything behind and have no other lover, but Me! Jesus is saying in this passage that He has one thing against us: You have tied yourselves to another lover! He is telling us: Break every soul tie and come back to your first love. 

The declaration ahead is not for all, but only for those who are ready to make a vow before God and man. Only if you are willing to break every single soul tie idol, make the words below as yours: "I pledge my allegiance to the Kingdom of God. I break all other agreements or vows to any other. I'm in this world but not of it. I'm an ambassador of Christ. I will follow Christ and His commandments. I will eat from His table and no other. Faith, hope, and love will be my anchor. Every precept in the book of life will I follow. I will pursue justice for the weak. I will strive to live holy and pure. The Holy Spirit is my guide, my friend, my comforter. I will follow the truth. Then will mercy and goodness follow me. I receive the light. I will carry the light. The light will keep my eyes single. This is my daily bread. This is my vow! I receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken. I stand in covenant to Jesus Christ: My Lord, my savior, and my deliverer. I receive His precious blood. I take my vow as a vow unto God. I cast out fear or anything that exalts itself above God's Word. With this, nothing will separate me from my creator, the true living God. He is above every throne. I will bow only to Yahweh. I pledge to His banner. His banner over me is love. And to Him, I pledge my allegiance." 

Father, we thank you for this word. Let it germinate in our minds and heart. We renounce everything that is evil in your eyes. Help us to see every single soul tie in us. Help us to walk in your ways. Cut off every soul tie. Make us free from this bondage we put ourselves in. Tear down this stronghold in our mind, will, and emotion. In Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.

By Shane W Roessiger