The mental health community calls it Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The church calls it a Jezebel Spirit. I call it Luci—short for Lucifer.
And at some point in your life, you will encounter a Luci. She may smile on the outside, but on the inside, she wants to destroy you. Your Luci could be a bitter ex-wife or a jealous coworker. She might be the president of your children’s PTA or even the leader of your women’s group. Regardless of who she is, the result is always the same—she will stop at nothing to harm you, take all she can from you and seek to destroy you.
Sound overly dramatic? But that’s what Lucifer does—he comes to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10).
Here is a limited list of the traits of a Jezebel Spirit. Line them up with the traits of NPD and BPD and you will find them to be almost an exact match:
- Seeks out others whom they feel are weaker in order to control, influence and dominate
- Has an unnatural sense of self-importance
- Requires excessive admiration and attention
- Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
- Lacks self-control—unable to control emotional outbursts, unconcerned with effecting others
- Exploitative
- Abusive
- Takes advantage of others to achieve her own goals using manipulation and lies
- Void of empathy; will falsely mimic empathy to seduce and control her victims
- Jealous and envious of others, yet delusional in believing others are jealous/envious of her
- Defensive and combative whenever confronted about anything
- Fantasizes about having unlimited admiration, beauty, power or success
- Believes that she is superior and unique
- Has a sense of entitlement
- Demands automatic compliance with her expectations
- Critical
Dealing with someone like this can be aggravating for some and downright frightening for others. Jezebel scared Elijah enough to run and hide despite how close he was to God.
If you have someone like this in your life, I assure you it’s not likely to get better anytime soon with your current tactics.
But before you get your feathers in a ruffle and let fear set in, I have good news. The battle was not between Elijah and Jezebel. It was between God and Satan.
In times of crisis and attack, it’s difficult to remember that we are not battling against flesh and blood but against demons of darkness. We don’t have to go around fighting our way, in fact, fighting will only make matters worse. Instead take your fight to the spirit realm, where all of our battles are fought and won!
You can overcome. Employ these unexpected tactics to overcome the Lucis in your life, and you will have the victory.
- Allow God to work in you. This is very important, because when you come against a person like this, your heart has got to be pure. You cannot have any bitterness towards this person. Ask God to purify your heart before addressing this evil.
- Pray. This is not the time for sweet, nice prayers. This is a time to pray that every chain of control that this spirit has over your life is destroyed and broken.
- Employ humility with gentleness. This does not mean that you roll over and take what this person has to dish out, but recognize that what you are truly coming up against is pride. The minute there a threat to her pride, she will retaliate. I point this out to you because you have to recognize that pride is evil. If you approach pride with pride, you will be caught in the web every time. You are called to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).
- Get help. If you recognize that this is too much for you, or if you’ve done all you can do, you may need back up. Seek someone with more experience or more spiritual maturity to stand in faith with you and hold you accountable lest you fall victim to pride.
Regardless of whether you are dealing with a Jezebel Spirit or NPD, remember, your God is greater and greater is He that is in you (1 John 4:4).
