There’s a great deal of deranged thinking taking place both in our culture and within certain parts of the Church. There are reasons for this derangement, chief among them is picking and choosing how we interpret the whole of Scripture to align with our opinion. The result is a deranged way of thinking and a misguided interpretation of what we see happening in the world around us.

After Jesus, Peter, James, and John descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, a father brought his son to Jesus to be healed of a demonic influence.

“Sir, have mercy on my son, for he is mentally deranged and in great trouble, for he often falls into the fire or into the water” (Matthew 17:15).

Living a deranged life will cause a person to do and say things that don’t make sense to a rational mind. That irrationality can result from a demonic influence. “Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him, and from that moment the boy was well” (vs. 17-18).

Being made “well” means to heal, cure, and restore to health. Derangement is not spiritually healthy. It requires a deliverance from what is causing someone to adopt irrational forms of thinking and acting.

As forms of derangement have influenced wide swaths of our nation, and even some in the Church, only when people are delivered from a deranging influence can someone’s mind become well and restored to healthy ways of thinking.

Only Jesus has the power to bring that kind of freedom. No well-crafted argument, no debate format, or no set of impressive educational credentials can bring that kind of freedom. It is a work of God’s Spirit—a work we must place in the merciful hands of Jesus to deliver a person from deranged ways of thinking.