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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
Breaking Free: Shedding the Victim Mindset and Embracing Covenant Sonship
Have you ever considered the immense power of shedding a victim mindset and stepping into your true identity as a covenant son or daughter of God? This episode promises to take you on a transformative journey that challenges those limiting beliefs and aligns your life with God's truth. We'll offer insights from biblical teachings and personal reflections. Discover how identifying and breaking false agreements can unlock a life of real freedom and joy.
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us.
Speaker 1:Welcome everybody to this week's podcast. We're going to continue reviewing some of the themes that are found in Ruach Journey as we get ready for our conference coming up in March and Kimberly. For those that might still be pondering coming to that conference, is it too late to sign?
Speaker 2:up. It is never too late to sign up until the conference is over. We would still love for people to join us, so you can go to our website at thefathersbusinesscom backslash events to register. It is March 5th through the 7th at Sandy Cove Ministry Center in Maryland. It's a gorgeous place. We'd love to have you. We're going to have a beginner track and an advanced track for those that are just starting the journey and for those who have already been on it and want to grow and learn more. So this podcast today will be a, you know, a kind of an introduction to more of what we'll talk about. But if you're not coming to the conference, I think today's conversation will be immensely beneficial as well. So don't think that this podcast is only talking about, you know, helping people prepare for the conference. But it's certainly beneficial for all of us. That's right.
Speaker 1:Kimberly, because I think this is something that's going on a lot in all of our lives, even without us knowing it, and that's my story. Oftentimes I don't catch on that this is a way the enemy is trying to attack me and have me live in less than who God says I am, until I'm already kind of in it. So we're kind of revisiting the ideas around the victim mindset, but we want to go a little bit deeper with this whole concept of living as a covenant, son and daughter of God Most High and why that's so important and how we slip out of living from that identity and how we start to make agreements with the lies of the enemy that he tries to come against us. For those that have not listened to the podcast before, I highly recommend going back and listening to the podcast on the victim mindset. In that particular podcast we set a little bit of a biblical foundation and a lot of that podcast was just giving examples of ways that you might live with a victim mindset.
Speaker 1:All of us have areas of struggle. All of us have areas where we believe things about ourselves that are not true. We could say you know, I'll never be smart enough. We believe things like God's not going to come through for me, my life is not going to turn out the way that I want it to, people are going to leave me. In all of our stories we have some kind of baseline belief that we lean into sometimes, and a lot of it is based on our story and the types of pain that we have been through. Because I've had this painful experience, it makes this lie of the enemy feel true, and so today we want to kind of unpack this idea of what even is an agreement. Where is it talked about in Scripture? And then, how does that play into living life as a victim versus a covenant, son or daughter of God Most High? Does that sound cool with you, kimberly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, elizabeth, that sounds like a great conversation for us to have. I will tell people that, if they want to go back to May I think it was around the 18th there may be two episodes there, but around May 18th 2023, we were going through the book Safe in the Father's Heart and we have an episode where we talk about living from an orphan heart, which is the idea. Another way to talk about the victim mindset is when we're living less than covenant son or daughter. So go back to that May 18th 2023. You can also check out November of 2023, when we were walking through the Ruach Journey Study and we talked about the victim mindset. So May of 2023 and November of 2023, you can check out those episodes for more content.
Speaker 2:Today, we're going to take it a little bit in a different direction, like you said, or just elaborate on it. Elizabeth. I think what you're talking about there is that we start to make these agreements with the enemy, or with ourselves and with people that are against us. Talk a little bit more about what that means, yeah well, there's a lot of scripture in the Bible.
Speaker 1:If you're looking for us to say in the verse thou shalt not have a victim mindset and give you chapter and verse, you're not going to find that terminology. But there are a lot of scriptures in both the Old and the New Testament that talk about the power of agreement. There's several that pop to mind. One that pops to mind is a very familiar verse, isaiah 1.18 says Come, let us reason together. That's what God says. Though your sin was as scarlet, now it is white as wool. Right, and a lot of times people are like that word reason. They don't quite understand what that word reason means. And what it means is let us come into agreement together. And it's God asking us to reason with him, and what we're supposed to do is come into agreement with him that, though our sin was as scarlet, now it is as white as wool. Us not agreeing with that statement doesn't make it not true. Like Jesus died for our sins. He has paid for it and we can be made white as wool or white as snow, as other verses say, but he's inviting us into relationship with him, to agree with the truth that the sin that you have done has been paid for and you are seen as pure in his eyes, right. And so there's other verses in Isaiah 28 that talk about making covenants with death, making covenants with Sheol, and making agreements with those things and needing to break that in order to enter into a covenant with God. But then you also move over to the New Testament. Other very familiar verses talk about whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth should be loosed in heaven. And so there's this connection between what's happening in the spiritual versus what our experience is here on earth. And so there is a power in agreeing either with the truth of who God says we are or agreeing with the lies that the enemy tries to tell us. Jesus called Satan the father of lies. His native tongue is lies. He is the accuser of the brethren. So he is consistently going to be coming along and trying to whisper to the hearts and the minds of God's beloved that they are less than what God says they are or God is not there for them. I mean, I think if we take a minute and think about our own story, we've each got a few.
Speaker 1:I know one for me has always been that God's just, he's not going to show up for me. I'm on my own, I've got to figure it out by myself because God's not going to show up. He shows up for everybody else, but God's not going to show up for me. And so anytime I go through something hard, I can kind of feel the taunting of the enemy going see, see, god didn't show up for you. I mean, if God was for you, then why would bad things happen to you? And that is totally against scripture, because scripture says we're going to go through hard things.
Speaker 1:But the problem is not the enemy coming and tempting me with those statements. The problem becomes when I start agreeing with it and I make and I go, yeah, that's right, god is not for me. And then so the lie becomes an agreement and the agreement then becomes a conviction in my life. And all of this opens me up to being treated less than not only in the spirit realm, but it then will spill over into sometimes, if I am living with this victim mindset, that everyone else gets treated better than I do. God shows up for everybody, but not for me, any of these types of statements. If I'm living with that conviction, then you know what's going to happen. People are going to not respect my boundaries, people are going to treat me poorly.
Speaker 1:There's something that gets open in the spiritual, that then gets translated into the physical, and all of a sudden, everyone else is getting great customer service but me, and that sounds like that's a simple example. We can go into much deeper, darker places of other things that happen, but there's this system that I see in place, that, though we as it says in 2 Corinthians, though we live in the world, we don't wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world, but they have been. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. And so we're living in this world, but we're fighting a supernatural war at the same time, and so that's why I think it's so important. Kimberly and we talk a lot about this on this podcast I know you're also very passionate about understanding who we are in Christ and living from that place and identity is so important, not just so that we'll feel better about ourselves, but because it's going to impact all areas of our life.
Speaker 2:Sure, I think sometimes for me, I will often become a skeptic with who God is, and I think that also does something similar. So, like, if I, if I'm like, is he really good? I mean, that's a that's a key one for me. Is he really good? And that can cause me if I, if I don't catch that, it reminds me of Genesis and the story of the Satan tempting Eve. It reminds me of the story CS Lewis wrote with Narnia. And if I don't catch that and go wait, he is good, scripture says he's good. Just because my circumstances aren't good doesn't mean he's not good. If I don't catch that and combat it with the truth and recognize some things, then you quickly need to go down a path of yeah, it doesn't feel like he's good, he's not really good, is he really? You just continue questioning it or doubting it or denying it, which is making an agreement and then living out of that agreement.
Speaker 2:Another thing, elizabeth, that comes to mind as I was listening to you is this idea that when we are in Christ and we see that what happens in Christ is that Christ takes our sin, he takes the old and he makes it new, and that doesn't mean we're not still sinners.
Speaker 2:Right, it's a complex thing to wrestle with, but here's what we often forget he traded our unrighteousness for his righteousness. Some people call it the great exchange. Right, he exchanged our unrighteousness for his righteousness. He gave us his righteousness. So in Christ we are righteous, and I think that's really key to remembering as well, because look at 2 Corinthians 5.21, it says for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. So I think oftentimes that victim mindset or living in that less than place and not recognizing we're covenant sons and daughters, is like we're denying scripture. We're doing two things here we're making agreements and we're denying truth. Right, and that's what I was thinking when you were talking earlier. It's just like Right and that's what I was thinking when you were talking earlier.
Speaker 2:It's just like it's crystal clear that what Jesus did and we just forget that and that's normal.
Speaker 1:I don't want to shame you for that. We all forget it. No, and there's all time. There are times in all of our lives where something happens to us that is unjust yeah for sure, yeah for sure. We're saying that they're victims. That's not what we're trying to say at all. But it's when you live with a mentality and maybe it's good for us to go back and kind of redefine the victim, what we mean by the victim mindset.
Speaker 1:If you see your entire life or an area maybe it's your work life or maybe it's your family life Anytime I go home to see my family, but some part of your family you see that entire life through the perspective that things are constantly going to happen to you, like if anyone's going to have a bad day, it's going to be me, if anyone's going to be mistreated, it's going to be me. And there's this idea that life is negative, it's beyond your control, and as if you should be given sympathy because your life is so much harder than everyone else's. And maybe it'd be good for us for a moment, because sometimes it's hard to picture this in ourselves. But let's all think about we've got someone in our lives we all do or you've met someone somewhere along your journey of however many years you've been on this planet where all they do is talk about how hard their life has been and how everything's happened to them and nothing is ever their fault. It's always the other person's fault and they just can't get ahead in life. It's absolutely exhausting and draining and I would say, if you cannot think of any time that you've ever been around someone and that really bothered you, maybe we do need to look at you because you might be the one doing it. But if any bad thing in your life you can't take any responsibility, that maybe some of your choices got you there. And I don't currently, thank God, have anyone like that in my life, but I have in the past and even in the Victim Mindset podcast we talked about.
Speaker 1:There was a person that I used to go to restaurants with a lot that always believed they were going to get bad service at a restaurant. That was their firm conviction and it had happened in the past, so they had proof. That kind of made it feel real. But they went into and I remember sitting with them at restaurants and we're looking over the menu and they would say out loud well, I'm just going to order the wrong thing. I'm like, oh well, this is just a happy, fun occasion. I'm so glad we came. And almost every time that we went out to eat with this person there was something wrong with, like they screwed something up on their meal and it had to be sent back or the martyr would start oh no, it's OK, it's not what I wanted, but I'll just eat it, you know, and it just kind of is like this big wet balloon that gets dropped on what should have been a fun time at a restaurant.
Speaker 1:So it can be as specific as just at a restaurant or the medical. Whenever I go see a doctor, I'm not going to be listened to or heard. There is a lot of that, I think, especially for women, that they feel that way when they go to the doctor. But if you go in with the mindset that if anyone has an ailment, my ailment is going to be worse than theirs, you're going to attract that because you are making agreements that are activating things in the spiritual that I think are allowing yourself to be opened up to that, versus what we talked about on that last podcast is going you know what? No, I am not a victim. What we talked about on that last podcast is going. You know what? No, I am not a victim and that's why I love talking about this thing, because this whole victim mindset is not just about stinking thinking, as Debbie talked about on our last one. That is a good way to talk about it.
Speaker 1:It's an identity issue, because all of these things that people say as a victim, I am a klutz, I am not smart, I am always going they're. I am statements that they're making in this victim mindset, so they're taking this on as their identity. I am the one who's always going to be treated wrong when I go to a restaurant. That's not true. That person I know loves Jesus. So their identity is I'm a covenant child of God Most High. I am not a victim. I'm on kingdom business, even when I'm going to go enjoy fellowship with other believers and God is entirely responsible for me. So they could have walked into that same restaurant saying I'm going to let God take care of me and I'm going to enjoy my time with my friends. But they walked in going I'm going to order the wrong thing. They're going to order the wrong thing. They're going to mess up my meal. They're going to put too much spice on my food, like. I've heard all of these and I got to the point where I was like will you just let me order for you? Please let me tell you what you want to eat, so that we don't have to go through this.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about people that have allowed the injustice that has happened to them and some of that injustice is really real. Like, I mean, there are hard things that have happened to people that are no fault of their own. But when you allow that injustice to become your identity, you're doing the opposite of what the verse you just read, kimberly, you're not saying Christ's righteousness is my identity. You're saying the evil that has happened to me, the injustice that has happened to me, is who I am, and so there's a difference between being a victim in a situation we all have been, we've all been mistreated, we've been betrayed, we've had things happen to us versus then going. You know what? I'm going to hold on to this. I'm going to hold on to the pain of this, I'm going to hold on to the history of this and this is going to become my identity.
Speaker 2:As much as we're talking about not making wrong agreements. That's where I want to look at how Jesus did this, because he, of all people, could have had a victim. Mentality right so let's look. Mentality right so let's look.
Speaker 2:According to Scripture, he did not adopt that consistent behavior with the mentality. Instead, we see in Philippians that he responded to his suffering as a humble servant. We see that he endured faithfully for the joy that waited for him on the other side in Hebrews Hebrews 12. We see in 1 Peter 2, 21 and 23, that he actively trusted God throughout the ordeal of his life and the stuff he was walking through. He knew that there was a purpose behind his suffering.
Speaker 2:Mark 10, 45 shows us that he lovingly suffered and bled for those who victimized him 1 Peter 2, 21-24. And Luke reminds us in Luke 23-24 that even in the midst of his suffering in all of history, who could have absolutely had a victim mentality because he was regularly attacked and persecuted, did not live that way. We see in Philippians 2.5 that we are told to take on the same attitude as Jesus had, that when we are undergoing persecution we're not encouraged to have that kind of mentality, we're not encouraged to have anything that resembles that kind of mentality. Instead, we're told to do good in the midst of persecution, with the aim of helping our enemies come to Christ.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We see that in 1 Peter 2. And I recall being in a situation in college where I was working I was on this beach project thing and I was working at a fast food restaurant and I remember being in a particular part of the particular part of the restaurant that I was working in. I was surrounded by people who weren't just unbelievers but were kind of mocking the fact that I was there as a believer right.
Speaker 1:They kind of knew.
Speaker 2:I'm here for this project, I'm working this job and I remember one of the girls that was discipling me, encouraging me with that verse. I still have it marked in one of my Bibles I had in college. It's like do good in the midst of the persecution, because the goal is to love them so that they can too see the love of Christ. And I remember that specifically Years ago. I remember that feeling and that thought of living and that was not like I mean, there's utter persecution, so I don't want to compare it, but the reality of all of our persecution looks really different.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't matter what it looks like, but we're encouraged in 1 Peter to remember to do good in the midst of that right, which is the opposite of agreeing with the lo-is-me-isms or whatever. I also think like in 1 Peter 2, it goes on to say not paying back evil for evil, not paying back insult for insult. I mean we could really talk about that these days. I mean social media has got that all over in front of our faces, right. Matthew 5, like not hating our enemies but loving them, praying for our enemies. I had a friend yesterday encouraging me. She was like have you prayed for them? And I was like no.
Speaker 1:Prayed for their demise. I don't like them.
Speaker 2:Just being real, like I do not like this person, right, yeah, and they were like well, kimberly, have you thought about praying for them? And I was like I know I should, right, and I know that Matthew tells me that I should be praying for them and loving them.
Speaker 1:But it is hard, yeah.
Speaker 2:And instead of this blanket negativity in the face of the suffering that is really unjust, we're actually called in 1 Peter 1 and in 1 Peter 4 to rejoice even as we walk through that unjust suffering and even as we grieve it. And I think in all of those commands we see that we are to be actively engaged with who Christ calls us to be and the attitude of Christ, which was a humble servant who continued to love, who continued to remember that his father was on the throne, who continued to remember who he was because of his father. And we have to live out of those commands. We have to live as he did and not give up in the face of any kind of suffering, whether it's just or unjust. And it's a mind shift which is why we call it a mentality. It is a mind shift because it flows out of our identity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the other reason why I like that we call it a mindset, because there's also, I mean, so many more scriptures we could sit here and read out about the battle for our mind and about needing to have the mind of Christ and all of these things. It is a balance. It is a tough battle and I think that's why scripture spends so much time talking about it, because we don't also want to go all the way over to this other artificial side where we're not being honest about the feelings of what we're going through. It's okay to grieve the wrong that has been done to you, and it's not just you know, god is good all the time. All the time God is good. If that's not how you're really feeling Like, I love, kimberly, your honesty about I don't like this person, so, no, I have not prayed for them. I think Jesus finds that much more refreshing than, oh, just praise Jesus, hallelujah, they're my sister in Christ or brother in Christ, whoever you're talking about and this artificial feel like we have to have our act together, kind of thing. And so it is this balance between and I think Job did it well where he was honest about what he thought, about what God was putting him through, but then he always came back to but I'm not going to curse God and die, as even his wife suggested that he do.
Speaker 1:He was going to continue to believe that God was faithful and that God was there for him. Even in the midst of his questions, he always came back around to God's God. God is God and I am not, and so we can be honest about the pain, we can be honest about the injustice, but we have hope that my identity is secure, regardless of what I'm going through, because my identity is not the things that are happening to me. My identity is I'm a covenant child of God Most High and he is entirely responsible for me in these situations and it doesn't happen every time, but Kimberly a lot of times when I find myself in a place where I do not feel that I am being heard, or I do not feel like by someone in authority, or I do not feel like I'm being treated well in a certain situation, or I've asked for something that is rightfully mine and they're saying, no, that's not possible, we can't do that for you. I find, if I will take a step back and not let myself spiral down into the poor, pitiful me. My life is so hard, victim type of thinking about things but we'll go. Okay, god, it's not up to me to make this happen. Right? I am your child, you are responsible for me, and so I'm going to step back and let you fight my battles for you. I can't tell you the number of times that I've done that, gone back to the same person who told me no and all of a sudden the answer is different and God makes a way. Or even if that person still says no, two to three months down the road, I have something happen that brings justice and righteousness to that situation that was unjust, and so it's getting myself out of the driver's seat of. I have got to be the prosecutor, the judge and the jury against the people in my life that have wronged me and going. God, I'm going to take a step back. You are the rightful judge. This is your kingdom. You know how to deal best with the people that are coming against me. I'm going to focus in on intimacy with you and my identity with you and living as a covenant child, and I'm going to let you take care of the rest of it.
Speaker 1:Versus, I know people. I've related to a few of them, or were they've since now passed on to a few of them, or were they've since now passed on? But they were just so consumed with bitterness and resentment for the people that had wronged them and they were real wrongs Like they. They were not I mean they, they really had been hurt. But it's when we hold on to that and it just kind of oozes out of you in different situations and you just there's this bitterness, anger, jealousy, all of the basically take the fruit of the spirit and the opposite of those is coming out of this person because they have taken on as their whole identity. I am a victim of this horrible thing that happened to me and they're going to make sure everyone around them knows about it, and that's not what God's called us to do.
Speaker 1:Kimberly, you're describing that so well, and one of the reasons why I am so passionate about this topic is not to make people feel bad when they have a victim mindset. But your world is so much smaller that one family member I'm thinking of in particular. Her entire world was something that had happened to her 50 years ago and consumed her entire life, and I often thought about her. How could she have been different. How could have my relationship with her been different if she'd been able to really let go of that and say, yes, that was wrong.
Speaker 1:I forgive the people who wronged me and I'm going to move on with my life with a different mindset. Versus, every time you talk to her, the story came up and we repeated history over and over, and it was, you know, an hour on the phone of everything that everyone's ever done wrong to her, and no one wants to be around that person. That's not fun to be around. Versus, if we learn to live from this identity as a covenant, son and daughter of God most high, if we learn how to catch the agreements that we're making, say, god, I don't want to agree with that. I want to agree with the truth of who you are. It opens up our world to a much bigger world, full of joy and freedom, and now I'm able to be life-giving to the other people around me, and so that is my passion behind this is don't live in less than what God died to give you by being so consumed by the injustice that has happened to you.
Speaker 2:I think the other thing we have to remember is that sometimes it becomes that bitter, resentful, hard ugly shell yeah, bitter resentful, hard ugly shell, but I think sometimes it becomes the bitter resentful, shameful shell, and those can look like several different types of people. So I think in one story you were talking about a minute ago, I'm picturing that really hard shell of a person, and then in others I'm picturing this person who just can't overcome it, who just can't get through it, and I think, no matter where you fall in that, think about are you living with this mindset right now? I mean, maybe you're in grief, maybe you're in a really dark season because something has been really unjust. Right, that's hard, yeah, and I encourage you to walk through that grief with people around you that love you and care for you and work to remember that that grief doesn't have to define you, that that injustice doesn't have to define you, because I think that's the thing it sucks the life out of you when you can't move beyond that.
Speaker 2:And I know that there's many of you probably listening that have been at a place. I know for me, when I've walked through a sense of injustice or a sense of grief, whether I'm angry or I'm hurt or I'm sad, any of those places. I don't want the life to be sucked out of me. I don't want the joy to be sucked out of me, but I can't get past it sometimes.
Speaker 2:How do you get past it? I think you've got to dive into some of the things we've talked about. For me, walking through that list of how Jesus responded is encouraging because it shifts my thinking and it shifts my perspective from me to someone else, and I think that is key. When you are walking through a circumstance, it's really painful, whether it be because it's sadness and deep loss or whether it's because of a sense of injustice. I think you got to grieve that. You got to walk through the pain and the awful pieces of that, and then you've got to put your eyes on Jesus and on servant and mother and others. And I don't mean to do that too fast, because sometimes we can focus too fast on others and never really grieve what's happened. I think there's a balance there, but I do believe that it's really important to take the attitude of Christ, to humble yourself and to recognize that.
Speaker 2:What you were saying, elizabeth, this doesn't have to define me.
Speaker 2:This can be something that happened to me.
Speaker 2:I'm not a mess, I'm not a horrible person, but I've been in a messy situation and this is really a horrible situation, but that doesn't mean that I'm a horrible person.
Speaker 2:Now I do think it's true that it not only sucks the life and the joy out of you, but that doesn't mean that I'm a horrible person. Now, I do think it's true that it not only sucks the life and the joy out of you, but I think it you were alluding to this, elizabeth it robs other people of joy and it's hard to be around someone and I know you and I have known each other long enough where we've walked through some of these seasons. It's hard to be around each other when you're walking through that, because sometimes people just got to get through it. But here's the key, and I don't mean this in a harsh way, but let's get through it. I truly mean like as an encouragement let's get through it, because what's on the other side of the grief, what's on the other side of the injustice as believers, is this sense of. I don't have to be defined by it.
Speaker 1:I can be hurt by it. It doesn't have a grip on me anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you said, it doesn't have a grip on me, and so I think that that's really key is to grieve it, but to not let the suffering just cling to you like static cling. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that reminds me, kimberly. We had mentioned on the Victim Mindset podcast about Paul, and he goes through a lot of. If you don't know all that Paul went through, go read 2 Corinthians, 11 and 12, and he lists you know, shipwrecked, beaten, you know imprisoned, run out of town, like you name it he's had it done to him. And then again, in 2 Timothy 4, 16, paul shares the truth and you know, just as we said earlier, we're not denying that hard things happen. They all happen to all of us. And if you believe that the Christian life means that there is no suffering, then you haven't read your Bible close enough. We are all going to go through hard things. And Paul goes and says, starting in verse 16, in my first offense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me, and that's just fact. That's what happened. But I love the second half of that verse. It says may it not be held against them. And that is the heartbeat of what we're talking about. And, as you said, kimberly, it's not.
Speaker 1:Some people are looking at this and they are in a hard time right now and for them first, I want to say I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that injustice has come to you, and your father's heart also grieves with you that you are walking through this, and so we're not in any way trying to shame anyone who's struggling through a hard time. But I want everyone to take like the longer perspective. Are you still holding on to resentment and bitterness over injustices that happened to you five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago? Has that become part of your identity to the point where you are starting to believe things like I will always be treated this way. I will never be worth being treated other than this. When those always and never type statements start creeping into your thinking and what you say about yourself and your situation, that's when this victim mindset has taken over. So, yes, we are all going to go through suffering, but can we be like Paul and be able to say that was wrong. They hurt me, it was painful, but may it not be held against them? And that's another way of what we were saying earlier, which is God, you are entirely responsible for me, and so I'm removing myself as judge and jury and I'm going to let you deal with them and I'm going to focus on my relationship with you and Jesus, would you come and heal the places in my heart that have been wounded Because, as you were saying, the hard shell of some people. There's shame in there. I think there's also a lot of pain.
Speaker 1:I think the vast majority of the agreements that we make with the lies of the enemy are birthed out of pain. I think something happens in our life, and I mean I don't have scriptural text for this, I just have life experience. When something bad happens in my life, the enemy is very quick to help me interpret it in such a way that my story is God's not going to show up for me, and I think the enemy studies us. I think he understands. For you, kimberly you said it was you did a lot more of questioning the goodness of God, and so I think maybe when you're going through a hard time, the temptation is to not believe that God has been good to you. Right now, for me, it's that he's just gone, he's just I've been abandoned and I'm on my own and no one's going to help me. And so the enemy is very good at whispering in our ear and helping us misinterpret the facts, misinterpret what God is up to and turn our heart away from God. That is his ultimate goal up to and turn our heart away from God. That is his ultimate goal. So we don't want to have this victim mentality, so that more of our heart can be truly aligned with who God is and who we are in him. And so it may be a good exercise for all of us to spend some time looking back through our story.
Speaker 1:Is there kind of a theme of what you believe when something goes wrong? Or looking way back, because I think these agreements that we make, like the theme of them, starts pretty early in our childhood. So when you were younger and your heart got hurt or wounded, what were the lies that you began to believe about yourself? I don't deserve any better than this. This is as good as it's gonna get. I will always be the one who doesn't get what other people have. I'm always gonna be overlooked.
Speaker 1:Those types of statements, and also about God, what are your false thinking, your stinking thinking, as Debbie talked about, on our victim mindset, about God, and see if there might be a couple of themes. And then it's about taking time. And if you can't come up with them, you know what a great thing to do is to spend some time with God and say Jesus, would you reveal to me where my thinking is off? What am I believing about you and about myself? That is not true, and I think he will be faithful to speak to you when you come to him with that kind of open heart and then you ask him to allow his healing to come. Okay, god, can you heal whatever wounded place it is in me that is causing me kind of energizing this false belief about you.
Speaker 1:And then I think, just as we were talking, kimberly, about that verse in Matthew about whatever we bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever we loose on earth is loose in heaven, I think we need to say out loud I want to break the agreement that I have made that God will not show up for me and Father, forgive me for believing it and holding it as a conviction that you are not there for me. Would you please come and heal what needs to be healed and replace it with the a conviction that you are not there for me. Would you please come and heal what needs to be healed and replace it with the truth of who you are for me. And I do believe it is contractual, just as when we believed it and made an agreement. Something was bound there. I think we need to go through and break it and allow it to no longer be bound, which is the principle of Matthew 18, 18 to 20.
Speaker 2:So, as we close today, we want to bless you in a couple of areas. So join us as we pray and bless you. God made you in his own image, beloved. His light in you is loaded with the richness, the magnificence and the knowledge of himself. Lift up your face to his face to receive the transfer directly from him, as David said in Psalm 4, 6. Let the light of your face shine upon us, o Lord. Be blessed with God's life in you. Where you have been wounded, you are meant to manifest the good things that God wants. Be blessed to be large and strong to implement the will of God in your life. Let him make you who he wants you to be in his time and by the path that he takes you. You are a wonderful child of God. As you break the agreements that you have made, be blessed to know that he sees you with so much love as his son or his daughter. Be blessed with becoming everything that God knows he created you to be. Be blessed to live in dignity and honor, in the true authority and birthright that God has given you. Be blessed in the name of the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. And as you fight this fight, remember to put on the full armor, because you are going to have to stand against the devil's schemes, as Ephesians 6 tells us. So receive this prayer, father.
Speaker 2:Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. They are fallen angels cast down from heaven by the command of the true and living God. They are subject to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We are in Him and stand in His already assured victory. Therefore, we put on our full armor in you, jesus, so that when the fiery darts come, we may be able to stand our ground. We stand firm because we have taken up these weapons. We buckle the belt of truth around our waist.
Speaker 2:Truth is the person of Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life we put on the breastplate of righteousness to protect us in our identity of being his righteousness. The person and sinless sacrifice of the Lord Jesus is our righteousness. We put on our feet the sandals of the preparation of the gospel of peace. The person of the Lord Jesus is our peace. We take the shield of faith which extinguishes all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
Speaker 2:The person of the Lord Jesus Christ is the author and the finisher of our faith. He is the faith that we need to fight against the lies and the agreements. We take the helmet of salvation. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself alone is our salvation. His mind guards our minds. We take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The Word of God tells us who we are in Christ and it tells us who Christ is. The Word is the person of Jesus Christ, who came in the flesh and defeated the works of the enemy. His Word never returns to him void. We clothe ourselves in all of Jesus and we pray in the Spirit and on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Remember, no weapon formed against us will prevail.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast. This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to wwwTheFathersBusinesscom. Be sure to follow us at the Fathers Biz on Instagram and Facebook.
