BREAKING FREE… PART 4
The
Ultimate Deceiver
For the past three weeks we have
been following a series of teaching called, “Breaking Free: (Moving towards
Wholeness”) We opened up the series by looking into Eph 4:12-13, where
we see that God’s intended purpose for all of us is that we may be built up
until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God
and become
mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
God’s intention for all of us is
that we all will mature in order that we might receive the fullness of Christ. We realized that becoming mature is not
achieved in a day but a life long process. In the same way receiving the
fullness of Christ takes a life time of walking with Christ on a daily basis,
by trusting in Him and obeying His teachings.
Unfortunately most Christians
struggle when it comes to maturity and attaining the fullness of Christ. What
hinders us from receiving the fullness of Christ? What hinders our maturity? In
the past few weeks we’ve been on a journey to learn how much of our past
influences our present, especially the negative side of our past. Last week we
learned a great deal about our hearts which is the inner person or inner self
that thinks, feels and decides.
When the Bible talks about the
heart it is talking about our mind, emotions or feelings and our will. These
faculties can be influenced either for good or for bad. Last week we looked at how
certain messages of our parents, teachers, peers and the media may have wrongly
influenced and shaped our personalities. But nothing is more devastating than
the message of the ultimate deceiver. We saw how the nation of Israel was
deceived and built their lives based on the lies of the false prophets. In Amos
7th chapter God likened them to a tottering wall that was flimsy,
shaky and was to be destroyed any moment. Today we will look at who our ultimate
deceiver is and the defensive wall of rejection that we may build around our
hearts.
I.
THE
ULTIMATE DECEIVER:
Of all the false prophets, none is
as cunning and deceptive as Lucifer also known as Satan himself. You remember
how Satan deceived Eve in the garden by telling a bunch of lies? Since then he
has not stopped deceiving mankind. In the scriptures he is often described as a
serpent. Let’s read Amos 5:19, “It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the
wall only to have a snake bite him.”
Though this scripture emphasizes
vividly the inescapability of God’s coming judgment on the nation of Israel , but in
general also illustrates Lucifer’s strategy in the wall of our personality in
his attempt to rob us of our inheritance which is the fullness of Christ. As we
let our imagination develop along, the story of Amos 5:19 we might envision the
following.
One dew drenched, pre-dawn morning
a farmer made way to his fields, walking briskly along the narrow bush
path. Passing by the trees he realized
he had company, suddenly a lean, shaggy lion bounded toward him amongst the
trees. Adrenaline kicked in, and the farmer took off. Aware somehow he outrun
the lion, stopped for a while, caught his breath and decided to go to his field
from another direction.
This time he took the old river
bed winding its way amongst the rocks. Rounding a bend, he then to his horror saw
a huge bear running towards him. Over come with fright the farmer somehow
managed to outrun the bear. Now he relinquished all thought of work, at least
for that day! Arriving home exhausted and drained, the farmer leaned back
against the wall of his house to regain his composure. Just as he relaxed and
let down his guard, out from the wall emerged a snake. With a sudden strike,
the snake’s fangs pierced his arm.
The farmer escaped both the lion
and the bear but succumbed to the stealth of the serpent in his own home. The
lion and bear symbolize our extrinsic enemies, while the snake in the wall
represents an intrinsic enemy attacking us through our personality. Let me
bring this into our context. As we know a house can not stand without properly
built walls according to a plumb, right? We build walls for what? For safety
and protection from the outside intruders, shall we say the enemies?
In a similar fashion we build
walls around our hearts to protect ourselves. We tend to think that we are
outrunning our outside enemies like the former in the story, without realizing
the internal enemy who is powerful enough to strike us on a least expected
moment. A successful business man would understand that “All businesses suffer from some form of
internal theft. It is estimated that 75–80% of all theft that occurs in a
business is employee theft. This statistic shows that a higher concentration of
prevention should go towards internal theft.”[1]
As we learned before, the walls represent our personality and
here the enemy has the greatest opportunity to disrupt a relationship, a
marriage, a family, a church and even a society. Satan, the ultimate deceiver of our lives has
been a liar from the beginning of creation. The bible calls him the father of
lies. He tempts us to believe lies about God, ourselves and others. Therefore understanding
who we are and how we function can help our personality serve us, rather than
our being enslaved to our own unsteady personalities. Some personalities are
brick bound, and the person within is no more than a prisoner behind the walls
of his heart. For many Christians there is tragic truth in the words of the
comic strip character pogo, “We have found the enemy, and he is us.”
As each of our negative responses becomes habitual, another
brick is added to the wall. It is even possible for us to be so traumatized
emotionally, we actually wall of a section of our lives, determining no one
will have opportunity to hurt as again. One time or the other most of us got
hurt in life. Getting hurt is no fun, it
is very painful especially when we were hurt by those we love the most.
How do people generally respond to hurt? Depending on their
personality people respond either one are two ways. One is rejection and other
is rebellion both are defensive mechanisms to protect themselves from getting
further hurt by people. Those who are a passive type personality tend to move
towards rejection and those who are on the aggressive side move towards
rebellion. They build defensive walls of rejection and rebellion. These walls
may afford some degree of protection, but they also lock up a part of our
personality, affecting our ability to love, and trust and form meaningful
relationships.
If a sizable portion of personality is locked away, then the
symptoms become more severe, and it’s more difficult to know who we are and why
we react the way we do. Let’s look at what are the bricks in the defensive wall
of rejection.
II.
THE DEFENSIVE WALL OF REJECTION
We have already seen how God portrayed to Amos a picture of
His people being like a wall out of line. In the human personality, prolonged
rejection may precipitate a severe psychological distortion. We will examine
these distortions in a brick by brick study. In the defensive wall of rejection
we see 14 building blocks. They can be divided into three sections. First
section of bricks: Sadness, Self Pity, Self hatred, Depression and apathy are
linked with our emotions. The second section: Inferiority, Insecurity, Failure,
Guilt, is to do with our intellect or mind. The third section: Dimness, Dying,
Quenched, Discouragement and Despair are to do with our spirit.
Each building block represent both a blockage to God’s
planned personality development, as well as a block in the walls of our hearts.
As we study these blocks it may be helpful to make a note where you find yourself
identifying. Let’s begin with Sadness. We define sadness as sorrowful, mournful
showing or causing sorrow. Some times this emotion can cast a shadow over the
entire personality. I felt very sad for a brief period of time when I lost my
mother. It was very painful for a while until God healed me.
It is normal that we feel sad when some thing like that
happens, but when someone becomes perpetually dysfunctional for longer and
longer periods of time, a chronic state of grief has emerged. Which in turn can
lead to a number of unhealthy patterns such as, Self Pity (continually
consoling oneself over a disappointment or loss), Self hatred which can be
defined as rejecting oneself after being rejected by others. An amazing number
of people in the 21st century struggle with negative feelings about
themselves. For some it is sporadic, but for others this struggle is chronic
and crippling. The longer some one lives in self pity and self hatred the
deeper they plunge into depression.
What is depression?
Depression in its simplest and most common form can best be explained in
terms of how we may react to a loss or a disappointment. Several studies show
us that depression is on the rise especially among the young. Depression leads
to apathy a passion less existence. Apathy is an arch enemy of life. In fact,
it’s the first stage in giving up the challenge of life itself. After
experiencing so much rejection and failure an apathetic person may say some
thing like this: “What’s the use! It will never work,” I will always be like
this!, There is no point even trying, “No one can help me in my situation” This
is when a person begins to believe that there is no hope for their situation
therefore the only way out they see is to commit suicide or end their life.
Is committing suicide really the only option? Is there truly
no way out? Is there no one who could help their situation? What has driven
them to reach that extreme conclusion about life? Well we all know who else
could be behind those thoughts of committing suicide? He is no other than our
ultimate deceiver, Satan, the father of lies who fills the mind with lies. The
good news is that Christ has defeated the ultimate deceiver, the enemy of our
souls.
If you see patterns of rejection in your life and have
struggled with any of those negative emotions mentioned you no longer have to
remain that way. Jesus understands the pain of rejection. He knew what it is to
be rejected by his family, friends, and the people he healed and ministered to in
the end by his father in heaven. He went through all that so that you can be
healed of your rejection.
In closing let me introduce you to Jesus the wounded healer.
In Isaiah 53:3-5, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and
familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was
despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and
carried our sorrows yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and
afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our
iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his
wounds we are healed. Stay with the lesson we will talk more about rejection,
rebellion and the road to freedom. Amen
