Have you been LIED to?

For God’s Church

Jesus said in John 10:10 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.”  These powers of darkness work at destroying all relationships.  They try to keep our minds full of suspicion, Unforgiveness, distrust, anger and so forth, toward others.  One of the schemes of Satan is to get us to hate ourselves, to make us feel like we don’t measure up.  He will use words of others, such as our parents, to build a stronghold in our heart.  It is essential to stop these thoughts while they are still in our minds.  The following testimony tells a story of one of these schemes of Satan, as you read it, examine your heart and mind to see if you have been lied to!

I was a man was very lost in April of 1997.  One month later Christ found me and I asked Jesus into my heart and my life changed.  One area I was bound up in at that time was a negative spirit; I was a negative person, if a glass was ¾ full, in my eyes, it was empty.  People pointed this out to me, I fought it but I could not defeat it, and tried to.  Many times when my heart spoke, it spoke negativity.  When I asked Jesus into in my heart, my mind had to change, just as my life was changing.  One area of that negative thought was “I can’t do this”, when working or rather working with my hands.  As in construction or building things, such as putting together shelves, my thought was always “I can’t do it”, even with instructions.  How could I ever do it, when I already said “I could not do it”; I was already defeated.  After a couple of years of walking with Christ, I decided to say lets do this.  I started walking differently, no need to be afraid; God can help me, walked that way until I came to Tennessee.   God brought me to this little church in Cottontown, TN, where they are building things, adding a sanctuary to a little farmhouse in the country.  Soon my thoughts again become, “these folks, they know what they are doing, I can’t do that”.  Then BOOM it is back. It is time to remove the mask.  Most men feel they have to wear a mask to do their job.  Let me tell you this, if any man, woman or person, feels they have to wear a mask, they have been lied to.  They have issues in their heart that have not yet been exposed.  When we share our hearts as men or real people then we begin to take off the mask.  Two months ago talking with a men’s group at Church a question was asked.  Are we posers or mask wearers?  You see, when a man is around a mechanic he might pose or wear mask, if he knows nothing about mechanics.  They would pretend to know what a carburetor was, when the car mechanic said a new one was needed.  These are the thoughts that would run through my mind when I was around men that are gifted in mechanics or carpentry.  I viewed myself as a man and I should be able to do those things.  I never saw myself victorious in that area.  When squeezed or pushed, things that came out of my mouth were negative.  Being Christian is easy to look like or sound like a Christian.  You can get by for a time or a season.  God knows the heart, the hurt and the pain.  The enemy came in at five or six years old.   I was given the choice to cut or paste, in a classroom setting by my teacher.  I was the ONLY one who chose ONE.  I chose to cut, all the other kids chose to paste.  I was made to feel inferior at that time by thoughts that came in my head.  All the sudden, it was I couldn’t do that.  From that point forward in my life, if I could not do it, I would flip out.  The enemy started digging a foothold at a very young impressionable age.  Digging a place deep down to keep you and me, in bondage.  This was a deep-rooted area in my heart that needed to be dealt with, that God was exposing.    At some point in my journey with Lord, negativity crept back in.  I talked to my fellow brothers in Christ at church; I prayed, but would only have a breakthrough for maybe a month, but I never had a true victory over this stronghold.  One Wednesday night at bible study the Pastor shared the meaning behind sins, transgression and iniquity.  Sin is to error.  Transgression is crossing the boundary line. The meaning of iniquity is deep seeded, deep-rooted area in your heart and it has become a habit.  Easy to understand, we all have some habits.  This area of my heart I knew was not right with God, so I asked God what is the habit that is deep rooted, deep seeded in my heart.  I want to be set free.  The very next day, God is faithful and reveals the iniquity in my heart.  God revealed this to me in a simple little task, that my mouth reveals my heart.  My mouth says I can’t do this stuff, and my negative thoughts are wanting to be feed all the time.  So my Christian brother that I am working with, says I will show you how to install this first thermostat, then you can do all the rest.  Let me tell you that this task is not rocket science, very simple, attach this to this, do this, and then finish with that.   So I go to do the first one, then the thoughts come:  “The men behind you know that you don’t know what you are doing”.   “They are watching you.”  So I am turning around and looking and of course, the men are working and are not looking at me, they are just doing their job.   Then this thought, “does not matter if someone showed you, you still don’t know how to do this”.  By this time my mind is so bombarded with these fiery darts (the thoughts) that the enemy is throwing at me, I am going, whew, where did that come from, shut up! These kinds of thoughts continue, and God allows me to mess up, HE IS FAITHFUL.  I ended up breaking wires off at the wall, two of them, one of them lying on the floor by my feet. Then the thought is “see I told you; you could not do this”.  “These men are watching you right now”, again I look around and no one is looking, but those are my thoughts.  Lies that are going on in my head, the enemy wants to keep us so down and so defeated in “thinking” you can not do this.  The enemy says:  “You don’t understand any of this and never will so why even try”.  Folks, if you are in agreement with that LIE you are in agreement with the ENEMY.  I realized I need some help and I had to ask for help, so I said God I need your help.  These things in my head are lies and I need your help.  That evening my wife and I start talking, she said the words “something is not right”.  These thoughts are still going through my head.  I am very frustrated and just flat out say “I am sick of doing this, I am sick of doing things I can’t do.  I am not called to do this stuff.  I am not gifted in these areas.  I am tired of having jobs, where I can’t do the stuff, the work.  Why am I having such trouble when trying to work; (having self pity)”?  My wife said, something about a habit that caught my attention.  So I said Lord you speak through her.  Then I asked my wife to be honest with me.  I asked God to show me and I know God can use my wife to speak to me.  I told her, “I need to hear it; don’t pat me on my back, just speak the truth”.  My wife replies, “I hear you say I can’t do this everyday, several times a day”.  You never say I learned this today.  I think it is a word curse you are saying on yourself because you say, “ I can’t”.    Thank God for wives to balance us out.  If you say you cannot do it, you are done.  What if Peter said I cannot walk on the water?  Peter would have never even attempted to take that first step. But Jesus said come, so Peter trusted Jesus and took that first step.  God is telling you to come forward for a reason; HE wants to show you something.  My wife also mentioned that I always say, “I was called to be an Evangelist”, but right now you are working where God has placed you, so you are called to do this job for right now, for this time, this season.  God may place you somewhere else in a year, but for now, you are called for this position.  My wife also said, “if you keep saying you can not do this, how do you honor the Lord in that work?”  Let me just confess right here, for man it is impossible to do these things. However it is not impossible, if we submit our hearts to God because God can help us when we submit to Him.  At this point the habit that I had, I confessed to fellow brothers in Christ, and my wife.  I repented, and chose to turn from that and move into Gods direction and now there is a new beginning.  Studies have shown that it takes approximately 31 days to break a habit. If I am defeated by negative thoughts and speaking negative things like saying I cannot do something this is my habit, my deep-rooted iniquity.  Anytime I struggled, when things were difficult, or maybe I just looked bad, I always would quit.  I said, “I can’t do this; or this is not Gods timing to do this; and I am not called to do that”.  My pattern was to quit and move on.  Guess what?  I took that spirit with me, to the next project, the next job, everywhere I went, and it went with me. You don’t have to chase curses; they WILL chase you, when you are disobedient to God by not dealing with your heart that He is revealing.  My wife also told me, you know God told you to Evangelize, so what is going to happen when someone takes offense to a word you give because they are wearing a mask, when a man does not receive you or pat you on the back, what are you going to do?  My response was, I would have quit, and I would have not grown in Christ.    A new habit I have to start, with Gods help I will not say, “I can’t” because with God, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.  There is NOTHING impossible for HIM.  God can make these hands do things, I have never seen done.  God can take that deep-rooted area, shine a light, expose darkness and set me free.  Then you will feel Gods peace.  Proverbs 1:23 Turn at my rebuke; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.  Do we believe that God is faithful to do what he says?  There are times when we say; “yes I believe this”, but do we honestly believe he is faithful? My rebuke was you keep saying, you don’t understand, or you can’t.  How can I work through this area, when you already decided you agree with defeat?  Do you want to keep going round the same mountain?  Do I want to keep sitting in this wilderness?  No I do not!    I don’t want to listen to those thoughts, telling me “you can’t do this”.  Everyone reading this knows your own evil thoughts.  Now let me ask you, How REAL is our fight?  Our first lesson is to know, not every thought in your head are your thoughts.  A good example is when someone hurts or disappoints you.  The enemy starts telling you, all you have done for him/her and for him/her to do you this way!  Below is a partial list of schemes that come against your mind every day.  Go over this list and put an X by the ones you have been LIED to by the enemy.