Letting Go of the Enemy’s Lies

 

“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:31-32

Let me caution this, before I dive into today’s thoughts: If you are not ready to fully surrender everything to God, please be careful about asking Him to search your heart and reveal by His Spirit the things that have been a barrier in your relationship with Him. The work that He does in you, when you pray that prayer, is intense. It requires you to be completely open to leaning entirely on Him. It requires unwavering trust in Him. It requires big faith. It requires letting go. We cannot ask God to take something from us until we willingly hand it over to Him. 

God has been working on my heart, y’all. I am going to get somewhat personal today - I’m going to talk about me more than I think I normally do. As I write this, I am trusting God will guide me in the details, that He will help me circle it back to Him. I have tried to humbly point towards God in what I write on this blog. The things I share are things I’ve felt Him lay on my heart. Today’s blog has been on my heart for almost a month. It’s hard to admit - because I struggled with it for so long. Also, I was fighting against writing about it because I was unsure if it was right to share here. I am going to try to keep it brief and vague for the sake of space. (However, I believe this topic, and my journey with it, may someday be the focus of a future book I will write. Only God knows for sure. Praise Him that He leads us where He has prepared for us to go!)

Until recently, I did not know that some of the scars, that I have battled most of my adult life, stemmed from my childhood. To use a modern term for it, I had deep seated “triggers” that I was blaming on all the wrong sources. No joke, there were a list of people that I blamed for the hurts that would not let go, for the pains that resurfaced at the most inopportune times, for the wrongs that had been done to me. None of them were to blame. Ultimately, only the devil, and his helpers, were the perpetrators. Alright, I probably should take part of the blame too…after all, I made the choice to believe the enemy’s lies.

There was a particular lie spoken to me - about me - in my preteen years that God recently revealed to me as the root cause of many poor choices in my past. On the surface, I knew it was not true. However, this lie was a weed, planted by the enemy. I ignored it, rather than tending to its removal. In my defense, I was 11 or 12 years old. I now know that I should have prayed about it and sought God’s truth in the Bible. Instead, by initially ignoring it, I let the enemy’s lie take hold…and it shaped my life. 

At the time, I did not see how I was slowly becoming what the lie had said I was. God had a strong hold on me - or else I would have gone even further in the direction of that lie. However, the weed that it became put a wall between me and God that kept me from the fullness of what He was offering me. That wall did not start to crumble until I started to seek Him - in His Word, in continuous prayer, and through still moments with Him, every single morning. 

The more we seek God, intentionally, with all our might, the more He will reveal things that need to be removed to make more room for Him - and His blessings. 

The lesson that God recently showed me, about this lie, was also aided by listening to a song He placed on my heart the day that He exposed this lie. It was through really listening to all the lyrics of the song, “My Story, Your Glory” by Matthew West, that I began to understand that the pain which I caused myself (believing the lie) was a path to His glory. I let it guide a part of who I thought I was; yet God is rewriting the story with all the shades of His grace, mercy, and love. Understanding this part of my past gives me a different perspective from which I can now share God’s goodness. Now, I get to talk about how He has redeemed me from that lie. I get to proclaim that something which the enemy had meant for my complete and total destruction turned out to just be a side step because “my mess” is now “His message.” 

This is today’s message: we are not who the enemy wants us to believe we are. We have the power to set aside the evil spoken against us, trading it for tenderhearted love. As we surrender the lies to God, He gives us His kindness to share with the world. Forgiveness flows out of us as we fully let go of the hurt at the foot of the cross. There is no room for malice when we hand over our pains to God. 

One final thought for today, on letting go of the enemies lies… 

It’s not enough to ask God, “please take this from me.” We must actively, genuinely, in faith, open our arms / hands / fingers to Him and tell Him, “I surrender this to You.” We have to mean it when we say it - we can’t reach out to grab it back, because (in most cases) He won’t fight us for it. To surrender means to give total control. My beloved friends, who better than our perfect, almighty  God should we surrender to? I am able, in Him, to honestly say that we do not know real freedom until we surrender absolutely everything to Him. What have we got to lose? Pain? Bitterness? Wrath? Anger? Control? Okay, that last one is hard to relinquish…so let’s look at what we have to gain! Kindness? Tenderheartedness? Forgiveness? Mercy? Hope? Peace? Love? Which list would you rather hold onto? 

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray that God will guide you to the path of letting go. It is narrow, long, challenging, and mostly uphill. However, it leads to the mountaintop where we fill in the space that was being consumed by the lies. Well, not us, God. God will fill us with His gifts, His fruits, His Spirit. The journey is so worth it! 

All of the glory belongs to God. Only Him. Always Him. Praise and bless His Holy name. Amen.