The Tools of Truth to Set You Free
The tropical afternoon rains were thundering down onto the corrugated roof of our little rented rainforest cottage. We watched in gobsmacked amazement as the water poured off the roof in torrents unlike anything we had seen before – and that says a lot for someone who had grown up in North Vancouver, and experienced the power of prairie rainstorms as well.
This was rainy season in the Costa Rican rainforest.
Every day sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 the rains would come. And oh, would they come. Any outdoor activities would need to cease as we would scurry inside to hunker down for the afternoon until the rains stopped.
It was wonderfully relaxing. We had to be inside doing very little. No pressure to be outside conquering creation and adamantly adventuring. Nope. We would simply chill as a family and enjoy our time together. It was during these quiet and simple afternoons that the Lord helped me to understand some profound truth about getting free from the spiritual opposition that stalks us.
Earlier in our Costa Rican holiday the Lord had used the Strangler Fig as a powerful metaphor to show me the strategy of the enemy to plant lies into our hearts that then begin to choke the life out of us if we do not take them captive with the Truth. I have written about this in my visional called “The Lies That Bind”.
However, how do we get free from the lies that have been planted in our hearts over the course of decades of life?
This is what the Lord showed me during those rainy Costa Rican afternoons…
We have 5 tools of truth we need to utilize to get free from the lies of the enemy:
- Repent
- Renounce
- Rebuke
- Receive
- Rejoice
1. We repent from believing the lies instead of the truth. Lies like: “I can’t trust God”, “I am all alone”, “I have nothing to offer”, “I am insignificant”, “God doesn’t care”, “No one cares”, “I’ll never be enough, have enough, do enough”, etc., etc., etc. We have chosen to believe the lies that the enemy has planted into our hearts in the midst of wounding. We need to confess that and ask the Lord to forgive us.
2. We renounce the agreements we made with those lies. Basically we agreed with what the enemy was saying. We need to tear up those spiritual agreements – they are no longer valid, we don’t believe them anymore.
3. We rebuke the enemy and tell him to leave. Scripture tells us to submit to God, then yell a loud “no” to the enemy and watch him scamper. This is no time for being ‘nice’ – be vehement and violent in commanding him to leave.
4. We receive the truth of God into our heart – His rema Word and His logos Word. In other words, His spoken Word and His written Word. We need to begin to believe the Truth and not the lies of the enemy.
5. We rejoice. Rejoicing in the Truth of who we are in God, who He is to us and the freedom we have in Christ. To rejoice is a choice. We have been given the garment of praise instead of the spirit of heaviness.
Amidst the glory and splendor of the Costa Rican rainforest, trapped inside our little cottage by the afternoon rains and graciously bound by the cords of stillness and quiet, the Lord was able to reveal these simple tools of truth to help set us free from the lies of the enemy. When you see a lie that has taken root in your heart – sent from the one who wants to steal, kill and destroy the life Jesus has for you – walk through the 5 tools of truth to appropriate the freedom and life Jesus purchased for you.
This is a profound and powerful way to live and pull out the roots of the spiritual strangler fig sent to choke the life out of us, the life that Jesus gave His life to purchase for us.
Practice the 5 tools of Truth to set and then keep yourself free. It was for freedom that Christ has set us free.
John 1:9
“If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
James 4:7
“So let God work His will in you. Yell a loud “No!” to the devil and watch him scamper. (The Message)
Philippians 4:4
“Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again – rejoice!”
This is a Test – Do Not Adjust Your Screen
Click for scene from Evan Almighty
Do you remember when you were a kid they used to do that emergency testing screen on your TV?
It was the Emergency Broadcast System black and white logo on the screen and a voice-over that would say, “Do not adjust your screen. This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. In the event of an emergency you would be instructed what to do.” Then there would be a high pitched single tone for a number of seconds.
I am sure there may be many of you who are not old enough to have experienced that, but for some reason it has stuck in my mind for all these years.
It came to my mind this week again after I read some scripture on “testing”.
You see, God tests us.
Now, when you hear that “God tests us.”, I’ll be that you have a very negative perception of what that means. I know I did. We tend to think it’s the pass/fail kind of test. Somehow God delights in pointing out our deficiencies and telling us that we have failed. He writes an “F” in big red letters on our foreheads for all to see. Failures. Losers. Cast offs. Also rans. The unneeded, unnecessary, and unworthy ones. Disqualified.
That’s not true though and that’s not what God’s testing is all about.
God’s testing is meant to make us stronger; to provide us with an opportunity to choose Him. Testing can reveal those things in our heart that we need to get rid of, what we need to lay aside to journey deeper into what God has for us. Testing can also help us realize how far we have come – how we are stronger that we were previously. Or perhaps how we have not grown in strength, but have weakened.
Testing can also be a means to make us stronger. When we find ourselves in difficult situations we can whine and complain and ask God to get us out of them. Or, we can embrace the opportunity to choose to persevere under trial and grow our strength of character and faith.
Yes, we have a choice. In the midst of difficult situations we can try to gut it out in our own strength, and cry out to God to get us out of this situation. Or we can cry out to God to help us find His strength, embrace the situation and persevere in joy knowing that God is strengthening us and making us more like him.
An illustration of this is found in the movie Evan Almighty. There is a beautiful scene in the movie when Evan’s wife is leaving him because she thinks he has lost his mind believing that God has asked him to build an ark. Earlier she had prayed that God would bring their family together, and now she finds herself with exactly the opposite thing happening.
Is this scene from the movie she is in a restaurant with the kids after having left Evan to go to her parent’s house. The kids go to the washroom and God shows up as the waiter to speak to her. (Incognito of course.)
They chat a bit and then God says, “If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does He give them the opportunity to be patient? If someone prayed for courage, does God gives them courage? Or does He give them opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings? Or does He give them opportunities to love each other?”
It then dawns on her that the very thing she prayed for is being answered in the difficulties from which she is fleeing. She wants the family to be closer and love each other more, so God tests them with difficulty to find out if they will press through the difficulty to discover a deeper level of love and unity.
Wow.
What’s the lesson?
Well, the difficulty you may be resisting, and from which you may be fleeing, could be the very thing meant to “test” you, to bring you closer to God and deeper into His life and purposes for you and through you.
James 1:2-4
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Judges 3: 1,2,4
“These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (He did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience)… They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which He had given their ancestors through Moses.”
Man Your Battle Stations
The story of your life, the story of life in general, can be difficult and frustrating to understand. The story we believe we are living determines how we respond to what is going on around us.
Gary Barkalow of The Noble Heart Ministry has a very powerful metaphor to help us understand our place in “the story” of life. He paints the picture of a “cruise ship” versus a “battleship”.
Some people picture life like being on a cruise ship. Those people who see life through the lens of being on a cruise ship believe they are entitled to a vast array of comforts and conveniences. They expect the food to be exceptional, their needs to be catered to and the overall experience to very pleasant. When the food isn’t the way they expect it to be they whine and complain. “This isn’t what I paid for.”
When the entertainment isn’t to their liking, or the activities are not what they were hoping for, they demand or expect changes to be made. If there are people staying in the cabin next to them that are acting unruly or inappropriately they will ask the authorities on the ship to deal with them, or ask to be moved to a more pleasant location on the ship with better ‘neighbours’.
When things get difficult – perhaps the seas get rough, people get sick and some hardship sets in – they are quick to declare, “This isn’t what I signed up for!”
All of this is a ‘rights’ oriented perspective. “I have paid for this, so I better get what I want.” “I do this, so you do that.”
However, those who picture their story like they are on a battleship have a completely different perspective. They expect difficulty. They expect hardship. They expect food and conditions to be adequate, but do not demand them to be exceptional. The purpose for being on the ship is not their self-gratification, their personal happiness or their personal pleasure. No, the purpose for being on the ship is the mission – to fight for freedom from the oppressor.
Those on a battleship do not expect to be served, they expect to serve. They do not expect to give orders, but to take orders. They are not demanding comfort and convenience, but are choosing courage, character, commitment and conviction. When they are called to “man their battle stations’ and take their place in the conflict, they are quick to do their duty out of a love for each other, their commander and the mission in which they are engaged.
Those who have responded to the call to serve on a battleship do not have a ‘rights’ oriented perspective. No, they have a ‘responsibility’ oriented perspective. “I am called to serve, so I will inconvenience myself and lay my life down for the greater good.”
What drastically different perspectives on the story of our lives.
Sadly, many people in the church have bought into the cultural deception that life is supposed to be a cruise ship. When, in reality, we have been called to take our place on a battleship to continue the fight that Jesus began. We are called to “man our battle stations”, and continue to fight for the freedom that Jesus purchased for us through His death and resurrection; to see God’s Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven – in us and through us.
I know I have been guilty of wanting a cruise ship life, a life of comfort and convenience, but that’s not the nature of our call, of our mission. Not that life is about the battle. No, life is about God’s kingdom of righteous, peace and joy. But Kingdom life is opposed and surrounded by battle, and the life God has for us and through us is worth the fight.
A true warrior can’t love war. He must love peace, because that’s what he’s fighting for.
Let’s resist being ‘Cruise Ship Christians’ and choose to be ‘Battleship Believers’ manning our battle stations on God’s Kingdom battleship called “Freedom”.
Psalm 144:1
“Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.”
Romans 14:17
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,”
Matthew 10:38, 39
“Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
Iron Sharpens Iron
I got an email from a friend the other week asking if I wanted to get together for a coffee in the near future. I am not particularly close with this man – we have gotten together on a few occasions. He has taken me out for lunch a couple of times to discuss parenting and other issues pertinent to men. He is a good man who is very intent on moving forward in his journey with Jesus.
There was a different tone in his invitation this time. Nothing overt, but I sensed that he didn’t want to get any input on a particular issue, but he wanted to share something with me. “Something that would be helpful for me to know.”
Hmmm. Something is up.
We set up a time and tried to meet, but I ended up having to forgo our meeting because a meeting went longer and I lost my window of opportunity. So, I called him after my meetings, apologized and asked if he wanted to get together another time, or chat on the phone.
He said “no problem – let’s talk now.” He gave me an update on some of the issues we previously talked about. He then encouraged me, thanked me for how I am walking with Jesus to fight for the hearts of men, and shared a simple, gentle correction.
During our last lunch meeting he felt I was distracted and seemed more interested in the people walking past our table than in him. He encouraged me to not be so distracted by others and focus on the person I am talking to at the time.
Good point. I agree. In fact, those kinds of guys really tick me off. You know the guy at the business networking event, Chamber luncheon, men’s event, and after church foyer talk time where they are talking to you, but their eyes are looking past you to see if there is someone else more important to talk to?
Man, I dislike that, and I never want to be that guy.
According to my friend, I had become that guy during our lunch. Bummer. I apologized and thanked him for his courage to share, and the care with which he offered it. I received the heads-up and we moved on. No issues.
It would have been easier for him not to say a thing – which we often choose to do. However, I would have missed the opportunity to embrace humility and experience some personal growth. His ‘correction’ was very easy to receive because I know he cares for me, he respects me and he is ‘for’ me. He wasn’t venting, he was sharing something to help me. He wasn’t criticizing, he was correcting. There is a big difference – criticizing tears down, correcting builds up.
I could have gotten my back up and gotten all knotted up. “Who does he think he is?” “Do you have any idea how intently I listen to people and focus on them?” “That’s the last time I’ll agree to get together with him – I’ve got plenty of important things to fill my time with.” All of that is just pride, bravado and the ranting of an insecure man.
Iron sharpening iron is one man helping another man to see an area for growth that he may not be able to see himself. It’s done in respect, within relationship and with a healthy dose of encouragement if possible. It is correction meant to build up, not criticism which tears down. Being a good friend to someone is not telling them what they want to hear, it involves treating them like a man and ‘on occasion’ respectfully sharing what would be helpful for their personal growth.
If you have a friend in your life who loves you enough to respectfully, graciously and lovingly share some correction with you, don’t get offended! Embrace humility and thank God you have someone who loves and respects you enough to speak into your life.
And, if you are that guy who sees the need for change, make sure you are respectfully bringing correction for your friend’s benefit, not criticism to make you feel better.
Iron truly sharpens iron when respectful, Truthful correction is offered to and received by a humble, hungry heart. And that leads to life.
Proverbs 27:17
“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Proverbs 27:5,6
“Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”
I Timothy 4:2
“Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”