Fear
Pain and grief can give birth to fear in our lives. When fear is living it can lead us to shame and shame leads us to believe we are unworthy. All of these are false identities the enemy seeks to deceive God’s children with. The devil sows seeds in thought form that we can choose to believe and embrace or through the help of the Spirit take captive (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
Personally, the lies most often come in the form of an accusation that attacks me at the core of my identity. For example, the accusation,“You are fearful!” This thought, which is an accusation from the devil, often comes when I feel fear. Though this feeling of fear is real and I am genuinely experiencing it, fear does not determine or define who I am, my true identity is in Christ.
If we allow this lie and accusation to take root in our minds and hearts we will give the enemy a stronghold in our lives. If we are not watchful we will begin to believe that we are fearful. Fear is no longer merely an experience we feel and face, it has become who we are. Can you see the trickery of the devil at play here? He will always try to leverage a lie we believe in order to deceive us into taking on and embracing a false identity. This is his strategy of warfare. The devil’s accusations and lies often come while we are feeling certain emotions. Such as fear, shame, condemnation and unworthiness. This is strategic and intended to try to convince us why the lie or the feeling is true. When in fact it is an absolute lie and our emotions are being afflicted by the enemy as well. There are dimensions to the ways the enemy seeks to destroy us.
Shame & Condemnation
I have noticed the same thing with shame. In my life I have seen fear quickly cause me to feel ashamed. I feel ashamed because I don’t desire to be fearful or timid, yet I feel as if I am at times. Then the devil uses the Bible as a weapon against me by reminding me that I should be a bold witness for Jesus and that I should live in the fear of the Lord and not the fear of man. So, then condemnation enters in to throw a few jabs at me as well. If I am not watchful over my thoughts I can quickly come under shame and embrace this lie as truth and live ashamed of who I have come to believe I am, a fearful timid man.
At this point I am hit again with lies. “Well, Michael, you should feel ashamed, you are fearful. You aren’t bold and courageous, which is what God desires and expects from you. So, it’s right that you should feel shame.” However, this web of lies is all untrue and doesn't have authority to dictate my true identity, only God does. Fear and shame work overtime and tag team to get me in bondage to a false identity. Once I believe these lies they form a stronghold in my mind. These false identities are then shielded by lies that have formed a stronghold in my mind for the enemy to hide behind. These false identities are protected by each wicked and deceptive lie the enemy has worked to get me to believe. Like an expert brick layer the devil uses each lie as a brick to build a fortress of lies to hide behind. How evil!
Unworthiness
These false identities also have another partner in crime. Unworthiness. When fear, shame and condemnation are given authority in our lives they will ultimately lead us to unworthiness and despair. I believe that this is the end goal and destination the enemy wants to take people to. It causes people to believe they have been cut off from the grace of Christ. When we feel and believe we are unworthy it does several things. Causes us to feel deep despair and hopelessness. Unworthiness always speaks. It never remains silent.
Unworthiness says horrific and condemning things like, “You should feel unworthy, you are fearful and shameful and because of this you are unworthy. You are not pleasing to God. God expects far more than you are able to give. You are disqualified from receiving his mercy, grace, compassion, and love. You are not enough. You will never overcome these things so you should feel condemned and unworthy, because you are.” It mocks, “You call yourself a Christian! You know what God desires, and what you have received in Christ and yet you can’t even do what he wants you to do because you are fearful and shameful. How pitiful! You deserve to feel unworthy.”
The Power of the Gospel
Praise be to God that the voices and power of fear, shame, condemnation and unworthiness are silenced by the blood of Jesus and power of the gospel! God has been teaching me that I need to continue to believe the gospel and place my faith and hope in the gospel every moment of every day. We never graduate from the gospel as if to move on to bigger and better things in the kingdom. It is an eternal gospel we have received. By continually believing the gospel we are continually saved and transformed by the power of the gospel. Saved from lies and demonic strongholds that are set up in our minds to protect and conceal false identities. What a glorious gospel! Its power is unmatchable. Not even the depths of hell can prevail against this gospel. No lie stands a chance.
By the cross Jesus triumphed over all of our enemies that seek each and every day to devour us. They try to get us to believe lies about who we truly are.They seek strategically and subtly to hold us captive with these satanic lies and deception. But God who is rich in mercy and kindness protects and preserves us because we belong to him. We are his children. We have become new creations in Christ Jesus. We are free from all fear, shame, condemnation and unworthiness. The blood of Jesus has cleansed us and makes us worthy. What a glorious gospel we have to place our hope and faith in!
My invitation to you today is to meditate on these passages below. As you do, ask the Holy Spirit to expose the false identities and lies the devil has worked so hard to convince you to believe are true about yourself. Ask Him for faith to believe the truth of who you have become in Christ. Throw off the false identities and let Him clothe you with your true identity.
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“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding,…”
(Ephesians 1:3-8 NIV)
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
(Colossians 2:13-15 NIV)
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
(2 Corinthians 10:3–5 NIV)
Michael T.
