Genesis 3:4-5 “But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Today's episode explains how the enemies lies have no power over us unless we come into agreement with those lies. The only power the enemy has over us is the power we give the him. When we believe the lies we empower the enemy. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
When You Believe The Lie You Empower The Liar
Genesis 3:4-5 “But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
I have talked many time about how the devil is a liar. I often talk about how he twists the truth and makes his lies just convincing enough that we tend to believe them. We just started a new quarter in my Encounter Ministry class and this quarter is on inner healing and freedom. The second session of class yesterday was really good and I learned to see things in a different way so I wanted to share them with you. I thought hearing them was pretty powerful and something we all should know. You might already know this on some level, but for some reason the way it was said, or the way I heard it last night seemed different. As soon as the words came out of our teacher’s mouth I felt like the Holy Spirit said that you all needed to hear them too.
In this verse above the serpent told Eve that if she ate of the fruit of the tree she was forbidden to eat from she would become like God. The thing is, she was already like God. She was made in his image and his likeness. She didn’t need to eat the fruit to become like Him, she already was. Our teacher said Eve was trying to earn with performance what she already earned by inheritance. God freely made her in His image and likeness. She didn’t have to do anything to become like Him. However, the serpent told her if she ate of the fruit her eyes would be opened and she would become like God. So she did.
We all have the devil whispering lies into our ears. Lies that pray on wounds we have deep inside. Wounds that have been caused by others usually in our past. Sometimes we know about these wounds and sometimes we don’t. We heard a testimony last night of a woman that went through an inner healing prayer session. She was a very anxious person. The prayer ministers asked God to reveal to her a memory of when this anxiety got started. She had a memory of sitting at dinner with her mom one time and her mom was angry, I’m not sure if the mom was angry at her, or just had a bad day and was in a really bad mood. Next the prayer ministers told her to ask God what lies she came up with in that moment. She realized in that one moment at the dinner table she started telling herself that she wasn’t good enough. That she couldn’t do anything right. She carried these lies with her from that point forward.
Whether we realize it or not the enemy is telling us lies. Often times we don’t know it is the enemy talking to us and we just believe the things that he is saying. We need to wake up. We need to stop going throughout our day believing every single thing our brain tells us. The enemy can not read our thoughts, which is a great thing, but he give us thoughts, or suggest thoughts for us. We need to start rejecting those thoughts. The phrase I heard in class that I thought was so powerful is, “Hearing lies has no authority in your life. The power comes when you come into agreement with those lies.” I think we get scared when the enemy starts whispering lies to us but those lies have no power unless you give them power.
Another powerful statement they said last night is, “If you believe the lie you empower the liar.” The devil has no power over you unless you give him power. I don’t know if we realize we are doing that when we accept the lies he is telling us. I wonder if I would fight harder against the lies if I knew he needed me to come into agreement with them for them to have any power over me? I wonder if I would fight harder against believing the lies he tells me if I knew that when I believed them I was empowering the enemy. Why aren’t we fighting back more? Why aren’t we standing up to the lies and calling BS when we hear them? Why aren’t we choosing what to believe about ourselves? Why are the bad things so much easier to believe than the good things?
I think the bad is easier to believe because we live in a broken world and unfortunately we hear the bad more than the good. We also think, we should be humble, we shouldn’t think we are all that great. This is not what being humble means. Being humble doesn’t mean we think less of ourselves, as in we make ourselves smaller than we are. Being humble means we think of ourselves less often, meaning we are not the center of our attention. We think of others before ourselves. We think of God and we know God is the reason for anything good in us. He is our strength, he is our power, he is all things and without Him we would have nothing. God doesn’t want us to put ourselves down and he doesn’t want us to believe the lies of the enemy.
In Luke 10:19 it says, “See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.” God has given us authority over all the power of the enemy. He can’t hurt us unless we partner with him. Unless we come into agreement with his lies. We have to choose who we will believe, who we will follow. In Romans 6:16 it says, “ Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” When you come into agreement with the lies of the devil it leads to sin and shame.
Look at the Genesis again when Adam and Eve came into agreement with the serpents lies and ate the fruit. They went against God’s will to follow the serpents lies. They instantly knew they were naked and they felt shame for the first time. This is the whole point of the enemies lies. Shame is from the enemy and it makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do. The goal of the enemy is to lock us into a cycle of sin and shame. God wants us to have life in abundance. Which do you choose to follow? Which life would you like to have?
I know it can be hard not to believe the lies sometimes. I know sometimes the enemy twists the truth in such a way that lie seems like it is true. He has been perfecting his tactics for so many years now. The enemy is good at his job. However, no matter how good he is, he has no power unless we give it to him. One way to know if it is the enemy telling you something is to pay attention to how you feel. Do you feel crappy, do you feel shame, do you feel you are not enough, that is the enemy. If God is telling you something you will feel encouraged, you will feel loved, you will feel accepted. I know it feels like the lies are never ending sometimes. I know if feels like they are so loud and you can’t hear anything else. This is why it is so important to have declarations to tell yourself. Declarations to remind yourself that you are a child of God. Declarations to remind yourself of the truth, of all God’s promises to you. Declarations can remind you that God has given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. If you need some really good declarations, some declarations that remind you of the power you have, the power God has given you, go back and listen to episode #368 What Do You Declare? In that episode I have listed 21 powerful declarations to remind yourself of the power God has given you and the promises he has made to you. The enemy can not read your thoughts, but he can hear what you say. That means if you are thinking negative thoughts and speaking them out loud the enemy can hear them and use them against you. However, if you are thinking negative thoughts, but saying positive declarations, he doesn’t know the negative thoughts you are having and can’t use them against you.
I know many of you are busy and may not have time to go back to the previous episode so I will put the 21 declarations at the bottom of this page in my show notes. I will list a few now.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)
Because I have faith nothing will be impossible for me. (Matthew 17:20)
I will do the works Jesus did an even greater Works. (John 14:12)
Whatever I ask in Jesus's name, he will do it. (John 14:13)
My heart will not be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27)
I will abide in Jesus and bear much fruit (John 15:9)
Jesus loves me as the father loves him (John 15:9)
Jesus lay down his life for me, his friend (John 15:13)
If I ask, I will receive (John 16:24)
In Jesus, I have peace. (John 16:33)
I am a child of God (acts 17:28)
Jesus died for me while I was still a sinner (Romans 5:8)
Death no longer has dominion over me (Romans 6:9–11)
Sin no longer has dominion over me (Romans 6:14)
the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in me! (Roman 8:11)
I receive the spirit of Sonship. I am a child of God. (Romans 8: 15–17)
I have been saved (Romans 8:24)
the Holy Spirit helps me in my weakness; he intercedes for me when I don't know how to pray (Romans 8:26)
In everything God works for good with me (Romans 8:28)
God is for me who is against me? (Romans 8:31)
I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38 to 39)
We all need to stop giving the enemy power in our lives. We need to be intentional about our thoughts and we have to figure out a way to get out of that cycle of sin and shame that the enemy traps us into it. I know it is not easy, but it can be done. God gave us the Holy Spirit who is living inside of us. He gave us the power over our enemies. We need to stop fearing our enemies, we need to stop fearing the lies the enemy is telling us and start taking back control. We are children of God. We shouldn’t be scared of anything. If God if for us, who could be against us?
Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each and every person listening to this episode today. Lord, I ask the Holy Spirit to show each one of us what lies we are accepting from the enemy? I ask that the Holy Spirit to show us what truth we can replace that lie with. I ask the Holy Spirit to remind each and every one of us of the power God has given to us through the Holy Spirit. We have the power to reject the lies of the enemy, please help us know this Lord. I pray that each person picks one or two declarations and starts saying them every time they feel attacked by the enemy. Lord, I pray each person listening to this knows that praise and worship is the best defense against the attacks of the enemy because it takes our eyes off of him and places them back on you. We love you Lord, we are so sorry we keep falling for the enemies lies. We are sorry we keep believing we are less than you made us to be. We are so grateful you keep reminding us. We are grateful you gave us the Holy Spirit so that we have the power to defeat our enemies. You are truly amazing and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk Boldly with Jesus. I wanted to let you know about this new audio training I created. It is about how to invite Jesus into your everyday. Often times we want to pray, we want to spend time with Jesus, and yet we just aren’t finding the time to do so. In this audio training I will teach you to invite Jesus into 3 of the most common tasks we do each day. If you want to hear this audio training all you need to do is go to my website walkboldlywithjesus.com or you can CLICK HERE. It will take you to a page where you can put in your name and email and the audio training will be delivered right to your inbox. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to reach out to me and let me know what you think of it. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed day!