Amanda BethSharing the Truths Behind the TRUTH

Nov 15th Monday’s Blog: Tearing Down The Lies

I had a great blog already planned for this week when something happened last week that made me strongly want to share it with you. In the past year, my daughter has been slowly becoming negative toward herself. I’ve noticed it here and there, but had been casually shrugging it off as just a childhood phase she’s going through. Well, in the past few weeks it was happening increasingly more and more. Then one day last week, she was so negative that no matter what positive thing I said to her, she wouldn’t snap out of it.

One of the things that she was down on herself about was her schoolwork. I always tell her to just try her best and that is all I want. I tell her that it is okay if she gets answers wrong, as long as she tries. She was crying to me telling me that she’s not smart and she can’t read good enough and she’s not good at anything. It suddenly hit me and God revealed to me what was really happening. I looked at her and asked her…what does God say about you? I started telling her all the things God says about her. I told her that God says that we can do ALL things through Him! God gives us everything we need to be the best that we can be. Each one of us is gifted in a different area to do what He calls us to do.

That didn’t seem to change anything until I then told her that if God says these things about her, then those things that she believes about herself are lies. I told her that Satan gives us those lies and I asked her if she was going to believe what Satan says about her over what God says about her. She looked at me and right away said “NO!” Right there, she recognized the lies and refused to believe them and chose to believe the truth, what God says about her. Once she made that choice, she was completely happy and joyful and back to her old cheerful self, and has been since.

John 8:44 says that the devil… was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

It’s often uncomfortable for us to talk about the devil. You may even be feeling uncomfortable reading this. But do we ever stop and think why it is uncomfortable? It’s because he deceives us into thinking it is uncomfortable because he doesn’t want us to expose him. Once we see the lies for what they are, we will tear them down. Speaking positive words to my daughter didn’t break her free. Telling her that God loves her didn’t break her free. Exposing the liar and his lies, along with showing her the Truth, is what broke her free.

Jesus revealed God and His Truth, AND exposed the enemy and his lies, in His ministry on earth. How many things has the devil told us that we have believed and accepted about ourselves? How many of his lies have we believed about other people as well? James 4:7 says, Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. To resist something doesn’t mean to just passively turn away and completely ignore that it exists. Resist means to boldly to stand firm against something. My daughter submitted to God and accepted His truth about her and she resisted accepting those lies. Because of that, she was set free. There was instantly a complete change in her.

The truth is what sets us free. As we put our faith in Jesus, His light exposes those lies so we plainly see them and we can tear them down. I would have never recognized that was going on with my daughter without Jesus revealing that to me. She wouldn’t have either.

Now this doesn’t mean that we have to walk around fearing the enemy. This just shows us another reason why we need to draw near to God and learn from Him so we can recognize what is a lie and tear it down and replace it with the Truth, just like 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says, 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.

When we allow ourselves to believe the enemy’s lies, we open the door for him to get a foothold into our life and eventually create strongholds. For example, I used to battle with extreme insecurity and low self worth, and this was going on even as I was a Christian. I even got to the point of accepting that I had no gifts and no talents and that I was not meant to do anything in life. The more I started studying the Bible and growing closer in my relationship with God, the more I started seeing these lies that I had accepted through the years. Gradually, God worked with me to tear down the lies that were deeply rooted in me. As God was uprooting those lies, He started helping me to replace them with the truth, what God says about me. I started thinking and speaking what God said about me, and as I did, my confidence started growing in Him. I then started to see that I did have purpose and did have talent; they were just buried under a bunch of lies to where I could never see them until God worked with me to clear them out.

The Bible tells us to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes (Ephesians 6:11). We need to take off those lies and put on what God says about us. As we start to do that, we start to see God’s truths become a reality in our life. As I started putting on the truth, I started to see my worth and my gifts in Christ. I started seeing doors of opportunities open in my life to lead me into the plan God originally had for me. I started gaining confidence in who I knew that I was in Christ, not my worldly worth, but my worth in Him.

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**Something to think about this week**

I want to encourage you today to draw near to God and study His word with Him, praying and asking for Him to help you understand the truth. If you are a new believer, start studying the New Testament and learn what Christ has given you. Ask God to help you break down the lies that Satan has sown in your life. Remember, Ephesians 5:13 says, But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.

Here’s a verse to carry with you this week to remind you that you are a new creation in Christ:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

2 Corinthians 5:17

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**Come back next Monday as I share more of God’s truths and the reasons behind the truths.

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All Bible verses are taken from the New International Version, unless otherwise noted.