Are You For You Or Against You?
I sat frustrated in my seat in my mentor’s office, internalizing what I felt to be an unsuccessful summer. 2020 was a year marked by moving in extreme faith. I was moving by what I believed to be God speaking to me to move to another state. By faith I didn’t renew my lease, and by faith I rented a moving truck and drove all the way to the city in which I was instructed and put my belongings in storage. There were no prospective apartments, so I was living out of my car and I had discovered around that same time that my license was suspended. The cherry on top was the man I thought I was interested in took notes from the children of Israel and had us walking around this wilderness for longer than what was necessary.
At that juncture I had noted a pattern in my life: I was attracted to situations that called for lopsided effort despite the warning signs. If I wanted something to work, I was rather forceful about it — and I was accustomed to getting my way because of it.
After having recounted my relationship fiasco to my mentor - see “ Itching Ears and Seducing Spirits, part 2” for the full story- I sat across from her feeling defeated. She asked me a series of pointed questions uncovering the root of the issue: the issue was I did not actually believe that I was fully and truly accepted by God the Father, and I demonstrated that in my decision-making. I was sentencing myself to unfortunate relationships & situations. So, what was intended to be a quick check-in visit with my mentor, turned into an impromptu inner healing (deliverance) session.
During this session, I had a closed vision of a scene in progress that I can describe as none other than a courtroom in my belly. It was a standard courtroom as seen in movies — minus the jury, but many spectators. The defendant sitting in between their two lawyers, the prosecutor on the other side, the judge’s seat across both the defendant and prosecutor team, and a witness stand directly beside the judge’s seat. In this scenario, I was the one on trial. I was the defendant with the Holy Spirit on my right side as my counselor and Jesus to my left as my advocate. Satan was the prosecutor, and God the Father was in the Judge’s seat calmly listening to the cases presented either in my defense or to my demise. At the witness stand was an actual witness, and at first it was pretty blurry so I couldn’t really tell who it was.
What was alarming for me was the realization of the next image: I stared more intently to see that it was me on the witness stand. What was worse was that I was speaking against myself. I was not fending for myself who, might I remind you, was also the defendant; but I was speaking against myself, making cases for why I didn’t deserve the salvation that I received through Jesus. I built a case against myself on why my salvation should be conditional; better yet, why my salvation should be revoked. What a tough scene to stomach, quite literally, as I am witnessing a schizophrenia taking place within myself.
There on the witness stand I was attempting to convince Jesus that He made a mistake saving me because of all the things I have ever done, and I began to list out my many mistakes and lay them out before the courtroom to show how irredeemable I am. At this point Satan didn’t even say anything. He didn’t have to — I was doing his job for him.
I couldn’t help but think about how many of us are actually double minded in our own walk with God; The Bible says in James 1:8 that a double-minded man is “unstable in all of his ways.” That doesn’t just go for asking God for specific things; it goes for everything in life. If you are double minded (believing and unbelieving, going right and going left, in and out), you will discover there is a lack of stability in your thought process, in your actions, and in your belief. It is much easier to trust someone (and yourself) when actions, speech, and belief align. That is someone with integrity.
Many times in my walk I did not have confidence toward God despite what scriptures said. 1 John 3:19-21 in the New King James Version reads,“And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.” (Emphasis added). At my core I did not have confidence in what Jesus did, especially when I did something that went against my faith, and because of it, it was easy to wallow in guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. I knew these scriptures in my brain and my heart, but they did not take root in my heart.
Can you relate? Are any of us at a moment in our faith where we speak against ourselves so harshly that God Himself would wince? Have we been so jaded by human behavior (father wounds, mother wounds, friendship betrayals), that we have attached human behavior to our consistent, reliable God? I have been guilty of it plenty of times and it is something that we will spend a lifetime being anchored in as we heal; because healing, too, is a lifelong process.
This is why I, to the best of my God-given ability, have compassion on judgmental people; when you take into consideration that you behave out of the overflow of your heart, you realize judgmental people are severely wounded individuals operating in self condemnation cloaked as righteousness. They are self deputized salvation authenticators with a fixation on being the holiness police. This is the outworking of a hardened, wounded heart.
Self condemnation is a stronghold maintaining its strength in negative programming and a faulty belief system.
The court reached a verdict: The Judge declared “Not guilty,” and struck His gavel. I sunk into my seat relieved, Jesus had a swagger to Him as if to say '“I told you so”; the Holy Spirit expressed to me with glee, “Isn’t this great?!” The witness in the stand slowly disappeared right before my eyes. The spectators sitting out in the audience on my side celebrated my acquittal. The prosecutor, along with the spectators sitting on the prosecutor’s side, were incensed.
I opened my eyes as my mentor walked me through prayer with the change of heart and mind I received, and prophetic acts to make the mental change and heart posture permanent.
It really does hurt to see people live below who they are knowing that after the cross Jesus offered so much for us to live a powerfully supernatural life; instead people are arguing still about whether or not we have the right to show and exercise power. They are questioning another’s walk because they don’t walk the same way: one person may walk their road with a limp; others with a cane; others with two healthy feet; and others crawling altogether. As long as they are with Jesus, mind your own lane.
Dear Reader,
There is nothing that you could possibly do that will make Jesus love you any less. God loves you truly and steadfastly. I speak to the unhealed part of you, wounded from your youth: you are accepted completely in the Beloved. I speak to your soul, that you are so imperfectly protecting, that you are loved unconditionally by God the Father.
Here are a few scriptures to ponder, meditate, and edify yourself:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (Romans 5:8-11 NKJV)
“God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19 NIV)
“Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you forsake you.’ So that we may boldly say: ‘The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’ (Hebrews 13:5-6 NKJV)
“My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” (1 John 2:1-2 NKJV)
Being firm in this truth will change your outlook on hardship, your purpose, and your relationships because they are founded on the aggressive love that God has towards you; His obsessive engrossment of your well-being; the many thoughts He has towards you; the preoccupation surrounding your life. There is nothing you can do that can separate you from Him; there is no mistake too great. And if there is anyone to tell you that you must do things to keep your salvation, to justify keeping your salvation, that person is preaching a different Christ and a different gospel, to which I say “let that man be accursed,” for there was nothing you did to gain it. God decided to love you. Receive the love. Surrender completely to Him and depend on Him.
Signed,
Dani J.
