Lies we let in our tent

I wanted to start with a story. It's of a woman in the bible I had never heard of, well really, just never paid much attention to. Her name is Jael.

(So I'm going to summarize parts of it, but if you want to read it, its in Judges 4.)

So the Israelites were being all rebellious #storyoftheirlife #literally and the Lord delivered them over to the Canaanites. Sisera led the massive Canaanite army that "cruelly oppressed" the Israelites. He was powerful, ruthless, merciless. He reigned over them for years until the Israelites finally cried out to their God.

And God heard. But our God doesn't just hear, he answers. So he answered them through the prophet Deborah and she spoke to the leader of the Israelite army, Barak, saying,

"I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands...But...the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman."

So the Isralites go to battle with the Canannites and guess what...they win! But sneaky little Sisera sneaks away, and he sneaks right into the tent of Jael.

"Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come, my lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket. “I’m thirsty,” he said. “Please give me some water.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up. “Stand in the doorway of the tent,” he told her. “If someone comes by and asks you, ‘Is anyone in there?’ say ‘No.’

But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died. Just then Barak (the Israelite leader) came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. “Come,” she said, “I will show you the man you’re looking for.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple—dead."

What in the heck! How many women of the bible are this cool? Seriously?! She literally killed the leader of this massive army, who murdered and oppressed the Israelites for years, single-handedly. That is insane. And at first your like, wow way to go Jael! But then you start to wonder, why did she even let him in her tent to begin with? I mean this guy is evil, cruel, ruthless. And she goes right out to great him and invites him in.

But honestly it's not all that crazy. We let Satan in our minds all the time. He comes knocking with lies, shame, fears, insecurities, pride, anxiety, depression, and we meet him saying "Come, my Lord". I'm not accusing anyone of worshiping Satan, but by letting fear and anxiety and depression rule and control our thoughts and actions, aren't we are giving them lordship?

When I keep my opinions silent out of fear, fear is ruling me.
When I keep sin hidden because of shame, shame is ruling me.
When The Lord asks me to love my enemies and I refuse out of pride, pride is ruling me.
When I reject a calling on my life to lead because of insecurities from my past, insecurity is ruling me.
When I choose to isolate myself, rather than immerse myself in community because of depression, depression is ruling me.

We entertain the enemy of our soul in the confines of our mind, because there it is hidden, there no one can see. We let him in, we let him rule.

The lies sound something like this "No one will understand" "These people are more spiritual than you" "They will think less of you if you tell them that" "You are better than these people" "You can't do something like that with your past" "You're the problem" "They couldn't love you" "Think of everything you've done" "What if" "They wont notice if you don't go" "They don't care" "They don't deserve forgiveness" "You'll never be free of that" "You'll never be good enough"

It seems innocent at first, harmless. You let yourself get anxious once and justify it because of the circumstance. You turn to depression once because your situation this one time is just too much. You let yourself get angry once because you were legitimately injured. You don't share your struggles with your friend this one time because they seem to be doing so much better than you.

You have to kill the lies. You don't keep feeding into the lies, you don't keep protecting the lies. Jael is not better than us. She made that exact same mistake we make over and over again. But for whatever reason, for Jael, one mistake, was one too much. She took a hammer and a peg and beat Satan's head in with one swift blow. She didn't flick the lies away. She didn't hide the lies. She didn't ask them politely to 'please leave' and 'try the tent next door'. She didn't try to manage the lies. She killed them.

If we don't kill the lies, they will grow, and start manifesting themselves all over our lives.

I entertained a lie back in November. It was something like "You are the problem" and it just opened this door of insecurity and hurt. I didn't kill the lie. I thought I did. I spoke a little truth over myself and then just stopped thinking about it. A few weeks ago, that lie came back up. And I experienced the insecurity it brought at a whole new level.

"When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. "
 -Matthew 12: 43

At first the insecurity was just in relation to one relationship. Then, it started effecting me in other relationships. Then insecurity started affecting me at work, a place I normally feel more than confident. I started getting really nervous when I had to talk to people. When I dropped off food at a table I would stumble and stutter through the description.

One day I finally started just confessing the overwhelming feeling of insecurity I was struggling with to a friend and I said "I feel like I am the problem". It felt like the first time I had ever said it. The next morning I was flipping through my journal looking for something completely unrelated and I saw an entry dated back in November and in the middle of the page I wrote "I feel like the problem".

The same lie. My mouth dropped. I never killed the lie, and so it came right back.

Why is it we would rather believe anything accept what Jesus has to says to us.
He says you are redeemed, but we would rather believe were still worthless.
He says you are dearly loved, and we would rather believe were abandoned.
He says have peace for I am with you, and we would rather run around with anxiety thinking were on our own.
He says you belong to me, I bought you, and we would rather think were alone and unwanted.
He says I forgive you and I have cast your sins as far as the east is from the west, and we would rather think our sins are still around, haunting us, defining us, condemning us.

What is up with that? If we want to be victors, we have to stop being victims. Being a victim is easy. It requires nothing on our part except pouting, and blaming, and waiting. Being a victor however, it takes courage, it takes going hammer and peg against lies of the enemy, it takes active faith.

Freedom is a process. Isn't that a relief. If it was a one time thing we'd all be failures. Like man I was thought I was free last week but then I messed up, guess I wasn't free, I'll try again when I read another awesome blog post. Lol no. It's a process, as in it takes daily believing in who the Lord says you are, it takes daily murdering the lies of the enemy, it takes daily faith in the fact that you are who the Lord says you are, even when you don't feel like the kind of person the Lord says you are.

I don't always feel like I'm forgiven. I don't always feel like I've been washed clean.

Pastor Gregg said it perfectly at church the other day "We have to worship God past the adrenaline and endorphins".

My feelings are fleeting, but god is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He hasn't changed, his word hasn't changed. Do you know how much and how often my feelings change? One hour ago I was laughing, thirty minutes ago I was tired, ten minutes ago I was hungry, five minutes ago I wanted to stop writing. If you had a choice to stand on a giant rock in the middle of the ocean or stand on a wobbly wooden flank, wouldn't you want to stand on the rock? I'm going to go with God's word because it hasn't changed.

Confession is key. Notice Sisera told Jael to lie. He said 'When people come asking for me, tell them I'm not here." Satan always tries to keep us in isolation. You know why? Because a lie un-confronted, will be accepted as truth. People use to believe that when you left raw meat out for days, and bug larva appeared, that was a result of spontaneous combustion. That after a certain amount of time, the meat would spontaneously create bug larva.

When did people stop believing that? When someone proved that it wasn't true. When I confess that I'm believing a lie, my friend who loves Jesus can prove it's a lie by reminding me of the truth of what Jesus says.

It's easy for us to get caught up in the lies, and start thinking because it feels true, because our actions seem to make it true, it is true. That's why we need to be in the word, that's why we need to confess with our dearest friends, or mentors, the lies we are hearing. So we can defeat lies with truth.  Light casts out darkness.

We have to let the light of God's truth invade the darkness of Satan lies so we can walk forward in freedom. Lies are just another form of bondage, holding us back.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-2

We can't run the race if were chained to the starting line. We can't run the race if were constantly believing we are still the same person of our past. We can't run the race if we stand paralyzed by lies. We can only run the race if we set our eyes on Jesus, and what he says about us. So get the enemy out of your tent. Let Jesus in, let your friends in, they wont be overwhelmed by the mess, they'll help you pick it up.

"...put off your old self,which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." - Ephesians 4:22-24