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April 23 - August 4, 2024
“The reason you will not be talking,” the Troll continued, “is because when you are talking, I am not talking. And when I am not talking, you are not listening. And if you are not listening, then you are not learning. So your goal for the next year, if you remain with me that long, is to keep your mouth shut, listen, and learn. If you can do that, you might live through this. Got it?” I nodded my head again but I was thinking, Did I just hear a really good sermon on prayer?2
Jesus didn’t preach formulaic, chapter-and-verse sermons to his followers. He didn’t lead them through a linear outline of propositional truth points. He spent time with his disciples, asking a lot of questions and telling a lot of stories—stories that we are still trying to understand today.
You see, a person doesn’t learn to abide. A person abides and then learns what happens as a result of abiding.
When a person in a conversation such as this asks “What’s your identity?” it’s good to have an answer. Christians are good at talking about stuff that they don’t ever really experience. Sometimes this can be a form of lying. “Well, my identity is militant peacemaker,” I said to the driver. “Wow,” he said.
The room was silent. Then he looked at the speaker and said, “I’ve wanted to believe this my whole life; I just didn’t know we were allowed to. Yes, I agree.”
We grew up thinking confession was just telling everyone and God that we’re sorry about stuff. But “I’m sorry” doesn’t lead to transformation. Confession is telling God the truth about what you really believe about him, yourself, and others. It’s the greatest act, a sacrament. God loves honest confession.
That’s confession. Remorse is not repentance. Confession activates repentance. Repentance is changing the way you think, turning and going a new way.
When you picked up this book, you brought all kinds of false beliefs with you.
He asks you to give him permission to run your life, and you say yes by believing his deceptions: “I’m not good enough,” “Nothing will ever change,” “I’m stuck in this situation,” “God will never use me,” “I’m alone in this mess,” and so on. The enemy is ruling your life, and you become what you believe.
Here we are, in your presence, Lord, and we ask, God, that you would silence the enemy around us in our mind and in our life. We’re so used to listening to the enemy and the world and our flesh all the time. Silence the voices, we pray in the name of Jesus.
This exchange produces honest confession. The Lord loves you.
We’re not in a counseling session; we’re in a truth-telling session.
In accountability groups, we’re asked, “Did you look at pornography?” Either we lie, say no, and feel guilty, or we tell the truth, say yes, and feel guilty. Afterward they say, “Thanks for coming, see you next week.” What is that? That’s Satan’s accountability group.
“How do you have time to look at pornography if you’re living out your true identity? You know why you’re looking at pornography? Because you feel unworthy. You don’t know your true identity, so you’ve lost track of what is meaningful in life. You know what your identity has become? Shame. Fear. Guilt. But these are false identities that only feel true.”
kill lions and write poetry but only the true David is a shepherd-poet-warrior-king filled with the Spirit of God.
In the same way, the real you can accomplish things. But the true you can do . . . well, you don’t even know. You have no idea. Whatever level you find yourself within this world, you can go higher.
It didn’t sound very spiritual, but I looked in the mirror, and said to the kids, “Pray that we are invisible right now. Pray that God makes us invisible.” And my kids did just that. They became excited, raising their hands and repeating their prayer: “God help us to be invisible, make us invisible.” As we prayed, I began to think that maybe this was a good idea after all. We didn’t have sticks and broken glass, but we felt a surge of authority and power. Donna and I joined in asking God to make us invisible to the mob. The crowd came down the street to where we were the only car in the middle
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Self-protection and self-preservation are always the strategy of a fearful person and an indicator of the false self taking charge.
it never takes faith to believe what’s false. Never. But it does take faith to believe what’s true.
Jesus isn’t so much teaching people what to do in a given situation as he is teaching them how to know what to do in every situation—ask and keep on asking,
Satan’s desire, whether you believe in Satan or not, is that you live your life making guesses, mostly wrong, about who you are, who God is, and who your neighbor is. You end up guessing your way through life and doing the best you can. That’s one way to live—most people do it that way—but it’s not a great way to live. You might survive with this strategy, but you will not thrive.
So when we talk about obeying God, let’s think beyond rule following to hearing God and responding appropriately. Of course, it stands to reason that if we’re not listening to God, it’s difficult to respond appropriately.
“We do not find our true self by seeking it. Rather, we find it by seeking God.”
Do we separate people into categories? The word category is from the Greek word kategoros that means “to accuse.” Revelation 12:10 names Satan as “the accuser of our brethren.” Do we categorize people rather than affirm the beauty and uniqueness of God’s creation?
We are also following the example of Jesus. He doesn’t want us to just imitate him. He is modeling for us how to know. He could hear from the Father and see what the Father was doing, so he knew what to do, where to go, who to talk to, who not to talk to, and when to walk away. He is modeling to us how to know.
Is it okay to ask God if you’re going to win? What do you think? Are you too shy to ask? I don’t know if winning is important to you or what race you are running. I do know I want to win my race. I’m not saying winning means I achieve a certain thing. I just want to win. Do you think Jesus came to earth thinking, I’m not sure if I want to win; that might be prideful. He came to win. Peter didn’t understand Jesus’s way of winning; that’s why he wanted Jesus to avoid the cross.37 Perhaps Peter was thinking something like this: “Jesus, I know you’re committed to God and all, but I think the cross
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Mindfulness and self-affirmation involve sweeping your house clean and trying to keep the enemy out by sheer willpower. It might work for a moment, but it isn’t lasting transformation that sets a person free.
Children today are getting their identity from friends and social media because parents are getting their identity from what they do, what they have, and what people think of them.
David’s brother doesn’t want to be afraid, so he projects hostility onto the person asking the question. This is what fearful people do—blame others for their fear.
Why would I receive hostile critique from an angry person when I have the edifying, constructive critique of the Holy Spirit available to me?
Kids are bullied because they have no identity, and they’re getting their identity from the bully. That’s chronic in America because America doesn’t have any identity.
“What am I frustrated about? What’s her motivation? She’s trying to help me. Why am I upset? I’m upset because she woke me up and inconvenienced me.” If I pray and ask God, “Please wake me up at night to talk to me,” would God say, “I don’t want to inconvenience you. You get mad when your wife does it. Why would I do it?”
Moses was never afraid of Pharaoh,
Moses takes the bait and kills the Egyptian taskmaster, and for the first time in his life, Moses becomes afraid of Pharaoh. He also exchanges his true identity as a deliverer of oppressed people for that of a murdering exile. Moses is effectively banished from leadership for forty years because his ego got the better of him.
attention, awareness, annunciation, and then action.
“God, what do you want me to know and what do you want me to do?” It’s very straightforward and as undramatic as we can make it.
