Introduction
“Christians who walk in rejection and dwell in their past, not forgiving those who have erred against them, will be emotionally weak against any attack of the adversary. Often they go from one prayer line to another, one personal prophecy to another, seeking the ultimate will of God or personal affirmation to lift their spirits. Yet in a short time, they have settled back into a condition of depression and oppression. I have seen individuals place the blame for their emotional roller coaster on others who have hurt them…”
- Perry Stone, Jr.
The Meal that Heals
One of the things I like to say when I get up in front of people to teach is applicable here: “Do not believe everything this man is telling you!” You’re not supposed to believe me, just because I took years to write this down. I like what my kinsman, the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 2:12: “So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (ASV)[1]
Deuteronomy 29:29”The secret things belong unto the LORD (Jehovah hÃOwhÌy) our God (Elōhim £yihÈlé'): but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (KJV) [2]
Proverbs 25:2 “It is the glory of God (Elōhim £yihÈlé') to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings [the believer] is to search out a matter.”
We spend so much of our lives looking for affirmation to lift our spirits. Biblically speaking, we are made in the image of God, so it is no wonder that everything about us comes under attack at some point.
If there is one thing Satan cannot tolerate, it is the fact that we look like the one who made us. It is a constant reminder to him of his failure and ultimate judgment by God. Keeping us beaten down, irrelevant in our personal and work lives is one part of the plan, which also makes us less and less relevant to God in His Kingdom work on earth. If Satan and his kingdom can keep us living in rejection and discouragement we will not be good friends, husbands and fathers; good models to those outside of the Kingdom who need us to live lives of Godly love and compassion, expressing the very image of His love poured out for us. God is love.
Satan does everything he can to keep us from loving ourselves, loving others and loving our God. God loves and accepts us without reservation, no matter who we are or what we have done.
Satan and his kingdom have put together marriages and destroyed them. He often makes people into a family so he can dominate and destroy them with each other, generation after generation. Just look around you at the rampant child abuse, spousal abuse, bitterness between siblings and parents, and more. And when things start looking up inside a family what happens from outside? Things like work stress, loss, pain and rejection from others, life’s circumstances, and predators of all sorts. Jesus warned about the plan against us when He said in Luke 12,
“I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.” Luke 12:49-53
Having had thousands of years to study humanity, Satan and his cohorts know which buttons to press and when, to get us to act and react in response to their conditioning.
A pretty disturbing thought, isn’t it?
It is especially disturbing if you follow it though to its ultimate conclusion: he is trying to take as many of us with him as he can to his final resting place in the Lake of Fire
So what is the answer? How do we escape the destructive cycle?
Paul said it best in Romans 7:21–8:4
“I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
In other words, “God holds the trump card.”
There is more to the story. You can’t understand fully what Jesus did for us, or why He did it, unless you understand the heart of the One who sent Jesus. This book is about Him, the one we call Abba, Father…or is it?
Tomorrow, Chapter 1.
If you don't want to wait, get the entire book here:
[1] For simplicity, I use the King James Version of the Bible, unless otherwise noted
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.
[2] The English language form of the Hebrew Keys I teach are only applicable in the Old Testament. The New Testament has its own and separate key system for Greek.
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