Finding Your Freedom // Leave Shame Behind預覽

Prison of Resignation

There is more for you—more than this place of worry and stagnation. You have decided you are not okay, but yet you don’t take a step to try to change. You recognize how your choices led you to where you are now. You have regret about the past. But you don’t like to think about all this too much. You tell yourself you’re practical, realistic. But really, you doubt things in your life could ever change. So you silence your heart, push away hope, refuse to wonder if there could ever be another way.

There is a stubbornness in you, a hard-heartedness. It is a power like complacency, but it is worse: it is resignation. You have become resigned to living life the way you have always lived it. You admire the choices of others—noticing the joy and freedom they seem to have. But you are resigned to your fate. You have so little faith that things in your life will change. 

Because there is so much you feel you can’t control, you assume nothing is what you can control. You have chosen powerlessness as your excuse. It brings you comfort, in its twisted way, because it explains, you think, why things in your life are the way they are now. You are convinced of this: you are powerless to change your circumstances. you are powerless to have a different mindset, you are powerless to choose a different way of living. You have let your attitude, your perception, about your life be a noose around your neck. Your own warped perception is killing your hope in a life that could be so different than this one. You’re worshipping a life that lacks freedom, lacks faith, and you refuse to believe that there is a different way to approach life. This resignation makes you blind to Me.

I am powerful, daughter, son. I am not contained by the rules of this twisted kingdom. It is not my own. My kingdom, my power, my love, my hope, my joy, my freedom and light and resurrection power is available to you, here, now, if you want it. You don’t have to wait. You don’t have to let this spirit of resignation control you. You don’t have to let its fingers tighten around your neck, pushing you into the corner, trapped, so you can barely breathe. Why do you wait? Why do you choose death instead of life? Why do you not see I am here, right here, asking you if you want my love to fill you?

I stand here, outside the door, knocking. And your heart doesn’t let Me in. Rather, you want to stay in the room by yourself, the death of resignation clouding your vision, your hope. But you could let Me in. Right here, right now. You could let Me in and nothing would stay the same; everything would change. You would change, your mindset would change, your attitude about your life would change. This is new life. This is kingdom power. This is choosing to believe that my kingdom is more powerful than this one—that light conquerors darkness, that love destroys all doubt, all hate.

Do not hate yourself. I love you. Do not stay here, in the dark. There is good here, for you. Open the door wide now. Don’t hold back. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. For this world, this attitude, this prison is not for you. I am for you. My love is for you. Let me loosen that noose—completely destroy this mindset that keeps you trapped here. You are made for freedom, daughter, son. Leave this place. I have so much more for you.

Exercise:

The victim mindset is the belief that one’s identity is as a continual victim of bad circumstances, or of bad luck, or of bad genes, or of the bad behavior of other people. People who’ve adopted this mindset typically have been victimized and experienced trauma, on some level, at some point in the past, but they’ve also adopted an identity of victimhood—of helplessness, powerlessness, and resignation.

The victim mindset is insidious because once a person’s adopted it, it’s often difficult for them to recognize that they’ve done so. It’s what they truly believe about themselves and about the world—but they’ve also begun to enjoy the benefits. You see, because there’s always someone else, or something else, to blame for everything, the supposed victim gets to avoid all feelings of personal guilt and all sense of personal responsibility.

What people who’ve adopted the victim mindset don’t see is the harm in causes—the harm they’re doing to themselves and the harm they’re doing to others. Because this mindset stands in the way of personal growth and healing and transformation. Personal struggles, issues, and problems never get addressed—because they are always someone else’s fault—and so, they’re never overcome. And when, as a result, bitterness and hard-heartedness set in among people close to the supposed victim, those things are just more things the victim can point fingers at.

But Jesus comes to set us free—all of us. He comes now to set us free from the prisons of our own making, the prisons of our own minds—if we want Him to. He can free us from the victim mindset—if we are willing to do our parts.

You see, in God’s Kingdom here on earth, everything happens as a result of two things: grace and obedience. Grace is the power of God in our lives to do what we could never do on our own. I’m going to say that one more time: grace is the power of God in our lives to do what we could never do on our own. And obedience is simply action—action taken by us.

Jesus is standing by with as much grace as we’ll ever need. So, all we really need, is to act.

And we must. We must act. We must act in the opposite of what our feelings of resignation tells us to do. We must act in the opposite of these beliefs that things will never change. We must act according to our true identities, not as victims, but as favored sons and daughters of God.

Against “troubles, pressures, and problems,”  against “persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats,” wrote the Apostle Paul, “we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything!” That’s from Romans chapter 8 .

We have what it takes, dear friend. We are powerful. With Jesus Christ dwelling within us, we each have everything we need to push back the powers of darkness in our lives. That’s what’s true.

So, we must act.

How? Well, we can pray—because our prayers have great power. James, the brother of Jesus said so, in the book of James chapter 5, verse 16 . And we can confess our attitudes of victimhood. For if we do, we will be healed. That’s also from James 5:16 . We can confess our resignation, and our pride, and our lack of faith. We can confess our beliefs that Jesus isn’t loving enough or powerful enough to change us, or to change our circumstances. We can confess our belief that His Spirit in us isn't enough. And we can repent. We can turn our backs on our false beliefs. If we do, our sins will be “blotted out.” It says so in Acts chapter 3, verse 19 . And we can begin declare, to God and to ourselves, that we want to believe something different. That we want to live in a truth mindset, not a victim mindset. That we want to be conquerors, overcomers.

It’s time for us to reject the idea that we are helpless, powerless. It’s time for us to shake off our resignation, and to experience the freedom that is our true inheritance. It is time to come out of this prison of victimhood. It’s time to act.

Jesus, you heal broken hearts. You set us free from our wrong beliefs. And I need you to come now. I confess I’ve believed I was a victim, not an overcomer; an orphan, not a son or daughter of God. I confess I’ve believed things would never change—that Your love and Your grace wasn’t powerful enough to change me or my circumstances. But I repent of those beliefs, now. I won’t believe them any longer. I won’t live with them any longer. I won’t. But I need Your help. Fill me with Your Spirit. Fill me with the power to change. Fill me with the power to overcome. Fill me with Your love and Your truth, Your hope and Your joy. Fill me with Your freedom.

I choose life, rather than death. In Your name, Jesus, Amen.