Recently, I have been dealing with and trying to help people who hold thoughts that are simply not true. They think they are failures, they think they have sinned so badly God cannot use them or help them, that God is struggling to forgive them or love them. What struck me about these situations is that everyone involved in them was praying about the situation over and over but it wasn’t helping them. No amount of prayer, desperate prayer, intense prayer, loud prayer, was getting them into a place of victory.
This is because prayer is not the key to freedom, it is the key to intimacy. The key to freedom – the only key to freedom – is truth. Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. What will the truth set you free from? From lies such as you are useless that God doesn’t love you and you cannot win and be a success. It is truth that sets you free – when you know it!
As soon as we know and receive the truth, it brings us to freedom – the freedom to be victorious, the freedom from fear, from worry, from depression, from pain, from sickness, from poverty, from selfish sinful habits.
The truth will set you free (John 8.32). Now, listen – this is not about knowing the truth about the trouble. Some Christians spend their lives trying to find out the truth about their trouble – they will study their sickness, google their financial situation, go see a therapist to learn about why they get angry and afraid. If we dig deep into our subconscious we will know the truth about our trouble and that truth will set us free? No, that’s not going to work. It’s not the truth about trouble – it’s the truth from the Word about who God is, what He has done for us, in us, and who we are in Him, that sets us free. That’s the truth we need to study and discover. When you know that you are one with Christ, you start to live like Christ. It’s that simple.
The big tragedy, especially in the UK, is so many Christians and churches and even denominations, even the tongue-talking, Spirit-filled, demon-casting out, blood washed, Bible believing Christians, are obsessed with finding out more about their troubles. They want all the truth about their troubles, and they go digging. I know a lady who went to a week long conference, that cost her hundreds and hundreds of pounds to go to. They “discovered” she had over 400 demons, and for a fee, cast them all out. I said what is it like being free, she said I’m not free, I am going back next year to get more demons out of me. And paying all that money again, I’m sure. It reminds me of the physicians that the woman with the issue of blood saw and spend all her money on and grew worse. Because the quality of truth offered and known by most Christians is so low, and so trouble focused, they lose all hope that they can ever change and be free. When I tell people that if they know the truth about God to be free, they struggle to believe that it can be that simple to know the truth and get answers and move from defeat to victory, from sin to holiness, from death to life, from sickness to health, from poverty to riches.
You need to hear the truth until you see God differently, until you see yourself differently. That’s the truth that sets you free. The truth of your identity in Christ, the truth of who you are. That’s the only way to freedom. If someone is sick, they need to listen to the Word on healing – not study their sickness or doctor’s reports, if someone is poor, they need to listen to the Word, not some secular financial management class.
We need the Holy Spirit to bring the truth to us, and see God differently, see God Biblically, see ourselves Biblically. Then just by knowing that in our heart – just by having the revelation – it will empower you to walk in freedom.
Knowing the truth is more than just an intellectual, tick box, nod of the head knowing, it is living by what you know above your feelings and opinions. You have to learn to see yourself above your worries and doubts, and live by faith in the reality of what God says about you. Then temptation comes but you don’t open the door because you know that’s not who you are.
We all live in a negative, foolish, sinful, selfish world, a world defeated and hopeless. We have to know the truth on a deep level so that the negativity of the world does not mean we have to stop living positive. We need to meditate on the truth, so we are lights shining in the world. We become the peers that set the pressure, immune from peer pressure!
And it’s not just the world, we have a spiritual enemy, the devil, who comes to steal, kill and destroy – how does he do that? He only has one weapon – lies. He encourages you to believe the lies of your feelings rather than the word of the living God, because satan knows if you live the truth, you live free – free from him and his realm!
Now – don’t blame it all on the devil, you have sided with him again and again, you are weak, we all are – so we all need to focus on the Word, find out who God is, find out the truth of our identity and let that truth be rooted so deep in us, it sets us free.
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