Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? Amos 3:3
The somewhat familiar passage from the Book of Amos listed above, embodies an important principle in the spiritual realm. Basically, it states that those who are in agreement with one another form some kind of unity – they walk together. That’s because there is no neutral ground in the spiritual realm. You are either with Jesus or against him. He declared, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Mt.12:30). There is no “unaffiliated” category in the unseen realm. You are either a believer or an unbeliever. There is no “agnostic” box on the ballot.
Because of that, agreement is critical to our relationship with God. That’s why James warned the “double-minded,” who were trying to live with only a partial commitment to the Lord and his standards, by saying, “That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does” (Ja.1:7-8). Being double-minded is not just about whether I believer there is a God or not or whether I believe that Jesus died for my sins. It more often falls in the category of whether or not I believe God’s word is true for me.
Most Christians, if asked, would immediately declare that they believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and is, therefore, true. Knowing what is true is critical because Jesus taught that the truth will set is free. And yet, my experience is that many, many Christians are not free. They are still in bondage to past hurts and past mistakes. They still walk under a cloud of rejection and condemnation. They still feel insignificant and unworthy. They still do not feel the love of God and often medicate their emotional pain with some addiction. These good people love God, pray, and attend church on a regular basis and yet can’t seem to break free from their pain and their pasts.
It is also my experience that, on a personal level, they do not believe God’s word for them. In conversations or counseling sessions, they often respond to the promises of God with, “Yes, but…” When God’s word declares his love for them, his provision, or their value and significance in Christ, they reject that truth for them. The issue is that they give their emotions, the wounding words of mothers or father, or the lies of the enemy more authority than the word of God. As they “disagree” with God’s word they unknowingly agree with Satan and through that agreement he gains a foothold in their life. The underlying belief in their objections is that if their feelings don’t agree with God’s word, then his word is not true…at least not for them. It is a trap that prevents many of God’s people from experiencing the freedom that Jesus has purchased for them. Remember that the blessings of heaven are accessed by faith.
The path to healing and freedom often must begin with a decision of the will to declare that God’s word is true regardless of our feelings. It’s good to confess that our emotions and automatic thoughts don’t line up with the Word as long as we stand on the truth that we are in error rather than scriptures – that our emotions are liars rather than God. Our prayer and our confessions must be aimed at bringing our feelings and automatic thoughts into alignment with God’s word rather than distorting his word to match our emotions.
The key to realignment is the renewal of our minds and the revelation of the Spirit in our hearts. The renewal of our minds will come with a constant expression of God’s truth through our own verbal declarations, meditation, conversations, writing the scriptures, memorization, etc. It is how we establish new neural pathways in our minds and extinguish old pathways that contain and prompt our automatic thoughts. At a deeper level, we need the Spirit to give us a revelation of those truths in our hearts as we pray for that revelation and listen to his voice. As we renew our minds through the Word, that truth eventually seeps down into our hearts where the real issues of life reside. Revelation, however, seems to be a moment when the Holy Spirit bypasses our intellect and deposits God’s truth in our hearts. When that happens, God’s truth overrides the lies the enemy or life has written there.
It all hinges, however, on our first and persistent decision to give God’s word more authority than our own feelings, hurtful words, wounds from the past, and our old thought patterns, which often contain lies from the enemy. Think about your agreement. Where are you agreeing with Satan more than God? Wherever we would say, “Yes, but,” concerning God’s word and his promises for us, there is a pocket of unbelief. Those pockets can give Satan a foothold, which eventually becomes a stronghold. Ask the Holy Spirit and your spiritual mentors to point out the “Yes, buts” in your life. Apply the word of God to those places and give God’s word more authority than those old familiar feelings and beliefs. It is your first step to freedom.
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