They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.  Numbers 21:4-7

This text regarding the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites is well known and, to many. it seems excessively harsh.  After all, we all complain from time to time.  In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul pens a warning to the church and reminds them of the sins of Israel that cost them lives and the first generation’s entrance into the promised land. He reminds them that some of the Hebrews died as a result of idolatry, sexual immorality, and complaining (grumbling) about their circumstances.  Perhaps, we can understand the seriousness of idolatry and sexual immorality, but why would complaining stir up the wrath of God?

Remember, the tongue has the power of life and death (Prov. 18:21).  Our words matter because they have spiritual implications.  One of the most subtle, but effective strategies of the enemy is to prompt us to speak words that invite destruction.  The complaining of the Jews was not a one-time event that stirred up God’s anger.  They often complained about their circumstances in the desert, grumbling that they would have been better off in Egypt as slaves.  

The complaining constituted an accusation against God. The first recorded temptation was an accusation against God.  Satan’s subtle questions to Eve in the Garden of Eden planted seeds of belief that God wasn’t all loving, all kind, and generous after all, but withheld the best things because he did not want Adam and Eve to achieve their full potential…to be like God.
When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they came in to agreement with Satan and accepted his accusation against God in their hearts.

Israel had cried out for centuries against their enslavement in Egypt.  God heard their cries and delivered them with plagues against Pharoah, led them through the Red Sea, and revealed himself to them at Sinai. He provided manna and water in the desert and led them to the land he had promised them through Abraham. The journey from Mt. Sinai to Canaan was actually only a few weeks.  That is all the time they had to live off manna and water, but their unbelief that God would give them victory over their enemies bought them forty years of wandering in the wilderness and forty years of manna

Their incessant complaints about their circumstances were actually accusations against God…his goodness, his provision, his protection, and his generosity. You can hear the accusations of Satan in their words.  It is not enough to believe that Gods exists.  Demons believe that. Faith believes that God is good.  He is faithful.  He is mindful of our circumstances, wants what is best for us, and is always working in that direction.

When we complain, we are subtly accusing God of not caring for us, not providing what we need, not meeting our deepest wants, being unjust in allowing our circumstances, or of not being involved in our iives at all. Our complaints shape our view of God and undermine out faith. Our complaints bring us into agreement with Satan.  That agreement invites him into our home and our families. 

This prohibition of complaining does not mean I cannot acknowledge hard circumstances or suffering in my life.  The Psalms are full of laments and cries for deliverance from persecution, but the prayers were based on the belief that God did care about their circumstance and because he was loving, merciful and faithful, the answers to their cries were in the pipeline headed their way.  

Paul suffered a great deal for his faith and yet he wrote, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength: (Phil. 4:11-13). 

Paul’s contentment rested in his belief that God was always mindful of his circumstances and was working in them to bring about good. Sometimes he was perfecting something in Paul’s spirit and character. At other times he was using Paul’s circumstances to reach others, such as the Roman guards who stood by him day and night with whom he shared the gospel.  

The art of contentment is a great weapon in spiritual warfare as we focus on what we do have rather that what we don’t have.  Thank offerings were part of the Temple sacrificial system where men and women offered a sacrifice as an expression of thanksgiving to God.  Our thanksgiving, even in hard circumstances, keeps the enemy at bay and prevents us from coming into agreement with Satan about the character of our God.  

A life of thanksgiving keeps us positive and expectant. We don’t have to thank God for our suffering but we can thank him for his grace to sustain us in that season and the promise that joy comes in the morning.  We can thank him that he has solutions to our crisis and that he will bring good out of every circumstance.  We can thank him that he cares for us and has compassion for what we are going through.  We can thank him that he loves us enough to die for us.We need to be cautious about our complaints.  We must be sure that we are not, in some passive-aggressive way, accusing God of not caring or keeping his promises.

Our salvation lies in a conviction that God is good all the time, not just sometimes.  Feel free to honestly present your pain and your fears to God, but do so because you believe God cares and can help rather than as an accusation against his love for you.  Satan loves to inch into your view of God, so don’t give him an inch.  Follow Paul’s counsel: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6t-7).

For many years, one of my touchstone passages in scripture has been Isaiah 61. Let me quote it for you:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor…And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God” (Isa. 61:1-6).

This is a Messianic prophecy that Jesus reads in the synagogue and applies to himself In Luke 4. It is important for many reasons, but the reason I want to highlight today is that it reveals the heart of God for his people.  Too many people, including many believers, see God as the harsh judge waiting to catch us doing something wrong like an angry parent.  This is the propaganda Satan works diligently to spread.  We often find this lie embedded deeply in people to whom we are ministering deliverance.  Because they view God through that lens, they have taken offense at him over some disappointment for which they credit him. You can easily see how that would affect your prayer and your faith. It is impossible to warm up to that kind of God, to be intimate with Him, or even pursue him.  That is the kind of God you want to avoid or hide from rather than draw close to. 

But Jesus tells us that if we have seen him we have seen the Father.  Whatever heart Jesus has is the same heart the Father has.  God is certainly holy and just.  God disciplines his children because any father who loves his children will correct them and direct them. But he is not a distant father just waiting for us to make a mistake so he can criticize, reject, or brutalize us. He is a loving father full of compassion for those who are hurting.

This Messianic passage clarifies that view.  First of all, God sent his son with good news not condemnation.  He sought out the poor and the broken first, rather than the rich and influential. As a good shepherd he sought first the brokenhearted who had been wounded by life, rejected and betrayed. He came with a priority to heal those hearts.  He also recognized the bondage and captivity many were experiencing – addictions, sin, demonization, and so forth. He came then and he comes now with an eye for us…not to criticize but to set us free; not to say I told you so; but to show us a way out. 

He also came to reverse our fortunes.  He didn’t just come to provide some abstract pardon which we will eventually experience in heaven, but came to change things for us now as well as eternally.  Notice the language: comfort for mourning; beauty for ashes; gladness instead of sorrow; and praise instead of despair.  His goal is to restore what is broken and return what has been stolen.  Ultimately, his heart is to give us a position of honor and service in the kingdom – priests of the Lord and ministers of our God

Satan would have us run from the Father, but the heart of God is that we would run to him…with our successes and our failures, with our strengths and our weaknesses, our joys and our sorrows and even our sin. 

When we are at our worst, Satan will whisper that we should hide from God, hide from his anger and his disappointment. But Jesus whispers he already came for us when we were at our worst…impoverished, brokenhearted, and captive to the flesh and the things of the world.  The prodigal son of Luke 15 sets the true tone.   There a son has left the house, walked out on his father and squandered his inheritance.  He came home  only out of a sense of shame and desperation, hoping only to be a hired hand.  But before the son could say a word, the Father ran to him, embraced him, and restored him to his former position of honor as a son.  That is our God.

We need to know who our Father is and the heart he has for his children.  God is looking out for the fallen, the weak, the broken, and the captive.  He meets us there but doesn’t leave us there and he always extends the invitation to draw closer.  Trust Jesus when he says he and the Father are one and they have the same heart for us.  

We just concluded our Spring Free Indeed session at Mid-Cities.  This is an eight-week class equipping people for healing and freedom followed by an all-day activation of everything taught during the eight weeks. The day includes inner healing, breaking generational curses, disconnecting from toxic and sinful relationships, forgiveness, repentance, as well as deliverance.  

Year after year, as we walk believers through this process, it is always evident that a person’s identity is a primary key to overcoming the enemy and that a shattered identity is an open door for the demonic.  The most broken people and the most demonized men and women are those who feel unworthy of love, who fear rejection and abandonment, and who walk with a crippling sense of shame about who they are. They know what the Bible says about who they are in Christ, but in their hearts, they still see themselves as unworthy, unlovable, and disqualified from God’s blessings and calling.

We also see an amazing amount of transformation occur when a follower of Jesus begins to believe in their heart who God says he or she is instead of who Satan, the accuser of the brethren, says they are.  He begins his work early by wounding children through wounded adults.  Children take on a negative view of themselves through abusive or neglectful parents, a traumatic loss of loved ones, hypercritical people, molesters, rapists, and so forth.  A child inevitably believes bad things happen to them because he or she is defective, bad, or unworthy of a parent’s care and protection.  Later those views can be reinforced through abusive, critical spouses or parents that keep up the rejection and demeaning words.  

Exchanging that negative view with God’s truth about who we are in Christ is critical.  But how do we get there?  I may know what scripture says about me, but actually believing that truth in my heart and making that truth my first thought when the enemy accuses and condemns,  is the goal.  Paul addresses the issue when he says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2).  We are transformed when we renew our minds with God’s truth.  Jesus said we will know the  truth and the truth will set us free.

The Holy Spirit, of course, works through the “living and active” Word of God to bear his fruit in our lives and to reform our thinking processes.  But we have a significant part in that process. Brain research over the past few decades has revealed some amazing things about God’s creation.  Thoughts and experiences are actually contained in brain real estate called neural pathways.  These pathways contain memories, emotions, beliefs, and so on sort of like a computer stores memory.  

A computer file can be filled with information, pictures, music, etc. but sits dormant until something in the operating system calls it up and activates it.  Our neural pathways can sit dormant until something happens that is directly or even indirectly  connected to what is stored up and then the neural pathway is accessed.  The memories along with beliefs and feelings attached to those memories, come flooding back.  We call those “reminders” triggers.  Triggers can be words, actions, a tone of voice, sounds, or scenes that have some similarity to the things that initially created the pathway. PTSD episodes for soldiers are a prime example.

Unfortunately, experiences that only vaguely resemble the words and behaviors captured in the neural pathway can also set off a cascade of hurts, resentments, fears, anger, condemnation, shame etc. so that the wounded person almost relives their past hurtful experiences.  Usually, the wounded individual then blames the person who accidentally tapped into that pathway with all the pain stored up there. They assign the same motives to this new person that the perpetrator of the wounds had and relationships are typically damaged. Those revitalized feelings can reinforce the beliefs about ourselves they initially established and Satan then uses that dynamic to great advantage.

The solution is found in weakening the pathway that holds false beliefs and replacing it with a new, stronger pathway containing God’s truth.  We can’t just decide not to think those negative thoughts about ourselves anymore, but must replace them with God’s truth about who we are.  That is where the power of meditation should be employed.  Neural pathways are established through the repetition and/or intensity of experiences, words spoken, etc.

Related to identity, we can intentionally lay in new pathways by meditating on what God says is true about us.  We should read it over and over.  When we read it aloud it adds an extra dimension to the meditation.  When we write it out, that adds one more layer.  When we talk about it with friends, it goes even deeper.  Even writing with colors or attaching music to the words helps to create the new pathway more quickly.  Memorizing the scripture adds another dimension.  

The discipline in renewing the mind is found in consistent, intentional meditation on the Word of God.  When the Holy Spirit joins in the process, he can write a revelation of God’s truth on our hearts.  That is when transformation takes place by the renewing of the mind.  If we have shame, unworthiness, and rejection deeply imbedded in us, it will take more consistency and intentionality on our part to create a stronger pathway.  The psalmist declares, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers” (Ps. 1:1-3). 

After the new pathway is sufficiently laid in and empowered by the Holy Spirit, when something comes up related to our value, worth, or competence our new neural pathway is accessed and we respond as a person who is confident in our worth, our capacities, and God’s love for us.  We no longer feel wounded again or experience the pain of rejection.  Satan labors in this field daily wanting us to believe we are beyond love, beyond God’s forgiveness and disqualified from his blessings and plan for our lives.  We must be diligent to say only what God says about us Satan will reactivate the old, decayed pathway full of his lies. 

If you struggle with your identity, your self-esteem, begin to read God’s word with an eye toward seeing who the Father says you are in Christ.  Find a half dozen scriptures the Holy Spirit highlights for you and meditate on them day and night.  To become who God has called us to be, we must see ourselves as that person.  Set a goal of reading these scriptures out loud, writing them down, talking about them, singing them, etc. every day for ninety days.  You will see transformation take place in your life. Have your children do it with you!

As a pastor, it is not uncommon to speak with believers who have been “offended by God” because he didn’t act in the way they thought he should. A child died, a marriage ended in divorce, a promotion was given to someone less deserving, and cancer was diagnosed in a young woman.  All of these situations and more challenge our faith.

Here’s what we need to know.  The enemy loves to whisper that God took the child, sent the cancer, and didn’t save the marriage when he could have.  One of his primary strategies is to plant a seed of doubt in our minds about the goodness of God.  That is the first diagram in his playbook.  To entice them to sin, he sowed a seed of doubt in the minds of Adam and Eve about God’s heart for them.  He insinuated that God might be withholding good things and even the best things from them because he didn’t completely love them.   In response, they took offense at God and ate the forbidden fruit. 

It is human to hope that God keeps every crisis and every tragedy from us from the time we are born until we step across the threshold of heaven.  But that is not what we are promised. Every person of faith in scripture dealt with trials.  Jesus told his disciples, “In this world you will have trouble (Jn.16:33).  Paul reminds us, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). We will be in trouble.  We could list dozens of other scriptures that confirm our dilemma. 

Many times, God does keep tragedy and disappointment from our door.  But there are other times when we have to face the harsh realities of living in a fallen and hostile world. The promise is not a trouble-free life, but that God will meet us in our troubles and give us the grace to endure. He will then set us on a level place with seasons of blessing again.  

The difficulty is in holding on when what we are experiencing doesn’t make sense to us or rubs against our understanding of how God works. However, when things go our way and make sense, not much faith is required. Greater faith is required when we are facing that which doesn’t go our way or meet our expectations. What do we do when we believe we had faith for healing, but our loved one died anyway?  What do we do when we believe we stood on the promises of God, but our marriage dissolved in spite of that?  What do we do when we have cried out to the Lord for years but God has not yet sent us a mate or given us a pregnancy?

Those are the moments that Satan rushes in to accuse the Lord.  If we are not careful, we will believe the accusations, judge God as unjust or uncaring, and distance ourselves from him.  We may deny it, but somewhere deep within we may hold a grudge against our Creator. Our view of him will be tarnished and our prayers will lack conviction.

We will all have to face a mystery at some point about unanswered prayers.  So how do we face that moment?  We must learn to judge God on the basis of what we do understand, rather than on the basis of what we don’t understand.  When Satan comes to accuse, we must already know what we believe about God and stand on his Word and our past experiences with his faithfulness. 

I believe the definitive verse in scripture comes from the mouth of Jesus.  “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (Jn.14:9).  How much does God love us?  How much did Jesus love us?  How much is God willing to sacrifice for us to be saved?  How much was Jesus willing to sacrifice?  Is God willing to heal?  Was Jesus willing to heal?  Does God send tragedy?  Did Jesus send tragedy?  Does God drive away the imperfect and broken sinner?  Did Jesus drive them away?  

No matter what, our faith must rest not only in the power of God but also in the character and the goodness of God.  We must make up our mind about him before the accuser comes. We have to be able to say. “Even though I am disappointed and confused, I still believe God is good and that he loves me. He will see me through this and set me once again on a level place.”  

How often have we judged God to be unfair or unloving because of one prayer he didn’t answer while ignoring the hundreds that he did answer and the way he cared for us even when we had not prayed? Take note of God’s care now and all the ways he has loved you, so when the accuser comes, you can take your stand.

Job could make no sense of the tragedies that had come his way.  He asked lots of questions. He wrestled with the mystery of the loss and suffering he encountered although he was a righteous man.  But in the end, God declared that Job had not failed to speak the truth about God and so God restored his losses and blessed his life in greater ways than before his suffering. Remember the old saying, “God is good…all the time.  When we are not sure of anything else, we can be sure of that and, being sure of that, we can hold on through the fires.