Today’s blog is a very practical slice of spiritual warfare.  I spent a little time today with a man who loves the Lord and serves him well but has been tormented lately by memories from his past that carry strong feelings of shame and unworthiness.  Those thoughts tend to make him feel as if God can’t use him to do significant things in the kingdom.

Those thoughts are projected by demonic spirits.  One of Satan’s primary strategies is to make us feel disqualified from God’s love, service and blessings.  Most of us struggle with our self-image due to our childhood experiences of rejection, neglect, abuse, and criticism.  Satan preys on that insecurity about who we are.   We know what the Bible says about God’s forgiveness, love, and acceptance of us. In spite of that, spirits of condemnation, accusation and shame find their way in and begin to amplify the feelings we already have of “not being enough.” When the thoughts begin to persist and get stronger, we need to deal with the source of those thoughts -accusing spirits.  Command them to leave.  We then need to know what God says about us and give that truth more authority in our lives than our flesh or the devil. 

To keep these spirits from returning, we need to thicken and heighten the walls that protect us from the lies of the enemy.  Other than the blood of Christ, truth is one of our greatest weapons.  Every temptation from the enemy begins with a lie and lies can eventually hold us captive.  But Jesus declared, “Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (Jn.8:32).

Knowing who we are in Christ is a great defense against the spirits that come to accuse, condemn and shame us.  If you struggle with these issues, I invite you to read the following declarations out loud every day for sixty days.  It takes that long to establish these truths in your heart. When his truth settles into your heart, it is truly transformative. Knowing your identity in Christ and believing it in your heart disarms the enemy and foils many of his schemes against us.  We use this set of declarations in our Free Indeed ministry and it has proven to be one of the most powerful tools God has given us.  Please use it.


Declaration of Faith – My Position in Christ

These descriptors are what God says is true about you.  You must give his word more authority in your life than your emotions, “parent tapes,” etc.  Declaring these verbally and consistently helps to write them on your heart.

In the name of Jesus …

I renounce the lies of Satan and his accusations that come against me. I renounce the lies that I am bound up in my brokenness, weak, worthless, and displeasing to my Heavenly Father. In the name of Jesus and by his blood, I renounce shame, worthlessness, inadequacy, rejection, guilt, accusation and condemnation. In Jesus Christ, I am totally loved, totally forgiven, totally accepted, totally valued, and totally competent.

In the Name of Jesus and according to the Word of God, I now declare that . . . 

• I am a beloved and blood bought child of God.  (Jn. 1:12, Jn. 3:16)
• I have been chosen as a personal friend of Jesus Christ.  (Jn. 15:5)
• I have been declared innocent of all sin by the blood of Christ. (Rom. 5:1)
• I am joined with Christ and his Spirit and I am made holy by that union. (I Cor. 6:17)
• I am highly valued.  I have been bought at an incredible price and belong totally to him. (1 Cor.6: 19, 20)
• I am a member of the body of Christ, designed by God, gifted by God, and placed exactly where he wants me so that I may fulfill the destiny He has ordained for me.  (I Cor. 12:27; Ps. 139:13-16; Eph. 2:10; I Cor. 12:18
• I am, in fact, a saint, a holy one of God. (Eph. 1:1)
• I lack nothing for godliness and love because I have been made complete in Jesus Christ. (Col. 2:10)
• Any condemnation is a lie from the evil one.  I am free forever from all condemnation (Rom.8:1).
• I am totally united to the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing can separate me from that love.  (Rom. 8:35-39)
• I am a child of God.  I am established by Christ, anointed by his Spirit, and sealed by the King.  (2 Cor. 1:22-23)
• I am a beloved child of God.  I can come before his throne of grace with boldness at any time and expect help in time of need. (Heb. 4:1)
• I am a bold in Christ because I have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love, and self – control. (2 Tim 1: 7)
• I am a branch of the true vine, Jesus Christ.  His power, love, and grace flow to me and through me as I bear fruit in his kingdom. (Jn. 15:1, 5)
• I am a minister of reconciliation, made competent to serve by the Spirit and power of God.  (2 Cor. 5:17-21)
• I am a new creation, a servant of righteousness, and free from the power of sin. (2 Cor. 5:17)
• I am, in every circumstance, more than a conqueror though Jesus Christ. (Rom. 8: 37)
• I am loved and treasured. Since God is for me, who can stand against me? (Rom. 8:3l)
• I am never alone because God has said, “No matter what, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.  (Heb. 13:5)
• I am appointed and anointed to fulfill my great destiny in Jesus Christ. (1Jn.2:26-27, Ps.139:17) 

I am absolutely loved, totally accepted, and worthy in Christ. I am royalty in the household of God, personally chosen by Jesus Christ, holy, and destined for greatness in Him. In the name of Jesus, I renounce all lies to the contrary and in his name and by his blood, renounce and nullify all curses and judgments that have been spoken against me contrary to God’s declared truth.  Holy Spirit, write these truths on my heart today for every circumstance…in Jesus’ name.  Amen

Be blessed….tom v

How many stories and movies have been written about people hunting for buried or sunken treasure? How many people have purchased metal detectors to search for lost coins or ancient artifacts in abandoned fields. Something in us identifies with Indiana Jones or Captain Jack Sparrow or real life treasure hunters digging through Egyptian pyramids to find the next “King Tut tomb” or those diving for lost Spanish galleons hoping to find a king’s ransom in gold. There is a hankering in each of us that hungers to discover something as big as a lost city or some small, unnoticed treasure sitting in the dark corner of a dusty antique shop off the beaten path.

This desire is such a universal phenomenon in the hearts of men and women that God must have placed it there. Solomon declared, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings” (Prov. 25:2). The proverb suggests that God hides some things in order for us to discover them like parents placing Easter eggs in unlikely locations. When he commanded Adam and Eve to subdue the earth and take dominion over it, I believe part of that command included the idea of discovery…new lands, new technologies, new scientific principles, new strategies for solving problems, etc.

When we discover something new, unearth a treasure, or solve a baffling problem we feel immense excitement and pleasure. God’s intention was that we would all search for truth. There are two kinds of truth in the universe. The first is discovered truth. That is the province of science. How did God make things, how do they work, how do we work, how can we partner with God’s design to do good in an earth plagued by war, disease and poverty? Good science discovers the things God hid in his creation for us to search out. There is no contradiction between good science and faith. All truth belongs to God and if it is true, it is God’s truth. Scientific discoveries guided by godly principles bring amazing blessings to this damaged world.

The second kind of truth cannot be found in a lab or examined under a microscope. It is revealed truth that comes to us by the Holy Spirit. This truth cannot be found apart from God, but is a treasure that exceeds all the gold and silver in all the sunken ships and ancient tombs in the world. The writer of proverbs declared, “My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Prov. 2:1-6).

The Holy Spirit counsels us to seek revelation about God and from God as we would seek hidden treasure. Jesus likened the kingdom of God to a man finding a treasure in a field and then selling all that he had to buy the field and obtain the treasure. God wants us to give into the hunger within us to find hidden riches as long as we remember that he is the greatest treasure. Our bible study, our prayer, our worship and our spiritual discernment should have the expectation of discovery and the payoff of delight when we discover something new about God, his word, or his kingdom. There is nothing better than an “Aha!” moment with God when his truth is written on our heart as a revelation of the Spirit rather than a pondering of our own intellect. Perhaps, our constant prayer should be that God reveal the treasures that he has hidden in the spiritual realm, so that we might grow closer to him, experience the excitement of discovery, and walk in is understanding and knowledge of life. May we all be treasure hunters as well as disciples.

This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is his name: ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Jeremiah 33:2-3