Last night I helped someone recover wonderful truths out of God’s Word that had been stolen from them through their life. Let me share with you what happened and see if this relates to you as well.
God, in His love for us, has given us His Word, full of wonderful truths that set us free, since it is the truth that sets us free.
“You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” John 8:32
However the devil, who is a liar, wants to ‘steal, kill and destroy’ those things that are precious gifts from God to you. One way the enemy does that is by damaging or trashing those things that are God’s gifts to you.
The analogy I thought of is of you receiving a new car. Yet, before you can touch the car, you have to watch someone race it madly, crashing it into things, splashing mud, trashing the interior, damaging the motor and leaving you with a wreck that blows smoke, has flat tyres, looks terrible and smells worse.
When you are given the keys you don’t even want to open the door. Something you should delight in, is an offence to you. If someone suggests you need to spend more time driving your car, the thought repulses you. You don’t even want to think of the car, let alone get into it.
My friend’s issue is that they had been given a damaged idea of forgiveness. They were told that forgiveness is a bible truth they have to apply, and they were ordered to forgive an offender who kept on offending. If they ever tried to deal effectively with the offences being committed they were beaten over the head (so to speak) with the demand that they must ‘forgive’ and thus give up all right to bring up the subject.
This was only one of a number of pains the person was put through in younger life. Now, many years later, they react and struggle with the idea of ‘forgiveness’ because the notion of forgiving someone had been abused, trashed, misused and applied in the most inappropriate way so many times over many years.
The idea of ‘forgiveness’, which is a wonderful truth to set us free, a lovely gift to us from God, is something the person felt like despising and rejecting. It was like the car I described, as a gift that had been so badly abused it was an offence, not a precious thing to be appreciated.
It may be that a number of precious Bible truths, which are God’s personal gifts to you, have been wrongly applied on you over the years, until you have come to despise or distrust those things. That’s exactly how the devil wants it to be for you. He doesn’t want you receiving, enjoying and applying Bible truths that will set you free. So he sets you up, to distract you from their true value, through religious people with doctrines
that deny God’s true intent, or religious people who wrongly apply those things or through
New Age reinterpretation, or through well meaning people who apply half truth instead of the whole counsel of scripture.
When we think the thoughts of God, and have the mind of Christ, we can see Bible truth clearly and apply it powerfully to our lives. But if we are stuck with human thought and interpretation, or the devil’s twisted abuse of Bible truth, we are denied the wonderful gifts God freely offers us in His Word.
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8,9
“Who has known the mind of the Lord, to be able to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” 1Corinthians 2:16
My friend had suffered under religious people who demanded compliance to Bible instruction, without caring for the wrongs committed or the pain of those suffering. Things like forgiveness, accountability, repentance and the like were wrongly applied, so those committing evil could be let off. Sadly it was the helpless, including women and children, who suffered.
As I prayed with my friend I led them to give to God all the wrong and distorted ideas they had come to hold about these Bible truths. Then to ask God to remove the wrong concepts and to restore the original gifts of truth for them. That would be like asking for the trashed and damaged car to be repaired and restored to new condition, so it was again a wonderful gift to delight in.
Once the car is restored to a pretty, perfect car, carrying all the delight of a gift and suiting the purposes of the receiver perfectly, then it would no longer be something to be ashamed of or avoid. It would not longer cause pain at the very thought of the thing.
So, for you, let me assure you that everything God offers you in His Word is a Treasured Truth. If you don’t think it is, then you have likely had that truth stolen from you or damaged by the enemy.
Such things as humility, praying, repentance, forgiveness, relying on God, confessing sins, praise, Bible reading, giving, fasting, faith, filling with the Holy Spirit, fruit of the Spirit, armour of God, Gifts of the Spirit, preaching, attending church, fellowship, care and love for one another, are all lovely gifts that release God’s grace.
But the enemy, through religious ideas, controlling people, new age reinterpretations, occult practices, selfishness, deception, abuse and many other things, has caused people to despise these things as if they are toxic.
If that’s you, then let me assure you God’s gifts are wonderful. And let me encourage you to recognise that you have been damaged and cheated along the way, to keep you from the precious things God has for you.
Bring your broken ideas and your pains to God and ask God to restore to you a true understanding of these wonderful truths. And, as a servant of God who has come to see the lovely grace in God’s Word, may you have these treasures restored and be free to go about Restoring Treasured Truths.
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