All of us go through some hard things in life. But regardless of what You have gone through, Jesus knows what you need. He truly is the answer. The fastest way to truly see change in your life is to turn to Jesus. I’ve told my story in other articles about some of the abuse I’ve endured. The abuse started in my childhood and continued into my adult life. I was crying out for help and wanted the abuse to stop, so when I was about 35, I finally said yes to Jesus. However, I did not really believe in His power or His love for many years. So, a lot of the hardships I’ve endured have been of my own making.
After receiving Jesus, somewhat into my heart, He started filling me with His Word. I heard the Word, but what I didn’t do, as I said, was to fully believe or trust God. Some people learn the hard way. I’m realizing that if I hold onto what God’s Word says and I refuse to believe the lies Satan is trying to tell me, I find my situation changing for the better much quicker.
The one thing that I regret the most, looking back on my life, is not learning this years ago. I realize I had a lot of obstacles to overcome in my life, and Satan had lied to and deceived me for years. I had come to believe what he had told me was the truth because God didn’t stop the abuse or come to my rescue. I believed the devil’s lies that God didn’t have the power to defeat him, and that God didn’t really care. Now I know all that is just lies from the enemy.
I could have been set free from the darkness of Satan’s kingdom much earlier. You need to understand, there are only 2 options in life. Either you are serving God, or you are serving the devil. You can choose to believe what you want, but the Bible says in Matthew 6:24 “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”.
The original word for mammon in the Greek means riches (where it is personified and opposed to God). So, if you aren’t totally, wholeheartedly serving God, then Satan is your master. I found this out the hard way. My heart wasn’t totally sold out to God and for those who have been abused, I understand that it is hard to trust anybody. I just want to encourage you to make yourself hold onto God’s Word. It is the truth. If what you are being told doesn’t line up with the Bible, it is a lie from Satan.
We beat ourselves up. We don’t believe we are worthy. We are filled with shame. We feel condemned. We find ourselves going in a vicious cycle. Do you want out? Do you want to overcome? Do you want victory? I wish somebody would have told me this years ago. It isn’t some magic formula. It is believing the Bible and doing what it says.
For us women, the devil tells us we are stupid, and nobody will ever love us and so we settle for any guy that comes along. We put on rose-colored glasses and learn to ignore the red flags that tell us something isn’t right. It leads us right into a trap of abuse that Satan has for us. Eve was the one who ate the fruit and was deceived by the devil, but God gave her a promise in Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
God said there would be enmity between Satan and the woman. The Hebrew word for enmity means hatred. Satan hates the woman because she is the one who brings forth “seed”, children, who would eventually give birth to Jesus. This is why the devil doesn’t want women to know their true identity in Christ. Read Ephesians chapters 1 and 2 to see how God sees you. Don’t believe Satan’s lies. When Satan wants to bring you down, he makes you feel condemned, of no value, unlovable, ashamed.
There is a difference between being condemned and being convicted. God convicts us of our sins, to save us, not to condemn us. Know the difference and when you are feeling condemned, tell Satan that God has said in Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
I’ve found out that when the enemy wants to make me feel condemned, if I tell myself there is no condemnation in Jesus, it breaks the merry-go-round the devil wants to keep me on. If I align my life with God’s Word and stop believing anything that is not in it, I find myself able to move forward in my healing and able to grow closer to Jesus. It saves a lot of time doing it this way and saves me from having to go through the same thing over and over.
Until you do what I have done, truly giving yourself fully to Jesus, you might not understand what I’m saying, I’m praying you will let Jesus do what He wants to do in your life. Hold onto His Word. Obey it and find joy and peace coming into your life beyond understanding.
Coming out of Darkness
