Search for significance (Week 1)

Let me be real…

Imagine trying to teach others how to find their true worth only in Christ while at the same time trying to find my own worth in doing a great job teaching and making sure that you all like me. How sick is this? Well this is what happens when we follow Satan’s math.

Satan’s math

Self-worth = my performance + other people’s opinion of me

This takes the form of four false beliefs about ourselves that we will look at momentarily.

I must meet certain standards to have value and be able to accept myself.

I must have the approval of others in order to accept myself.

Those who fail should be punished, including myself.

I am what I am, I cannot change.

In moments of clarity, I can see this about myself, and I hate it! Will you join me on a journey to be free from Satan’s lies and these false beliefs and live in the truth that God has for us?

So let me ask you…who are you?

Who am I?

When you are all alone...what do you think about when thinking about yourself?

Questions we may ask ourselves

Questions we may ask ourselves:

The answers to these questions will reveal several things about yourself

Does my life have any value?

Does my life have any value?

Does my life have a purpose?

Does my life have any meaning?

Our answers reveal

How well I live with myself and others.

++How well I live with myself and others.

Our existence is determined by the way we perceive ourselves. From relationships, what we try to do, what we avoid, and the misery in our lives all comes from the sense of who we are, how we value ourselves. In short...how we deal with this math.

How I am doing in my spiritual battles.

Most Christians don't understand that they are in the middle of a conflict between God and Satan.

The battle began when Lucifer rebelled against God in heaven. Some scholars believe that tells us the fall of Satan. Satan apparently was puffed up with pride and wanted the worship which belonged to God alone. He rebelled and God cast him from heaven.

God created the world and the first people. Satan tricked Eve into rebelling against God as well, and Adam willfully joined this rebellion (). So Adam followed Stan in his rebellion. After this rebellion Satan became the god of this world (until Christ's work on the cross), see , , , and ; ; . For Christ defeated Satan on the cross (; ). Also, see http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-fall-of-satan-and-the-victory-of-christ.

How are you doing in this battle?

How I am living out my duty.

Our duty is to deal with Satan and his demons through the power of Christ. Our identity is crucial here. We are to be actively engaged in this battle. We are not supposed to be a victim of this conflict. God chose not to stop this war, so he gave us a new nature, his Spirit and the word to deal with Satan and his demons.

Whether or not I live as a victim

My identity, how I see myself, my understanding of what God did for us and with us in Christ, determines whether we live as an active participant in the battle, or a victim of the battle.

What does God say about this?

You are what God says you are.

You are not what you think you are, or even what others may say you are, rather, you are what God has declared you to be! You have an identity as a new creation.

God speaks and worlds come into existence.

At creation, God simply spoke, and things were created, out of nothing, ex nihilo.

You are a new creation of God with a new identity.

When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, God declares us to be a new creation. And thus we are. We are given a new identity. The same thing that happened at creation happens to us. God declares us a new creation, and we are. God takes away the spirit we are born with and puts a new one in us that will be with him for all eternity.

But there is one problem…Satan wants to teach us our identity, and he does this since our birth. It happens sometimes through our families, always through society, and even sometimes in churches.

What does Satan say about this?

++You must meet certain standards to have value and be able to accept yourself.

++You must have the approval of others in order to accept yourself.

++Those who fail should be punished, including yourself.

++You are what you are, you cannot change.

I must meet certain standards to have value and be able to accept myself.

If I don't perform to a certain level, I can't accept myself and must reject myself. I don't have value if I don't perform.

I must have the approval of others in order to accept myself.

I have to have the approval of others, especially certain ones like parents, in order for me to accept myself. This is the most pervasive of them all. It generalizes over everyone as we think we then have to have the approval of others.

Those who fail should be punished, including myself.

We don't just use this on others, we use it on ourselves too.

I am what I am, I cannot change.

What happens during situations in our lives?

Four false beliefs trigger thoughts

Thoughts trigger emotions

We act on these emotions.

This reinforces our commitment to the false beliefs.

Situations occur in our lives. We go from one situation to the next. We feel like we can control the situations we are going through. But we can't.

However, God has planned these situations we go through. When we go through them, they impact these 4 false beliefs. When these beliefs are triggered, thoughts get triggered, and these trigger emotions. From here, we act on these emotions. As our actions happen, more power is given to the false belief.

Why do I feel this way?

Often, we have no idea why we feel this way. We only explain it by pointing to a particular situation. But, if it is the situation that is the problem, and we cannot control how we feel, then we are at the mercy of whatever situations happen in our life.

Is there hope?

If we understand that our situations are being interpreted by these 4 false beliefs, then if we change our false beliefs, we will see our emotions change, and if our emotions change, then our behavior will change.

Situations are real, but two people can go through the same situation and experience it completely different. Why? Because they believe different things in different ways.

Satan working overtime

This same process happens universally, for all people in all countries. Satan wants us to fall into his trap so tightly, so completely, that even though we accept Christ and have a new spirit, his lies have been embedded in us, and so we have difficulty accepting what God says is true.

Christians who know their true identity are the real threat to Satan and his plan on earth. Thus, he works overtime to keep up from knowing our identity.

God's antidote

He declares what is true to His children

God creates within us a new spirit, and declares to His children only that which is true. He has told us who we are. And this is the pathway to finding our significance and defeating Satan's lie.

He has a clear process of how to defeat these satanic false beliefs and replace them with His truth

God gives us an inspired formula to defeat these false beliefs. Even though we have used these false beliefs 1000s of times, he has given us all we need to defeat them.

The problem is that we are discouraged. We have read books, seen truth, and had people explain it to us in such a way that we were profoundly affected, yet, in a few months, we went back to being the way we were.

Why? Most of the time we learn the truth, but we did not learn how to put it into practice in our life.

What we are going to learn is what the truth is, and God's process for bringing it into our lives.

What are the goals for this study?

To have an ongoing defense against new false beliefs

To seek out and destroy the false beliefs so we don't have to struggle with them

There are three things to this defense.

1. As situations occur and false beliefs are triggered, we need to recognize when our emotions are alerting us that something is wrong, that we are basing our thinking on the Satanic equation.

When situations happen and emotions kick in, we need to understand the thoughts behind the emotions , because unless they are chemically induced, they can be rejected. If we don't think certain thoughts, the emotions behind them go away. The emotions only stay if we think the thoughts that produce them. An example of forgetting why we are mad.

2. Immediately we reject the satanic thoughts, and the satanic beliefs.

Once we recognize the thoughts, we can recognize the beliefs behind them, and then reject these things and replace them with the truth.

3. We must accurately label the emotion we are experiencing, trace it back to the thoughts that triggered it and keep the emotion alive.

This will help us identify the lie that we are believing, reject it, and remember the truth that we base our lives upon.

Unfortunately, many Christians hide from their emotions, interpret them wrongly, and think they are sinful to be having them. This causes us lots of trouble.

To seek out and destroy the false beliefs so we don't have to struggle with them

It is possible for us to get feedback from the mechanisms in our mind that produce these thoughts so we can destroy them. These mechanisms are called stronghold and God has a specific way for us to do this.

Our Weapons

We are caught in the middle of a war between God and Satan. God has given us the task of dealing with Satan and his demons. The only thing worse then being at war is being at war and not knowing you are in a war. We have an enemy. We need to know he is there.

Not fleshly or carnal, not psychological (v. 4a)

This is not a weapon that is psychological. The flesh cannot fix the flesh. A supernatural act is needed to go against such a terrible enemy.

Effective and powerful weapons (v. 4b)

Which is most effective? God's weapons or man's? Would you choose a weapon made by the brightest, most skillful man, or a weapon made by God?

Many Christians think they have picked up a weapon that God created, but it has no effect, and they think it is operator error. But, more than likely it was a man-made weapon.

Destroy strongholds (v. 4b)

Since something must be destroyed, or torn down, it means that it was incorrectly built. Something was raised up that God did not teach us.

Destroy arguments (v. 5a)

These are arguments, reflections of our mind. All our life we were taught these false beliefs. They hold a pretty high position in our life. Even though we have accepted Christ, and we are told who we are, we believe these satanic arguments.

Destroy high things (v. 5b)

These are things that are placed higher than what God has said they should be. We have to pull down those things which we have held to be ultimate truths. We need to only hold ultimate those things which God has revealed to us. These high things have been dominating our life.

Destroy what is raised up (v. 5b)

These arguments that are in the high places suppress God's knowledge in our mind. These beliefs suppress what God has actually taught us and keep us from experiencing all that God has for us.

Win thoughts for Christ (v. 5c)

Our goal is to have our thoughts reflect God's thoughts in every area of our life, including his thoughts about who we are.

Ask God

To reveal himself to you

To reveal yourself (in Christ) to you

You must understand that your very identity, that which creates emotional problems for you, your struggles, bad decisions, misery, comes out of your identity.

If you don't understand that identity is part of the spiritual conflict between God and Satan, then you won't understand what we are having to deal with.

Why is it so hard to see we are loved and valued?

Natural answer: we talk to ourselves the most with the wrong formula

We talk to ourselves the most. What do we say? We use the satanic formula, and we use it over and over. It has been used so much by us that we have a false identity that controls our life.

Supernatural answer: original sin, the fall of man

The origin of man in the garden explains the "high reasoning". We were created to reflect the character of God and to rule. We were not created to be little gods. But we chose to follow our own desires and try to be God.

What happened in ?

The pattern originated here.

1. Satan wanted to get a conversation going.

If he could converse with Eve, then he could ask questions to get her to think false things about God, finding fault with him.

2. Satan called God a liar.

3. Eve allowed the lie to stand.

Eve didn't respond to this, instead of confronting the lie, she allowed it to stand. This was when Satan had already won.

4. Adam wanted to follow even into lostness.

5. Adam followed Satan into rebellion.

Through this he lost his dominion, following Satan's suggestion.

The result

Man's mind was blinded with empty reasonings.

Man's mind was hostile to God and was spiritually dead.

Mankind can no longer commune with God

Mankind cannot receive the things of God

God's design for humanity

spirit: communion, and communication with God

soul: seat of the intellect and emotions

body: related to the physical world around them

God's design of how things should work

spirit: to control the soul

soul: to control the body

body: to relate to the physical world

After the fall

spirit: became dead to God

The spirit, though still in existence because it is eternal, was dead to God. People still can communicate with spirit beings. If a person never accepts Christ, their spirit goes to the place created for Satan and his angels, the pace of torment. Here they will be reunited with their body and be tormented as the fallen angels will be.

There is a battle between the soul, emotions and intellect, and the body. God cannot come into union with a fallen man. In his fallen condition, our natural state, where we created these false beliefs.

As long as man continues to use the false identity, he is not a threat to Satan. God has a counter to this.

soul: wrestle with the body to control the person

body: physical appetites put demands on the person

There is a battle between the soul, emotions and intellect, and the body. God cannot come into union with a fallen man. In his fallen condition, our natural state, where we created these false beliefs.

As long as man continues to use the false identity, he is not a threat to Satan. God has a counter to this.

God's counter

God has placed within us a self-reflective response (talk to ourselves) that when it finds us wanting causes us tremendous emotional pain.

God wants us to understand who we are. He wants us to experience failure and rejection in order to drive us to him. God allows struggles in our lives to push us to him.

My Identity in Christ

Because of Christ's redemption I am a new creation of great worth.

I am a new creation of great worth.

⁠

I am deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted by God, and absolutely complete in Christ.⁠

completely forgiven,

fully pleasing,

totally accepted by God,

and absolutely complete in Christ.⁠

There has never been another person like me in the history of humankind, nor will there ever be. God has made me an original, one of a kind, really somebody.

in the history of humankind,

nor will there ever be.

God has made me an original,

one of a kind, really somebody.