Uprooting Disbelief, Ep 2-19

Welcome back!  I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing disbelief and disillusionment.  We are going to talk about where it is rooted.  Unlike other episodes we aren’t going to be talking about how satan is the root of disbelief and disillusionment but rather how these are created though manmade ideas and misconceptions. 

I say periodically throughout this podcast that not all bad things that happen are satan and his demons at work against us.  Many times it is and we want to be knowledgeable and educated on how satan operates so we can conquer him and his tactics are no longer effective.  Today we need to address something that has permeated Christianity and not only affects us in our daily lives but can limit you in your relationship with the Lord going forward. 

Let’s first start off addressing disbelief and disillusionment.  There are multiple ways we let these two states of being take over our life and our circumstances and we need to uproot some misconceptions and uproot the lies that allow these two to operate. 

First off, I want you to think about a time when you made a judgment call and you were just flat our wrong or someone made a judgment call about you that was just flat out wrong.  Think of something.  Got one?  Okay I will tell you mine for this week.  Friday I was called a heretic.  Now not just a regular old heretic, there were some pretty harsh name calling that went along with that from a Christian man because I believe in the spiritual gifts.  The spiritual gifts that Paul lists in 1 Corinthians 12.  Now I know this guy is completely wrong and one day he will have to answer for his words.  I don’t care about him, what I do care about is the effect his words had on the man who originally asked the question I was answering.  The ripple effect of the ignorant man can have a lasting effect.  It can shape the mind of others who are on the fence.  The ignorant man was relentless in going after anyone who had beliefs that were different than his and became very ugly about it.  It’s as if he was throwing a tantrum to get people to listen to him and not think for themselves.  Only his words mattered. He was creating an atmosphere for disbelief in the spiritual gifts of the Bible. 

Now let’s talk about a time when something just wasn’t going your way and you were really struggling.  Have one?  I am going to share an example of a man who is currently blaming God for bad things happening in his life.  This is a man who says he was healthy, lived a healthy lifestyle.  I have no way to deny or confirm this.  He is a middle aged man, and he had a heart attack and a stroke.  As a result, he has lost his job, his girlfriend, his confidence, and he is unable to spend time in the gym the way he used to and has become depressed.  He is convinced that God did this to him and that instead of taking him from the heart attack and stroke, that God instead kept him alive for the purpose of torturing him. 

Thinking of those two situations, they both have one thing in common.  They both involve someone who is putting themselves at the center of the situation.  The first one involves how disbelief is perpetuated by someone who will not allow people to believe what the Bible says if it disagrees with what he thinks the Bible says.  He attacks and tries to force himself to convince others.  Which then impacts others who are learning and trying to understand.  The second involves a man who is disillusioned into thinking that God would do something evil, which is blasphemy and a lie.

Blaming God is very common and a very manmade idea, not always satan.  Satan will be more than happy to exploit that and take advantage of it, but by and large when we carry disbelief and disillusionment in our lives, we create it in our thoughts and our words and our actions.  But the question is why?  No one is happy in disbelief or functioning in disillusionment so why do we do it?  Why do we fight God in this way? 

The answer is pretty straightforward.  It stems from disobedience, ego.  This goes back to some of the points we made in the Blessings and Curses series and which are discussed in Deuteronomy 28, but we need to talk about how we direct this in our lives.  We have to be willing to self-identify when we are growing in disbelief and disillusionment and building problems against ourselves. 

No one who truly knows Jesus would ever say that God spared them their life just to torture them.  You cannot read the Bible and come to that conclusion, it is illogical, unbiblical and a complete and utter lie.  So if you aren’t reading the Bible, you can’t know who God is, or how He works.  If we don’t know who God is, then how can we understand anything about how He wants to work in our lives.  If we can’t understand anything he wants to do in our lives, then we clearly don’t have a relationship with Him because He will spend time guiding you and explaining to you His best in your life. 

Those who are disillusioned and want to blame God don’t acknowledge that they are looking for ways, for resolutions, and for answers outside of the Word.  When we function in disbelief and disillusionment because we are unwilling to seek the Lord, we have created our own downfall. 

When we are in disbelief and disillusionment, we are also housing distrust, there’s a selfishness we are carrying, discontent and indifference to seeking God, truly seeking Him through prayer and His Word.  We want to do things our own way and not allow God to correct us and direct us to make better choices, provide understanding to foster better decisions.  We don’t want to be disciplined, we don’t want anyone calling out our dirty laundry.  We aren’t willing to discipline ourselves to change.

Let’s look at how Jesus handled a woman who had dirty laundry and when He called her on it, she reacted.  In John 4, Jesus meet a Samaritan woman.  Jews and Samaritans at this time did not mingle.  There was a mistrust and a hatred for each other.  Samaritans were a culture that originated out of the Israelites, the northern kingdom.  Each group believes themselves to be members of the true religion of ancient Israel and that the other has been diluted or contaminated might be a better description.  So Jesus meets this woman getting water from the well because that was a typical responsibility of the women of the day.  He asks for water, He tells her He is the living water and then He also tells her about her life and essentially airs her dirty laundry.  Her reaction is not one we see today.  Her ego did not get in her way.  She did not allow disbelief to enter her heart and she was certainly not disillusioned by what He has said or done anywhere else because she didn’t even know who He was. 

Jesus was able to move in her heart and guide her to change her life and her response was to run and tell the rest of the village what just happened.  She focused on Him, not her and she acted in faith by running to get the others so they too could benefit from hearing what he had to say. 

So why are we talking about this?  I’m going to ask you to do something this week.  Sit down and take an inventory.  This is just between you and the Lord so be open.  Take an inventory of areas in your life where you have exhibited great belief.  Areas where you have excelled in faith. 

Then I want you to take an inventory of areas in your relationship with the Lord where you have exhibited disbelief and disillusionment.  Include times you have felt He wasn’t answering your prayers, turned his back on you or didn’t give you the outcome you thought you should have received.  Again, this is just between you and him so be honest. 

After you have both of these lists completed, we are going to go back and evaluate these lists.

What can you count as favor and blessing you have received because of your belief and faith?  What did you do to foster that belief and faith?  What actions did you take?  Now look at the disbelief list and list what you did to foster disbelief.  What actions did you take?  What thoughts did you allow?  Did you take to someone who helped build your faith or build your disbelief? Compare these two lists and look at your differences. 

What I have seen in working with people over the years is that when they hit a period of disbelief they quit seeking and building their relationship with the Lord and instead direct their frustrations at God.  Those disbeliefs will grow.  Many times the feeling associated with disbeliefs will grow faster than how we feel when we are operating in faith and belief that God is truly working on your behalf.   

We have the greatest ability to be our own unseen enemy and as much as we need to conquer satan, we need to conquer the pieces of ourselves that allow disobedience, disbelief, disillusionment, indifference, distrust, selfishness to grow. 

Go read John 4 and ask yourself, are you going to be like the Samaritan woman or are you going to just get your water and go home.

I hope this has been helpful to you.  If you know anyone who would benefit from this podcast, please share.

I have looked forward to our time this week, don’t forget to do your lists and then act on them and evict any disbelief and disillusionment you have allowed to enter your life that is contrary to God’s word.

We encourage you:

·       To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!  

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