COMING ON VS. WITHIN

COMING ON VS. WITHIN

  • Atmospheres, Authority

COMING ON VS. WITHIN

Picture walking into a friend’s house who just had a big fight with her husband. Now picture walking into a friend’s house who just got engaged. Both homes would carry an atmosphere – one would be uptight and anxious and the other full of joy. You would FEEL it before you knew the circumstances. In both situations, the atmosphere you feel is NOT YOU, but the events that just occurred. Many are feeling the ATMOSPHERE of dread, worry, anxiety, fear, and frustration, but that does not mean it is YOU. I often say to my children, “That is coming ON you. It is not coming from WITHIN you.” Why is this important? Because we can allow the atmosphere of the world to become ours when we partner with it, OR you can choose not to. Yes, we are in very uncertain times, but the weight of the world is not on you to carry. You can keep your peace, joy, and clarity even in the midst of the storm. Take a deep breath. You are going to be okay. You have what it takes to overcome. You can do this. Peace is a choice.

THAT’S A LIE

When I hear a child speak a lie about themselves (I am not smart enough, I am slow, I can never figure this out, etc.), I simply tell them that they are partnering with something from God’s enemy. Do they want to continue to partner with that (they do have free will), or do they want to throw that one out? Then, I told them they could kick out or throw out whatever thoughts came to their mind that wasn’t of God. Hudson, who was only four then, literally went to the front door and motioned like he was kicking something out before slamming the door. Yeah, like that! Kids need to be taught that not every thought that crosses their mind is theirs, and they can be empowered to say NO!

RELIGIOUS SPIRIT

This is what the religious spirit looks like. A mom messaged me about a dream she kept having.

“Here is the dream: I am awaiting my turn to enter the Kingdom, and before I get there, I hear, ‘Do I know you? Do you know me?’ And I always awake abruptly. I have this worry when I wake, and I almost feel paralyzed in how to fix the problem. Like I have to jump through hoops to be back where I need to be. Or I have to perform to be good enough.”

I asked her if she was secure in her salvation. She was. I asked her how she felt when she woke up. She said she was anxious/worried. This is not how God speaks to us in our dreams, even if He is highlighting something. I told her to come out from under it, take authority over it and pray for Holy Spirit to guide her dreams. The spirit of religion was trying to groom her into thinking her relationship with God was not secure.

SO ANGRY

We were on a ministry trip and my son could not shake his attitude. After days of it wearing us all down, I sent him to retire early that night. I heard him crying in his bed and went to him. He began to say, “Mom, I am so angry, but I don’t know why.” At that moment, I knew what was going on. A well-known Christian leader said earlier that day that they could barely sleep at night because of all of the anger in the church (over a particular issue). I led him through a prayer to take authority over the anger and to release the opposite (peace, unity, clarity), and instantly his little body shifted. If you have a child who can ‘flip like a switch’ out of nowhere, it could be that they are very sensitive to the atmospheres around them. I was this way as a child, and it brought about a lot of conflicts because no one, including myself, understood why I could be perfectly fine one moment and angry or filled with anxiety the next. In my mind, nothing was bothering me, but it was like something had come over me. Once I realized I was coming into an atmosphere of ‘stuff,’ I began to learn how to take authority over it and flip it.

WORDS MATTER

John 10:10 shares that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, while Jesus came to overcome and bring life. Your WORDS decide which side you want to camp in.

FEAR KNOCKS

If the door to fear over your child’s sexual safety is knocking, rise up and declare, “Not in my house! You are not welcome here,” and then invite the Holy Spirit to come as their Protector and Defender.

MY AUTHORITY IN JESUS

God spoke to me years ago and said, “The same spirit you are encountering in the church is the same spirit that was in operation in your childhood. The reason it is so painful is that you endured it in childhood but did not overcome it.” It was so true. When my mom passed away, I no longer encountered that spirit with her and never learned how to defeat it. When I was faced with it again in the church, God was teaching me not to endure it, as I did as a little girl, but to rise up and defeat it. While I have no authority over someone else’s free will, I had all of the authority given to me by Jesus to demolish that spirit from operation in my life and coming under it. After God spoke this to me, this is how I responded: I had to first discern that it was a spirit and not me. Then I had to discern what was the spirit in operation. I asked Jesus to give me the strategy to defeat and overcome that spirit. I am intentional about releasing the opposite spirit. Where I wanted God to save me from it, He wanted to teach me my authority in Him.

POLICE BADGE

Call a family meeting and ask your children what would happen if you walked into the middle of a busy street and held up your hand. Nothing would probably happen. Next, ask what would happen if a police officer walked in the middle of a busy street and put up his hand. Because of his badge, he has authority. Not only that, but all of the courts back him up. We get to be police officers in the spiritual realm because of the badge of Jesus, and all of heaven backs us up. We get to tie up the bad and then unleash all the good stuff!

I share more about the police badge teaching and authority in this video. Watch it with your children. Teaching Children Their Authority – YouTube

DON’T CURSE YOURSELF

From the mouths of babes. A mom was troubled by her daughter’s ongoing anxiety and worry. Every night she would declare how awful she is going to sleep, and it would put her into a bad cycle with so much angst and worry in her voice. I taught her how to teach her daughter to take authority over it and this is what her daughter said, “I like that, filling me with peace. I’m going to sleep well tonight.” 

ATMOSPHERES

We spent a summer speaking on the road and continually came under new atmospheres and had to work through them. Honestly, it was exhausting. If it wasn’t me, one of the kids would be out of sorts. By the time the trip was over, I was not sure I would ever do that again. But here we are again, coming off of a five-week journey, and there is such a profound increase in not only discerning atmospheres but overcoming them. The first time it felt like we were being tossed around by powerful waves, yet this time it felt like we were body jumping, learning how to stay standing. Hotels carry some of the heaviest atmospheres because not all that happens inside of them is edifying. We can be fine in the car, walk into a hotel room and feel the anger, isolation, sexual spirits, strife, etc. God doesn’t allow us to encounter the atmosphere to harm or hinder us. Instead, He enables us to see and feel it so that we can bring the light and release the opposite. Learning to discern what is truly coming from within you vs. what is happening around you is a key to releasing heaven on earth and changing the world around you.

DISEMPOWERED

The definition of empowerment is to give (someone) the authority or power to do something. This means you can’t empower yourself. It is something that is given or denied by someone else. This is why God puts us in families and churches with mothers and fathers who have authority over us, see the value in us, and champion what God has placed inside of us. I am not talking about when people are using their God-given authority in a healthy way. There is an appropriate time for a parent, leader, teacher, or pastor to protect those in their care by not allowing them to do something. This is healthy and a protective covering. Nor am I talking about entitlement and that people should just be able to do whatever they want when they want it and that no one can tell them “No.” I am talking about when people in authority use the tool of disempowerment to protect something in them that needs to come into alignment. I hope to bring perspective to the dynamics of what happens when parents/leaders use disempowerment as a tool to control those under them.

ORPHAN – Disempowerment removes parents/leaders from being true mothers and fathers the way God intended homes and churches to operate and therefore opens them up to the demonic simply by creating a culture that isn’t in alignment with His Kingdom. Being disempowered pulls them back into an orphan mentality.

HeartWork – Declare over yourself that you are not an orphan but a child of God. Receive it as His truth. Ask God to teach you about your identity as a Son/Daughter and make the intentional choice to embrace it.

DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS – Disempowerment can throw a person into double-mindedness. They want to honor it, but it doesn’t feel right. They talk their mind out of their emotions and their emotions out of their mind. It creates a cycle that is so inner focus that it consumes them. “I love them,” “I can’t understand why they don’t believe in me,” “I see how powerful they are,” “What’s wrong with me?” They have a very hard time reconciling their mind and heart because they are both screaming two different things. The Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. It is hard for someone to be confident and full of courage when your mind and heart are not in alignment with each other.

HeartWork – Put your hand on your heart and declare out loud, “I am not crazy. I am not unloving. There is nothing wrong with me. I command my mind to align right now with the mind of Christ, in Jesus’ name.”

COVERING – Disempowering someone puts the wrong kingdom covering over that child/person. The nature of empowerment is authority. When someone (falsely) takes it from you, it leaves you vulnerable to the enemy because it is by Christ’s work on the Cross that we are all empowered with authority to walk who He has called us to be.

HeartWork – Picture heavy football shoulder pads that were placed on you as a covering to keep you inoperable. Instead of trying to lift the heavy weight off, you just come from under it. Prophetically you might want to physically move your body out from under the weight of the wrong covering and align yourself with the covering of Jesus. 

STUNTS GROWTH – Being disempowerment removes the protective covering that allows for mistakes and messes while maturing. There is no learning curve and without it, children/people are crippled in making choices because they know they can’t do it perfectly, so they shy away from trying.

HeartWork – Picture a measuring stick that was placed next to you and told you that you do not measure up. Ask Jesus what tool He wants you to use to break the measuring stick. Go ahead and do that with Him. Then ask Him to show you His measuring stick and ask Holy Spirit to convict you when you are returning to the old measuring stick of man. 

SHAME – Disempowerment isn’t God’s tool so it will never make sense to the human mind and heart, but they attempt to reconcile the question “what is wrong with me?” (When in fact, there is nothing wrong with them). Some can spend a lifetime attempting to answer this question.

HeartWork – The greatest way to overcome shame is self-compassion. When I am feeling slimed by shame, I put my hand on my heart and say, “Lisa, I am right here. I am not leaving you. Let’s do this together.” I turn into a puddle of love because I am accepting myself. Ask yourself, “What do I need to hear?” and then speak it over yourself often. 

INTROSPECTION – Disempowerment hands the person a mirror and forces them to be critical of themselves, not knowing where they went wrong or how to make it better. An awkward awareness of self follows you around unsure if you will make the same mistake again with others, yet you aren’t fully aware of what mistake you made in the first place.

HeartWork – Go to the thrift store and buy a mirror. Place a tarp or sheet on the ground and smash the mirror, declaring that you no longer have the job of constantly staring in the mirror, wondering if and where you are wrong. Hand over the job to Jesus, and trust He can lead you. Years ago, God showed me a picture of Jesus and me dancing on the dance floor. He told me that it was His job to watch when I was too close to the edge, not mine. My job was to enjoy the dance with Him and trust He knows how to lead me. 

REJECTION – The greatest form of rejection is when someone dismisses the gifts inside of you because it is the very reason why you were created.

HeartWork – This may sound insensitive to some, and that is not my heart. We never figure out what God is doing by what we see the devil doing, but can we, just for a moment, laugh at how utterly hard the enemy tries to disqualify your voice and gifts? Why would he be so afraid and intimidated by what you carry inside of you? You may feel like a fragile baby bird, but the truth is you are made in the image of God, are related to Jesus Christ, and have the Holy Spirit of God inside of you. That makes you a force to be reckoned with, and it is time you start to see yourself the way your Creator sees you, not the way the enemy has tried to devour you. 

IDOL – Disempowerment puts the focus on the one in authority in an idol state and is always unhealthy for all parties. It makes their stamp of approval the goal rather than what God is doing and saying in that person’s life. The more it is withheld, the more the person craves it, and the idol grows. It is a vicious cycle and trap of the enemy to get one’s eyes off Jesus. Idol worship is empty and lacks the ability to produce fruit.

HeartWork – Picture yourself entangled in a ball of yarn wrapped all around you. The more you wiggle to get free, the more entangled you become. Ask Jesus to come with His scissors to cut you free from the spider web of pleasing man and the emptiness of not getting it. Step out from the pile of yarn, and do not re-wrap yourself back where Jesus has just cut you free. 

JUDGEMENT – I found this part very interesting. When there is idol worship there will be a lack of peace. The enemy often hands a person the tool of judgment to fight it off with. I have seen this countless times as people have battled disempowerment and then become seduced with judgment. Their minds try hard to slap it back into honor and love, but eventually, they give away and push back the disempowerment with judgment. The very person they so deeply wanted to know who believed in them suddenly becomes the worst person on earth, and judgments are made about who they are, their intentions, and credibility. This is so sad because they move from being disempowered to judgmental, which continues to hinder them.

HeartWork – Forgive the parent/leader who told you they didn’t believe in you, who didn’t value your gifts, and didn’t find you worth investing in. For many, there is great grief and sadness as the person in authority is generally someone you cared a great deal about (parent/leader). 

You can’t steward the position of disempowerment well enough because it is not your identity or God-given place. There is only ONE way out of disempowerment. Forgiveness. Forgive the parent/leader who told you they didn’t believe in you, who didn’t value your gifts, and who didn’t find you worth investing in. For many, there is great grief and sadness as the person in authority is generally someone you care a great deal about (parent/leader). Give your heart a voice in walking this out and allowing God to restore your authority!