Lately, I have received prophecies about letting go of the past. I have worked on it, prayed about it, made the decision to do so, and reminded myself many times about that decision. But it wasn’t until this morning that the Lord revealed to me how important it is to truly let go of the past.
What He showed me is this: we have an enemy who hates us more than you can imagine. He wants nothing more than to destroy us—all humans, but especially Christians. And he is sneaky and cunning, highly intelligent, very dangerous, and he’s invisible most of the time, but able to manifest himself to look like an angel of light, among other things.
The Lord showed me that every time that I react to attacks by reverting to victim mentality, I make myself vulnerable to more and more devastating attacks. I also make myself less and less effective. Imagine a soldier that has been wounded. If the soldier sees the enemy coming and, remembering the painful wound, goes ducking for cover. This allows the enemy to advance, and the soldier actually ends up helping the enemy hurt (or kill) him, and his fellow soldiers.
One of the most devastating blows that our enemy has dealt the Church (the Body of Christ) is with the doctrine that God wants to bless and prosper us. God does want to bless and prosper us, but that is not His purpose or ours. If we focus on what we can get in this world, we’re going to lose everything. Again, if we think of it in terms of warfare, imagine a whole army of soldiers who joined up just so that they could wear the uniform and get the pay and healthcare benefits. When the fighting starts they run away because they don’t want their nice uniforms messed up.
We cannot afford to keep feeding new Christians the pabulum that God wants to bless and prosper them. First of all, although it’s true it’s not the whole truth. If we are not willing to serve, God will not bless us, and any prosperity will be short-lived. And second, concentrating on what we can get in this world weakens the Gospel and its effectiveness.
We’ve got to wake up. There’s a lot at stake, including our children and grandchildren. We need to be praying for revival and for God’s perspective on our lives. We’ve got to learn to fight to win, which means learning to pray to win. Revive us, O Lord! God is good!