spiritual warfare

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do good things he planned for us long ago.
Ephesians 2:10

By definition a lie is an untrue statement; something said in order to mislead or deceive. It seems so simple when you read it in black and white…you take what is true and you distort it. You would think something so simple would be so easy to identify and avoid. Yet, in reality, lies wreak havoc in most of our lives. I’m not talking about the lies that are told to get you out of trouble or to manipulate a situation in your favor…that’s a different issue for a different day. I am talking about the lies that try to rob us of our very identity. The above passage from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is truth, in fact, it is a core truth for every person who is a follower of Jesus Christ. We are God’s masterpiece created anew in Christ Jesus to do the good works God planned for us to do.

Show of hands…How many of you woke up this morning with a smile on your face declaring, “I am God’s masterpiece!”? How many of you have made it to this point in the day still grinning that “I am God’s masterpiece” smile? If that’s you, you can probably stop reading…this blog might not be for you. But if you woke up this morning noticing some new gray hairs and felt old, or saw a few extra pounds on the scale and felt a little (or ALOT) less awesome about yourself, or had a blow out fight with your kid as they left for school and you are now certain you will be the reason they will spend thousands of dollars in therapy one day, or maybe your boss called you an underperformer or treated you like you added no value to the team, or your significant other made you feel invisible rather than important, or maybe you just feel like you have been knocked down and just cannot catch a break…then you might what to keep reading.

One thing I have learned very clearly in my journey with Jesus is that we have an enemy who wants to deceive us with lies. His desire is to mislead out of truly believing that we are God’s masterpiece…as if there was no way possible that God was thinking about YOU when His truth was penned. Oh no, that truth is just for all the other Jesus lovers…you know, the ones with the social media perfect lives, the ones who look like they have it all together and figured out. My friends, that IS the lie; it is a distortion of God’s truth when we begin to believe that even though we love Jesus, His truth couldn’t really apply to us. Whether it is because of our past, or our current circumstances, our backgrounds, the things that we have done, or a multitude of other reasons, somewhere along the way we believed we were unworthy of God’s truth and promises. These are the lies the enemy whispers over and over again…”God didn’t really mean someone like you!”, “Who do you think you are?”, “If God really meant you then why doesn’t your life look different, why haven’t your circumstances changed?” These, my friends, are just a few of the lies the enemy spews at us to distort the very identity Jesus has given us as sons and daughters of the Most High God; beautifully and wonderfully made, His masterpiece, created in His image to do the good works He planned for us to do. Simply because He loves us.

The enemy’s attacks on your life are not about who you have been in the past, they’re about who you will be in the future.
Lisa Bevere

Somebody needed to hear that truth tonight. The enemy uses tactics like guilt and shame over our past NOT because our past matters to God…it doesn’t!! Jesus washed all that clean with His shed blood on the cross. But that is the LIE!! The enemy has some of you believing that God is still holding your past against you. Want to know why he does that? Because as long as he can deceive YOU into holding onto your past, a past that God already let go of, you will NEVER live in the fullness of being God’s masterpiece. Listen, God isn’t scared of your past getting out, in fact He welcomes it. His life transforming power is illuminated when people know exactly what Jesus saved us from. This is our testimony!! In our mess God reached down and washed us clean; in our weakness God’s strength transformed us and took us from a hot mess to a masterpiece. But if the enemy can lie us into silence we will never do the good works that God planned for us to do. This robs us of our identity…it robs us of everything good and perfect thing God has for us. This is the enemy’s goal; to paralyze us with his lies. Because we are only a threat to him when we actually live in the truth that we are God’s masterpiece.

Distortion: the act of twisting or altering something out of its true, natural, original state.
Merriam Webster Dictionary

God’s word is very clear…So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away (2 Corinthians 5:17) In Jesus we are a new creation, born again, sons and daughters of the Most High God, His masterpiece. Believing anything and living according to anything other than that truth is a DISTORTION of the new identity that Jesus died to give us. The beauty of this new identity is that embraces every age, every size, every race, every background…every sinner is welcome at the table of God’s forgiveness…every sin has the ability to be washed clean by the blood of Jesus…EVERY SINGLE ONE!!! When we live in the freedom of this truth, the first thing on all of our minds when we wake up will be “Today is the day the Lord has made so I will honor Him well by walking in the fullness of being His masterpiece!”

But here is the deal…this blog was birthed out of the spiritual battles I am witnessing all around me; people I love being attacked. Beaten up by their past, gasping for air in their current circumstances, believing the lies of this age that our identity, value and worth is found in “likes” and “shares” and how awesome the social comment feeds say we are, riddled with anxiety, anger, pride, and fear. The enemy is trying so hard to distort the truth of we are in Christ so that he can render us ineffective for God’s kingdom. And full transparency…I myself was attacked over the weekend. In a moment of a hurting person’s insensitive dialogue about my daughter death’s the enemy whisper a lie into my head that went after my very calling. He said “this is why you should never share Francesca’s story, because people feel they have the right to talk to about her and they don’t.” And with that one lie the enemy tried to distort who I am in Christ and who God has called me to be as a preacher. Because when God called me into ministry the one thing He clearly told me was that I would share Francesca’s story, often. The enemy tried so hard to snatch that away. The good news…truth ALWAYS overcomes lies…ALWAYS!!!!! Almost as quickly as the lie entered my head, it left…because I know truth well enough to see the lie for what it was. This is why living sourced by the Holy Spirit and saturated in God’s Word is so important. No lie whispered will ever take root if you combat it with truth. Lies only have the power we give them. How do we empower the lie? By not knowing truth well enough to silence them.

In the end I want you to know that my writing tonight comes out of the prayer on my heart for the reader who is living in the distortion. Maybe the seed of a lie has been planted or maybe you have full blown garden of distortion growing in your mind; tonight I pray that you would replace any and all lies with the truth. You are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do the good things God has planned for you. Be strengthened in the Lord and be empowered by His Holy Spirit. Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Never forget you fight from victory not for it. You are already more than conquerors in Christ Jesus who strengthens you! No weapon formed against you will ever prosper and no distortion can take root in your mind when you fight it off with truth.

With much love,

Nikki xoxo

The less time you spend with the truth the easier it is to believe lies ~ Lecrae

You have an enemy…yes, you. I know…you’re sweet, you’re honest, you’re friendly, you live with integrity. How can you have an enemy? Well…you have one for the exact same reason that I do. Because we were created in the image of God. Because the God of universe loves you so much that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to die for you. Even if you don’t believe anything you just read…guess what, you still have an enemy.

Now I am not going to write a theological essay about the battle between God and Satan, good vs evil. But if you given up 5 minutes of your day to read this blog then I want to remind you…you have enemy. An enemy that wants to steal the truths of God away from you…an enemy that never wants you to discover them in the first place…an enemy that rejoices when we allow his lies to take root in our minds.

Think it can’t happen to you? Let me tell you a little story…

This morning I sat in my quiet time in God’s Word. As I wrote in my journal and prayed I shared with God that I sensed a season a change either occurring or on the horizon. Honestly, everything was very abstract…just a gut feeling that I was jotting down in my journal, probably in a very non-sensical kind of way. It doesn’t matter…even when I don’t understand my thoughts, God does. As I wrote I found myself in a place of surrender. I was surrendering this “change” or whatever it is to God. And I simply wrote the words “I TRUST YOU!”

Ironically, 10 years ago after my daughter died the hardest thing for me to do was trust God. The year she died I had selected the word “Trust” as my word for that year and just 7 days later I was planning my little girls funeral. To say I had some pretty serious trust issues would be the understatement of the century. I was simply sitting in a holding pattern… waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

8 years ago God, after patiently waiting for two years, God had a serious heart to heart with me. It was in that time that God revealed that fear had become sin in my life because every fear I had was directly correlated to the fact that I did not trust Him. The enemy had whispered in my mind for so long that every time I trusted God something bad happened that I allowed a lie to become truth. And it manifested as constant fear. The enemy weaved his lies so strongly that even as I was devoting my life to Christ I was still held in bondage. I had been given the gift of life through God’s truth, yet I was still walking around in the death grip of the enemy’s lies. I still allowed his voice to be louder than God’s. I wonder how many of you reading this can relate? Wanting so desperately for the promises of God to come true in your life yet still settling for less because the enemy’s lies are the loudest ones in your ears.

8 years ago God set me free with His revelation. I fully surrendered my life to Christ and allowed His truth to be the loudest voice in my head.

Fast forward to today…

As I sat…READING MY BIBLE AND PRAYING…didn’t want you to miss what I was doing…the enemy came creeping around. As soon as I wrote the words “I TRUST YOU” in my journal that old feeling of dread came over me and in a split second my mind panicked as I thought, “Now something bad will happen.”

WHAT?!?! Where did that come from?!?!

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. ~ Romans 12:2

Just because I surrendered my life totally and completely to Christ doesn’t mean the enemy doesn’t still come lurking around. He does. In fact sometimes stronger than ever and clearly no time is too sacred for him to try to weasel his presence into. But I learned a long time ago that when you change your mindset…when you allow God to transform your mind with His truth…all of a sudden you have the ability to see the enemy’s lies so much clearer. God’s Word tells me that He did not give me a spirit of fear and timidity but one of power, love, and self-discipline. His Word tells me that through Christ Jesus, I now have the right to call Him “Abba Father.” I get to call God my daddy and all of the treasures of His kingdom have been made available to me and to you too.

So you know what I did this morning? I am so glad you asked. I rejected the enemy’s lie and rebuked it back to the pit of hell where it came from!!!

Overwhelming victory is ours though Christ, who loved us. ~ Romans 8:37

When I trust God bad things don’t happen. Even when we struggle, even when we suffer…God’s love is all around us and the victory is ours. But the enemy wants to snatch that truth right out of our minds. And make no mistake…he is nasty and he fights dirty. And what is so dirty about his tactics is that he uses good things, important things, necessary things to distract us from spending time in God’s presence. He puts up road blocks to try to hinder our minds from being saturated with God’s truth.

But I want you to know the enemy is powerless against those who have the Spirit of the living God dwelling inside of them. When we allow God’s truth to be activated in our lives we hold all the power.

God’s truth is written on my heart and etched on my mind. How about you?!?! I feel someone today needs this encouragement. Here is a fact check for you…you are loved…you are worthy…God is right there with you in your hurt and your pain…He hasn’t abandoned you or forsaken you…He hides you in the shelter of His presence. Are you seeking Him? Are you pressing in? Because when you allow the truth of God to renew your mind you will recognize the lies of the enemy for what they are.

My friends…SHUT IT DOWN!!!!! Whatever lie has gotten you entangled today, this week, this month, this year…SHUT IT DOWN!! Send it back to the pit of hell where it came from. Activate the Spirit of the living God inside of you and start walking in freedom and in truth!