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LABELS,
LABELS AND MORE LABELS
11/14/00
Hi Loved
Ones,
I had an
interesting prophetic thing happen a few days ago. He
had already been talking to me about "opinions" before
this happened. It happened on a day where there was a
war going on in my mind about a particular person. I had
been criticized and felt judged and so I forgave, I
released, I prayed, and I still had this war going on
inside my thoughts. It became really ridiculous and I
knew that this was a spiritual thing of fighting
spirits, certainly not the person. Even after I
understood this, I went right back to the mind war. I
thought, "Whatever I do, it is not good enough."
At that
moment in history I was reaching for an envelope on a
shelf and bumped into a plastic box the size of a very
large drawer. The box turned upside down and hundreds
and hundreds of labels fell out on the floor in a huge
mass. I stood there staring at the contents of this box
with my mouth hanging open. I saw little round garage
sale stickers, filing labels, sticky notes, diskette
labels, removable labels, Xstampers and ink, filing
labels and plastic inserts to hold the labels. The tally
continued, and with my mouth still hanging opened, I
realized what I had just thought was an opinion that was
exactly like a label. It was like a word curse upon
myself in the form of a self applied label.
THREE
STORIES
Years
ago as a newly born, naïve, prophetic child the Lord
sent me to a person of authority, who formed an opinion
about me. He labeled me, eventually judged, and finally
rejected me. From the beginning, I was instantly hurled
into a spiritual battle of such magnitude, that I did
not know what hit me. It was my training ground and my
teeth cutting days. All prophetic people go through this
training, and I learned a lot of lessons back then. One
thing I learned was that since this person was very
anointed, he carried a lot of authority in the spiritual
realm and his opinions of me were actually loosing evil
spirits upon me. I knew this was true, but could not
find the scripture to support this revelation. Through
the years I saw this happening to others when they were
judged, and I kept asking the Lord to send me
confirmation. During the past couple of weeks, He
finally answered that prayer. Before I share with you
the scriptural insights, I want to share 2 more stories.
A couple
of years ago, I was listening to a father speak
negatively about his daughter. He was upset about a
decision she had made and he brought several things into
the conversation about her past mistakes. Feeling
awkward about correcting an elder, I listened and by the
time I was finally able to disconnect myself from the
conversation, I felt slimed. I had compassion for the
gal whose father had spoken like this about her and I
prayed for her. That very day, a few hours later, I ran
into her and she told me that she had a particularly bad
day of bombarding negative thoughts. During a lengthy
car drive that morning, she suddenly started thinking
about all her past mistakes. Her mind was a battle
ground of trying to overcome condemnation, guilt, shame
and also trying to defend herself to no one but her own
miserable thoughts. She said it was such a war that she
had to finally yell at the devil to stop bugging her and
she started speaking the Word of God over her past. I
was so amazed at her volunteer confession, I asked her
what time this happened. It was the exact time that her
father was speaking these things about her. Then I knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that people’s opinions,
conversations and judgments release evil tormenting
spirits to others.
A few
days ago I was listening to a sermon on a cassette tape.
It was the story of a traveling speaker who discovered
that sometimes after he spoke at various churches, he
would have these terrible wars going on in his mind. He
would wake up and start thinking, "Maybe I should have
said, this, or that.. I didn’t quite cover that right, I
meant to say this… etc, etc!" It was becoming quite an
issue of unrest with him. He realized it was a spiritual
battle and started praying over it.
After
one battle, he called one of the churches where he had
just ministered, and mentioned to the pastor that he had
not heard from him, and wondered if everything was all
right. The pastor told him that they had not received
what he had shared. When he got off the phone, he
realized his thoughts of condemnation were bombarding
him via evil spirits sent to him from the congregations’
inability to receive what he had shared. He started
declaring out loud to the spirit world, "God’s Word will
not return void!" A couple of days later, he called the
pastor back, and the pastor said everything had changed
and they had received him. In another church he had no
bombarding thoughts, and so he wondered why! He called,
and the pastor and congregation were very pleased with
what he had shared. This was a real revelation to him of
why he was having such unrest and this bombardment of
‘thought wars’.
As I
listened to this tape, I knew the Lord was speaking to
my prayer of so long ago. Here a preacher had also
discovered that people’s opinions can loose curses in
the form of evil spirits upon us. At the same time, I
was working on a deliverance file for ministry teams
(eventually to be placed at my site) and I was doing a
study on curses. The scriptures came alive to me and
gratefully I finally found the scripture connections to
back up this revelation. I hope that I can relay this to
you in a way that you can see it too. It has really
helped me and given me some good tools in overcoming
what I call ‘word curses’ that are sent to us from
opinions of others and even ourselves.
THE
SCRIPTURAL REVELATION
Scripture One: "Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying
swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight."
(Prov 26:2 NKJV)
King
James says, "As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by
flying, so the curse causeless shall not come." The word
causeless in the Hebrew means devoid of cost, devoid of
reason or devoid of advantage.
What
this means is that a curse will not land upon us unless
we give it a reason to stay. Most often, that reason is
our own sin or our own unforgiveness. The scriptures
tell us that all of have sinned and deserve all the
curses for disobedience to the laws of God, but that
Jesus became a curse for us and paid the cost so that we
could be set free of those curses. (Deut 28:15, Matt
18:34, Rom 3:23, Gal 3:13-14)
Please
note that in Matt 18:34 it is a PROMISE that if we do
not forgive, we are delivered to our tormentors! "And
his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the TORMENTORS,
till he should PAY all that was due unto him. So
likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if
ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother
their trespasses."
Scripture two: "But I say to you, love your enemies,
bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate
you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and
persecute you…" (Matt 5:44-45 NKJV)
"Bless
those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…. Repay
no one evil for evil… Beloved, do not avenge yourselves,
but rather give place to wrath; for it is written,
"Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord.
Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is
thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap
coals of fire on his head." Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good." (Rom 12:14,17,19 -21 NKJV)
This is
a command to bless when we have been cursed and a
promise that this "subdues, conquers, prevails and gains
the victory" over evil. (Greek for the word overcome.)
This very promise took place in Job’s life.
"And the
LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his
friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had
before." (Job 42:10 KJV)
Scripture three: "When you are invited into someone's
home, give it your blessing. If it turns out to be a
worthy home, let your blessing stand; if it is not, take
back the blessing. If a village doesn't welcome you or
listen to you, shake off the dust of that place from
your feet as you leave." (Matt 10:12-15 NLT)
King
James says "And if the house be worthy, let your peace
come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace
return to you." (Matt 10:13 KJV) The word return means
to revert, come again, to convert. When we give
something away, we receive it back again.
To me,
this verse implies that when we give a blessing to
someone unworthy, it returns to us and we get blessed.
Therefore, when we bless our enemies and those who curse
us, it comes back to us as a blessing. I can see that
this is similar to the concept that a curse will not
stay without reason for it to stay. In the same way, a
blessing will not stay without reason for it to stay. It
comes back to us and we receive the benefit.
In
pondering this verse that Jesus said first bless, then
shake the dust off your feet, I wondered how these
connected together since they seemed opposed to one
another and implied some kind of a judgment against the
unworthy enemies. I knew that couldn’t be correct since
we are commanded not to judge, but to forgive. (Matt
7:2, Luke 6:37) And that was the moment of revelation.
Scripture four: "So it [the demon] returns and finds
that its former home is all swept and clean. Then the
spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself,
and they all enter the person and live there. And so
that person is worse off than before." (Luke 11:25-26
NLT)
Back
then they did not have carpeted floors. When the people
literally swept their homes, they swept dirt and dust
carried in on their feet. In this scripture Jesus was
comparing a swept home with being clean of evil spirits.
I suddenly understood that when He told the disciples to
shake the dust off their feet from the towns that did
not receive their testimony, that He was saying shake
the demonic dust, dirt, grime, filth off their feet as
they left. So in context, we bless the people who do not
receive us, then shake off the evil spirits that are
biting our heals on the way out the door!
THE
COUNTER PUNCH
I
believe this concept works the opposite as well. If we
judge and do not forgive those who judge or label us, it
looses evil spirits upon them. These evil spirits keep
them from repentance and make them worse than they were
before. Therefore we have every reason to forgive, pray
for, and even bless those who judge us, for in doing so
they may change their heart.
SUMMARY
Getting
back to the box of dumped labels, God wants to dump our
boxes out, and help us get rid of all the labels from
our past that are still hindering us today. Labels are
like being confined in a box and they restrict our
freedom to come and go. In that box we fight tormentors
in the form of our thoughts and unrest. Labels come upon
us from other peoples opinions, their criticism, their
conversations, and their judgments of us. They also come
upon us when we label ourselves. These opinions become
word curses and evil spirits are sent through these
channels to harass us. These curses are also allowed to
harass us when we sin and when we do not forgive.
In
summary, how to be overcomers of evil labels:
1) We
confess our sins so that He will cleanse us. (1 John
1:9)
2) We
forgive so we will not be tormented. (Matt 18:34)
3) We
pray for our accusers so that our captivity will be
turned. (Job 42:10)
4) We
bless those who curse us, so that we may receive the
blessing and not the curse. (Matt 10:12-15)
5) We
shake the demonic spirits off of ourselves so our walk
is free and unhindered. (Matt 10:12-15)
May the
Lord help us to overcome evil with good in Jesus Name.
Lovingly,
Sandy
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