Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 60
TRANSCRIPT
The guy sat down across from Cindi and I and said, I don’t have any Ungodly Beliefs. I smiled at him (trying not to laugh out loud) and said, well there is your first Ungodly Belief. The reason I could say that is because we all have Ungodly Beliefs and are not aware of them. In this podcast we are going to talk about Ungodly Beliefs.
I’m Lee Whitman with Restoring the Foundations and welcome into today’s Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. We started a series of podcasts two weeks ago where we are examining the Restoring the Foundations Integrated Approach to ministry. In last week’s podcast we talked about the first problem area that must be dealt with during a ministry time and those are the Sins of the Fathers and Resulting Curses. They are the generational iniquity that is resident in your bloodline pushing you to sin in the same manner as your ancestor. If you missed last week’s podcast, I encourage you to go back and listen to it.
Today’s verse is Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Today I want to talk about the lies that we believe, RTF calls these Ungodly Beliefs. Let’s start this podcast by defining what an ungodly belief is. Ungodly Beliefs are all beliefs, decisions, attitudes, agreements, judgements, expectations, vows, and oaths that do not agree with God’s Word, His nature or His character. This is a huge area in our lives. The problem is that we are not always able to recognize these as lies because we have often believed many of these lies since childhood. The lies are usually things we believe about ourselves, about other people, and about God. Examples of these Ungodly Beliefs are things like “No one loves me.” Or “I am all alone”. Or “God loves other more than He loves me.” Although these statements are completely false, most people who believe this way do not realize that they are false because they feel true and so they live their life based on the lies.
We have an enemy whose native tongue is lying. John 8:44 says “You belong to your father, the devil,…. for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” And the father of lies is constantly working to trick you into believing lies.
Where do Ungodly Beliefs come from? Sometimes we inherit Ungodly Beliefs from our families. While we were in training at RTF, part of our duty to help keep the cost of training as low as possible was to perform community service. The trainees would help by working in the kitchen, or by cleaning the building, or by doing yard work along with various other jobs. One morning Cindi and I were scheduled to work in the kitchen for breakfast. Cindi was not feeling well that morning, so she stayed in our room. I decided that I could hustle and make up for her absence. I didn’t say anything to the kitchen manager about why Cindi was not there. When I came back from doing breakfast duty Cindi asked if I told the manager that she would not be there that morning. I told her that I didn’t say anything, I just worked to pick up the slack. Cindi was troubled and asked me why I didn’t tell them she was not feeling well. I honestly could not give her an answer, so I stopped and prayed about it. I realized at that moment that in my family you did not let other people know that you were not feeling well. The message that I was taught was that sickness is shameful, so you don’t share it with others. I see it now as the lie that it is, but when it happened it ruled my behavior.
Some Ungodly Beliefs are learned from our friends and our culture. TV is a great teacher of Ungodly Beliefs. Other Ungodly Beliefs can actually be learned in church. A major source of Ungodly Beliefs comes from hurtful events in our life. When we get hurt the wound clouds our view of life making it easy for us to come away from that event believing in something that is not true. Ungodly Beliefs are usually formed out of real-life experiences. Something hurtful happens in our life and due to the hurt, our view of life gets distorted by that hurt. We then look at life through the distorted lens of the hurt and come away believing something that is not true, but since we had the real-life experience that caused the hurt, it feels true. The “perfect” Ungodly Belief is one that appears to be true based upon the facts of our experience and yet is absolutely false based on God’s Word, His nature, or His character. For example, it is not unusual for a child whose parents get a divorce to believe that the divorce was their fault. Someone with a better perspective of the situation knows that divorce is due to the parents’ struggles, but because the child does not have that ability to see it clearly due to their hurt, they develop the belief that it was their fault. The childs facts said that since Dad was divorcing Mom and the children, then it is somehow his fault.
Romans 12:2 is a wonderful verse. It says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Why would God have Paul write this to believers? Because He knew that in this life, we are going to have many opportunities to be conformed to this world and believe many things that are not true. In this verse you can see that Paul was talking about Ungodly Beliefs, he just didn’t call them that. And God also knows that an Ungodly Belief is not just a thought that you have in your mind, but it is actually an agreement you make with the Kingdom of Darkness. In a very real sense when we believe an ungodly belief we are saying “Satan I agree with you. God, I don’t agree with you”. Wow. None of us would do that on purpose, but the truth is that every ungodly belief is an agreement with Satan who is the father of lies. Then this ungodly belief, this agreement we have made with Satan opens the door to demonic oppression to come into your life. It gives Satan and his demons legal permission to traffic in your life. Thus, we are drastically hindered from knowing and doing the will of God by our Ungodly Beliefs.
A person’s behavior is determined by his belief system. People can tell you all day what they think in their minds, but they live out of what they believe. For example, people can tell you from their minds that eating healthy, and exercising is good for you. But who are the people who are actually eating healthy and exercising on a regular basis? The ones who believe it. There was a time in my life that I would have told you that I totally trusted God with our financial future. Of course at that time I had quite a bit of money in the bank and we were making a pretty good income. When the income stopped and the savings account dwindled down to nothing, you know what I discovered? I discovered that I really did not trust God with our financial future. I was trusting in my savings account and our income. What you think will not hold up when crisis hits or when the pressure of life starts putting the squeeze on you. It is then that what you really believe comes to the surface.
Kevin had a really rough home life growing up. His parents fought a lot and it was usually blamed on Kevin and his sister. They didn’t have much money so the family moved around from place to place, living with relatives or in run down places. They even lived in the family car for a time. Kevin managed to survive his growing up years and joined the navy after high school. Kevin got a good job following the navy, married a wonderful woman and had three kids. On the surface Kevin had made a pretty good life for his family and himself. Kevin, however, was not able to enjoy the life that God had given him. When he came to receive RTF ministry God revealed an Ungodly Belief that said, “I don’t deserve to be happy.” Kevin argued with us that he did not think that he was living out of this Ungodly Belief, yet when we asked him if he would ask God about this Ungodly Belief, God showed him that he in fact was living his life from this belief. He had been living his entire life from this belief and did not know it because it was so normal for him. You can see from Kevin’s home life growing up that this Ungodly Belief was based on the facts of his experience, so he had a hard time seeing that it was not true. When he came out of agreement with this lie and asked God for the truth, Kevin received an amazing truth from God that has changed his life.
A very important part of RTF ministry to Ungodly Beliefs is that you must come out of agreement with the lie. Remember that believing a lie is making an agreement with Satan and giving him legal rights to have access to your life. It is very difficult to accept God’s truth while still walking in agreement with Satan. Once that agreement is broken, God’s truth is much easier to accept. It is also a key step in removing the enemies legal right to bring his oppression into your life.
It is quite common to have Ungodly Beliefs about God that you may have learned in church. What? Learn an Ungodly Belief from church? Yep. There are major Ungodly Beliefs about God being taught in church in the form of theology. Topics like can a believer hear the voice of God for themselves, or can they only hear God’s voice through His Word or from the pastor? Some are teaching that God does not heal today. Or what about beliefs about whether to speak in tongues or not. Or is prophecy valid today or not. There are many inadvertent teachings about God that people pick up through their churches and even through some of the songs that are sung at church. Any Ungodly Belief about God is drastically affecting your relationship with Him.
But let’s look at some Ungodly Beliefs that might be affecting you personally. How about a belief that goes like this: “God is judging me when I relax. I have to stay busy about His work or He will abandon me”. Have you ever felt that way? Or another Ungodly Belief that many people struggle with is “God loves others more than He loves me”. Or that “God will bless others and not me”. For people who have a lot of sinful behavior in their past a belief might be “my past has ruined me so that I can never be of use to God”. It is not unusual to have Ungodly Beliefs about God and not even be aware that they are lies because they have felt true for many years.
A very powerful type of Ungodly Belief is a lie about your identity. When Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden it says that they were naked and unashamed. They were created and lived without clothes, and it was not a problem for them. The moment they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and sin entered the world, shame entered the world also. Shame says there is something wrong with me. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they recognized that they were naked, and they were now ashamed of being naked. Being naked for them was a physical thing, but it was even more than that. Shame said to them that there is something wrong with you being naked so they sewed fig leaves together to hide themselves.
For us shame does not say that we are naked, but it does try to identify us by our faults and mistakes. Shame would change our identity into things like, I am bad, I am stupid, I am dirty, I am a failure and many other types of identities that God has not given us. When we renounce and break our agreement with these lies and ask Father God who He says we are, the identity that God has of us in incredible. He sees us totally without shame and calls us chosen, His beloved, beautiful, a warrior, His princess, mighty man of God, and many other extravagant identities.
Try saying those identities to yourself: Repeat them after me.
I am chosen…
I am His beloved…
I am beautiful…
I am handsome…
I am a warrior…
I am His princess…
I am a mighty man of God…
Doesn’t that feel good? It should feel good because it is the truth. It is the way our Father God sees you!
If you recognized that you are living life out of an Ungodly Belief, please don’t put up with it any longer. It can be broken and replaced with the truth. Contact our ministry coordinator at ministry@restoringthefoundations.org and schedule an RTF ministry for yourself. It will change your life.
