In our human experience there are many avenues to a broken heart. Some are the sins of the generations being passed to us, some are the outcome of how others treat us, some are our own actions out of the wounds that happen to us. It can leave us emotionally writhing in the “I am not good enough” or even take us to a deeper pain of “I am toxic to those around me.” We strive and try for better all the while the beliefs are circling like a flock of birds telling us we will never measure up. That is partially true. We won’t ever measure up, but it isn’t because we aren’t trying hard enough. It is because we were never meant to measure up. We can’t. The law wasn’t given for us to achieve, it was given so we could know we can’t.
Romans 3:10 As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one.
Sin makes us feel so vile and unworthy, even if it was someone else’s sin done to us. This is especially true for those coming from a background of ritual abuse. The depravity of man mixed with the evil of the enemy is used to make the human soul feel so tainted, so unacceptable to others, ourselves but especially to God. After all, a righteous God demands holiness, does he not? Yes, and no. Yes he demands holiness, but no, not out of your striving or avoiding. Holiness is a gift He granted to us through Christ. It cannot be attained through our efforts, righteousness is given through our faith.
Romans 4:3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
We do not become evil through our sin any more than we become good through our efforts. We are human, therefore we have a choice. Connect to the Most High God and be made righteous through our faith, or connect to the evil one and be subject to the law of sin and death. By our efforts we cannot become good. We can only allow His goodness to dwell in us. By our sin, we have not become evil, we have allowed the evil that crouches at the door to enter into us.
Genesis 4:7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
Romans 7:13 teaches us that sin (the evil one) is at work in us. Paul said in verse 21 “So I find the principle that evil is present in me.” Sin is not only an action, it is a being that gains entrance through our will. Alignment with the evil one produces actions that bring death. Alignment with the Spirit of God is life and peace.
In our struggle with what we have done, or what has been done to us, we have to realize that actions cannot make us anything. They cannot make us good, they cannot make us bad. They just show what spirit is at work in us. Our job is to consciously choose our power source.
Evil that has happened to us does not define us. It defines the enemy’s tactics to keep us from fulfilling the call of God on our lives. We cannot make up for the sin in the past. It doesn’t make us unacceptable, it makes us wounded, broken hearted, and He is near. He doesn’t move away from us when the enemy works in us, He moves toward us in love.
Romans 5:20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
We aren’t toxic to others, they have sinned too and must rely on the blood of Christ for cleansing. It doesn’t matter how deep we have gone into the mindset of the enemy and what our actions were in the process. It matters what we do now that we can see it. We must choose daily to set our minds on Christ, choose to allow His mind to be ours.
Romans 8:5-8 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Four Corners Free 