by Matt Sorger
Truth Will Impact Every Area of Your Life
Truth will deeply impact every area of your life. Without truth you can never really plug into God’s power and know who you are meant to be. It causes you to soar far beyond the limitations and labels others have put on you. Truth is not what you feel. It’s what you know. Feelings can change and fluctuate, but there are absolutes that create healthy God-given boundaries in our lives. If we live within the boundaries of God’s truth, we can then experience the limitless power of His presence and grace within us. Truth enables us to live in God’s power every day.
Really knowing truth in our hearts will release God’s power within us to fully be all He has destined us to be. Without truth we are like waves tossed about in the ocean. Truth is our anchor. It’s what holds us when everything else in life is in flux. Truth never changes. Truth is what gives us the power to live an extraordinary life. It keeps us stable during turbulent times. It enables us to rise above every lie we have ever believed about ourselves. Truth empowers. It liberates us to grow to our fullest God-ordained potential.
Since truth is so vital to living a powerful life, we must guard the truth of His Word in our hearts at all cost and let nothing choke its life out of us (Matt. 13:22–23).
As we hear God’s Word of truth and allow it to be sown into good soil within our hearts, we will fully grasp and comprehend it, and it will produce in us supernatural fruit. It’s this life of truth and fruit that demonstrates God’s power within us.
CHAPTER 5
The Power of Identity
Know Who You Really Are
BEFORE YOU CAN truly be who God has called you to be and do what He has called you to do, you must first know who you are. Truth and identity are inseparable. If you don’t know the truth, you will be tossed around by everything life throws at you. You will live out of wounded emotions and distorted thinking and will be susceptible to great deception, temptation, and addictive lifestyles. This is why so many people’s lives are a mess! They don’t know who they really are. They are living like Clark Kent when in reality they are Superman.
Under the Influence
I will never forget that warm, sunny afternoon when I walked out the back door of the retreat house and made my way into the garden area out back. I knew I had to seek God that afternoon. Something very deep was happening inside of me. As I made my way across the lawn, my eye caught a large rock. It was just the perfect size to climb up on and sit and talk to God. It became my prayer place. I was seventeen years old and was on a young adults retreat with a group of friends. God would speak something to me that day that would change my life forever and shake me to the core.
The previous day I had been crammed in the back of a car with four other young adults in their twenties and thirties as we made our way into the countryside. I was the youngest in the group and sat in the back seat. With my head leaning up against the window, I prayed and asked God to have His way in our lives that weekend. Suddenly the voice of the Holy Spirit broke through my own thoughts and said, “My people have idols in their lives.” I was taken back by this unexpected interruption. God’s inner voice came to me with crystal clarity, but it wasn’t at all what I expected Him to say. I knew what an idol was. It’s something that is lifted higher and takes the place of God in your life. I quietly began to pray that God would remove and tear down every idol in the hearts and lives of those in attendance that weekend. Truthfully, I wasn’t really putting myself in that category. I had no idea what was coming!
The first day was filled with fun, enjoying time with friends, praise and worship, and good Bible teaching. But for the most part it was pretty uneventful. The following day we were given time in the afternoon to either relax or participate in a group activity. Something inside of me was stirring. It was unlike anything I had experienced before. I needed to get alone with God. I needed to wait on Him, but I wasn’t sure why. That’s when I found myself climbing up on that big ole rock to talk to God. It was in a perfectly isolated location. There was no one around at all. It was just God and me. As the warm sun beat down on my face, I began to pray and worship. Again the voice of the Holy Spirit broke through. It was a divine interruption!
I instantly became aware of my own broken self-image. It was as if a light went on in a dark place. For the first time my eyes were opened to see and understand how I had been viewing myself for so many years. My blind spot was uncovered. A veil was ripped away as God showed me the distorted image I had of myself. I never realized it before. It was just a part of who I was. I didn’t know anything different, nor did I know my image was wrong! I realized that not only was the image I had of myself distorted, but also the way I saw God and even the way I perceived other people were distorted. I sat there in a state of shock.
Self-Realization
Self-realization can be a very difficult and painful experience, yet at the same time it can be completely freeing and liberating! Knowing who you really are awakens your spirit to God’s unlimited potential. The struggle many people face is that they allow the world, painful experiences, other people, and the lies of the enemy to define them.
Second Corinthians 5:17 teaches us that, “If any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!”
To become the new creation and the amazing person God has destined you to be, you must realize and discern every lie you have been believing about yourself. Coming to a place where you begin to realize the lies you have believed about yourself can shake you to the core of who you are. For years you believed what other people told you. Their words shaped who you were. You never questioned the negative thoughts that ran through your mind about yourself.
The Power of Words
Words are containers of power. They work in both the negative and positive direction. One word of life spoken over someone can have a ripple effect in their life, bringing them to a place of freedom and wholeness. Pablo Picasso, one of the world’s greatest artists, experienced the power of words. His mother would say to him, “If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general; if you become a monk, you’ll end up as pope.”1 Instead he became a painter and ended up being Picasso.
I’ve seen it go in the negative direction as well. I recently heard a man share his story from his childhood. He was a tall, lanky kid, somewhat clumsy. One day when he was in the ninth grade, a group of older boys cornered him and began to call him names. They told him that he should just go and end his life. He left that encounter bruised inside and out. He left wondering if there was something really wrong with him. The words of these older kids only served to validate the insecurity he already felt inside. Lies that the enemy was telling him were reinforced through the words of others. Thankfully he did not end his life, but till this day he lives under deception about who he is. Lies took root at an early age, shaping the path his life would take. Without Christ and His truth, he fell prey to the plan of the adversary. How many people do we know who fit into this category?
Many people believe lies about who they are because of past traumas and pain. But there is hope at the end of this tunnel! As God’s Word, truth, and presence fill your life, suddenly a light goes on, and you realize that what you have been believing about yourself has been a charade, a house of cards, and, with one blow of truth, the house is knocked over.
Knowing Your True Identity
Once you are willing to face the pain of past hurt and you understand your identity has been based on a lie, hope and joy will flood your soul as you realize there is a chance for you to become the person God originally created you to be. You can be the hero you were meant to be. Once the lies are exposed by truth, you begin to experience true self-realization—not who you are in yourself or what other people said about you, but who you are in Him! You must never take on a sinful label as your identity. If you have overcome alcohol or drug addiction, you are not an alcoh
olic and drug abuser. You are a new creation in Christ! You are a child of God. You are forgiven, loved, accepted, complete, and whole in God. You are holy, and you are free. You are no longer a sinner; you are a saint. You have a brand-new nature, God’s nature! Sin no longer has the power to control you. God’s life in you empowers you to overcome every sinful, negative thing and to be the person you were created to be. Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he” (NKJV).
Let me share a story that inspired me about a famous Christian media mogul who under his belt has produced more than twenty theatrical productions, along with films and TV shows. With a history of being brutally beaten by his father, he was also severely physically and sexually abused as a child. Even before the tender age of ten years, he experienced sexual abuse by three men and one female. This abuse brought great confusion into his sexual identity. Speaking of one of the men who sexually abused him, in his own words, he said, “He gave me something to carry that I didn’t want, that I didn’t desire.” Seeing the joy his mother had from God, he desired the same thing. As he grew in relationship with God, he discovered that “what you feed will grow in your life, and what you don’t will starve.” This cinematic achiever made the choice to be free. He said he was able to be free and “understand that even though these things happened to me, it was not me.”2 He realized that what was done to him didn’t have to define him. His identity rested in truth, not a lie.
It’s Not My Fault!
As a school kid I didn’t always fit in. I had deep convictions as to what was right and wrong and often found myself fighting for the ones who were left out. I remember hanging out with a kid on the schoolyard whom no one else wanted to be friends with. I felt bad for him. I was also imaginative. I loved getting lost in my own world of being a private detective or a superhero. While I had some childhood friends, I became the subject of some intense bullying. I just didn’t fit the mold. Many times I became that kid alone on the schoolyard.
I lived my life based on what I thought was right, and at times I got very persecuted for it. I enjoyed studying and excelled in my schoolwork. I spent hours on homework every night. I would often mess up the grade curve on tests because I would score so high. I also became a very vocal Christian as a young person. I didn’t hide my faith. I wanted all the other kids to know God the way I knew Him. Other kids would often ridicule me for my Christian standards. In high school I wouldn’t drink at parties, and I knew God wanted me to live pure. While I had friends, I was left out of the popular crowd and was often mocked and ridiculed. Because I am the type of person who takes things to heart, it went very deep in me. While God was developing leadership qualities in me at a young age, I was targeted by the enemy, who was also at work trying to twist things in my mind to make me feel rejected, left out, and like something was wrong with me. Inwardly I suffered deeply from rejection and low self-esteem.
All those memories came flooding in as I stood on that rock at the youth retreat years later. The Lord began to expose lies the enemy had planted in my mind during my childhood years. He spoke to me and said, “These thoughts are an idol. The way you perceive yourself is an idol.” My gut reaction was, “God, how can this be an idol? It’s not my fault! I didn’t choose to think and feel this way about myself. It was because of what other people said and did.”
But God gently and firmly responded, “Anything that exalts itself above what I say about you is an idol and needs to be repented of, whether it’s your fault or not, even if you were totally innocent in the whole thing. This thought pattern of rejection is an idol because it is established above Me. It’s above what My Word says about you. You have to repent of it and break it from your thinking.” Even though I wanted to argue, the revelation was too overpowering for me to contend with. I knew God was right. A blinder had been taken off of my mind, and I could see every lie I had believed about myself.
They were lies. My own thoughts had become an idol because they were exalted above what God said was true. Even if I felt it wasn’t my fault, I knew I needed to repent for allowing my mind to yield to and believe the lies of the enemy. My moment of breakthrough was at hand! But it was just the beginning.
I repented and asked God to forgive me for seeing myself in a way that did not line up with the way He saw me. I surrendered to Him my sense of rejection and inferiority. I confessed every lie I believed about myself. I finished my prayer time and continued on with the day’s activities. That night before I fell asleep, the Lord spoke to me again. Through His inner audible voice He said, “The devil has gotten a foothold in your mind through those thoughts.” At this point in my life I had no idea what a foothold or stronghold was. I never even knew I had one! I went to sleep pondering what the Lord was revealing to me.
Tearing Down Strongholds
The following morning I woke up and started to get ready for the day. I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, and again God spoke. I wasn’t even praying! I had toothpaste coming out of my mouth. You know, God can speak to you at the strangest times. You don’t even have to be on your knees praying for God to speak. His thoughts and heart can break through to you at any moment—even when you least expect it.
God picked up His conversation from the night before: “That foothold is no longer just a foothold. It’s become a stronghold in your life because it has been there for so many years.”
In time I came to understand how footholds and strongholds operate. A foothold is simply a little ledge you place your foot on when climbing a rock wall. If the enemy is given a ledge in your thinking to place his foot, over time he will secure his footing on more solid territory and will build a well-fortified place in your mind. This occurs as you give him greater place in your thinking by coming into agreement with what he has to say.
I came to realize that when something gets entrenched in your life for a period of years, the enemy fortifies and strengthens it. He does this by whispering his thoughts into your mind, projecting his feelings and emotions onto your soul, and then he reinforces his lies through the mouths of other people around you. That’s his master plan: to ensnare you in as many lies about yourself as possible and keep you bound as a helpless victim. Over time those lies are no longer just a little foothold. They become a stronghold and a fortress built within your mind and soul. You become defined by your thoughts and circumstances.
For though we walk (live) in the flesh, we are not carrying on our warfare according to the flesh and using mere human weapons. For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds , [inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).
—2 CORINTHIANS 10:3–5, EMPHASIS ADDED
Thoughts and reasonings in the mind that contradict God’s Word and purpose for your life can become detrimental strongholds in your thinking if they go unchecked. These strongholds will hold you in a place of bondage if they are not broken by God’s power and replaced by strongholds of truth.
Undercover
After God revealed to me that the enemy’s foothold had become a stronghold in my life, I left my room, went to the leaders of the group during one of the worship sessions, and asked them to pray for me. I was determined not to leave that retreat with this stronghold still intact. I wanted it broken! The leaders brought me to a private place to pray.
As we began to call on God, the Holy Spirit, by revelation, enabled them to pray. They began to rebuke doubt and unbelief. I could feel literal walls crumbling inside of me. For no logical reason, I began to cry. Their prayers were hitting a place in me much, much deeper than my mind. They were reaching down into my soul and breaking emotional and mental strongholds that had been built by the enemy. I could hear myself thinking, “Why am I crying?” It was b
eyond what my mind could comprehend. The enemy had built an emotional stronghold of doubt and unbelief in my mind, convincing me I would never fit in. Once that lie was uncovered and exposed, I was released from its grip. The freedom I experienced was glorious. The enemy was losing his ground as God’s truth began to break in. When the enemy is able to keep a lie or stronghold undercover, he has you in his grip. But when that lie becomes uncovered, confessed, and renounced, the enemy loses his grip in that area of your life.
The leaders continued to pray, and one by one each wall came down. As the walls came down, floods of emotion came up. Repressed emotions and pain came pouring out of me. There was a cleansing happening in my soul and a renewal taking place in my mind. The enemy’s power was being stripped. Brick by brick, his lies were being undone, and in the process I was being gloriously set free. Fear, doubt, rejection, and a low self-image were being banished from my life. The lie that said I was an outcast was being demolished.
Free to Be Your True Self
My identity was being reformed by truth. The truth is, God had His hand on me since I was a little child. He created me with a very sensitive conscience and gave me a heart to please Him and do what was right. As a result I was labeled “different.” God also created me with the ability to stand by my convictions even if they were unpopular, causing me to not fit in with the crowd. It was that same sensitive nature that would cause me to have the ability to sense the presence of God so easily and flow with Him in supernatural ways from the moment I received Christ in my life.
What I had seen as bad and different was actually good and different. The truth that began to replace the lie was that I was not a reject; I was a leader. I was not weird or different; I was set apart. I was holy unto God. I was not an outcast; I was lovable and worthy of love. In high school God gave me some great Christian friends who brought more healing to my soul. As I fit in with the “right” crowd, God’s crowd, I saw that I was exactly who God made me to be—someone who would change the world!
