VICTORIOUS LIVINg
Living 'Beyond the Lie'
By Alice Smith
CBN.com – Do you feel trapped in shame, unforgiveness, or distrust? Does it seem like you’re wearing a sign that says "kick me"? If so, Alice Smith understands. Traumatic childhood events kept her a victim for many years. Eventually her journey brought her to the feet of Jesus, where she experienced release.
Alice Smith says, "I am furious with the devil whispering his lies, waiting to rob every man and woman of the freedom they can have in Jesus Christ." In her new book, Beyond the Lie, she takes readers step-by-step from a victim mentality to victory in Jesus. Her testimony is one of God’s deliverance, and yours can be as well. Read an excerpt below.
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The book you are holding is the book I was never going to write. What rational person is willing to expose her inner flaws or reveal her stories of struggle, failure, and embarrassment? But the Lord has clearly shown me that the church needs the revelation I've been given. In more than thirty-five itinerant years I've counseled and ministered to thousands of people who've suffered from Satan's schemes. Like them, I've experienced this pain: I've been victimized. The question I wish to pose is this: Why do some choose to stay in it?
I'm weary of society's relentless venting of victimization. The nightly news has become a constant barrage of violated rights, disgruntled employees, ridiculous lawsuits, and grandstanding politicians. Someone is always whining about something. We should, and do, fight for those who've been truly maltreated, but today the whiners scream louder than those who suffer in silence.
In the 1970s, TV's Saturday Night Live was a cleaner comedy satire than it is today. One of their skits involved "The Whiner Family," of which members spoke with a grating, irritating whine. When they engaged in a conversation, the sounds of their voices were annoying. What made it so funny was that all of us have met constant whiners -- you know, those folks who never have a positive thing to say about themselves or anyone else? One thing is for certain: Whiners aren't winners, and winners don't whine! This book is about winning, not whining.
Satan, our archenemy, delights in diminishing God's purpose for our lives. Forces of darkness lurk in the shadows, whispering their lies, laying in wait for opportunities to rob men and women, boys and girls, of the freedom they can have in Christ. I am furious with the devil and his demons, and I'm ready to expose them. Beyond the Lie will expose the lies you may have believed too.
I'm not focusing here on antidepressants, the latest counseling craze, or the buzz among psychologists and psychiatrists. Many of us have had our fill of the world's remedies. It's time the church of Jesus Christ looks to her Savior for the answers. After all, "Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God" (2 Peter 1:3 The Message). Because too few Christians know the truth of God's Word, their Christian experience is often less than the overcoming life that Scripture promises.
I've always been committed to an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. I've known that He is my victory and has given me all manner of spiritual blessings. However, I was confused for many years, and over time I saw a recurring pattern in my life: Regardless of what I did, where I was, or how I was living, a pack of intimidating spirits tracked me like bloodhounds. Until God provided me with proper revelation, the biblical keys, and the passion to do something about it, it continued. This is why I've written Beyond the Lie. I'm revealing the most intimate details of my life--my story--as a testimony to God's deliverance.
Crisis is the hinge on which the door of promotion swings. Every biblical champion consistently moved from one crisis to another. How you understand, view, and deal with your crises will make or break you. It will establish your future. Your promotion is waiting, but it will not come until you choose to become the champion God has made you. As you benefit from reading my story of how I've gained victory over abuse, others can and should benefit from yours. As my late father-in-law, Dr. Robert E. Smith, taught me, "Everything God has given to me was on its way to someone else when I received it. It's my job to see that it reaches them!"
It's time you become "a bloodhound of heaven." It's time for you, the hunted, to become the hunter. You were created to be a champ, not a chump; a winner, not a whiner; a victor, not a victim! It's time for you to hunt down and defeat the destructive cycles in your life, saying, once for all, "Enough is enough."
When a person comes to Christ, he or she is transformed from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. However, the contracts, covenants, and alliances made through past traumas and sins remain; Christ is the answer, but the new believer may not know how to access the freedom. My friend Arthur Burke says (and he's absolutely right), "The good news is, living with a victim spirit is totally optional." I've written this book to help you find your freedom, break your cycles of harassment and sin, and take your stand in Christ.
Although as an innocent child I was sexually, verbally, and emotionally assaulted, I took responsibility for my problems. I spent many hours in prayer, allowing the Lord to heal my human spirit, deliver me from the entrapment of predatory spirits, and to free me from a faulty mindset. There's an investment to be made if you are to enjoy God's fullness. If you want victory in your life, you'll have to take personal responsibility. You didn't deserve the abuse you received, but that doesn't mean you must live a defeated life. Get up and take action.
If you allow Him, the Lord will use what you've experienced, both good and bad, to purify you! When refining gold, the refiner melts and then stirs the gold over heat until all its impurities float to the top. He skims off the impurities and turns up the heat, and then repeats the process, all the while increasing the heat. Molten gold is pure when the refiner can see his reflection in it.
Just as Moses came down from the mountain shining with the Lord's glory, so we will come from the place of prayer reflecting the glory of Christ, having been with Jesus.
When we've been through the fire of pain, our first response should be to nestle under the shadow of the Almighty and draw close to Him. Regardless of the circumstance, if we will respond to God with pure devotion, we will be changed, and others will see His presence and glory reflected in our lives.
Life-altering experiences are profound covenant encounters. "Covenants with whom?" you might ask. That's the point: The choice is ours (with the exception of those too young to understand or regulate the dynamics of their experience).
Through holy experiences we can establish spiritual covenants with holy people. Over time, partners in the service of Christ build lifelong relationships with one another. Consider a pastor and his wife who have served in the same church for many years. Years in relationship with the congregation have woven together the fibers of their lives into a beautiful divine tapestry. The pastor and his wife are part of the congregation, and the congregation is part of them. The godly covenant is made on two levels:
- They have entered into a holy soul tie covenant with the people they have served.
- They have entered into covenant with God through their years of faithful service. The Lord's anointing rests upon the couple in greater and deeper levels as they continue to surrender to Him in obedience.
A scriptural instance of holy covenant is seen in the case of Jacob's parents, who, in keeping with custom, sent him out to find a bride for himself. Along the journey, Jacob stopped to sleep, and while he slept he had a dream in which God told him that the land he was standing on would belong to him and all his descendents. When he awoke, Jacob realized that he'd had a life-altering encounter -- he would never be the same. He took a stone on which he had been sleeping, poured oil on it, and made a covenant with God. The promise he received from God forever changed his point of view, his sense of purpose, and his priorities in life (see Genesis 28:12–22).
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Unholy contracts are made with unholy people. Through force -- violation, assault, abandonment, or cursing, etc .-- those who choose evil actions traumatize those who are young and/or weak. From this vulnerable place they cower in fear as victims. Ungodly connections can be formed (for example) through fornication, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, group sex, and rape; these are not only sins against God but also against our own bodies.
Whether we know it or not, when we enter into ungodly and unholy contracts, we enter into covenant on two levels.
- First, we enter into covenant with the person(s) with whom we've engaged in sin, willingly or unwillingly. This soul tie is an unseen connection that ties our hearts and lives together with evil and can leave doors open to our lives that must be shut. Jehoiada, a priest from the house of Judah, is a biblical example of one determined to break unholy contracts:
Jehoiada then made a covenant that he and the people and the king would be the Lord's people. All the people went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They smashed the altars and idols and killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altars.... [Jehoiada] also stationed doorkeepers at the gates of the Lord's temple so that no one who was in any way unclean might enter. (2 Chronicles 23:16–17, 19 NIV)
- Second, we enter into covenant with spirits of darkness who provoke sin in us and feed on that sin, which often in turn results in some level of demonization. Demons use unholy soul ties to connect their evil activity to a person.
Even unwillingly entering a partnership with evil opens the spiritual gates of your life to further assaults -- this happened to me and thousands of others to whom I've ministered. It's common for a victim to allow and even (knowingly or unknowingly) invite spirits of injustice, evil, and wickedness into his or her life due to the open doors of wrong associations. A covenant is established in the spirit realm until one party breaks it; you will have to break the covenant to see change occur.
Excerpted from Beyond the Lie: Finding Freedom From the Past by Alice Smith,
copyright © 2006; ISBN 0764200666.
Published by Bethany House Publishers.
Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.
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