Counterfeit Things
A few weeks back, someone asked me to pray for them and told me that if God gave me anything for her, to please tell her. So I did. As I was praying for her, I kept hearing the word, COUNTERFEIT. I asked the Lord what He was trying to tell me, and I heard him say - The enemy only counterfeits what is valuable. The Lord then confirmed that word for me when that exact phrase came out of a friend's mouth in a meeting a couple of days later. He's just so good and He will always be faithful to confirm whatever He speaks to us!
When I hear the word counterfeit, my mind automatically goes to counterfeit money because that's really the only way I've never heard the word used. Figuring that counterfeit money wasn't what God was getting at, I came downstairs and looked it up. Here's the definition:
Made in exact imitation of something valuable or important with the intention to deceive or defraud
A fraudulent imitation of something else; a forgery
To imitate fraudulently
Made in imitation so as to be passed off fraudulently or deceptive as genuine
As I was reading this, God brought to my mind something that April Anderson often says at the Hope Center for Women.....that fear is "False Evidence Appearing Real." So I asked God, is fear counterfeit? Is that what You're trying to tell me? I hear Him say, fear is the counterfeit of truth.
Fear is the counterfeit of truth.
Photo Credit: https://processandfaith.org/can-prehension-lead-to-truth/
Fear is the counterfeit of truth....okay. So....the Word is the Truth, right? So if the enemy only counterfeits what is valuable, what does he try to counterfeit? I felt God tell me to look at the areas of my life (and most people's lives) that the enemy attacks the most. So I did and here goes:
Our minds - the place where we process all wisdom and knowledge
Our health - the temple of the Holy Ghost
Our relationships (marriages/romantic relationships) - the earthly example of the covenant relationship we have with God.
Our leaders/mentors - the people who God often uses to call us to higher and deeper places in Him
Our calling/gifts - the avenue through which God uses us to bring Jesus from Heaven into the Earth
Our feelings/emotions - we are so often in a state of confusion over our identity
Then I read this quote from Joe Joe Dawson that Sue Cline posted. It says, "The devil can't stop you, but he can get you to believe lies about yourself. Then you will actually stop yourself! Believe in what God has placed inside of you and spoken over your life!"
Photo Credit: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/C-I/Pages/WSHP_counterfeit.aspx
And all of a sudden as I read that, something finally clicked inside me. The devil wants to keep us in fear (false evidence appearing real) because that is the counterfeit of the Truth. The truth that is Jesus. He wants nothing more than to keep us in a state of fear so we will blind ourselves to the truth and limit what God can do in and through our lives.
Lately I've fallen to fear.
I'm one of those types of people who like to know what's coming. I like to have plans. I like to be organized. I like to have things figured out. My personal world operates best with lists, organization, order, calendars, spreadsheets, bullet points, and a well thought out plan to go forward into whatever I'm going forward into.
Sometime awhile back, Sue was speaking in church and she said something about how I'm just always trying to figure things out. She was so right. I remember Jonathan Turner sitting in the pew behind me and laughing, telling me, "You can't figure God out."
You can't figure God out.
The process is necessary and it's beautiful, but it's not fun. Waiting is not fun. Not knowing things is not fun. Not having everything all figured out is not fun. I'm in that state myself and it's not fun at all. And because God knows me, He doesn't give me much. He will give me small bits of things to remind me that He's near and He's working, but He doesn't give me a lot of answers about my life. Again, He knows me. He knows that if He gave me too much, I'd have twenty spreadsheets and a plethora of bullet pointed lists all done up and ready to go so I could get it all done.
We can trust God for all of our tomorrows, because we can see His faithfulness woven throughout the tapestry of all of our yesterdays.
The only way I can get through the process is by remembering God's faithfulness in my life in the past. Not even just my life, but in the lives of people around me. It builds my faith to see God's faithfulness in someone else's life. It doesn't even have to be for me personally. Because even though it's SO hard for me to trust Him, to trust in all the things I cannot see, how can I not trust when there's evidence of His goodness and His faithfulness woven all throughout my life? There's been a lot of negative in my life, but HE has always been good. So how can I not trust Him for all of the unknowns and uncertainties and anxieties? It doesn't mean that I'm always in a good mood lately. It's doesn't mean that I walk in full confidence and trust, because I don't. I fall to fear far more often than I would like to. I despise my own humanity sometimes. He has to take me kicking and screaming at times, so to speak. But He's a big God. He handles it. Personally, I wouldn't put up with me....haha.
One of the best teachers I am blessed to know and be taught by, Nellgene Holder, keeps this verse in front of my eyes often:
"Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8)
What she reminds me of is that the enemy can do nothing but roar at us. He prowls around us LIKE a lion, but he is not a lion. The Lion is God, the Lion of Judah. Satan is a counterfeit lion, trying to imitate the very thing that has the most value in the world to us - God. All he can do is roar, hoping to put fear into us. He can only get to us if we allow him to get to us. Like Joe Joe Dawson said, the enemy can't stop you, but he can make you believe the lies (the counterfeits to the Truth) that he puts into your mind so eventually you'll just stop yourself.
If you believe counterfeit Truth, you'll take yourself out of the game by default.
So don't knock yourself out of the game by believing whatever lies that the enemy, (the counterfeit lion) is trying to get you to believe. When you hear them, rebuke them, and do not let them into your being. Take your power back. Walk in the authority Jesus gave you as part of your salvation package, part of His finished work on the cross. You can do it. I can do it. I have people all around me that constantly inspire me to do it.
Remember who you are and who you're not....and don't allow things into your mind that have no place there. Anything that IS of the Lord that is in your mind, pray and ask Him to keep it there permanently. And anything in your mind that IS NOT of the Lord, pray that He deactivates it and removes it permanently, forever.
Ask God to remove any counterfeit thoughts, feelings, ideas, and emotions from your mind....He will be faithful to do it. Be encouraged! Oh, how He loves you so!
So keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising Him always.
(Philippians 4:8 TPT)
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