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The BIG Picture
"Collected
wisdom from the journey."
from Doug
Perry - www.FellowshipOfTheMartyrs.com
- May, 2007
Chapter Two
– Filters
(Printable
PDF files)
What people don't
seem to understand is that God is very polite. He is perfectly
willing to let us dictate the terms of our relationship with
Him. He is very patient. There is a limit, but it takes a
LOT to push Him to that point. The Word says that what we bind
on earth will be bound in heaven and what we loose on earth will be
loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:19 and 18:18-20) He says that if
two of us agree on something, the Father will answer it. Do you
understand how dangerous that is?
If you don't
believe God talks to people, He probably won't talk to you. If you
don't believe God heals people, then don't expect anybody in your
congregation to get healed. If you don't think God can love
you, you probably won't ever feel His love. That doesn't mean He
isn't loving, but you don't think He can love YOU. Ultimately it's
pride because you think you are so uniquely special that God is
incapable of fulfilling His promises to you, even though He does for
everybody else.
This filter is
like a lens through which we see God (and other stuff). It tends to
be colored or fuzzy or opaque depending on our own preconceptions and
expectations and the state of our heart. What we don't
understand is that He will allow us to relate to Him according to our
filter. That is, our Faith is the limiting factor in our
relationship, not His bigness. Maybe a parable will help.
If you're a mother
and you have a teenager daughter going through her “angst”
years, she may come out of her room every day and ignore you or
grumble at you. Maybe she thinks you're stupid and uncool. She tells
all her friends how awful you are and how badly she has it, even
though she has never missed a meal in her whole life and she even
gets most of whatever she wants. Maybe she only talks to you
when she needs money and even then not politely. You don't like
it, but you'll take ANY kind of conversation you can get with her.
Because you're a Mom and you love her. You'll take whatever you can
get – and pray and hope that one day it can get better and
she'll get through this.
But how much
better if she came out of her room every morning and kissed your
cheek and told you about the new boy she likes and wanted to go to
the mall and expressed an interest in YOUR life? How much
better if she told you she loved you and she was your best
friend? Which kid do you think Mom would prefer to talk to?
So how are you
treating your Heavenly Father? Which one are you? Do you even
wait for Him to respond when you pray or do you just talk AT Him and
then hang up the phone before He can respond? Do you even believe God
can talk to people? What kind of relationship are we going to be able
to have with a mute Jesus? But, you see, if you don't believe
God talks to people, He won't talk to you. If you don't believe God
heals people, don't expect anybody around you to get healed. Pray for
the doctors to have wisdom and remember all that they've learned.
That's pretty much all you've got. Good luck with that.
But it sure seems
sort of sad and powerless. It sure seems like that kind of God
isn't very powerful. Maybe you need to let Him out of the box
you put Him in. It's like the blinders on a racehorse, you can't see
anything except that little narrow window straight in front of you.
And your relationship with the Father is never going to be very
complex. More likely you just take Him off of the shelf when you need
something or have an emergency. He really doesn't like that.
He's a lot bigger than you and you probably need to say you're
sorry. Just admit that you've been doing it and repent and ask
Him to be God to you in whatever way He wants to be God.
Of all the filters
and lenses that I've helped people lay down, the most dangerous –
and most common- is the “Dad Filter”. I wrote about
it in one of the other books. I hope it will help you get free and
see and related to Him in a new, bigger, better way. (This book is a
pretty advanced discussion of demons and spiritual warfare, and this
chunk is out of context, but try not to get freaked out too much.)
_________________________________________________________________________
Dad Filter
(excerpted from
“Demons?! You're kidding right?”)
Characteristics:
This is in the hip because it affects their “walk” with
God. In essence it is a lens through which they look at God that
limits Him in some (or many) ways. Usually this cookie-cutter
“box” in which they have placed God is shaped like their
Earth Dad. This is one of the most critical things that needs
dealing with because so much of the other deliverance they may need
hinges on this. For example, if your father died when you were young
and you learned how to be the “man of the house” at a very
early age and depend on yourself and your own strength, you probably
have a “filter” that says that God is unavailable and you
pretty much have to depend on yourself. If your father was abusive,
you probably have a filter that says God is a vengeful, angry God
waiting to strike you with lightning at the slightest little sin.
The most common
one is that people don't believe that God can be Abba Father and pull
them up on His knee and speak sweetly to them and kiss their boo-boos
because they have absolutely NO experience with an earthly father
that is like that (or maybe ANY man ever). I've seen Dad Filters of
all kinds. One young man could not be delivered of the fear and
anxiety and other things. When I asked the Lord why, He said,
“Because of His Dad Filter.” This young man had lost
his father at an early age and had been through all kinds of bad
things and no one came to his rescue. Deep inside, he didn't really
believe God was the kind of Father that would help in his time of
need. He knows what the Word says and he tells other people that God
will rescue them, but he didn't really believe it for himself. When I
named it and showed it to him, he acknowledged it and then I had him
repent for putting God in a box like that, then take his Sword of the
Spirit and hack that lens into a million pieces. When he did that,
the Lord had me pounce on him and give him a huge hug and speak all
kinds of loving things to him that the Lord had been UNABLE to say to
him because he didn't believe God loved him like that. Then we pulled
all the fear and everything off and showed him how to keep his cup
full of Jesus all the time. I could NOT do any deliverance on
him until he stopped believing that he had to do everything in his
own power and he laid down his belief that God was not the kind of
God that would come and rescue him when he was in trouble. Now,
had I not been seeing the demons and hearing God about the Dad
Filter, I would have rebuked the Fear and made a lot of noise –
and then both he and I might have been demoralized later when it
didn't really leave (or didn't stay gone for long). But he gave
the Fear legal ground and would have kept giving it legal ground to
oppress him until he stopped putting God in a box and started believe
that God's power would fight his battles instead of his own. You
can't rebuke demons in the name of “Fred” - only the name
of Jesus will work! But if you don't believe God will come to your
aid, then just keep rebuking them in your name and see how that goes
for you.
I have seen this
RADICALLY transform people and their walk with God. It's always a bad
thing to put God in a box, but particularly a box shaped like a
person. Some people I've ministered to had dads that threw them
into the trunk of a car with dead cats, or sexually abused them, or
invited friends over to sexually abuse them, or were totally
unavailable, unreliable, unloving, or otherwise generally a stinker.
One had her father repeatedly allow a witch to perform all kinds of
disgusting things on her – so that his crops would grow!
It's practically
unavoidable that a child will look to their father as a hero and put
him on a pedestal. It's hard-wired into us and a Dad has to do some
pretty amazingly awful things to negate that fully. And it's also
practically unavoidable that when that kid prays, “Our Father
who art in Heaven” that they will have a flavor in their mouth
(or flashbacks) to what Earth Dad did to them. The Word says
that what we bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven, so if we put
limits on God or force Him into a cookie-cutter mold shaped like
Earth Dad, God will go along with it. He would really rather
you didn't do that, so you can experience the fullness of all He has
for you, but He'll take whatever He can get.
Removal:
They need to see what they've done. They need to acknowledge that
they have put God in a box and say they're sorry. Preferably
they really hate it and hunger for more of Him. It's enough for them
to pray and acknowledge it before the brethren (even one), but
usually I'll have them take their Sword of the Spirit and whack it
into a million pieces (or some other creative way to destroy that
lens). Just so they will have seen it happen in the spirit and
can believe in faith that it is done. Usually that results in almost
immediate changes in the depth of their relationship with God. The
more they have Him bundled up, the more visible the difference will
be. We all put Him in a box. If we didn't, then we'd probably BE
God. We can't possibly get our heads around how big He really
is and the depths of the ways that He wants to relate to us.
All of us need to regularly check to see if we're limiting Him in any
way – and say we're sorry.
Cautions:
They need to expect changes in their walk with Him. If it freaks them
out and they shove Him back in a box again, that is going to go very
badly. They need to keep moving forward, even if it's
hard. We've seen people regress substantially when they let God
out of a box so He could be more involved in their lives and speak to
them more, and then they didn't like what He was asking them to do
and they shoved Him back in.
(end excerpt)
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Any lens or filter
that we've created will limit God. We don't even realize all
the filters we have. We have American filters and
denominational filters and environmental filters and family filters
and all kinds of ways man-made doctrines and dogmas and lenses that
we've absorbed and don't even realize it. We've even personally
made up some of our own to self-justify whatever stupid thing we're
doing and insist on believing that God doesn't mind. Below is a
short list of some of the possibilities that I've seen (or had to get
free from). All of which are NOT Biblical and will prevent God
from being God. All of which benefit the enemy the most in this war.
Just so I'm clear,
you don't bind God because He's not big enough to override you, but
because He's often willing to have a relationship that works within
the parameters that YOU dictate – that is what Faith means. It's
a Dial and not an On/Off switch. It's faith like a child that
is rewarded the most. A life lived wide open to Him and His
direction that can be most useful for the Kingdom and will feel the
constancy of His Fatherhood.
Yes, sometimes
He'll bust through and wreck your preconceptions, but even that is
usually an answer to someone's prayers. I've seen Him
substantially show up in new ways to someone who didn't even think it
was possible. Muslims all over the world are having dreams of Jesus
and visitations and visions. He is spreading the Gospel Himself
since we refuse to go. But it is often related to a particular
day in Ramadan when Muslims are encouraged to seek Truth. So He
shows up in answer to their call. There are certainly millions of
Christians all over the world praying that God will manifest Himself
to the Muslims in hard to reach places. And He is responding.
He stands at the
door and knocks. He waits for you to open it from the inside. If you
only open it an inch, He'll only come in an inch. If you slam it
shut, He'll stand patiently outside again and keep knocking.
But He likes it
best if you just trust Him all the way and fling that door wide open
and then rip it off it's hinges and throw it away. Then He can
come in His fullness and He's never stuck outside again. But it might
cost you everything to let Him be fully in charge. Be warned.
But there's no
better payoff!! To hold His hand every day and to hear His
voice is worth anything.
Just A VERY Few
of the Possible Filters:
Dear Father
God, I don't really have any idea of all the ways that I've limited
You. I know that I have and I'm really sorry. Please, I know You are
really big. Please show me just how big You are. Please just
crush that lens, those blinders, that I've put on and be God to me in
whatever way You want to be God. Please show me the depths of love of
Abba and the severity and justice of Jehovah. Show me all the
man-made things that I have allowed and believed as Truth. Strip them
all away and show me Your Truth. Wash me clean in the Blood of Jesus
so that I can walk before You in real communion and in the fullness
of all that You have for me. I'm sorry, Lord. Please fix it. I know
that You will, so I'm thanking You in advance. I pray all of this to
You in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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