Revoking the lies

I'm sure all of us, at least once or twice in our lives have had harmful words spoken over us. The problem with harmful words is that if we allow them to, they can take root and become truth to us. I've always thought the saying 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me' was utterly ridiculous. In my experience, words are equally as painful as being hurt physically, if not more so! Broken bones heal a lot quicker than a broken heart. Years ago when listening to a sermon I heard another version of this saying. 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will tear my heart out.' I think that one is a much more accurate description, and I'm sure that if any of you have been hurt by words, you'll agree.

A couple of years ago in church, I got a picture of a wrist that had been broken quite badly and hadn't healed right. This completely restricted the function of the wrist. The only way to fix it was to break the bone again and set it in the right place. In my life what this picture meant to me was that I had allowed the lies spoken over me to take root and become truth and because of that, I hadn't healed properly. But to heal me the only way was to revisit the lies (and so break the bone) and allow God to speak His truth over me instead. If anyone has broken a bone, they will know it's a pretty painful thing, and so is revisiting the lies spoken over us. But it's something that has to be done if we want to move on in our relationship with God, because by believing the lies, you are putting that before God's truth.

For me revoking the lies was a process, I sat down and wrote out a lie that I had believed as truth, then underneath it I wrote the truth. But that wasn't enough, I also found evidence from the bible to back up the truth. Sometimes there were so many verses from the bible to back up the truth, I ran out of room!

Believing the lies even once, allows Satan to get a foothold. It allows the lie to take place of the truth that God has told us in His word, and that can cause our relationship with God to falter.

Philippians 4:8 says 'Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things'


If we allow ourselves to to focus on these things then we can recognise a lie so much easier. If we line ourselves up with God's truth then nothing anyone says to us should be able to take root. When our focus is on God, His truth and His truth only should be able to take root in our hearts.