WHO I AM IN JESUS CHRIST

(Christ in you the hope of glory Col 1:27)

 This is a thirty-day challenge. Each day for thirty days look up a scripture and confess who you are in Christ. Pay close attention to the areas that have not yet been developed in your heart. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the lie and stronghold that keeps you from believing the truth of God’s Word for you.  

THE WORD OF GOD SAYS:

I am the temple of the Holy Spirit                             I Corinthians 6:19

 I am alive together with Jesus                            Colossians 1:13

 I am blessed - overtaken by blessings                    Dt 28:1-14 & Gal 3:9

 I am heir to the blessings of Abraham                     Gal 3:13-14

 I am Holy and without blame before Him             Eph 1:4

 I am chosen by God                                              Eph 1:4, I Peter 2:9 & Col 3:12

 I am strong in the Lord                                              Eph 6:10

 I am healed by the stripes of Jesus                          I Peter 2:24 & Isa 53:5

 I am more than a conqueror                                   Rom 8:37

 I am heir of God & joint heirs with Christ Jesus      Rom 8:17

 I am blessed with every spiritual blessing       Eph 1:3

 I am in Christ Jesus by His doing                              I Cor 1:30

 I am accepted in the beloved                                  Eph 1:6

 I am complete in Him                                                Col 2:10

 I am free from condemnation                        Rom 8:1

 I am reconciled to God by Jesus Christ                     II Cor 5:18

 I am firmly rooted, built up, established                   Col 2:7

 I am a fellow citizen with the saints                       Eph 2:19

 I am born of God                                                       I John 5:18

 I am the righteousness of God in Christ                    II Cor 5:21 & I Peter 2:24

 I am God’s workmanship created in Christ            Eph 2:10

 I am the apple of my Father’s Eye                         Dt 32:10 & Psalms 17:8

 I am raised up & seated in heavenly places           Col 2:12 & Eph 2:6

 I am beloved of God                                               Col 3:12, Rom 1:7 & Thes 1:4

 I have access by one Spirit unto the Father            Eph 2:18

 I have the peace of God                                             Phil 4:7

 I have been delivered                                                   Col 1:13

 I am redeemed from the curse of the law                 Gal 3:13

 I am a saint                                                               I Cor 1:2

 I am the head & not the tail                                     Dt 28:13

 I am above & not beneath                                         Dt 28:13

 I am set free                                                           John 8:31-33

 I am dead to sin                                                         Rom 6:12 & I Peter 2:24

 I am sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise Eph 1:13

 I am crucified with Christ                                         Gal 2:20

 I am alive with Christ                                    Eph 2:5

 I am called out of the darkness                                I Peter 2:9

 I am the light of the world                                         Matt 5:14

 I am the salt of the earth                                            Matt 5:13

 I am a partaker of His divine nature                      II Peter 1:4

 I am called of God                                                     II Tim 1:9

 I am the first fruits among His creation                   James 1:18

 I am being changed into His image                       II Cor 3:18

 I am being perfected in Christ Jesus                     Phil 1:6

 I am sanctified                                                           I Cor 5:17

 I am born of God & have overcome the world         I John 5:4

 I have the mind of Christ                                           Phil 2:5 & I Cor 2:16

 I have obtained an inheritance                                  Eph 1:11

 I have everlasting life                                                John 5:24 & John 6:47

 I have received power                                                Mark 16:17 & 18b, Luke 10:17,19

 I am set free from the law of sin and death           Col 2:6

 I walk in Christ Jesus                                    Col 2:6

 I can do all things through Christ Jesus                     Phil 4:13

 My life is hidden with Christ in God                     Col 3:3

 I shall do even greater works than Christ Jesus      John 14:12

 I possess the Greater One in me                                I John 4:4

 I press toward the mark for the prize                    Phil 3:14

 I always triumph in Christ                                         II Cor 2:14

 I am a child of God                                                 Rom 8:16

 I am redeemed from the hand of the enemy Ps 107:2

 I am forgiven                                                 Col 1:13-14

 I am saved by grace through faith                             Eph 2:8

 I am justified                                                         Rom 5:1

 I am a new Creature                                              II Cor 5:17

 I am led by the Spirit of God                                 Rom 8:14

 I am a son of God                                                      Rom 8:14

 I am kept in safety wherever I go                              Ps 91:11

 I am getting all my needs met by Jesus                     Phil 4:19

 I am casting all my cares on Jesus                          I Peter 5:7

 I am blessed coming in and blessed going out          Dt 28:6

 I am exercising my authority over the enemy           Luke 10:19

 I am establishing God’s Word here on earth        Matt 16:19

 I am an overcomer by the Blood of the Lamb           Rev 12:11

 I am not moved by what I see                                   II Cor 4:18

 I am walking by faith and not by sight                      II Cor 5:7

 I am casting down vain imaginations                       II Cor 10:4-5

 I am bringing every thought into captivity          II Cor 10:5

 I am being transformed by renewing my mind         Rom 12:1-2

 I am a laborer together with God                               I Cor 5:21

 I am an imitator of Jesus                                           Eph 5:1

 I am blessing the Lord at all times                        Ps 34:1

Forgiveness, the answer to depression.

Margaret Youell

In the course of life, we experience many heartbreaks, some of which leave wounds or broken areas in the soul.  In salvation, our eternal existence is in the kingdom of God.  We are spirit beings.  The essence of who we really are is the new creation, the born-again child of God.  We possess a soul, which is the mind, will, intellect and emotions.  The wounds that occur damage the soul and cause a grieved or breached spirit.  The results are often realized in the way we act and react to stimuli in our environment, not knowing why we do the things we do.

Depression has been defined as anger turned inward. Unsettled anger is the fruit of a grieving spirit and is usually produced by a stronghold spirit of fear, brought into our lives by some hurtful experience in childhood.  One of the most determining scriptures in the life of a child is found in Ephesians 6:4, Fathers, do not irritate and provoke your children to anger -- do not exasperate them to resentment -- but rear them tenderly in the training and the discipline and the counsel of the Lord.  Colossians 3:21 says Fathers, do not provoke or irritate or fret your children -- do not be hard on them or harass them; lest they become discouraged and sullen and morose and feel inferior and frustrated; do not break their spirit.  This admonition to fathers is the determining factor in the well-being of a child and the root cause of most of the unsoundness that we experience in our adult lives.  The type of anger can be the consequence of a father-wound.

Ephesians 4:26-32 sheds much light on the brokenness of the soul.  Verse 26 When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath -- your exasperation, your fury or indignation -- last until the sun goes down.  Children don’t know what to do with their anger.  They certainly aren’t allowed to express it, so they repress it and it turn inward, leaving them in an embittered state, sullen and morose.  Funk and Wagnalls describe morose people as bitterly dissatisfied with the world in general and disposed to vent their ill nature upon others.  Sullen and sulky individuals are for the most part silent, the morose growl out bitter speeches.  A surly person is in a state of latent anger, resenting approach as intrusion, and ready to take offence at anything.

 Continuing in Ephesians 4, verse 27, Leave no such room or foothold for the devil -- give no opportunity to him.  This unresolved anger gives the devil a place to be in the soulish area; the mind, will, and emotions.  The next two verses speak of behavior, the thief and our language.  Verse 30 says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, (do not offend, or vex, or sadden Him.)

This grieving of the Holy Spirit shows the state of our own human spirit when unresolved anger is present.  We become easily offended (not walking in love), vexed (troubled, discomforted, perplexed, worried, uneasy, and lacking power) and saddened (melancholy, anguished, distressed, regretful).  What we call depression is actually a grieving spirit.  An embittered child can become trapped in a state of grief that can last a lifetime, caught in the cycle of denial, anger turned in, and anger turned out.  Fearful. The adult never finds the resolution to their grief.

 This, in turn, produces a stronghold spirit of fear found in 1Timothy 3 God has not given us a spirit of timidity -- of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear -- but He has given us a spirit of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.  According to this scripture a stronghold of fear that is residing in unresolved anger would do three things.  1) It would take away your power, leaving you lacking discipline and self-control.  The area of the soul that is affected is the will.  2) This fear leaves you lacking love, not able to love well.  Jesus came to bring reconciliation to God, our real selves, and to others.  This fear takes on different names, fear of rejection, fear of intimacy, fear of relationships, etc.  3) It leaves you without a sound, calm, and well-balanced mind.  We see that this spirit of fear affects all three areas of the soul: the mind, the will, and the emotions.

 Our passage of scripture in Ephesians 4 tells us how to get rid of this spirit of fear that is the result of unresolved anger. Verse 31 says Let all bitterness and indignation and wrath (passion, rage, bad temper) and resentment (anger, animosity) and quarreling (brawling, clamor, contention) and slander (evil speaking, abusive or blasphemous language) be banished from you, with all malice (spite, ill will, or baseness of any kind).  32. and become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted (compassionate, understanding, loving hearted) forgiving one another (readily and freely), as God in Christ forgave you.

The key to experiencing the Kingdom of God and realizing the righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost is forgiveness.  Reading this passage backwards (the way Greek is sometimes written) we ascertain that if we forgive; we then become compassionate 32; all the bitterness is gone 31; we, as well as, the Holy Spirit are no longer in a state of grief 30; our language is clean and wholesome 29; our injurious behavior is changed 28; we leave no place for the devil in our lives 27; and when we are angry, we do not sin 26.

Much of our time is spent struggling with our behavior, which is fruit, rather than dealing with the root of the problem.  Identifying the inner vows and bitter-root judgments made by us as children will locate the areas of unforgiveness we have in our hearts towards our parents and others who may have wounded us.  Inner vows, such as, “I don’t ever want to be like you!”, or “You will never see me cry!” and bitter-root judgments like, “You don’t love me.” and “You were not there to protect me!” can cause severe damage in the soul and create a place for the devil.  However, 1 John 3:8b says, “For this purpose was the Son of God manifest, to destroy (undo, loosen, dissolve) the work the devil has done.”

The Ten Traits of a Codependent

 1.   The codependent is driven by one or more compulsions.

2.   The codependent is bound and often tormented by the way things that were in the dysfunctional family of origin.

3.   The codependent’s self-esteem and maturity are very low

4.   A codependent is certain his or her happiness hinges on others

5.   Conversely, a codependent feels inordinately responsible for others.

6.   The codependent’s relationship with a spouse is marred by a damaging, unstable lack of balance between dependence and interdependence.

7.   The codependent is a master of denial and repression

8.   The codependent worries about things he or she can’t change and may well spend their entire lives trying to change them.

9.   A codependent’s life is punctuated by extremes.

10. A codependent is constantly looking for the something that is lacking in life.

 Imagine yourself as a four-layer cake.  The top layer consists of the symptoms or compulsions and addictions, such as, work holism, perfectionism, a rage holism.  The visible symptoms of the problem are often, mistakenly the focus of attention.

 The next layer is the relationship layer. The person finds that all relationships are skewed or distorted by what happened in the past.

 The lightning is the third layer.  Some form of abuse, active or passive. Active abuse is physical out-in-front, easy to see, such as:

1.   Beating or Battering

2.   Sexual Molestation

3.   Manifestations of extreme anger or rage--Verbal Violence

4.   The Child who is beaten down emotionally or verbally 

 Passive abuse happens when one or both parents are so preoccupied they are not available to the child emotionally, physically, or both.

1.   Alcoholism or substance abuse 

2.   Work holism, while not intentional neglect, still results in feelings of neglect.

3.   Abandonment by divorce, military service, or premature death of a parent.

4.   Adopted individuals also have to deal with abandonment issues.

5.   A parent who brushes a child aside or tunes out a child.

6.   A nonemotional parent

7.   A parent who never shows affection; touching, hugging, or rough housing.

8.   Lack of love between parents

9.   A parent with compulsions or perfectionism

10. A parent who is chronically depressed

11. A parent who is legalistic or ritualistic

 Other forms of abuse:

 1.   Emotional incest, in which the child becomes the parent to the parent or surrogate spouse, meeting the parents’ emotional needs

2.   Parents trying to relive their lives through the child by imposing their dreams or desires onto the child.

3.   Information too difficult for the child’s mind to process correctly.

The fourth layer is the hunger for love.  The unmet emotional needs cause the person to feel less-than-whole.  A person with a love deficit is constantly looking for someone or something to provide the missing part.

The codependent operates out of an Orphan Spirit or victim mentality or mindset