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Since 2000 Every Man Ministries has been activating men worldwide to live out their truest identity in Christ through its discipleship resources, live events, and steaming platform.
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Understanding Spiritual Identity Theft 0:00 Hey, men. Kenny Luck here, founder of Everyman Ministries. I'm so glad you're here. From wherever you are, on your way to work, in the backyard, around a fire pit, with your men's group, in a church hall, we're just so0:10 glad as a part of the Everyman team that you've chosen to open up God's word and grow spiritually. Now a couple coaching tips. Just make sure you have your Bible handy. It's always a great reference point. Make sure you0:21 have the downloaded notes. Those help you not only follow along, but then you could teach it and give it away. Now fun fact, you know, this live stream is only 1 time a week. But0:33 we have a community of 70000 plus men who receive fresh insight and encouragement from God's word in the every man daily devotional. If you wanna join that community and get just a fresh0:44 encouragement on a daily basis versus just the once a week meeting, go ahead and go to the bottom of the home page. There's a little space there. You put in your email and just sign up. Lastly, before we go to the0:56 study, if you have been ministered to or blessed by the Everyman Life here, let me encourage you to bless another man. Somewhere in the1:07 world, on a military base, maybe it's a group of friends, maybe it's a church, but bless other men by becoming an everyman partner and give1:19 financially. There's a little donate there. It just helps us to get what you're gonna watch out into the spaces and places where men are so they can become like Jesus.1:31 Now let's join today's study. If you have a Bible, I want you to hold a spot in Genesis chapter 3 and second Corinthians 10. We're in part 4 of a series1:43 called Shadow Self. And to get you thinking in the right direction today, I wanna ask you kind of a personal question. Have you ever had your identity stolen or1:56 ever had your computer hacked or ever had a malware or ransomware infect your hard drive? Have you ever been impersonated? Now the2:07 reason I asked that question is that in today's world, we read about identity theft, we read about data breaches, we read about malware attacks,2:20 we see these cyber attacks on a corporate level, on personal levels, and on global systems level shutting down entire companies, entire2:32 networks, and the individual lives of people who get hacked. Right now, I think the number is between 15 and 20000000000 dollars2:44 is stolen from corporations and individuals on an annual basis because hackers steal the identities and data of corporations and individuals,2:56 and I'm 1 of those numbers. Recently, I received an email and the email was from our our financial person at Everyman Ministries, and she said, why3:08 didn't you tell me about this invoice? And it was for 16000 dollars. Now that's a lot of money to pay a consultant, and apparently,3:21 the email was from me. Now, when I looked at the email, I saw that something was off. There there seemed to be a few red3:33 flags, like, the tone of the email was off. It was very impersonal, very distant, very demanding. It was using power language3:45 like this needs to be paid right away. And so I I pressed the pause button on the payment of that, and I called my good friend who is a cybersecurity expert,3:57 and he came in, got gave him access to my computer, and it was the wildest thing. But the hacker was in my RSS feed and inside my4:09 computer at the time that my cybersecurity friend was examining my system. Now I don't understand all of it, but he asked me, do you4:21 wanna watch this person try to hack in and get more information? And so he he put some windows up and all of a sudden, there is this page, and then there was there's this there's4:32 this code that was being written, and then it'd be erased. And there's this code that was being written, and then it would be erased, and then more code. And my friend said, that is the hacker trying to get4:44 your personal identifiable information. I said, what's that? He says, in our industry, we call it PII, personal identifiable information. It is the4:56 prized information when it comes to stealing an identity. So like a password or your social security number. And it was just unbelievable,5:08 and he said, I've also traced this to a cafe in London 5400 miles away. And I just5:20 thought, wow. Here's someone 5400 miles away using fear to intimidate my controller5:32 for our ministry to pay an invoice for 16000 dollars. The good news is is that my controller, the person who5:44 distributes checks and pays for things here at Everyman Ministry, she reached out to me, and she didn't pay it even though, the language was very5:56 demanding. But I just thought to myself, wow. She could have been made afraid by this power language. She she could have active impulse impulsively, but what I6:07 love about our our gal, Colleen, is that she's like, nope. Instead, she emails me. She's like, why didn't you talk to me about this? So why do I share that story?6:19 Because in in the spiritual supernatural realm, your identity in Christ can be stolen. And there is a hacker,6:32 capital h, whose name is Satan, and he uses fear in moments and they're timed and they seem to6:43 come. The fear is planted and seems to come right at the right time that causes you to act on fear versus act out of your identity in Christ.6:55 To act out of God's assurance of his love. To act not act in God's acceptance. To to not remember that you are a son of the king. The fear mutes that,7:08 it hijacks your mind, you believe the fear, and now guess who's in control? Your shadow self. And so in7:20 part 3 of shadow self, we talked about, the apostle Paul. Today, we're going to talk about Peter because we're going to look at how this very thing that I'm describing, right?7:32 Fear, fear hijacking the mind, believing the fear, and then behaving out of the fear happened to Peter, right? Then we're gonna get God's7:44 mind on your mind, right? And that's what we do as God's men on any issue, you know, whatever the issue is we want to get God's mind. But this is probably in7:56 terms of you winning, you overcoming your shadow self, you transforming, you need to get God's mind on your mind. As God's men, we need to get our head straight,8:08 you know, on on all the issues and get God's perspective on that. Then what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about that deceptive evil hacker who traffics in fear,8:20 and then we're gonna sort of assess ourselves. Okay. Are there any red flags in my own life where I'm being manipulated8:32 by fearful suggestions or thoughts, where then the shadow self is given control? And then we're gonna go practically to how do you lock down,8:45 your mind. So like, how do you double authenticate? That's what they say in cybersecurity circles, so that that your mind doesn't get hacked by8:57 the trafficker and the hacker of fear. Alright? So let's look first at Peter, and I need to provide a little bit of context. In Luke9:08 22, Jesus is having a conversation with the the disciples and and right after he tells Simon, you know, you're gonna be Peter and on this rock,9:20 I'm gonna build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, right? He follows that up with this. Luke 22 31 to9:32 34. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for9:43 you that your faith may not fail. And you, once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. But he Peter said to him,9:55 Lord with you I am ready to both go to prison and to death. And he said, I say to you Peter, the rooster will not crow today10:07 until you have denied 3 times that you know me. And of course, we know what happened next. That in the context10:19 of Jesus's arrest and trial, Peter is following at a close distance and Jesus's prophetic prediction about Peter's10:31 denial of his association with Jesus comes true. And what did Peter learn? Well, he certainly learned something10:43 about himself, that his connection and association with Jesus was not as strong as he thought it might be under pressure. He also learned that there's10:55 a real enemy that stages real attacks and he can hack into even a person who's walked with Jesus for 3 years11:07 and plant fear and steal his personal identity to the point where Peter says,11:19 I'm not with him. Like, emphatically, like, with energy, kinetically. I'm not with him. Can you imagine? I mean, this is the same guy11:32 who was with Jesus, saw Jesus take command over nature, saw Jesus drive demons out, saw Jesus feed the 5000 with a few loaves and11:43 fish, saw Jesus heal Jairus' daughter, saw Jesus raise her from the dead, saw what went on with life. I mean, no 1 had11:56 been more convinced and confident that Peter, so his his language there you'd think, oh, yeah, I, you know, if I was Peter, I probably coulda coulda said that too.12:07 But then, Jesus gives Satan permission to test Peter, to test his identity, to test his will. The image of sifting12:20 is violent. In the first century, Peter knew what that word meant. You had wheat thrown into a sifter, 2 men holding the12:31 sifter, and what they did was they they shook it violently. And and then the the chaff would fall through and then the colonels would remain in the bay12:43 of the sifter. Okay? So Jesus is telling Peter, okay, you're gonna get assaulted. It's going to be a violent assault and these12:55 circumstances are going to unsettle you and then fear is going to be planted in you and then you're going to enter a circumstance where because you believe13:06 that fear, you're gonna get tested and you're gonna deny me 3 times. And so Jesus sees the beginning and the end. He knows what's gonna happen, but Peter has no idea and it overwhelms him. It's13:18 like a mental ambush and a circumstantial substantial ambush. We're just like, wait. What what just happened? Did I just did I just do that? You ever feel like that? So I think it's important to13:30 see that we are in good company when it comes to the shadow self, that we are vulnerable, that we have 1, that the devil knows that we have a shadow self that we want to13:42 hide and we're afraid people are going to see, that we saw in David and the Apostle Paul, and now in Peter that that we all have a shadow self, we13:54 have this internal, this inner man, and there's a war for control of that inner man. And sometimes we get tested and fail, other times we get tested and win. The goal14:06 here is to not let the shadow self be manipulated and controlled by fear, but to remember who we are and how loved we are and have that love conquer14:19 all fear. Okay? So what we're gonna talk about for the balance of our time is, we're just gonna get God's mind on our mind, we're gonna see the hacker very clearly. You gotta understand the enemy and14:31 how he is constantly trying to hack into your mind and then we're gonna look at ourselves and go, okay. Have we been hacked? Some of us, unknowingly.14:43 Alright? And then we're gonna we're gonna lock it down. Alright? So let's just kinda look at scripture, and let's get God's mind on our mind. Proverbs 4 23 says, be careful what you think14:55 because your thoughts run your life. Woah. Okay. There's an admonition. Okay. Your thoughts run your life,15:06 and that that's proven by neuroscience. You always move toward what you think about. So if you're thinking about something, if you're believing something, that is a short bridge to15:19 behavior. So I can always track my behaviors with the preceding belief. That's why the scripture, says be careful what you think because your15:31 thoughts run your life. You're gonna you're gonna behave out of the thoughts you believe. Okay? Let's go to a very common passage. You'll know it most likely. Matthew 22 37 says, and15:42 Jesus answered, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. I wanna focus on that part. Love the Lord your God15:55 with all your mind. K? What does that signal? It means that we can choose thoughts that don't show love for God. It shows us16:07 that all thoughts are not equal, you know. It shows us that we are called and commanded by Jesus himself with the red letters that, you know, your thought life16:19 can can show love for God by what you choose to let in to your mind, and it can show that you're not loving God by what you choose to16:30 let in to your mind. Now we talked about how there's actual hackers in the computer world and how they target16:42 corporations and individuals in global networks, right, because they want to steal personally identifiable, information. Okay? But in the spiritual realm, the hacker is the devil16:55 and he is on the other side of this battlefield. You see, God says, love me with your mind. Okay? The thoughts that you let in, the thoughts that you think, and be careful what you17:07 think. In other words, have a filter for assessing what thoughts come into your head. Alright? And then on the other side of the battle is the hacker or in Genesis chapter 3, the17:18 serpent. Listen to this hack, right, with the first people, Adam and Eve. The serpent, the Bible says, was the shrewdest of all the17:30 wild animals the lord god had made. 1 day, he asked the woman, did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden? You won't die. The serpent replied17:42 to the woman, God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it. You will be like God knowing both good and evil.17:54 So this is the original fear of missing out or FOMO attack. Right? The strategy is simple, the strategy is18:06 effective, plant a fearful thought about missing out on something. Do you ever say that? Like in my family, we don't we don't say FOMO, fear of missing out. We say ROMO,18:17 reality of of missing out. But I want you to see that in this spiritual battle, you have you have created beings being18:29 attacked, and it's just a suggestion that creates a lot of fear. And the response to that suggestion here, we all know,18:41 was that sin and death came into humanity through this planting of the fear, the believing of the fear, the taking18:53 over of the inner person, and then and then sin and death come in. Strategy hasn't changed. That19:05 context was the garden. You have your context and your issues, and the shrewdest person, the hacker, the liar, the19:16 devil himself who hates God and who hates you, his loved created being, and he's gonna attack you just like he attacked the original couple19:29 in the garden using your personal context, your personal concerns, your personal situation to see if he can plant some fear in the moment19:40 and get you to act. So what does he know? Okay? What does the hacker know? Well, here's what he knows. A few things. Write these down. We'll just tick through these. The hacker knows thinking determines19:52 living. Thinking determines living. Remember that verse that we read? Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life, Proverbs 420:04 23. Second, the hacker will attack your thinking to compromise trusting. K. You look at that situation in the garden in that context.20:16 Right? And so he just wants to he just wants to change Eve's thinking about what god had said. And it's not it's not20:28 dramatic but it it is reassuring when he says, oh, god knows that just he just knows that your eyes will be open and as soon as you eat it, you'll be like, god, knowing both good and20:39 evil. And so very subtly, it it the message is, oh, god's god's holding out on me. God doesn't want me to experience this wonderful thing20:51 of of knowing and the the difference between good and evil. And so what that does is it erodes trust in god. Fear21:03 always erodes trust in a relationship. Alright? If you have a fear like that. And so you see the hacker strategy. Third, the hacker's goal21:15 is to compromise trusting and to foster fearing. So there's the attack, there's the plant, and it's okay if21:27 I could just get her to believe this lie that God's jipping her, that God's holding out on her, that's gonna compromise her trust and her trust in God is gonna go21:39 down and her fear is going to rise. And fear always destroys and separates in relationship. Lastly, the hacker wins when fear21:50 fuels replacing God. Okay. Well who takes God's place? The shadow self, the selfish person, the impulsive person, the person who wants what they22:02 want, when they want it. Right? So the shadow self takes control, starts calling the shots, when? After the fear is suggested and22:14 the lie is believed. Alright? So here's what I want us to see just in our setup, for this session. Here's a fact that I want you to write22:26 down. Inner fear is universal, but inner corruption is optional. Inner fear is universal. We all have fears, we all have worries, that's why22:38 the Bible addresses our fears and worries. You know, the most repeated phrase in the Bible is do not be afraid. So interfere is pretty much universal, but inner corruption of the mind,22:50 that is optional because we have weapons. Now, 365 times, the Bible says, don't fear. Okay? And the devil knows that we23:02 live on a broken planet with broken people, with human beings who have suffered and who are afraid. Okay? Well, that's why God goes23:14 to so much effort, right? To let us know, that, you know, corruption, even in the midst of a broken world and planet where fear rules and does terrible things inside of23:26 people, we can conquer that fear and we don't have to be corrupted. Why? Because we have weapons. Second Corinthians 10, 4, and 5, we have23:37 weapons that we can fight with with the mind. So here's what it says, the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have power to demolish strongholds,23:49 to demolish arguments, and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of god. And we take captive every thought, circle that, to make24:01 it obedient to Christ. I want us I want you to see just a couple of things there. A, that we're in a spiritual battle, alright, that and that God has provided an arsenal24:13 of weapons specifically designed to demolish strongholds. Now I have to unpack that word. K? A stronghold is a a believed way of24:25 thinking that gets locked in to the human mind. And when a stronghold, a way of thinking, a pattern of thinking, a way of24:36 seeing and perceiving something becomes locked in, alright, you're you're gonna behave out of that belief. So that's why it's strong. K? We behave24:49 in response to the things that we really believe. But these weapons that god provides, they demolish those strongholds. K? So25:01 if the weapon of the enemy is fear and lies and we believe out of fear in those lies, okay, on a repeated basis, we we hash it25:12 over in our mind and then we get more fearful, we hash it over, we get more fearful fearful. That becomes a stronghold, then we behave out of that. Okay? The Bible is telling us that we25:24 don't have to live like that, that we can actually demolish arguments which is just a pattern of thinking that the fear creates and25:36 things that Look look at the context that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. So there's relationship and the knowledge of God and the experience of God because we have the knowledge of God and then there's25:48 this war for our brain, okay? That's getting assaulted, right? And the goal is to is to have us not know God and not have us experience26:00 God. So major battle, well how do we win? It gives us the answer. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. So the best picture I can give you is that of going through customs in a26:12 foreign country. We live in the United States. If you're not from the United States, you land in the United States, you go through customs. If I leave, I go to Europe or Mexico or Canada, I go through customs.26:24 And everybody who goes through customs gets in a line and they get in front of a person, and that person is handed documents, and then what happens? You get26:36 inspected. Questions are asked. How long are you gonna be in our country, mister Luck? Where are you staying in in while you're here? What are you gonna be doing? Are you traveling with anybody?26:47 So then that person who is in the box looking at my documents gets to decide, in or out. And there's26:59 that moment where we're just like, okay, I I hope I hope everything works. Right? That's a picture of second Corinthians 10 5. We take captive27:12 every thought to make it obedient and correct. You gotta you gotta manage your mind like a customs booth. Not all thoughts are equal. K. We've concluded that. We gotta be careful what we think, which means that not all27:23 thoughts are equal. Thoughts present themselves to your mind initially. They show up at the at the at the box of your mind where you get to make the decision. And then you have to27:34 decide, am I am I gonna inspect it? Does does it help me love God with my mind, or not? If it doesn't help me love God with my mind, it gets27:46 kicked out. It does not get entertained, it doesn't get dwelled on, I don't let it in, it gets rejected. Okay? Rejected, no admission. Right?27:58 So you have weapons. The assumption of this passage is that we regularly use them. We demolish strongholds. Sort of like that's what we do because we know we're in a spiritual battle.28:10 It's truth versus lies and we use truth to demolish the lies. Now now what we need to look at is, okay,28:22 am I believing some things? Am I am I getting hacked by the hacker who's maybe planting some fears? And so, you know, just like the red flags that accompany that28:34 email that I shared at the top of the session, like, there were some red flags, the tone, the language, the amount. It just the relational dynamics28:45 in the email were off, off, off, off. Just like there are red flags, you know, in that communication. When it comes to your shadow self, your inner man, and28:57 God's presence there, in God's love, that can be corrupted by a lie that we believe. And when we believe that lie, and it might even29:09 be subtle and subconscious, but when we believe that eye, we start acting out of character. We start acting out of fear, and that inner29:21 corruption produces outward signs. Just like the inner corruption of my computer by a hacker started to produce outward29:33 signs that something was going on. So that's what we're gonna talk about next. We're gonna talk about some spiritual red flags that that your inner security29:45 system in God's love, key key phrase there, in God's love has been hacked, okay? So let's look at some let's look at some red flags. The29:57 first red flag is that worry controls your spirit. Okay. Now now this one's easy to admit. Not easy to admit. Well, yeah, it is easy to admit. Everybody worries,30:09 but it's easy to dismiss. Right? All of us worry about something, right? I mean that's that's true but what I'm talking about here is abiding and constant worry, and that's30:21 a signal to you if you're a you have abiding worry, abiding anxiety, that the future needs to be under your control.30:33 You're always thinking about, oh my gosh, I what if that happens? What if that happens? What if that happens? What if we do this? If I do this, then this is gonna happen. And you don't know that because we're not in30:44 tomorrow. We're just in today. K. But if if that's if that's your goal of controlling the future through worry, good luck with that. Right? The30:56 lie that you have believed is that God's ability, God's love, God's wisdom, it's good for some things. It's just not good for this 1 thing that I'm worrying about. The31:08 lie is is that God's promises that he's going to take care of me, they're they're true. It's just not for me. Ain't that? Red flag, worry controls31:21 your spirit. Number 2, restlessness controls your actions. Okay? You just you just can't get31:33 comfortable with yourself, with your life, with your circumstances. I I would call it the longing and the living gap. Right?31:45 You long for comfort and you long for stability, but you're living in a state of temporary with everyone and everything. Okay? It's hard to be grateful and content31:56 with situations and people. Why? Because you're you're restless, which makes sitting with circumstances or embracing people in the moment32:09 really hard. Right? Restlessness always makes you get out of processes early. It restlessness always is bad for relationships. Restlessness32:21 is is bad for endeavors and commitments, and the lie that is believed when it comes to restlessness, controlling our actions, the lie and the fear32:33 connected fears. If I stay in place, you know, in 1 place too long, I might have to deal with the reality that is uncomfortable or unwanted. So you move on. I'm just not gonna stay there long enough to have32:45 to deal with that that reality, the reality in that relationship, the reality at work, the reality in my circumstances. So when you live in a state of temporary, always moving from32:56 1 thing, 1 person to the next person, 1 situation to the next person, and you just can't sit with truth and reality, with god, with you, red flag. So worry controls33:08 your spirit. Restlessness controls your action. Third, vacillation sabotages you. Right? And it sabotages your relationship. Now the best picture33:20 of vacillation that sabotages is 1 of those fans, you know, you you lift up the the lock and it goes,33:32 right? It's back and forth. I'm I'm fine, and I'm full of faith. I'm not fine, and I'm full of fear.33:45 Everything's good. No. It's all good. I'm really worried. I don't need anybody. Man, I really need you really bad. You33:57 see how there's just that vacillation. You know, I act like I don't need others, then confusingly, I act like I can't do life without others in my life. I go from I don't need anybody,34:09 right, and demanding, you know, hey, give me my space to I need you, I love you, and I demand closeness. Right? And that vacillating behavior especially seen in relationships where34:21 it's it's kind of like this. See what I'm saying? That's dysfunctional. Okay? And it's it's where we we push the people we want to be close to far away,34:33 and that idea that people are both both needed and a threat, that's dysfunctional, right? But you see, you know,34:45 that's where your relationship with God comes in. It's like, I know that God's not gonna abandon me. God's not gonna hurt me and and that but that's how we do it with God and with people. So worry,34:56 restlessness, desolation. Fourth red flag, conflict, avoidance and pleasing people. Alright? When your insides, when your shadow self is in control, you're filled with35:08 fear and you know what fear doesn't want? It doesn't want disagreement. Okay? It doesn't want a question to be asked. When fear is in the water of your35:20 spirit and your shadow self is kind of in control and someone asks a question that maybe you don't have the answer to, watch out. And when you35:31 can't tolerate or are uncomfortable with disagreement, guess what you become? A destroyer of the person35:43 who's asking the question or causing what is perceived to be a disagreement. Right? Or you just35:56 behave apologetically. So there's this really like polar opposite where it's just like, I'm gonna destroy you. Don't ask me questions and you attack or you just cave and you behave apologetically. Say, oh, I'm sorry.36:08 I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And then what happens then? Well, nothing gets really resolved with that response either. K? But conflict avoidance, right? Squashing36:20 conflict or pleasing people in conflict. Neither of those are solutions because the unresolved issues pile up. Right? Red flag.36:32 Alright? So worry, restlessness, desolation, conflict avoidance. Alright? Here's a really big 1 that I know many of you are gonna identify with. Public36:43 private split. Okay? That's a red flag. What do I mean by that? That's number 5, right? It means that you're 1 person on Sunday, you're another person on Monday.36:55 Your image, perception is very crafted, it's cultivated, people perceive you a certain way. But then in private, you are another37:07 person, okay? And the lie that you're believing is people can't really know who I am because they'll reject me. K? So37:19 it's all good. Everything's great. My image says so. The different things that I'm wanting you to believe, you believe, there's that person. And then there's the real37:31 person. There's the real you who struggles, shadow self, you know, trying to defeat certain demons that are defeating you, relationships37:43 are hard, your maturity level needs to come up, but you're split. And you know what that is called in plain English? Torture.37:55 When you have a private reality and a public persona, it's torture. The sixth red flag is outbursts that38:07 you regret. K? That was on the screen, it's switched, juxtaposed, but it's outburst. You know, it's it's like, you know, you're you're like a bruise. You know, if people38:19 poke 1 thing, woah, out comes this this response. Right? Why? Because you're not you're not talking about what's going on inside.38:31 You're you're you're holding it in and then you're becoming like a bruise, a walking bruise, and then somebody happens to, you know, bump into you or poke that bruise. Has that ever happened38:43 to you? Situation pops up? Man, that's that's a result of a fear or a lie or a distortion being believed and your38:54 shadow self taking over control. Alright. Last red flag, perception trumps reality. That's our last red flag. It's more important that people see39:06 you a certain way versus accept the way you are. Flaws and them all. K? Red flag. So there's more, but after working with39:18 men for for 30 years and counseling a lot of people, worry, restlessness, vacillation, conflict avoidance, 1 person in public, 1 in private, outbursts,39:32 perception trumps reality. Those things show me that you've been hacked. Why? 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