Jesus shows ministry worker roots of judgmental spirit
R found himself judging others, in spite of his best efforts not to. An inner voice often tormented him and made him anxious, leading him to fall back into sinful patterns. By seeking the Holy Spirit’s counsel during a time of prayer ministry, R was led to the roots of his anxieties and found freedom through forgiveness and deliverance. Praise God!
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣启示教会同工批判之灵的根源 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌啟示教會同工批判之靈的根源)
God has been so faithful and gentle with me on this journey of healing.
Ever since I did my first renewal prayer two years ago where I repented for rejecting myself, God has been patiently teaching me what it means to live in His grace and has opened my eyes to the spiritual realities in my daily walk with Him. Having said that, these two years haven’t been without their challenges as I slowly renewed the way I saw myself.
Growing up, I often felt misunderstood and never able to meet other people’s expectations. I wasn’t allowed to speak up for myself and was forced to submit to whatever my elders told me to do. After my first renewal prayer, familiar feelings of rejection and abandonment from my childhood crept back from time to time, causing me to doubt God’s goodness and question my value to God all over again.
These painful feelings, provoked by lies from the enemy, often tempt me to fall back to the old habits of resenting life.
I found myself running to sinful coping mechanisms such as judging others, condemning them, and being arrogant and sarcastic.
I recognised how there are unhealed wounds in my heart that were giving Satan a foothold, so I signed up to do a second renewal prayer to receive further healing through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In the week leading up to the prayer, the feelings of rejection intensified.
I was tormented by suicidal thoughts – a satanic voice that was constantly tempting me to jump out of the window.
That voice inside my head accused me of being useless to God. I was well aware of the demonic threats that were thrown at me, but at the same time, I felt powerless to shake off those feelings of unworthiness. I was very close to giving up on the prayer session as I was convinced that it wouldn’t do much for me and I would simply be wasting my prayer counsellors’ time.
God saw me in my distress and spoke to me through an unfamiliar face at church. This kind lady, whom I have not spoken with before, came to me and prophesied to my parched soul. I was shocked by how she could describe my circumstances and repeat the uplifting promises that God had said to me in the past.
This divine encounter assured me that God sees me in the dark valleys of my struggles.
It also gave me the confidence and peace to press on to do the renewal prayer, knowing that God is leading the way.
At the beginning of my renewal prayer, the prayer counsellor shared that she saw two versions of me – one being filled with darkness and the other with light. When we asked the Holy Spirit what that darkness was, He revealed to us the idols and spirits that my ancestors had worshipped, many of which were related to pagan beliefs or superstitions related to animals like the tiger, horse, and chicken. It was also revealed that my family may have spoken ungodly expectations over me before I was born, regarding family traits and values.
There had been an oppressive feeling in the prayer room, and it was instantly lifted after I rebuked and cut ties with the spirits affiliated with my family clan. As I asked the Holy Spirit for His revelations on what the spirits were, I was surprised by how many names of demons came up, given that this was my second renewal prayer. Praise God for His guidance and revelation!
The Holy Spirit also reminded me that I had once idolised cartoon characters that practiced witchcraft; Sailor Moon, Digimon, Pokémon, Harry Potter.
I repented for mimicking them to use magic and for making wishes and vows to them. I also repented for scribbling things on my forehead and my friends’ foreheads, without realising what I was really doing. I commanded all spirits related to witchcraft to leave me in the name of Jesus.
Pride runs in my family regarding our family surname, which sounds like prosperity and money in Chinese.
As we did a quick search online, we noted it was a name appointed by an ancient emperor. Since emperors are worshipped as gods, we renounced the emperor’s degrees over our family name in Jesus’ name.
The next area that we dealt with were my feelings of rejection and worthlessness. While I was filling in my renewal prayer form, I found out from my mother that she had once considered aborting my older sister because she disliked her arranged marriage. She felt trapped by her father’s expectation for her to remain married to someone he had handpicked for her.
Later, she planned to have me so that I could be a companion to my sister when she divorced my father.
This helped me to understand why I always struggled with feelings of worthlessness and was prone to having suicidal thoughts, since the spirit of death was introduced to my mother’s womb before I was conceived because she had considered aborting my older sister.
During the prayer, I asked the Holy Spirit to reveal what it was like for me to be in my mother’s womb. I sensed a great degree of shame, fear, and reluctance to be born. As a unborn child, I experienced and reacted to my mother’s bitter emotions over the nine months I spent inside her womb.
As we were praying, I sensed Father God very assertively saying, “I want you.”
It gave me great comfort knowing that God gave me life despite my mother’s impure motives.
I forgave my mother for carrying me out of fear and for transferring her feelings of loneliness to me in the womb.
My parents eventually divorced, and I judged my father for being unfaithful to the family. I saw him as selfish. For example, he brought me to golfing and bowling when I was about the age of 10, and I felt that all he wanted to do was to show off, not to play with me. God showed me that my dad was lonely and was acting from a place of brokenness. He did not know how to show me love because of his own broken upbringing, My father did not have the capacity to know any different.
I forgave my dad for those times when he fell short and asked God to please revive and restore my dad to his original design. I asked for God to teach me how to have compassion for my dad.
In this prayer session, it was also revealed to me how I have misused my gift of empathy. Rather than using the gift to love others, I have used the gift on myself in the form of self-pity and self-entitlement.
My over-reliance on feelings made me vulnerable to the lies and accusations of the enemy.
For example, I sometimes sensed rejection from my father. The prayer counsellors explained that I was actually picking up on his own rejection of himself and mistook those feelings for mine. This gave Satan a chance to accuse me of being unloved and reject my father in return.
When the prayer counselor shared this revelation with me, it took me a while to grapple with the concept of “corrupted empathy” because I was still in denial. I did not “feel” like that was a fair thing to say about me. Therefore, I struggled with repenting.
The prayer counsellor encouraged me to do it anyway. The cloudiness over my thoughts was removed after I repented out loud. It was then that I was finally able to see how I have been misled by my emotions, rather than allowing truth and love to lead me.
I’ve learned to submit my emotions to God for His use, rather than let my emotions dictate what I perceived to be the truth.
Towards the end of the renewal prayer, I experienced a very sweet moment of commissioning from Father God. God crowned me, gave me a staff with a huge diamond top, and said to me “You are now a man.” This was particularly meaningful and personal to me, because God previously told me that I was still a [spiritual] teenager. And I am glad that I have grown out of the teenage stage into manhood!
Since my renewal prayer, I have experienced greater peace and freedom from habitual sins.
I never realised how my mind was so crowded by judgmental and sarcastic thoughts in the past, but now, it is like I’ve received a new cleansed mind. Father God reminds me each day to abide in Christ and not to have anything to do with my old ways. I praise God for the breakthroughs from this renewal prayer, and I’m sure there will be more and even greater transformation on this journey of healing.
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