Jealousy: The Identity Thief

Many times we fall into comparison with others because of a lack of identity. This insecurity can result in a crippling amount of instability. Sometimes we shrink back and follow what looks like the most powerful path, but other times we mount up with competition and striving, seeking furiously to prove we are significant. This can lead us into the pitfall of jealousy, which the bible says is 'as cruel as the grave' (Song of Solomon 8:6).

Another common word that can be used for jealousy is envy. The two go hand in hand. Let's take a look into a few more views the bible has on jealousy.

Solomon referred to one who toils and tries to achieve something because of envy as meaningless and chasing the wind (Ecclesiastes 4:4). Proverbs 27:4 'states that anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy.'  On further in the New Testament, James says this, 'You desire but do not have, so you kill.  You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.  You do not have because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your desires' (James 4:2-3).  In Galatians, jealousy is clearly revealed as a deed of the flesh, resulting in destruction.

A few years ago I was in prayer, seeking the Father about this ugly fruit of jealousy, seeing it in the surroundings I grew up around in my geographical region and the whole "church scene".  Suddenly, the Lord spoke this to my spirit, "All jealousy means is this. 'There's not enough room for me.'" It was like the light bulb went off where I could see an enormous amount of land, kind of the land in pioneer days that had not been occupied by homesteading yet.  I then saw masses amount of people gathered up, completely bottle-necked around the same location, trying to re-homestead that ground over and over. They hadn't even considered looking around for more, they were just locked in on the same thing. The result was at least a 90% waste. Although it was beneficial for that land to be occupied and stewarded by someone, it eventually became a burden for the small place because of all the people that needed sustenance at the same place and time. If they had only paid attention to fresh, uninhabited land that was all around them, the whole territory would have flourished. 

Many times we fall into the trap of thinking we are lacking or behind if we aren't adapting every trend the world OR the church world is doing. Trends in themselves are not bad. Sometimes they work good for a purpose in order to shape our culture for healthy advancement. But we can miss the opportunity to be a trend setter if we are always following what everyone else does. 

There's no need to strive in jealousy and competition in order to keep up with what everyone else is doing. God has a vast range of assignments that need to be done in His kingdom in the earth realm.  If we are all focused on the same 'piece of land', we won't be able to take the whole world, which has been His plan since the beginning.  

It takes courage to seek the Lord to find His purpose for you and to stick to it even though it may look different than what has been done before. 

When you spend time with Him, you are sowing into your heart; the seedbed of your life. As you begin to find His purpose inside of you, the view around you will begin to look bigger and the opportunities to work with Him will open up.  You will finally discover that the Father opens doors that no man can shut.  The way to start to think about yourself will change, and jealousy will be squeezed out like a smashed bug. 

Give Him a little focused time each day in His Word and His presence, and I promise you. You will see Him, hear Him and know Him! He wants to show you.  Ask Him to take you on a divine treasure hunt to discover the hidden jewels waiting to be revealed. It's YOU!  

Desiring to encourage you,

Pastor Julie Petersen

Parallels of the Victim Mindset and the Perverse Spirit

Titus 1:15 says, "To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled."

When we think of the word perverse our minds tend to naturally think of a sexual connotation. But in the scripture above, Paul is talking about the way people think. He referred to their minds being defiled by a wrong belief system. 

Before we dig into this revelation, let's define some terminology.

Mindset - A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person's responses to and interpretations of situations. 

Perverse - Willfully determined or disposed to go counter to what is expected or desired; contrary, wayward or cantankerous.

This mindset causes the person to feel entitled to their rights because they are currently lacking or have been in some area of their life. 

They then either emotionally or physically push their desires forcefully on another person. The most extreme case is when someone rapes or murders another human. 

On most levels it happens through emotional projections of anger, self-pity, leverage, manipulation, and more. 

The desired result is control and domination in order to fulfill the person's assumed need or desire. When the desire is not filled by the recipient, the victim/wounded person then has a choice to either let it go or find a way to fulfill this perceived desire. This can start by allowing internal feelings of anger and revenge towards the recipient by projecting the thoughts of their feelings toward them. 

The recipient will then feel the pressure of guilt to fulfill this desire. This is like the venom of a snake that goes into its prey in order to start a paralysis process of fear and to weaken the recipient to bring them into submission to the pursuer. When the recipient refuses the pursuer, the drive to get the desire fulfilled activates to a higher level which can result in forcefulness and dominance. 

The twisted paradigm is rooted in the person believing they have the right to have their missing desire fulfilled because it has been non-existent in their life. Their belief is that their suffering gives them rights above non-sufferers.

1 Peter 4:15 - But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or any sort of criminal, or as a mischief-maker (a meddler) in affairs of others [infringing on their rights].

Matthew 17:17 - And Jesus answered and said, "You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me."

Trees and Snakes

In April I hosted a women's conference at LFMC. As I was in prayer the evening before the meetings began, the Holy Spirit gave me a vision of the conclusion of our first service. He instructed me to have the ladies envision themselves walking through the Garden of Eden, viewing the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. He then told me to have them picture the serpent approaching them with temptation about the trees and refusing him. This was such a powerful prophetic act of visualizing ourselves overcoming the serpent. By faith, we took back what was stolen from us at the curse. Below is an incredible testimony from one of the ladies who attended the conference. It is very powerful! 

My Vision In The Woods

It was awesome to have you take us through the vision about the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil that Thurs. evening at the women’s conference. As part of my prophetic room encouragement, they stated that God is already putting things and answering prayers before they even happen, and that is exactly what I have felt has been happening for me, and was definitely confirmed the night of our vision in the trees.

I had been mushroom hunting that afternoon after I mowed the lawn, so I had actually been in the timbers walking along for about an hour and a half looking for morels.  While I was in the timbers on my place, I walked by the huge tree that seemed to draw me to it.  I stopped, feeling a presence of energy so much, that I just had to stand and look up at this beauty.  Many trees lined the timbers I had walked through, but this one just seemed to catch my attention more than any others, and it wasn’t that it was more beautiful or spotless then the rest.

I remember back in the years of high school, I would love going on nature walks.

There is just something special about walking in the woods.  You can really get released from stress and things of the world, so that has always been my passion.

This was no different, except that I have walked this particular part of ground for many years now.  Even though there were things within those woods which drew my attention, this seemed to be a very heavy and thick energy which caused me to stop and take it all in. 

I continued on my walk to find a burned tree lying on its side, and where the roots had been, was a huge pile of dirt, with two holes inside of it.  It also caught my attention.  We had burned off my field for CRP purposes, in early March, but most of the brush didn’t catch on fire like we had hoped.  However, this tree was far enough in, that I was surprised to see that it had burned enough to make it fall as it did.  

I went on with my walk into an opening, which then leads into another set of timbers.  As I walked up to the passage, I was quickly taken back by a rustling in the grass.  I looked down to see that there was a snake slithering away from me and this snake was pretty thick in size.  Of course, my heart jumped for a bit, but I laughed and text my husband these words “Snake!  Thinking about being done mushroom hunting but I will muster on as a woman who fears nothing except her Lord!”

So, let’s now go to that evening when you had us close our eyes and think about a set of woods to stand in.  I thought to myself, “this will be easy, because I just came from the woods”!  As you began to ask us to look to our left to see a typical tree, I was thinking to myself, I will pick the tree that caught my attention in the woods that afternoon.  You described that tree as the tree of life.  I could relate to that, because I was drawn to the one in the woods, even though it really had nothing huge to jump out at me except its size and the energy I felt from it as I walked by it that afternoon.

Then, you had us envision that we looked to our right to find a very shiny tree.  A tree that glistened with branches, shade, beauty, and all the things in life one would be attracted to.

So when I tried envisioning that particular tree, all that came to my mind was the shiny burned tree lying on the ground.  It drew my attention, but didn’t fulfill me like the tree which had energy coming from it did.  

I was at this point getting very excited, because it was like I had already prepared myself for this exercise you were giving us, and it had more meaning to it than just trying to picture things on my own, without having already gone through the woods that afternoon.  I couldn’t get enough of your exercise, and wanted so much more.  Then it happened.  You put the nail on the head by telling us to look straight ahead.  There was a serpent.  When you said the word serpent, I put my hands up over my face, as if this was a real vision that God had planned to give me before you bringing the emotion to it that evening.  I was on fire excited and overwhelmed at the same time.

I think it’s important to mention now that if I was standing in that set of woods that I was in that afternoon, I could in fact look to my left to see the tree of life, which was the tree that brought my attention to it, and brought energy and the need to stop and look up at it.  If I had been standing in the same spot to look to the left for the tree of life, I would have been able to easily look to my right to see the burned tree lying on the ground as well.  How did you know to say look to your left for the tree of life, and look to your right for the tree of knowledge of good and evil?  And most importantly, if I had stood still and seen the tree of life to my left and tree of knowledge of good and evil to my right, straight in front of me would have been the snake that I saw that afternoon, as you also mentioned to look straight ahead in her vision exercise.

If you had explained the trees to be opposite of what you described to us as far as what was left and what was right, I would have had the snake behind me in order to stand in the woods and make those trees appear as youdescribed.  But you described it exactly how it played out that afternoon in the woods. This was so amazingly good to be able to do that exercise, and to realize after my prophetic encouragement, that God is truly working out and answering things ahead of my asking!

As I have been walking in the spiritual warfare battle for several months, God has revealed things to me that have been very profound.  I knew it was a battle even though I questioned God at some of the hardest times.  I know what the battle is about, and I continue to fight the good fight of faith. However, I know that God has also given me permission through my hearing his small, still, voice, and thru hearing my prophetic encouragement on that Friday, that I can begin to let go and have the Lord go to battle for me.  It feels right and I believe it’s what the Lord is attempting to reveal to me.  I see that Thurs night’s exercise of the woods had a similar picture but a different interpretation in some ways to me.  I automatically leaned towards the tree of life, because the tree of knowledge of good and evil has always been thought of as a sinful and painful area to be around.  As I look back on that burned tree, it represented my past sins, and that there was nor is no life left in that tree.  It’s dead to me.  It’s of no use to me, and that is why a normal typical tree caught more of my attention that afternoon.

The interpretation of the snake slithering fast away from me that afternoon was the fact that I am in a deep battle with

satan right now, and he is vastly losing this battle and fleeing from my area.  My texting my husband was just me 

showing the strength that my Heavenly Father gave to me a long time ago, and the years of knowing who I am in Christ, that a little serpent cannot and will not come to steal, kill, and destroy my family or me.

Thanks for your ministry, and for allowing me the pleasure of being able to enjoy an evening of being in the presence of God.  I absolutely agree with Jen Johnson’s video song, and claim it as my very own which I now listen to as much as I can, because it brings so much presence into where ever I am.  “In Over My Head”………..  I want to know him more!!