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One of the hardest things for us as men to deal with in being wholehearted is the shame that we

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carry from our childhood, from our background. We don't like to talk about it. It's one of those

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unmentionables. And many of you that are listening to this have been

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through some deep shame areas of sexual pain, of hurt, of condemnation that has marked you for the

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rest of your life and you still think about it. You wake up in the morning and you're thinking

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about what that coach said about you or what your mom or your dad said about you or the way that you

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were bullied when you were a kid. It could have been a sexual abuse in your background. It could

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have been some violence in your background where you were struck by your dad or by your mother or

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by a relative when you were a kid growing up and you didn't know how to respond and you carry this

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shame, this weight on your shoulders. And because of that, demons come and demons will come and they

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will use anything they can to take you out and to destroy you. And the scriptures talk about the

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lion comes to devour. And that's what demons do. Demons get their walking orders. They get their

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commands from Satan. And Satan is like a lion. It's interesting. I was recently looking at a

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video by National Geographic and they were showing how lions hunt. And the way that lions hunt is they

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move in on a usually a herd, buffalo or antelope or something like that. And then they creep in

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looking for one of the animals to either be wounded or to be isolated. And they're always

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looking for a wounded animal or isolated animal. And then they come in and they start wedging their

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way into the isolated animal away from the herd. They come in between there and then they start to

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surround the isolated animal or the wounded animal and then they jump it. And then they jump. There's

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always one in the back and then there's two on the sides. And so what lions do is they move in getting

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the animal to not know what's happening on the right and the left. And then the one in the back jumps on

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the back of the wounded animal and the other two move in too. And that's the way demons are. Demons are

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always looking for a wound in your life. They're always looking for a sin area or a shame area. And

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then they're looking to isolate you from other people. They have other Christians in your life we

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call blood-stained allies. And so when we talk about the lion hearted and this lion heart that

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God is giving us we have to learn also that there's a reason why we're not lion hearted. And it's

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because of shame and the demonic. But here's what's interesting in the ministry of Jesus one of the

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first things that he gave us authority over as Jesus' disciples is to cast out demons. In Luke 10

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19 he says behold I give you, that means us, the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and

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over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. So men and women you have

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the power to cast out these demons. You have the power to be set free from the demonic because

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you've been given a new heart. You've been given a lion heart when you were born again. When you

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gave your heart to Christ God gave you a new heart. And in Ezekiel 11 we read then I will give

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them a new heart. I'll put a new spirit within them and take the stony heart out of their flesh

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and give them a heart of flesh. So God's given you a new heart. You have a fighting heart now. But

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these these demons come and the last time I talked I talked about what I think are three big areas

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that men struggle with. First is lust, the second is lethargy, and then the third is isolation. And

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that's what demons use. Demons want you tame. Demons want you shackled down. Demons want you

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to be harmless, to make no impact whatsoever with your life. So some of you have been living a

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shackled life, a half-hearted life, and you felt that weight of the shame that you carry because

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demons now have control over your life. Now I'm not saying you're demon possessed. Don't hear me

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saying that. I'm saying you could be demonized. And what's the difference? The difference is demon

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possessed are...

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Those individuals that are basically owned by demons and these are people generally speaking

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who are in our mental hospitals. These are people that have major massive mental issues.

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If you are living in an environment where there's people like that they could be certainly demon

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possessed and you know what their demons can be cast out too. They can be set free if they want

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to be set free. But what I'm saying is the majority of the influence of demons on most

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even believers is the influence that they carry through fleshly sins or shame areas that we allow

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them to work in. So I like to use my fingers as an example and in my series on Satan, Demons,

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and the Fourth Dimension I talk a lot more about this. But imagine here's my left hand

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and these are shame areas of our life. Shame because of sexual abuse or shame because of

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being beaten up or shame because of bullying. Whatever it might be there's also a corresponding

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demon that corresponds with that and they're always hovering around looking how they can come

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in. Remember I talked about the lions? Same thing. So the lions are trying to isolate the water

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buffalo or they're trying to isolate the antelope so they can take them out and jump on them. Well

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same way with demons. So this is the demon rim, the cosmic rim, and here's our fleshly rim of

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where we struggle with particular sins or a particular area of shame and they kind of move

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in like this and so because of sexual abuse you now carry this shame area toward homosexuality

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or toward immorality or something like that and there's also a corresponding demon and so as you

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continue to fester on that and dwell on that in your life this demon at some point comes and

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attaches itself into your spirit and now you no longer have just a fleshly sin

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or an area of depression or something. You now have a demon that's attaching itself to your heart

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and that's really really tough to get set free from. So what are shame? How does shame work? Let

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me give you a definition I think of shame. Shame are those things that we have done or have been

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done to us that we cover up and hide but it's even worse than that because shame becomes our

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false identity. We begin to identify with our shame. So instead of saying I struggle with lust

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we say I'm a lustful person or instead of saying I struggle with insecurity we start to say I'm an

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insecure person. If we start to say sometimes I have anger problems we begin to associate with

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ourselves being an angry person. See that's that's taking a shame area that probably a demon is

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empowering and that becoming your identity and you have a new heart. If you've received Christ,

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if Jesus is living in your heart, if the Holy Spirit is within you, the scriptures say greater

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is he that is in you meaning Jesus than he meaning demons that are in the world. You can overcome.

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This does not have to be your identity because when it is your identity what happens is these

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areas of shame are the fertilizer. They become the fertilizer of lust and lethargy and loneliness and

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isolation in our lives. So what's the answer? The answer is to confront it. You've got to start to

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confront these areas and become vulnerable and the best example I can think of is when I tore my ACL

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a few years ago when I was skiing and I could I could mask the ACL injury by skiing more heavily

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on my other leg my good leg to cover up my torn ACL. If I did that for very long guess what's going

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to happen? I'm going to tear the ACL in the other knee because I'm not made for that. Rather what we

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need to do what I did is I rested the ACL. I went through therapy with the ACL. I began to exercise

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that ACL. I began to do the stretching that was needed and the strengthening of the ligaments all

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around it that was needed and before long I was skiing again even with a torn ACL. So even though

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I carry that torn ACL which will never probably completely heal

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I can now ski again because I recuperated by taking care of the ACL.

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And so in the same way, we're going to have these shame areas.

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And sometimes in our life, men and women, you're never going to be completely 100% healed.

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But you can learn to compensate by walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and getting healing.

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So I want to tell you about three steps, three courageous steps to freedom from shame.

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Three courageous steps from freedom from shame.

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I'm going to start it here, and then in my next episode, I'm going to finish it out.

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But the first step, and this is really important, nobody talks about this very much,

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but to root out shame, you have to be vulnerable with some bloodstained allies.

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That means you've got to be open about your shame.

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You've got to have some people that you trust, that you can share what you've been through,

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that you can share what you battle with.

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And I know this is super hard for a man to do, but I'm telling you,

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it's the only way to get started in the way, in the route, in the road less traveled to freedom.

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And that is being vulnerable about your shame.

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Let's say, for example, you were sexually abused as a kid.

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Let's say you were sexually abused many times as a kid.

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Maybe over years, there was a person in your life who was older than you, stronger than you,

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and they sexually abused you.

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What are you going to do about that?

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Hate them?

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That's what most people do.

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That doesn't take any courage.

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That's natural to hate.

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Be angry about it for the rest of your life.

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Again, that's natural.

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That's normal.

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I'm not condemning you for having that.

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I'm just telling you that doesn't take any courage.

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Get depressed about it for the rest of your life.

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That doesn't take courage.

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That's natural and normal.

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I'm talking about three courageous steps.

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So the courageous step is to have some blood-stained allies,

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to have some other men in your life that you can be real with, that you trust,

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and to say, look, you guys, I want to walk in freedom.

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I want to be a Jesus follower for the rest of my life.

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I don't want to walk shackled down.

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So I'm going to tell you what happened to me, and I need your prayers,

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and I need your help, and I need your strength.

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So when I was six years old, I was sexually abused, and it went on until I was 10 years old.

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For four years, this other guy in my life did this.

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And it might have been somebody in the church.

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It might have been somebody in your family.

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It might have been your dad or your brother who did it.

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I don't know.

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But you share that, and then you share your anger about that.

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You share your feeling of insecurity and helplessness and weakness that you went through during that.

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And then you begin to forgive.

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Well, how are you going to do that?

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Well, you can't.

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You can't forgive in your own power in most cases.

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I mean, some of you can, but a lot of us can't.

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So we need others in our lives.

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So we agree together for God's power to come to help us forgive, and then we're going to get a breakthrough there.

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And so then you start to claim those promises of God that you, as a captive, have been set free in Christ,

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and these other men can weep with you.

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These other men can understand where you're coming from.

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So that's the first step.

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The first step is vulnerability.

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It could be with a counselor.

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But I'm suggesting that blessed and allies, and maybe the blessed and ally is a counselor.

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Sometimes it's a fellow Christian brother at your church.

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It could be that it's someone else in your life.

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And I think a couple guys is really good.

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I mean, if you've got one good friend, that's super.

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But if you have a couple good friends or more, that's super duper.

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But that's where we become vulnerable, and we're able to share our hearts.

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Well, that's the step one.

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That's not all of it.

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That's what I'm going to do in the next episode.

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I'll talk about the others.

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But step one is vulnerability with some blessed and allies.