The Way of Freedom

(This is chapter 12 of the book The Way of Sonship: Anointed to Overcome)

Jesus said in John 8:34-36 (KJV) “Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abides not in the house for ever: but the Son abides ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”. In Acts 8, there is mention of a man who repented, believed, and was baptised. However, within his heart the absolute truth of the incredible and eternal love of God’s fatherhood had not become fully established and therefore the Son of God had not yet been fully formed within him. He was not yet free. Just like Cain, he was enslaved into bowing down and serving the idol or image of his own overinflated opinion of himself. Within his fallen pride-poisoned heart, he still said “If I cannot win it, it cannot be won, if I cannot do it, it cannot be done”. The circumstances of life had left him broken-hearted, and because he had believed in his brokenness, his heart had not been fully redeemed. His personality was still prostitute to the false god of performance oriented play-acting hypocrisy which pandered to the applause of men but did nothing to achieve the glory that comes only from God (see John 5:44). He was called Simon the Sorcerer, and in the puffed-up pride of his fallen heart, he had previously considered himself to be someone great. In fact, before they heard about the light of Jesus, the people lived in darkness and could not tell the difference between truth and lies. Because Simon had been so good at sorcery and witchcraft, they proclaimed that Simon’s great name was the “great power of God”, or literally “God’s mighty dynamite”. When Philip visited Samaria and demonstrated the truth of salvation by performing mighty signs and wonders, healings and deliverance in the name of Jesus, in their hearts many were shown the true light, repented and believed the amazing truth that Jesus had died their death so that they could live Jesus’ life, Simon included. It says in Ezekiel 36:26-27 (KJV) “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit [life’s breath] will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit [the breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood] within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them”. The people who believed or received the word of God were baptised or immersed into Jesus’ death to take away their loveless hearts of stone. However, this was only half the gospel, the new life, the glory of the Father, the breath of God’s fatherhood or Holy Spirit had not been baptised or immersed into their redeemed feeling hearts. So that the people could walk and live in the absolute truth of the newness of resurrection life, the apostles in Jerusalem sent Peter and John so that they could impart the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ corporate body, brothers or Bride who lived in Samaria by the laying on of their hands. When Simon saw the people with good and honest hearts receiving the breath of God’s fatherhood or Holy Spirit sown into their personalities through Peter and John, he was amazed and offered them money for that same authority to release the dynamite power of God. In Acts 8:20-23, Peter said “‘Thy silver with thee—may it be to destruction! because the gift of God thou didst think to possess through money; thou hast neither part nor lot in this thing, for thy heart is not right before God; reform, therefore, from this thy wickedness, and beseech God, if then the purpose of thy heart may be forgiven thee, for in the gall of bitterness, and bond [slavery] of unrighteousness, I perceive thee being.’” Peter was understandably horrified by Simon’s request. Simon was trying to buy the absolutely priceless gift of the grace of God with a bag of silver.

On hearing the word of the good news of Jesus (Yehoshua or Yehovah Is Salvation) for the first time, Simon received from Jesus the sovereign grace of a prophetic touch. He found himself being swept out of the darkness of natural life into the supernatural light of the kingdom of God in a tidal wave of God’s love. Jesus said in Matthew 13:19-21 “When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, then comes the wicked one, and catches away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that hears the word, and with joy receives it; Yet has he not root in himself, but endures for a while: for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended”. The word of the kingdom was not about dying and going to heaven, it was the heart-changing inbreath of God’s life or Holy Spirit that lifted loveless stony-hearted people out of the devil’s grasp and inspired them with redeemed loving hearts to bear the fruit of love just like Jesus. Whatever the reason, the wrong circumstances of life had left Simon feeling downtrodden and crushed, broken-hearted and unloved. Jesus said in Luke 11:13 (KJV) “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”. Because Simon’s broken heart feared that yet again, he would be rejected, even by Jesus, Simon’s loveless heart was not right before God. He tried to buy the gift of God’s fatherhood. It was this gift that others with fully redeemed hearts were receiving for free. Simon had probably been betrayed and his first love broken. Jesus said in Luke 6:32-33 “if ye love those loving you, what grace have ye? for also the sinful love those loving them; and if ye do good to those doing good to you, what grace have ye? for also the sinful do the same”. Within Simon’s downtrodden stony loveless heart, he tolerated the devil’s lies of rejection. Rebellion, is responding to the darkness of the devil’s lies of rejection and false promises as if they were true. Maybe sorcery and witchcraft were within Simon’s father-son generational seed line which predisposed him towards the curse of rejection. Whatever the reason, even after he had been baptised, Simon still had a stony-hard loveless heart and believed or gained his own understanding of truth from his culture, upbringing, personal history, circumstances of life, and the judgements that he had made, and these were not good. It is likely that the birds of the air, or lying breaths of the father of lies, saw their opportunity to steal away the truth of the word of God’s love from the downtrodden stony path of his darkened hard heart. In John 8:31-23 Jesus said “… If ye may remain [abide] in my word, truly my disciples ye are, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. Maybe the devil appealed to Simon’s pain and stole away the words of God’s love by whispering the lie, “Jesus loved you once, but he doesn’t love you now, his love has failed you, he has forgotten you, forsaken you, rejected you, he is just like the rest of them that hurt you”. There is no fear in love, because Jesus’ perfect love expels or casts out fear. However, because of the brokenness of Simon’s heart, he did not continue to abide or live in the truth of Jesus’ love. Instead, Simon tolerated the devil’s lies within his thinking and the lying bitter root that had already formed within him caused Simon to become offended, even towards Jesus. Jesus came to bind the broken-hearted but unless Simon was willing to trust Jesus enough to allow Him to exchange places with Simon and die his death to suffer Simon’s pain away, his loveless heart could not be set free.

It says in Ecclesiastes 4:12 (KJV) “And if one prevails against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” The three stranded cord, root or stronghold of bitterness that had become established within Simon’s darkened heart was rejection, rebellion, and resentment. A root of bitterness forms by a darkened or broken heart tolerating the devil’s lies, regularly returning to the lie of rejection, and responding repeatedly by reacting in rebellion. Simon’s bitter root probably began in childhood, suffering trauma or abuse, being lied to by the devil and blaming himself and feeling rejected and not worthy of being loved. It is likely that his innocent and childlike sense of right and wrong was subject to grave injustice, resulting in his childhood personality suffering meltdown. The devil is Lucifer, the fallen “light bearer” who is ever ready to take advantage of people who are wronged, speaking lying breaths into the trauma of their abuse. Like melted wax, this trauma would have enabled the devil to imprint his lies upon the image of Simon’s broken heart. It says in Jeremiah 17:5-6 (KJV) “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusts [has confidence] in man [himself], and makes flesh [himself] his arm [strength], and whose heart departs from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited”. Simon could see the free gift of the Holy Spirit or the breath of God’s fatherhood being poured out upon those around him, but because his judgemental “as god” heart had departed from Yehovah, the free gift could never come near him. True love never fails but by tolerating and believing the devil’s lying breaths of rejection and the lie that Jesus’ love had failed him, Simon would have thought that no-one could be trusted except himself. Simon’s self-trusting self-admirable “I am the greatest” loveless heart inevitably departed from Jesus. Like a seesaw, the two opposing lying breaths, personality or character traits of rejection and rebellion would have created a whirlwind of double-minded instability that drove the resentful root of bitterness deep within the foundations of his darkened heart or personality. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, and Simon’s heart was divided by the opposing, but mutually supporting, lying powers of rejection and rebellion. Sometimes Simon sat upon the throne of rejection and condemned himself, judging himself as being unworthy of being loved. Sometimes he sat upon the throne of rebellion and condemned others, feeling paranoid and judging them as being worthy of death for not treating him with the love and respect that he felt he deserved. Each throne represented the reign or dominion or high place of idolatry, each was established by agreement with its own family of lies, each idol was fed with the offerings from its own basket of sinful and familiar fruit. The three-stranded cord of the bitter root of rejection, rebellion and resentment was not easily broken. Simon found himself unable to escape from the thorny fruit of the deceptive sins that such bitter root judgements inescapably invited into his miserable life. Cutting only one of the lying cords would result in that cord being re-established by agreeing with the lies of the other two. Simon’s broken heart was like heartbreak hotel, filled with many rooms. Each room was like a suite of three interconnecting rooms which had been created by trauma and abuse, tolerating, and believing in the lies of rejection which made room for the response of rebellion and room for resentment to take root. Each room was occupied by the words of lying breath or evil spirits whose name or character felt quite at home in such darkness and in the absence of the light of God’s love. Like a centipede, the bitter root was made up of many manipulative segments. Each three-stranded segment of rejection, rebellion and resentment was caused by believing as true the trauma of brokenness. Each existed in its own right and had thoughts, feelings, and a controlling, manipulating, dominating and enslaving life and will of its own. Simon would have responded to such slavery by using domination and manipulation to control circumstances, others and even himself into what he considered was a place of safety. In English, the word resentment comes from the Latin “sentire” meaning to sense or feel, and resentment means, to “return to feel”. By returning again and again to the devil’s lies about the real causes of the grave injustices of life, his heart became ice-cold or hard. The resentful root of bitterness that had formed within him was like a tightly rolled up scroll upon which was written a record of wrongs that was driven even deeper into his heart. This root was the foundation of a lying root, shoot and fruit belief system that had been accepted and agreed with by Simon as truth. This bore the rebellious fruit of evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lust, the evil eye, blasphemy, pride and foolishness but the problem was the root, not the fruit. True love keeps no record of wrongs. The root was actually caused by believing in the words of the lying breaths of the father of lies and therefore missing the blessing, grace and forgiveness God.

It says in Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those loving it eat its fruit”. A root bears fruit, and Simon had eaten the fruit of the power of the words of death that his own beliefs in the devil’s lies and bitter root judgements had cultivated within his heart. He had sailed the high seas of selfishness for so long, and the sails of his judgemental heart had been so filled, twisted and deformed by believing the lies of the rebellious breaths of the destroying devil, that the rudder of his will had become enslaved to lies. The measure that Simon had used upon others was the very same inescapable measure that was used upon him. He found himself unable to escape from the curse of the cross of what his devil-distorted beliefs and ice-cold judgemental and loveless heart had made for himself. Each lying breath he had received, each critical thought he had conceived and considered true, and each false judgement he had made had nailed him to this cross of his very own pride-crucified heart. What he originally believed was the freedom of rebellion in response to the deception of being rejected had locked his embittered heart inside a prison inside a prison inside a prison of resentment of his own making where his personal worm never died and the offended flames of his furious rage at feeling rejected were not quenched. This resulted in many prisons within a prison full of torment (see Matthew 18:34) that could only be unlocked, one by one, through the key of truth, God-granted repentance from lies and Jesus’ inspired humble-hearted forgiveness from the inside.

Jesus said in Mark 8:34-36 “Whoever does will to come after me—let him disown himself, and take up his cross, and follow me; for whoever may will to save his life shall lose it; and whoever may lose his life for my sake and for the good news’ sake, he shall save it; for what shall it profit a man, if he may gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?”. The cross that Simon would have needed to take up and carry was the cross of his life; his bitterness, disappointments, traumatic past, feelings of rejection, failure, brokenness, misery, and the things that he had done wrong. The root or three-stranded cord of bitterness, the stronghold or high place or tower of idolatry that had set itself up against the knowledge of God’s fatherhood and had bound his heart for so long, had to be dismantled by truth, brick by brick, lie by lie, and segment by segment. It says in 2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be repented of [irrevocable]: but the sorrow of the world works death”. The dismantling of his root of bitterness would have happened as he was sovereignly inspired by the grace of God to experience godly sorrow for the wrong judgements that he had made and to take up his cross and walk out of the wilderness by following Jesus, day by day and step by step. By allowing himself to be humbled, by disagreeing with the lies of the devil that he had tolerated and allowed to take root within him, and distancing himself from his former sins would have allowed God to grant him repentance from every single one of the lying heart-piercing nails of his bitter root judgements. This would have allowed Jesus to embrace him with the truth of sharing in Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. Like a beam of light, the truth “Jesus suffered dreadful injustice for as me, He died my death so that I can now live Jesus’ wonderful life, Jesus’ love never fails, Jesus keeps no record of wrongs, Jesus will never leave me or forsake me, I will love because Jesus loved me first” would have entered in to melt his natural born icy-cold blue judgemental hard heart. This would have removed the lying cause of curse that had rested within him for so long. Jesus said in Luke 6:35 “‘But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward will be great, and ye shall be sons of the Highest, because He is kind unto the ungracious and evil”. Being inspired to love his enemies would have dismantled the venom of the reality of the serpent’s lies and words of lying breath or evil spirits from his heart, gradually healing and opening the eyes of his new kind and loving supernaturally-born heart to the love of God’s fatherhood. This would have allowed the sails of his heart to be filled with the breath of God’s love, redeeming his blood and changing his nature, name or identity from an “I am as god” pride-poisoned “son of rebellion” who died with Jesus on the cross to a humble-hearted Son of God who rose with Jesus from the dead. The truth would then have set him free by naturally enabling him to participate in the divine nature, inspiring him into loving as he was loved. This would have qualified him by his divinely inspired or inbreathed behaviour to become the righteousness of God, sharing in the gift or blessing of God’s eternal inheritance within the hearts of His Sons or holy ones, Jesus and his Bride or brothers. This is the way of freedom.

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