Three Things God Will Not Do For You

Hope this title caught your eye. Let me give an important explanatory qualifier: the list that follows is prepared from a Christian counseling perspective. It comprises responses to the most common complaints I hear from clients about God’s apparent unwillingness to answer their furtive cries.

1. God won’t remove a memoryGod made us body, soul and spirit and our soul realm (mind/memory and emotions) is open and accessible to God, the outside world and also the demonic realm. The reality is that demons will always have access to our memory and will be able to stir up past remembrances of our own sin and sins of others done against us. God remembers our sin no more but the demons do not forget and are motivated to keep refreshing it for us.Clients are often frustrated because the memories continue to resurface in spite of pleas for God to take them away. Memories are intrinsically tied functions of our brain. People lose memory typically due to brain damage from injury, aging issues or disease. No one in their right mind is going to pray those options in, right?
2. God won’t stop thoughts from coming into your headIn a related way, we cannot stop thoughts from coming into our mind. It’s impossible! Test it out! Try not thinking about a mountain of $10 bills stacked in your living room! Start now! Try to go ten minutes without that thought. The reality is that, as with memories, God can speak to us and put thoughts in our mind. Thoughts can be triggered by things we see and experience in our daily walk.Demon spirits also have the ability to put thoughts in our mind. The thought is not the sin because we cannot stop them from coming in! Paul tells us to take thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) and replace them with pure and godly thoughts (Phil 4:8). One of the fruits of effective deliverance sessions is that people recognize that even though the thoughts come back they are not tormenting as before and they can better win the battle of the mind.
3. God won’t take away your fearWe can be delivered from indwelling spirits of fear (or anger, lust, depression and so on) but the emotional part of our soul realm is still led by our mind and associated thoughts. Emotional responses are driven by a thought first. Sometimes the linkage is so obscure or happens so quickly that people miss it or not understand it.The opposite of fear is faith which is truly an action word. We must walk out our faith. We must take thoughts captive. Even David declared that he would purpose to fear no evil even as he walked through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23). Peace is the emotion associated with faith triumphing over fear and is the result of choosing to believe and stand on God’s word.

Does this list speak to you? Do you disagree? I would love to receive suggestions on points to be added. If there is enough of a response, I will do another post on this topic!