Casting Aside Our Accuser

Joshua in Hebrew is Yehoshua and in Christian theology it is
translated as Yahweh. Jesus, derived from the old Greek language of
the New Testament, is translated Yehoshua, which is the
same as Joshua in Hebrew. In the Orthodox Bible, Joshua is translated
as Jesus, son of Naue, so that the two names have distinction. In
Aramaic, Jesus is pronounced Yeshua. In the Old Testament, Joshua
was an appointed leader after Moses and was a great warrior for the
Israelites. He was one of the twelve spies that Moses sent into Canaan
and only Caleb and Joshua returned with an encouraging report.
Jesus is a very significant name in Israel’s history. He was to
prepare the Israelites for many great victories and represents Jesus’s
true character as a great leader and warrior. He came the first time as
a lamb to be slaughtered but next time He will come as a King and a
conqueror. The LORD shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir
up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He
shall prevail against His enemies.1 Moses led his people through the
desert for forty years and Joshua led them into the promised land.
In the beginning, Christ brought us salvation, forgiveness of sins,
and eternal life. Now it is time to take on the true nature of the Christ,
which is a general in the fight against evil and a warrior against the
flesh. All Christians that continue to grow after salvation will spend
time in the desert for the Holy Spirit to have a work inside them.
Christ did, Paul did; we all must go through a private training with
God. This is something that does not come from a church. It comes
from within you. It is a period of time where you are trained for your
ministerial abilities. After our training we go to war against evil and
the power of the flesh.

One of our first battles is unforgiveness that is inside our heart.
The bitterness of revenge is the open wound that remains inside us. It
makes our words harsh and our actions cruel toward others. It is the
offences of others that will rob our heart of love and make us one of
the majority of Christians whose love has grown cold for others. It is
the lie we live where we feel we must inflict cruelty upon others
because it was inflicted upon us. It is the failing of the Christian
church today because we are living in the time of apostasy. Many will
be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
Then many false prophets will rise and deceive many into following
some leader instead of Christ.

Spiritual discernment is the ability to see, hear, or become aware
of something through our spiritual senses. It is in the absence of
judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual guidance and
understanding that we crucify our natural human instinct to judge
others. True discernment is the mind and love of Christ. He did not
come to judge the world, so we shouldn’t either. Spiritual discernment
is God’s grace to see the unseen and the ability to perceive the
spiritual realm around us. Most, if not all, of the people we come into
contact with are led through life by an evil spirit in some capacity or
another.

We grow and we learn to look past the physical part of a person
and peer into their heart, understanding their present condition. I don’t
care who you are, every one of us struggles with some type of mental
illness. We cannot escape it with all the chemicals that our bodies
consume through the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we
breathe. We must be able to differentiate between an oppressing spirit
and the person that is oppressed.

It is the desire of every evil spirit to make its subject distressed,
anxious, or uncomfortable because they hate us. They hate God
because He would not conform to their contaminated existence. They
do not have a sexual orientation, so they try to conform us to their
existence by destroying our gender. Men are becoming more feminine
and women are becoming more masculine. At the rate we are going in
the future we will be one gender and one color.

All the sins of mankind are forgiven, so why is it so difficult to
forgive others that have sinned against us? It is not them sinning
against us in the first place—it is the evil spirit that resides inside
them. Even in Luke we read, “And anyone who speaks a word against
the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes
against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven.”2 God knows the
predicament we are in, so we are called to His mission of forgiveness.
We are called to die to ourselves so that others may live through
Christ.

If we do not live for divine forgiveness, we will be deceived by
the evil that resides within us. Like many others, we will presume to
have spiritual discernment but the truth of Christ inside us is nothing
more than the veil of a critical spirit. “Judge not, that you be not
judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and
with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why
do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the
plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me
remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own
eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then
you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”3
For us to remove this board of injustice from our eyes we must
slow down and become in tune with the Holy Spirit. Prayer is
important but I find we spend far too much time speaking and very
little time listening, if we listen at all. We need time every day to sit
and reflect on our actions, time to reflect on our responses to others, a
time that is heartfelt where we walk in true discernment. Be still and
know that I am God.4 We must be engaged with God before we are
able to engage evil and war against the activities of the enemy.

Meditation is critical in blocking the influence of evil spirits. We
focus on nothing with our mind blank. Every time a thought comes
into our mind, we dismiss it. These thoughts many times come from
the evil spirits that reside inside us. This practice helps us regain
control of our mind and pushes the spirit farther away. Combine this
with Bible study and the spirit will no longer be able to withstand the
environment we have created for it to live in, so it leaves.

Mental frequency jammers are all around us, blocking the great
circle of God’s reality from our mind while inhibiting the spiritual
powers from within. It is impossible for us to do anything without
God’s guidance because as we hear we judge; we have to stop striving
to complete our own ability because even Christ said, “I can of
Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous,
because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent
Me.”5
False spiritual discernment may appear to be a type of love, but it
comes out of the criticism of others. When we look at someone and
judge their physical appearance, their past or present behavior, or
their lifestyle we are making false assumptions about this person.

Only God knows what they are thinking, what they have been
through, or how they were raised. Jumping to conclusions of false
discernment sees the outside of a person, so we assume to know the
inside. We are no longer Godly motivated, but we are motivated by
our own ego, blinded by our own ability. Jesus said, “Do not judge
according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”6

What we think and say comes from our hearts and if we think
incorrectly our speech dishonors ourselves and others. “Either make
the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit
bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you,
being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart
brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure
brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word man
may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by
your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be
condemned.”7

Our discriminations are contrived from our hearts. Our sensitivity
reflects our thoughts and our insights into the wellbeing of others.
This is where we dwell into the realm of spiritual discernment. We are
told to diligently guard our heart because what the eye sees, the mind
thinks, and the mouth speaks. When we have a troubled heart, we
cannot spiritually hear what God has instructed us to do. We cannot
make sound judgment when we are harboring strife against another.
We must start mistrusting our own judgment and rely on the judgment
of Christ where we are told to let His peace sit in judgment of our
hearts.

We are a triune being. Our soul consists of the mind, our free will,
and our emotions. It also includes our recollections of the past. These
memories are used against us just like the other three areas of the
soul. Our memory is used as a trigger where our past experiences
shape our character the most. When we worship God, He creates a
wall around our soul to protect us from evil. Any time we put our
mind on pause, stopping the constant steam of thoughts, it enables us
to gain control through Christ. Meditation is a tool to perfect true
worship that is based on the reality of God.

Our mind, emotions, and will are shaped by how well we deal
with past experiences. It is important that we never look back to the
past but always focus on the present, so we are shaped by our current
train of thought and not by things that are out of our control. Not that
I have already attained perfection, or am already perfected; but I press
on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid
hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching
forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for
the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.8

Those of us who worship God on a regular basis allow the Holy
Spirit to come into our minds and wipe the past away. Sure, we will
have recollections, but we thank God for the forgiveness He bestowed
on us through His Son and we carry on. I know many people who are
constantly haunted by their past but refuse to worship God. All of us
have good and evil in our lives but for our lives to be good
experiences we must let God redeem us from our negative past. This
redemption is accomplished through Bible study, prayer, worship,
meditation, and witnessing to others.

As Christians we are not in the judging business. We are in the
loving business, the forgiving business, and the prayer business.
When we become spiritually discerning, we can recognize sins in
others we never saw before. This discernment enables us to better
serve those who are inflicted. This is not an ability we receive to write
them off as lost and wash our hands of their dysfunctionality. It is an
opportunity to serve Christ. If we truly want to be like Christ, we
would never again look for fault in another human being. We are to
become intercessors whose sole motive is to help others with
redemption. Through the sins of others our response is to be an
example of virtue. Through the fear of others our example is courage,
and through the worldliness of others our example is holiness, not
inscribed by looking down but by looking up as a humble servant of
Jesus Christ.

When we lend an ear to faultfinding, we justify the gossip and
negative criticism of others. We are allowing Satan to enter our
church through the accusations of others before God. The closer we
draw to God, the more guilt we will experience from the things we
have said about the brethren. “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because
I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of
unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”9
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set
among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the
course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.10 A bridled tongue is the
beginning of perfection.

All the sin of mankind is forgiven because of the circumstances in
which we live. When our heavenly Father looks down on us, He does
not see our sin because the precious blood of Jesus Christ covers us
like a blanket. How can we possibly permit ourselves to judge another
human being when the heavenly Father Himself does not judge us?
We are all new creators in Christ regardless of the length of time we
are a Christian. We have all received the Holy Spirit and God is
establishing His kingdom in our minds.

We cast down the accuser in our minds as we walk
sympathetically with those who struggle with the sins of this world.
We must maintain our faith even when we are faced with injustice
and criticism from others at church. We must stand up for those who
cannot stand up for themselves. Our victory is perfected by our
willingness to be put to death rather than betray our convictions to
Christ. Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if
in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.
Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us
walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.11

1.) Isaiah 42:13
2.) Luke 12:10
3.) Matthew 7:1-5
4.) Psalms 46:10
5.) John 5:30
6.) John 7:24
7.) Matthew 12:33-37
8.) Philippines 3:12-14
9.) Isaiah 6:5
10.) James 3:6
11.) Philippines 3:15-16