I Am Not a Bum.

Part 4: The High Ground

“Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” Ephesians 6:11

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:37

The Morning After

So you’ve heard the truth. Maybe you even believe it. Maybe for the first time in a long time, something inside you shifted — a crack of light in a room that’s been dark for years. Feels good, doesn’t it? Hold onto that. Because tomorrow morning you’re going to wake up, and the old voice is going to be right there waiting for you like an unwanted alarm clock. It didn’t get the memo. The lie doesn’t pack its bags and leave just because you’ve seen the truth. It comes back. It knocks. Sometimes it BANGS on the door at 3 a.m. when your defences are down and you’re too tired to fight.

So what do you do? You take the high ground. And you HOLD it.

This isn’t a motivational speech. I’m not going to tell you to “believe in yourself,” because frankly, that’s what got most of us into trouble in the first place. Self-belief is a terrible foundation — it cracks under pressure every time. I’m going to tell you to believe in the One who believes in YOU. And I’m going to give you some practical, simple, doable things that will help you keep standing when the lie comes back for another round. Because it WILL come back. But so will you. And you’ll be ready.

Feed the Right Voice

Here’s a simple principle that will change your life if you let it: WHATEVER YOU FEED GROWS. Whatever you starve dies. That’s it. That’s the whole secret. You can write it on a napkin.

If you keep feeding the lie — through isolation, through toxic relationships, through scrolling through content that tears you down, through replaying the old tapes in your head at 2 a.m. like they’re your favourite album — it’ll keep growing. It’s a weed, and weeds don’t need much encouragement. I’ve never met a weed that needed a pep talk. But if you feed the TRUTH — through Scripture, through prayer, through people who speak life over you — it grows instead. And the truth grows STRONGER than the lie ever was, because the truth has roots that go all the way down to the throne of God.

This is basically the spiritual version of “you are what you eat.” And some of us have been eating junk for YEARS. Time to change the menu. Start small. One verse a day. Even if it’s the same verse for a month. Psalm 139:14 is a good place to start: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Say it out loud. Say it until the voice in your head starts to sound like God’s voice instead of your father’s. Or your bully’s. Or your own worst self-talk. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Faith comes from HEARING. So give yourself something worth hearing. Turn off the garbage and turn on the Word.

The Armour

The Apostle Paul knew what it was like to be attacked. Beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, left for dead — the man had a rough run. Let me tell you, Paul’s CV reads like a disaster movie script. And his advice on how to stand? Put on armour. “Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). I’m not going to walk through every piece — you can read Ephesians 6 yourself and I’d strongly encourage you to. But let me hit the ones that matter most for what you’re dealing with.

THE BELT OF TRUTH. Paul says truth holds everything else together. You know what a belt does? It holds everything up. Without truth, your pants fall down and you’re standing there looking foolish — spiritually speaking. Although let’s be honest, literally too. The truth of who God says you are is what holds your whole identity in place. Strap it on first thing in the morning. Before coffee. Before the phone. Before the world gets a word in.

THE SHIELD OF FAITH. Paul says it extinguishes EVERY fiery dart of the evil one. Every dart. Not some. EVERY. That includes the whisper of a father. The taunt of a bully. The voice in your head at 3 a.m. that says you should give up. Faith doesn’t mean you don’t feel the heat. It means the dart doesn’t PENETRATE. There’s a difference between getting shot at and getting shot. The shield is the difference.

THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT. That’s the Word of God. And notice — it’s the ONLY offensive weapon in the list. Everything else is defensive. The Word of God is what you SWING. When the lie says “you’re worthless,” you swing back with “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” When the lie says “nobody wants you,” you swing back with “He chose me before the foundation of the world.” Jesus used this EXACT strategy when the devil came at Him in the wilderness. Three temptations, three lies — and every time, Jesus answered with “It is written” (Matthew 4:1-11). He swung the sword. And the enemy LEFT. He’ll leave you too. Not forever — he’s persistent, I’ll give him that — but he’ll leave. And every time you stand, you get STRONGER.

Find Your People

You can’t do this alone. I tried. For DECADES. It doesn’t work. Trust me on this one — I have the scars to prove it.

The enemy isolates you because isolation makes you vulnerable. When you’re alone, the lie is the loudest voice in the room. But when you’re surrounded by people who know the truth and aren’t afraid to speak it over you, the lie starts to SHRINK. It’s like a bully who only picks on kids when there are no adults around — put some truth-speakers in the room and watch how quickly the lie shuts its mouth.

I’m not saying you need to join a committee. Nobody needs another committee. The world has enough committees. But you need SOMEBODY who’ll look you in the eye and remind you who you are when you forget. A church. A small group. A prayer partner. Even ONE person who will stand with you. Remember David in the cave of Adullam? Four hundred broken men — distressed, indebted, bitter in soul — gathered together in a place called Refuge. They didn’t heal in isolation. They healed in COMMUNITY, gathered around a leader who knew what it was like to be hunted. And God turned them into mighty warriors. Let me tell you, if God can turn four hundred bitter, broken, indebted blokes into a mighty army, He can do something with YOU and the people He puts around you. You need your Adullam. Find it. If you don’t have one, ask God for one. He’s been putting broken people together since the beginning of time. He’s VERY good at it.

Forgive

This is the hard one. And I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. If I told you this was easy, you’d know I was lying, and we’ve had enough lies in this series to last a lifetime.

If you’ve been carrying the weight of what someone did to you — the words they said, the damage they caused, the childhood they stole — you might feel like forgiveness is letting them off the hook. It isn’t. Let me tell you what forgiveness actually is: it’s cutting the CHAIN so you can move forward. It’s saying, “I’m not going to carry YOUR sin anymore. I’m giving it to God, because it’s too heavy for me.” Unforgiveness is the anchor that keeps you stuck in the wrong river. As long as you hold onto it, you’re tethered to the person who hurt you. And they might not even KNOW it. They’re going about their day, having their coffee, watching telly, while you’re drowning in a current you were never meant to stay in.

“Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13). As the Lord has forgiven YOU. That’s the standard. And if God can forgive you for everything you’ve done — and He HAS, through Jesus — then by His grace, you can forgive the person who hurt you. Not in your own strength. You don’t have enough. Nobody does. In HIS.

Take the Land

When Joshua was about to lead Israel into the Promised Land, God said something to him THREE times. Not once. Not twice. Three times: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).

When God repeats Himself, PAY ATTENTION. He wasn’t saying it three times because Joshua was forgetful. He was saying it because taking new ground is HARD, and the voice of fear would try to stop him at every turn. Smith Wigglesworth once said, “Great faith is the product of great fights. Great testimonies are the outcome of great tests.” The fight is real. But so is the victory.

The truth you’ve heard in this series — that you’re valuable, that you’re chosen, that the lie was never yours to carry — that’s your Promised Land. But you have to WALK into it. Nobody can walk for you. And every step you take forward is ground the enemy LOSES. There will be mornings when you don’t feel strong. Take the step anyway. There will be days when the old voice comes back louder than ever. Swing the sword. There will be seasons when it feels like nothing has changed. KEEP WALKING. The Jordan didn’t part until the priests’ feet touched the water (Joshua 3:15-16). Sometimes God waits for the step before He moves the obstacle. He’s not being difficult — He’s building your faith with every step.

YOU ARE NOT A BUM. You are not a loser. You are not what the lie said you were. You are who GOD says you are — fearfully made, wonderfully designed, chosen on purpose, and armed for the fight. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). MORE than conquerors. Not barely surviving. Not hanging on by a thread. Not scraping through by the skin of your teeth. MORE THAN CONQUERORS. Through Him.

That’s who you are. Now get up. Take the land. And don’t you dare look back.

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A Moment Before You Go

A.W. Tozer wrote, “God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves.” The high ground is yours. Take it one step at a time. He’s already there waiting for you.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.” And the test of the enemy’s strategy is what he does TO them. But God’s response to both is the same: “These are Mine. And I’m coming for them.”

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If you or someone you know is in crisis right now, please reach out. You are not alone.

New Zealand: Lifeline 0800 543 354 | Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737

USA: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 988 | Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

UK: Samaritans 116 123 | Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

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