Now the thing is that happens is, when we connect with God and embrace His dreams for our life, there will be additional put downs come just because of that. You have to understand that becoming a Christian - how many found as a Christian you get people make fun of you, put you down? See. How many know they're watching you? You make one mistake and they're onto you? See, that's a put down, because what they're trying to do is to take away from you the calling, and the stature, that God has implanted right there in your spiritual DNA. You find that in Genesis, Chapter 37 and in Verse 4. Just have a look at a couple of verses here, just so you won't be surprised if you begin to become a dreamer for God, if you begin to embrace God's dreams for your life, you're going to get some extra tall poppy syndrome dished up to you, so you've got to learn how to handle it. Here it is here, Verse 4; When his brothers saw their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and couldn't speak peaceably to him, kept putting him down. And he had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more, because of the God-given dream in his life.
And his brothers - Verse 8 - said to him, shall you reign over us? Or have dominion over us? They hated - now notice this - they hated him even more because of his dreams and the words he spoke. When you begin to stand up and you live out the life God called you to and begin to speak out your dreams, you're going to have people come and put you down. They will want to somehow stop you showing them up. They'll want somehow to bring you back down to where they are, but there's something in you that's different. You weren't designed by God to just flow with the crowd. You're designed to stand up, and be different, and you've got to choose to embrace what God says, who you are, and what you can do, and not let the world push you down and say you're nobody. You're somebody destined to rule, designed by God to rule.
Now listen, there's some sources of put down. I want to share with you three sources of put downs. I want to share with you briefly the impact on their life, but most importantly how to get out of it when that put down comes. It's already come, and it's going to come, don't worry about it, it's a stepping stones. The giants have breads for you, see, bread to grow you. So three sources of put downs, here's number one. The first source of put downs really are demons. Understand that the devil has been put down, literally. The devil was in a realm or occupied a realm in the spirit, a positioning in relationship with God, and when he sinned, God put him down, so he wears shame all the time. He wears put down all the time, and all he's got to give to you is more of the same. He wants to smother you with shame. He wants to smother you with feelings of being put down. He wants you to experience what he has experienced, see? He can't do anything to attack God, so he sets his target on the people God has designed to replace the devil's occupancy in the spirit, the people God has designed to arise, and begin to occupy places in the spirit, and have dominion in the earth. The devil wants to put you down, because he's envious you're occupying what he was called to occupy.
So the first enemy we have are demonic spirits. The Bible says in Revelations 12 and Verse 10, it talks about the accuser of the brethren, the devil is the accuser of the brethren. The word devil means, one who launches violent abusive attacks against you. That's what the word devil means. It comes from a word bellow, to violently hurl fiery darts against you. The word devil also means, to slander, or to run you down in your character and your reputation, by making false accusations against you. The devil by nature, is wanting to put you down. Now to put you down means to humiliate you, so you actually experience shame, so I'll put it in a nutshell. You either walk in the glory God has for you, or you live in the shame that comes out of being fallen and under accusation. The devil wants you to live accused and ashamed, God wants you to live in glory.