I've deliberately disconnected from people that I would share with and talk with, who were scorners and putters down. I just am so irritated by it now, five minutes in it and I'm up, I'm getting fidgety, I'm literally getting fidgety, and I just want to walk. Most times I'll say something. I'll say I'm not comfortable with us talking like this. I think we should be speaking things that build people, not tear them down - so sometimes I've just spoke it out. That's a very mild challenge, but it often will challenge people, and that's often enough. Sometimes you actually just have to stay in it. Sometimes you may be in a home environment that's like that; you can't get out of it, but what you need to do then is ask God to give you grace how to stand up in the middle of it, get some friends to support you, and learn how to stand up, and forgive, and bless those who are cursing you, because make no doubt about it, they are cursing you.
People who put you down are releasing a spirit of murder and cursing you. You have to do something with curses. Forgive and bless, release it, pray for them and begin to fill your life with what God says about you. Remember, if you're in an environment which is polluted, poisonous, choking you, putting you down emotionally and spiritually, you must create your own zone or space and place where you are lifted up and built up. You can't just do that on a Sunday. You have to build your own life and environment. Sometimes if it's in a home situation, the place to do it is in your bedroom. You can have worship music playing. You can begin to get tapes playing. You listen to things that will lift you and build you, and you consciously work to actually have an environment that supports you, including some friends that will support you, and believe in you, and speak into you. Getting the idea?
Okay, so the things outside you, can be a stepping stone to get you where God wants you. You know why? Because in the midst of a put down environment, when you can't get out of it, can't change it, can't do anything, there's only one place you can go. You've got to go to God, and when you go to God, and then you, instead of complaining about the environment, you ask God for grace, and you begin to draw your light from Him, you begin to let your roots go into Him, you find the very environment sent to destroy you, gets you growing deeper in God, and gets you to grow up, so you become strong. Joseph was in an environment where he was put down continually, hostile words, he was betrayed, he was treated unjustly, falsely accused of rape, put in jail, put down in jail. No matter where he was, he was put down, but you know what? He kept popping up, and how come he popped up? How come he just woosh! Up to the top like a cork that someone's pushed down into the water? You try and get a ball, a decent sized ball, and you hold that thing and push it down in the water. You cannot hold it down for long. The moment you let it go, woosh! Up it comes again.
Now you see it does that because it's got something. It's got buoyancy. There's a pressure. The very environment you're trying to smother it in, now pops it up, and so we can do that in God, but we've got to train ourselves to deal with what's going on on the inside of us. So number one, the things outside can actually serve God's purpose. David said, well you guys all hated me, and sent me out here, and put me down, but God sent me. It wasn't you - God sent me. God used all of this to get me where He wanted me to get. Now I'm in a position to help you. Remember I had that dream and you put me down? God used it to get me here, see? So God can use the put downs to get you where He wants to get you, and put into your life what He wants to put in there, but you've got to decide.
Okay, here's the last one now. The last thing is, it's not the put downs so much outside you, it's the ones inside you that are the problem. If you have come into agreement in your heart with a put down message, in other words, your thoughts echo put downs, now everywhere you go in life, you'll misinterpret everything. You'll see everything as a put down. People will say things, and you'll misread what they're saying. You interpret it as a put down. You get angry. People try and come and adjust you, or speak into you, or bring correction; you get angry and resentful, you take it as a put down. It isn't that at all. Innocent things are taken as a put down. You go there and you look around, and all you can feel is everywhere you go, it feels like you're being put down, because something in you is resonating, you've come into agreement with put down. I'm no good, I'm no good, I'm no good - oh, I'm no good. Oh, I'm no good. It's like having red glasses. Everywhere you look its red see, so you have to actually deal with the inner things in the heart.