He will call us to be responsible for our lives. Now listen, when you get into the issue of blame blame means you're putting the responsibility on someone else. And if you put the responsibility on someone else, guess who doesn't have the ability to change things? If you are victim, you are constantly living in a mentality that someone has hurt me. Someone needs to put it right. You're putting the blame out there, you put the responsibility out there; you have no empowerment to change it. And there are so many people living in our nation who live with this constant reminder of injustices. When you get reminded continually of how badly you're treated you begin to see I'm a victim, and when you're a victim you have no power to change. Unfortunately there are some aspects of governance in our nation that keep people in this mentality.
But you and I have got to see through it; appreciate the good, honour those in authority, but recognise philosophies and thinking that keep you a victim. You are not a victim. You're not a victim unless you choose to be - because you're an adult now. You've got power to make choices. Now maybe years ago someone badly treated you. Maybe years ago you were young and vulnerable. Maybe someone misused their authority and treated you in some kind of way, or maybe it was a generation or two ago someone did something bad. But listen, if you are blaming that for why you're here you have now given up responsibility for your life. You remain a victim. You can't move forward. I hate victim mentality. It's characterised by poor me, won't you feel sorry for me? Jesus confronted it as being a demonic way of thinking.
When Jesus in Matthew 16 was announcing his determination to go to the cross and fulfil the will of God for His life, to fulfil His purpose and destiny, Peter when he heard about the cross, when he heard about the suffering bit, when he heard about the pain bit, when he heard about maybe the crowds will go bit, maybe I'll be alone and having a little bit of pain here somewhere; when he heard that he drew Jesus aside and said pity Yourself. Jesus immediately confronted it. What did He confront? He confronted the self pity, victim mentality. He confronted the thoughts that would make you feel sorry for yourself and become disempowered and draw back from hardship and difficulty and the things that are needed to fulfil your purpose. And He said get behind Me Satan! That's a pretty tough thing to say to an apostle, but He was addressing the thought and the spirit behind that thought, the spirit behind the thought oh, feel sorry for yourself. Look after yourself, is demonic.
And He said not only that, you are a stumbling stone for Me in fulfilling My destiny. When people try and make you feel sorry for yourself, or you start to feel sorry for yourself is coming over you, you've got to stand up and you've got to confront that thought. That's a destiny thief, you've got to stand against that and make a choice I will not go down that path of self pity. I'll not go down the path of being a victim. I will not go down that path, I'm better than that. I've got a call, I've got a destiny. God's able to turn whatever happened to me to good - only if I'll take responsibility for my attitudes and thoughts and words and actions, and do what He calls me to do. I was talking to the wife of this man whose daughter committed suicide and we picked up a number of things.
I said well there are some things you're going to need - there'll be thoughts that will come to your mind and you'll actually need to just grieve over them; acknowledge them and feel them and grieve over them. But I said there are two thoughts you're going to have to make a stand against, and I asked the husband to hold her accountable to stand against it. One is the self pity stream of thought; poor me, I feel sorry for myself. It does not lead you to your destiny; it leads you to becoming disempowered and becoming a victim. Now listen, it doesn't matter what bad deal you've been dealt. I love it - I just was listening to [Chunky Gee. 00.18.37] He said it doesn't matter what hand of cards you were dealt in life, there's someone could pick them up and win the game with them. I like that. Did you hear him say that? I like that one [unclear 00.18.49]. I'm going to remember that one - see, because it's actually true.