Cancelling (Spiritual) Delivery Charges
COD: Cash on delivery; or collect on delivery. The sale of goods by mail order where payment is made on delivery rather than in advance. If the goods are not paid for, they are returned to the retailer.
COD happens all the time in the spiritual realm. Few believers are aware that it’s taking place. Even fewer realize we have the authority to reject delivery. Spiritually speaking, when someone sends you unwanted goods with your forged signature, have you been “paying” for it?
Let me tell you a true story of how God taught me to stop making payments for certain “shipments” that didn’t belong to me.
A while back, I went through an intense season of healing that involved extending a lot of forgiveness for wrongs committed against me, not just by one person but a handful. I wrote out each wrong (2.5 pages worth) and prayerfully worked through them one by one until all were crossed off the list. Some items were easy to forgive; others took a couple of months and, frankly, warranted jail time (I didn’t press charges). But by year two, with the support of my church and the help of a professional counselor, the offense list was empty. Praise God!
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What told me my list was empty?
One gauge was the absence of habitually rehearsing thoughts, meaning my mind no longer rehearsed bygone scenarios with the impossible and subconscious goal of bringing about a different ending.
By year three, I was moving forward free and full of joy. Then suddenly, a couple of rehearsing thoughts returned. They hit randomly and felt out of place, like a pig swimming with a school of herring. Nothing I did made these thoughts leave.
I shared this problem with my mentor, and she immediately said, “Those are judgments. Not yours, theirs.”
Holy frijole! Not only had unrequested shipments landed in my mental mailroom, but I had been paying for them without realizing what was happening—COD. By “paying,” I mean wasted thoughts, fruitless prayers of forgiveness, futile contemplation to find the root cause or spiritual door I thought I’d opened—all for issues that were long dead and buried. Yes, I’m saying the vicious, toxic thoughts that other people think toward you can affect your soul, and vice versa. Imagine a hateful accusation spoken toward someone in secret traveling on spiritual radio waves. You could even classify this phenomenon as unwitting witchcraft, or verbalizing “prayers” and thoughts in a way that manipulate, accuse, or condemn another person. No wonder God condemns this evil practice.
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Not my goods, not my debt
My mentor’s explanation made so much sense. So I went home and asked the Lord to guide me through the mailroom clean-up. The all-knowing Holy Spirit is the best Teacher and Guide. I entered into prayer and worship and made sure my heart was still free of judgments toward the “sender.”
In the midst of that, the Lord gave me an out-of-the-box idea: to erect a reverse retaining wall around my soul so that no future judgements from this sender would bear fruit in my soul again. Holy Spirit painted the image in my mind, and I declared and decreed that wall into existence: “You shall also decree a thing, and it shall be established for you: and the light shall shine upon your ways,” Job 22:28. And then I coated this wall with the blood of Jesus that covers all sin.
Lastly, I balled up the existing “shipments” (judgments from the perpetrator) that had filtered into my day-to-day living. I handed this ball, which had never rightly been mine, to the Lord and asked Him to return it to the sender as if never opened. He hurled it over the reverse retaining wall and back into the sender’s (mental) territory where they would now have to “pay for” their own judgments.
All foreign rehearsing thoughts stopped. Just like that! No more wasted payments of time or fruitless prayers of forgiveness that never brought relief. (You can’t be forgiven for sins you don’t commit.)
“Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors… (God) sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.” Romans 2 (The Message)
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Why I’m grateful for the experience…
Now that I’m aware of how one person’s toxic thought-missiles (usually funded by demonic influence) can affect another person, I’ve been extra careful to guard my own thoughts toward others and take each one captive. No words can describe how an ambiance of freedom flourishes a judgment-free mental environment.
Friends, I don’t know where you are with your thoughts, but at least one person needs the information in this post.
If you’ve gone through healing and know that your heart is clear of judgments toward a past offender but somehow those thoughts have returned, double check the mailroom for unwanted COD goods. Ask Holy Spirit to help you “Return to Sender.”
Father in Heaven, search my heart. Show me any areas where I have been receiving judgments placed on me by others. Help me forgive the senders. Holy Spirit, guide me into a place of deep peace in Christ. Create within my heart an ambiance of genuine freedom. In Jesus’s name I pray.
Sowing Seeds of Bravery to “Stop Payment!”
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Additional Bible verses:
“But when the truth-giving Spirit comes, he will unveil the reality of every truth within you. He won’t speak his own message, but only what he hears from the Father, and he will reveal prophetically to you what is to come,” John 16:13 (TPT).
“Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself… Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors.
But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done. You didn’t think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? … Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change,” Romans 2:1-4 (The Message).
“Jesus said, “Forsake the habit of criticizing and judging others, and then you will not be criticized and judged in return. Don’t look at others and pronounce them guilty, and you will not experience guilty accusations yourself. Forgive over and over and you will be forgiven over and over,” Luke 6:37 (TPT).
“My brothers and sisters, do not assault each other with criticism. If you decide your job is to accuse and judge another believer, then you are a self-appointed critic and judge of the law; if so, then you are no longer a doer of the law and subject to its rule; you stand over it as a judge. Know this—there is One who stands supreme as Judge and Lawgiver. He alone is able to save and to destroy, so who are you to step in and try to judge another?,” James 4:11-12 (VOICE).
“Lying lips are extremely disgusting to the Lord,
But those who deal faithfully are His delight,” Proverbs 12:22 (AMP)
