Dharius Daniels - The Enemy WANTS You to Be in Denial

Many people are serving a life sentence of pain, problems, and plateauing because they are in an invisible prison called denial. If we ever needed deliverance from anything, we need deliverance from denial. The devil is not only in the details; the devil is in denial. In other words, the enemy uses the instrument of denial as a weapon of mass destruction to keep us stuck in a place called settling, imprisoned to average, and to influence us to turn what should be a season into a cycle. Reasons are not necessarily cycles because seasons change with time; cycles change with us. The enemy knows that a season can become a cycle, and we can stay in a cycle as long as we are operating in denial, because denial makes it impossible to change. Denial is dangerous; it is sight suppression. It is when a person chooses to live as though they’re blind when they have the ability to see. It is the deliberate act of closing our eyes to glaring truths that may hurt our feelings now but will actually save our future later. It is an unwillingness to deal with something now that will deal with us later. It is a commitment to feeling good by doing nothing instead of becoming better by doing something. It is an act intended to foster protection but ultimately becomes a self-imposed prison. Many people are serving a life sentence of pain, problems, and plateauing because they are in an invisible prison called denial. If we ever needed deliverance from anything, we need deliverance from denial. The enemy knows you cannot improve what you do not acknowledge; he knows you cannot improve what you do not admit. He knows you cannot fix what you are unable to face. So the prince of darkness wants to keep us in darkness regarding areas of our life that require attention. We need to get a revelation that God wants to give us a revolution—not in our ability to see what’s going on with everybody else, but in our ability to see what’s going on with ourselves. Do you have insight? Insight? Do you have the ability to see in? Self-correction limits God’s correction. Paul says, «If we will judge ourselves, there would be no need to be judged.» In other words, God is saying there are some things I wouldn’t have to correct if you did. But it’s better for you to fix it than for me to fix it, because when I fix it, I send a whale, and the whale has to swallow you up, and you have to stay in the belly of the whale for three days. I need you to fix it. Am I talking to anybody who’s in a season in your life where you’re honest enough to admit that you’re tired of it requiring crisis for you to change? I’m tired of the bottom having to fall out in some area of my life in order for me to make an adjustment. God, if there are some things about me that I can’t see that are hurting me, show me. Show me before I blow it. Show me before I lose it. Show me before I sabotage my future. It might hurt my feelings, but I need you to save my future. Show me myself. Denial is dangerous; it spares your feelings but sabotages your future. Denial is an expression that somebody is worshiping at the altar of fragile self-esteem; they are worshiping comfort, and it is dangerous. It is dangerous in any area of our life. It’s dangerous financially. It’s dangerous professionally. It’s dangerous relationally. But when I was reading this text in Judges, I saw a specific area that denial is dangerous in, and that is this: it is dangerous when we’re in denial about our duality. This is the way I shared it at 10 o’clock: all of us have a twin. I’m not talking about a biological twin outside you; I’m talking about another version of you on the inside of you. Come on, talk back to me! Because duality is the state of having two different and opposite parts. Whether we know it or not, all of us deal with some reality of duality. We can be nice and mean. We can be smart and silly. We can be humble and arrogant. We can want to be around people, and we can want people to leave us alone. We can be an introvert today or an extrovert tomorrow. We can be hood and holy or both. We all have some duality on the inside of us. I know some of us assume that spiritual maturation causes the elimination of your duality. I know you think the more spiritual you become, the less acceptable you become to that other version of you. But your spirituality does not eliminate your duality. I can say this with confidence because I read something that was written by a tentmaker from Tarsus. He was trained under the rabbinical tutelage of Gamaliel; he was educated at the University of Tarsus. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, circumcised on the eighth day. He was a Roman citizen, and he is responsible for two-thirds of the New Testament. Most of what you read in the New Testament, he wrote. He was so anointed that when he would walk past people, people would get healed in his shadow. He was such a praiser that when they put him in a Philippian prison at midnight, when everybody else was panicking, Paul and Silas began to praise God. This man said, «I find this law at work.» Come on, don’t get quiet on me now! This same man who did all this stuff said, «I find this law at work.» Although I want to…