One of the reasons, I must admit, for my questions was something I hear
nearly every day.  Few of us will admit to it up front but as a an
intercessory prayer session progresses, and not necessarily the first time
but often sooner rather than later, the person will be led by the Holy
Spirit to a place where they say, "If people knew who I really was, they
wouldn't like me."  This isn't the problem, of course, but it is a lie which
hides another lie about who they think they are.  In every case, I am not
exaggerating, in every case when this comes up in a person's life, the lie
is something they believe is really the truth about themselves.  I am
thinking of one lady with whom I prayed with for about a year.  She drove
clear across town, often twice a week, to come to my office to pray.  Many
times, we arrived at this very spot in her life.  I've learned, over the
years, that this is what is often called a guardian lie.  That is, it is a
lie covering the real lie that is causing them to feel the way they do about
themselves.  In this lady's case, every time we got to this point, and no, I
never guided her there, we just arrived there at various times in prayer
sessions, we would attempt to go deeper.  I won't explain how this is done
because it isn't necessarily the same for every person.  At any rate, behind
this lie, if people really knew what I was like, they wouldn't like me, is
often fear, anger, guilt, shame, condemnation, and any other numbers of
things.  No, these things are not sin but they are indicators.  Where each
one of these things are found in our lives, there is a lie behind it.  This
lady always became extremely fearful when we reached this point.  That's a
good sign because it means we are close, very close, to discovering the lie.
Once the lie is exposed, truth always comes from the Lord.  I said, truth
then always comes from the Lord.  As I would pray around, using probing type
prayers, questions mostly which I ask of the Lord and not of the person, her
fear would increase.  Some days, we got pretty close.  When I asked her how
she felt at this point, she would always say the same thing, "I feel evil.
I am evil.  No, this isn't strange at all as far as I am concerned.  If you
believe a lie about yourself, you easily, without effort, can see, and even
feel, that you are evil.  The feeling itself seems real and that is why you
believe the lie about yourself.  Oh, no, people always say, this is real.  I
can feel it.  I know it is true.  Sorry, it is a lie.  This woman was a Born
Again believer, active in her church, and loved the Lord with all her heart.
This feeling about herself had absolutely nothing to do with sin, something
she did, unforgiveness, or any other related thing of that nature.  she
believed a lie about herself.  Do I know what the lie is?  No.  We never got
to it.  She had gone to therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, Christian
counselors and therapists, and was even married to a psychologist.  So you
are asking me if I could do anything for her?  I can't do anything even for
myself.  Jesus does all the work but He will not force a person to go where
they do not want to go and especially because of our unbelief.  I don't know
what the specific lie was in this case but this lady came to me because she
had learned, in her fifties, after decades of depression, therapy, and
medications, that her real father may possibly be her grandfather.
Additionally, her mother never even talked to her until she was about 2
years of age.  Yes, this was a Christian home.  The grandfather sexually
molested his own daughters for years.  In this case, until two years into
the mother's marriage until her husband figured it out and went and
threatened the old man.  Threatened?  I would have beaten him to death with
a baseball bat, but back in those days, little more was done than others in
the family saying, keep away from grandpa.  Did this lady believe what she
had been told?  She claimed she didn't.  what might you think she believed?
Evil does not come from God so I knew, without even praying with her, she
was believing a lie about herself.  Can't you just forgive and go on?  What
do you think?  I hope you didn't really mean what you said when you asked
that question.  If that's all the understanding and compassion you have,
please don't go into the intercessory prayer ministry.  The attitude of, if
people really knew me, they wouldn't like me, was a lie.  I knew her, I knew
more about her than her own pastor, and I still liked her.  I still do like
her.  So why did she believe a lie?  the only time that question is asked is
by a person who doesn't know anything about how powerful deception and
deceit of the Enemy really is.  So, what is the purpose of all this
information?  What if we believe the opposite?  What if we believe God
inside of the lies of the Enemy?  Do you understand now what Jesus meant
when He said, You will know the truth and the truth will set you free?
Think about it.

Phil.