News and Updates
June 1, 2018
David Copeland · June 1, 2018
Newsletter · Volume: 18 Issue: 6
This is the third installment of a series we began several months ago on the Orphan Mindset. An orphan by definition means “without natural parents.” A person who battles an orphan mindset will have a very hard struggle looking to God as being a Heavenly Father to us. For others of us who had abusive, neglectful or absentee fathers, this battle can actually hinder us from understanding the truth and power of our sonship with God.
I have stated continually that many of the problems we battle in our lives are not a result of a demon spirit attacking us. I still believe demons attack and hinder us as New Testament believers. But many of our problems (or maybe I should say my problems) are a result of a mindset (a habitual way of thinking) that we have created over the course of our lifetime. These mindsets create strongholds which are simply mindsets impregnated with hopelessness.
Some of the orphans I have ministered too around the world have told me they feel like there is something so horribly wrong with them, God took their parents from them in order to punish them for a hidden sin in their lives. We know and passionately declare God is NOT in the business of killing people. The devil steals and kills and destroys. Jesus didn’t come to take our lives, He came to give us life and life more abundantly.
This leads me to the third point in this series: people with an orphan mindset constantly feel like there is something so horribly wrong with them, God will have to constantly punish them for their “hidden sin.”
Or in other words the orphan mindset causes people to take the blame when situations in their lives don’t turn out the way you thought they should. This is especially true when dealing with dysfunctional family members and dysfunctional family drama. You are not the reason your family isn’t saved yet. You cannot make people live right, act right and do right. There comes a time in every adult’s lives that we must accept responsibility for our own actions. It’s not Daddy’s fault, Mama’s fault, the preachers fault or the church’s fault. Stop allowing other people to put their sin and shortcomings on your shoulders and blame you for it. That is part of the orphan mindset.
4. Someone with an orphan mindset can suffer greatly from rejection. The fear of abandonment and a continual separation anxiety plagues people with an orphan mindset.
5. Because of abandonment issues that are created by an orphan mindset, someone with this thinking can be susceptible to carrying and operating in a jezebel spirit. Because they were not able to control situations and circumstances in their childhood, they determine to be in control during adulthood.
People with an orphan mindset can actually manipulate circumstances to make people feel like other people absolutely need them in their lives; and if they ever leave them, the person leaving will be destroyed; and many have even been told they will be cursed by God for doing so.
Someone with an orphan mindset that opens themselves up to be a jezebel operate by always attempting to be the hero in other people’s lives. Always trying to fix other people problems or be the answer to all their needs. What you are attempting to do is be God. He alone can and will supply all our need according to His riches in Christ Jesus!
6. Someone with an orphan mindset can act very religious but will become very angry when confronted with sonship. In Luke 15 in the story of the prodigal son, when the father confronted the son about his anger toward his younger brother, the elder son responded by saying, “you never gave me anything even after serving you faithfully all these years!” (paraphrase mine) Yet the father responded by saying “son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” Luke 15:31 NKJV
The answer to the orphan mindset is embracing the spirit of adoption! In John14:18, Jesus declared I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. (NKJV)
There are several more characteristics to the orphan mindset. But search your heart today and ask: is everything I am doing, saying and the way I am acting, really a product of being a son of God? Or am I allowing the orphan mindset to control my ability to accept and to grow in my sonship with Jehovah God?
The good news is, repentance will clean the slate and give us a new start. One that involves a greater understanding that as a born again believer, I am a son of God.