“I just wish that God would turn me upside down and shake all of my lie-based beliefs out onto the ground.” Frank was exasperated after —what he described as— a long and difficult ministry session. He went on to say, “It’s wearisome to be triggered all the time and to be reminded of just how much falsehood I have inside of me. I wish that God would just clean it all up in one big wave of His hand.”

Actually, God could do this if He chose, but this would require Him to violate our free will. Our belief is our own and God patiently waits for us to position ourselves that He might free us.

All of our belief is held in place by two things: our believing it and our free will to choose to do anything about it. Everything we believe is our own and belongs to us. Others may have given it to us, but the moment we believed it, the belief became our own. This is why blaming our terrible childhood, bad parents, or life’s misfortunes, or what is happening  in our current situation, etc., for our present emotional state will not hold up if we examine it closely. Of course, we may have suffered many things unjustly, but it is the way we interpreted those experiences that causes us pain today—not the experiences themselves. Our past and current interpretation of them is our current lie-based belief which causes our troubled state.  

Once we believe something with our hearts, it becomes static and fixed. No one —not even ourselves— can talk us out of it. It requires a divine intervention to release us of the lies we believe with our hearts. However, in order to have God release us with His truth, we have to be willing for Him to do this and willfully position ourselves to receive it. God desires to give us His truth and freedom, but He will not force us to remember, feel emotion, move forward, let go of anything, etc., beyond our own choosing. However, He is very willing to grant us His truth when we are in the right position to receive it. Only He can persuade our hearts to believe the truth.

This is not to say that God is not very involved in all aspects of the ministry session; wooing us to Himself, motivating our hearts to believe, and even orchestrating life events that caused us to move in His direction. However, here is where there is much diversity in the Body of Christ concerning how much and to what extent God is causing things to happen. There are some that hold a predestination view that would strip away the free will aspect of things, while others view what occurs in a ministry session from a cooperative perspective of the person working with God in the process. However, the three questions in the SOLUTION Box make the assumption that there is some manner of cooperation that the person is participating and not simply following a divine script.

The TPM Process is based upon what has been observed in tens of thousands of ministry hours and what appears to be people taking responsibility for what they feel, believe and do, and their willingness to look to God for His truth. As these things have occured, there has been a continual outcome of truth being granted by God in these moments.

As is true for all that is proposed in the PRINCIPLES and PURPOSE areas of this training, embrace what you can, hold loosely what you are unsure of, and apply what you can with all of it. We do not need you to embrace all of the PRINCIPLES and PURPOSE to still apply the PROCESS.

There is a TPM principle that we refer to as the “Belief and Choice Principle.”  This principle basically says that what is occurring in the ministry “chair” is directly related to and greatly determined by what the person believes and is choosing. However, the person needs the Lord’s perspective in order to make different choices based upon the truth. As long as the person is believing a lie, he will make his choices based upon his belief.

We can make the decision to feel what we need to feel, remember whatever we need to remember, and move in the direction of truth after the lies we believe about doing so are replaced with the Lord’s perspective, but He will not force the truth upon us. He waits for us to choose to turn to Him for the truth we need. We have the freewill to choose to move forward, but it is not likely that we will if we believe there will be a negative consequence. If something we believe has us stalled out, then unless we know the truth, we will probably not be able to go against that. We can try to move forward by determination and willpower, but little success will follow since we are having to push against our own belief to do so.

Mustering up willpower, determination, or some inner strength to force our way forward will not work. Until the lies we believe that are preventing us from moving forward are resolved by the Lord’s granting us His perspective, we will hold our position. We need God’s intervention with His truth to resolve them. We can no more successfully renew our minds than we can bring about our salvation. Both are initiated by and completed by God through His grace and His gift of faith.

However, there is apart that we play. What occurs in a ministry session (other than the Holy Spirit granting us the truth) is directly related to and dependent upon our own belief and choice.  Because we believe what we believe we continue to do what we do. However, when we are able to identify and expose the belief  that keeps us from moving forward, then we are in a position to receive truth from the Lord.

When we know God’s truth, we will be able to choose to move forward and toward the desires of our heart: God’s freedom and peace. The very fact that we seek ministry using TPM is proof that we desire freedom and that God is at work within us. It is His drawing us in His direction and our belief and choice that brought us this far, and it will be Him  and our belief and choice that will move us onward to freedom and into the peace of Christ. But each step is an act of our belief and choosing. As we exercise our will to move with Him, we will benefit from what He has for us.

There is a major difference between willful choice and desire. We can desire to be free of the lies we believe and yet not be willing to do what is necessary to experience this freedom. There is often a major difference between what we say we desire and what actually happens when it comes to moving forward in our mind renewal journey. This difference is determined by our free will.

Even though we truly desire to be free from the lies we believe and the attached painful emotion, our will is revealed by what is happening in the moment. Willful choice is driven and determined by what we believe. We can say we want to feel the emotion or move forward in a ministry session, remember some bad memory, etc. (desire), and at the same time refuse to allow it to happen (will). Our will is to be where we are in any given moment. Our desire is where we would like to be.

Our will is our “chooser” that determines the choices we make, and our choices are based upon our core belief. Core belief is what we experientially believe to be the truth in our heart and not necessarily what we believe intellectually. We may intellectually believe that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world and yet remain separated from God. Unless we believe with the heart, we cannot be saved. (Rom. 10:10)

What we believe with our hearts expresses itself through whatever we feel, and thus typically overrides what we know intellectually. Our will is revealed by the choices we make. Our choices are based upon what we believe. When what we believe is contrary to moving forward or feeling emotion, remembering, etc., in a ministry session, we will find ourselves stuck and unwilling to move forward.

This is not because we are a victim of anything or anyone. This is the belief and choice principle. It can be very frustrating when we desire to be free and move forward, yet our belief keeps us “stuck.” This is where we will need God’s intervention with truth. This is also where the TPM De-solution tool will be very helpful.  Our only other option is for God to turn us upside down and give us a good shake.