If the normal thing for an unbeliever to do is hide, cover, and blame when we do something wrong — then the bigger question is this.
What causes a born-again believer to follow this same pattern?
Notice carefully, this question is clearly referring to a blood-bought, Spirit-filled, Bible-believing child of God who can preach the plan of salvation with power and authority. And yet, in their own lives they are still sewing leaves?
And that’s the focus of this blog today, because all three of things have a price — they will cost you something! And at the end of this blog, I will show you exactly what they will cost you.
But before I do, I want to share with you the three things that keep many believer’s in the leaves:
Reason #1: Carrying a Cross That is Too Small
A great many believers today hold, without ever saying it out loud, a theology (a belief system) that goes something like this:
They believe that justification covers everything up to the date of their initial conversion. In other words, their past sins are paid in full because of the death of Jesus on the cross. However, everything after that date is on a different account — one where the balance changes from paid-in-full to overdrawn.
Now, let me be clear, I do not know anyone that teaches this; but that doesn’t change the fact the many Christians today think this way.
When a believer tries to carry “a cross that is too small” — it means they are refusing to carry the full weight of their true calling. Jesus clearly gives a command to everyone who wants to follow Him:
“Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24)
Here we read where Jesus is referring to every believer’s personal accountability and the necessary sacrifices of the Christian faith. Because if this condition is not met, a believer will inevitably fall back into the default patterns of the original Fall of Man.
- Hide: Just as Adam and Eve hid in the garden when they ran from their responsibility, a believer with a cross that is too small hides from God, from their community, and even worse, from themselves. They avoid authentic vulnerability because exposure feels too costly.
- Cover: Instead of allowing the cross to strip away their pride and bring genuine transformation, they seek to “cover” their flaws and imperfections with superficial righteousness, excuses, and sometimes even in their outward appearances.
- Blame: When the weight of life eventually catches up to them, they cannot carry it because the cross they have chosen is too small to build true spiritual muscle. As a result, they deflect and blame others — their circumstances, their past, or those around them—rather than taking responsibility for their actions.
True discipleship and spiritual growth will always require a believer to embrace the full weight of the cross that God has designed and created for them. It is only by facing the true magnitude of our responsibility that we find deliverance and freedom from the dangerous and destructive cycle of shame, hiding, and blame.
Reason #2: Unable to Discern the Voice of the Spirit from the Voice of the Enemy
There are always two voices that a believer will hear immediately after they have committed a sin. And the danger is this, to an untrained ear both voices sound very much alike — at least for the first four seconds.
However, the problem is that in those four seconds, most of the damage has already been done. In Scripture, there is a clear distinction between how the Holy Spirit convicts a person and how the enemy condemns them:
Conviction: The Voice of the Spirit
“And when He is come, He will reprove (conviction) the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” (John 16:8)
Conviction comes from the Holy Spirit and is purposeful and hopeful. In other words, it always points out specific behavior to lead a person towards repentance, healing, and restoration. It creates a strong desire to move closer to God.
Condemnation: The Voice of the Enemy
“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused (condemnation) them before our God day and night.” (Revelation 12:10)
Condemnation comes from the enemy and is always heavy and leaves you feeling hopeless. Why? It’s because it directly attacks your identity rather than just a specific action (e.g., “You are a failure” instead of “You made a mistake”). It eventually drives a wedge of guilt and shame to causes you run to away from God and hide in shame.
In simple terms, the voice of conviction says: you did something. However, the voice of condemnation says: you are something.
The Spirit judges the act. The enemy judges the man.
And notice also, conviction has a deadline — you messed up, now go make it right. But condemnation has no deadline, because it is not trying to get you anywhere. Revelation tells us that the enemy accuses us “day and night.”
This is not referring to the intensity at which the enemy accuses us — it’s referring to a shift in how a person thinks.
For example, when a particular thought comes into our mind, we don’t need to not argue with it — we need to identify it!
“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)
This verse of Scripture gives us the key to identify which voice is speaking to us. The first question we should ask ourselves is this: “Is this voice speaking to me about something I did, or is it speaking to me about who I am?”
Do you see how easy it is to tell the difference? If it names a specific act or deed — this is conviction. Just confess it, make it right, and move forward.
However, if it judges you a person and not in what you did — this is condemnation. You are being prosecuted. A completely different voice, different response, and arguing with a prosecutor is not your job.
Reason #3: Building Your Identity on Your Performance
If your identity rests on your spiritual performance — the consistency of your prayer life, how much you fast, or the success of your ministry — this means that the whole building comes crashing down if just one of those things falls short.
This is exactly why some of the most successful people in any congregation are the ones bound the most shame. For example, the pastor who has never failed publicly has more riding on his performance than anything else. Why? It’s because he has built identity on the same foundation.
The Impostor Phenomenon
Imposter phenomenon, also commonly called, “imposter syndrome”, is a psychological pattern that normally leads to several key negative outcomes:
- Psychological Distress: It strongly connects with increased anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.
- Burnout: The continuous cycle of over-preparation and overcompensation to hide perceived incompetence frequently causes emotional depletion and burnout.
- Dysfunctional Work Habits: It often leads to perfectionism (refusing to share ideas until they are flawless) or procrastination/self-sabotage driven by an intense fear of failure.
- Strained Relationships: A constant fear of judgment and feelings of shame can hinder a person’s ability to maintain a healthy balance or manage personal relationships.
The structure of it is the structure of this whole series. These are accomplished people who cannot believe their own accomplishments. In other words, the visible evidence of what they have done has no effect on the verdict they hold about who they are, because those two things are stored in two different places.
It’s impossible to argue a man out of his shame when he’s holding his résumé in his hand. Even Adam himself, a man that walked with God in the cool of the day, could not keep himself out of the bushes.
What Will These Three Things Cost You?
Now, just as I promised, I want to close this blog post by showing you what these three things will cost. However, in order to truly show you, we must go back to the beginning. We need to go back to the commission:
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
Here we discover two action verbs that refer specifically to conquest — “kabash“ and “radah“ — that were given to Adam, a man made in the image of God. In other words, Adam was give the power and authority to subdue and dominate every living thing that lived and breathed on the earth.
And remember, this dominion was given to him because of his identity — who he was (a man created in the image of God).
And this is why I said at the beginning of this series, and I will continue to say: “A man under the bondage of shame can never exercise dominion because those two things are on completely different sides of the spectrum.”
In other words, dominion and a person’s identity is fundamentally inseparable. True dominion is understood as the natural expression of who a person was created to be.
Identity Always Precedes Dominion
Dominion does not form your identity; your identity determines your level of dominion. This is why in Genesis 1:26–28, God establishes Adam’s identity (“Let Us make man in Our image”) before He gave him the commission (“and let them have dominion”).
A person cannot properly fulfill their purpose or navigate life effectively without first understanding who they are!
So the person convinced at the core that they is disqualified will not pray with boldness, they will not confront the enemy, they will not advance the kingdom of God, they will not open their mouth, they will not lay hands on the sick, and they will not lead their household.
And it’s not because God withheld this power from them. But rather, it’s because they do not believe this level of authority was given to someone like them. And this my friend is the entire strategy of the enemy.
The devil has already lost the war in heaven. And he also knows that he could never win a rematch. So, what he tries to do is steal the authority and dominion that God has given to you and I.
All he needs to do is to get us to believe that it was never given to us. And as I mentioned in the first part of this series, his plan been working for six thousand years.
Today, the church is still full of people who have been forgiven of their sins, and yet they are still hiding. Born-again believers that are spiritually paralyzed and ineffective in the kingdom of God.
Sons and daughters of God dressed in leaves, waiting for permission from God to subdue and take dominion over the earth even though that authority has already been given to them — the problem is they don’t believe it…yet!
Everything up to this point has been diagnosis. Well, that ends here. Because guilt and shame are two completely different things. Therefore, this means that they need two completely different remedies.
In the last two posts of this series we are going to the book of Zechariah, where we read about a man standing before God in filthy clothes — and we see how God changes everything.
Next in this series: Why Forgiveness Alone Doesn’t Always Heal You.
