When we get hurt by authority, one of two reactions occurs

1. Rebellion against authority
2. Cooperation with authority

Niceness is the most common response to hurtful authority. The fear of getting into trouble drives a person to set up a belief that “If I’m nice you will like me”. Thus the hurt party will initiate their own pattern of behaviour and judgment all centred on their personal definition of what’s “nice” and all for their own selfish survival. The intimidation of the authority has worked its spell to get the adult or child to concede to fear and self-focussed self-preservation so it can control the individual to do what it wants for its own happiness.

You see, when you choose to react to hurtful authority instead of trusting God’s higher plan of pain, you unwittingly take the carrot of elevated position.

Niceness = Christian

A person with a background that’s been trained to be nice becomes an easy target for the church to persuade into its ranks because the church’s philosophy is ‘niceness = Christian’. It’s easy to fall for the belief that if you are nice you are a Christian, and it’s easy to fall to the intimidation that if you are not nice you are wrong and need to conform to the church’s niceness.

The victim becomes the intimidator

But who defines niceness. A nice Christian defines nice according to their own belief and pain-based experience of nice. Therefore if you don’t do it the way they think is nice they will judge you as not nice. This judgement will place them above you and the issue won’t be resolved until the offender stops being un-nice and starts being nice again. The very fact that there is a judgment made against you confirms that the judge is not operating in the love of God. Thus nice is a selfish tool to dictate control over others and the victim that reacts with niceness is simply getting caught in the same web of intimidating nice control as the person that intimidated them in the first place.

My ‘nice’ defines what’s ‘right’

Like the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, a nice person relies on their feelings, not God’s Word, to tell themselves what’s right and wrong. We define our truth by our niceness. We define what’s right by what’s nice, so if you’re not nice, you’re wrong; and we use nice to demand conformity to my way of doing things. But, the judgement, intimidation, threats and manipulation confirm that it isn’t genuine love but counterfeit.

“If you’re not nice to me then I have the right to not be nice to you”, is not a message from the Bible but a twisted belief born in the wounded heart of the false nice Christian. The Bible defines love as treating others as you would like to be treated whether they mistreat you or not, Matthew 7:12 & 5:39.

Fake nice gets on with people, and fake nice doesn’t offend people, and fake nice agrees with people, but fake nice hates those who aren’t nice to it. Fake nice uses nice to be liked and to avoid correction.

Jesus wasn’t always nice

The problem is, Jesus was not always nice. In John 6 Jesus deliberately said things that offended His followers; He deliberately avoided Lazarus’ funeral; He ignored His cousin John’s request for help in prison; He inferred the syro-phonecian woman was a dog, spoke disrespectfully to His mother, told off Peter for not walking on water, publically discredited Peter as satanic, took a whip to the money changers, scared the disciples by being a ghost walking on water, dined with prostitutes, deliberately disobeyed the Sabbath laws, and spoke in parables so the people wouldn’t understand and couldn’t get saved.

The real issue isn’t nice, the real issue is position. Whilst ever you judge people from your elevated nice position you unwittingly judge yourself as the sinner.

The power of niceness

A nice Christian looks after their own interests but their niceness makes you feel like they’re looking after yours and that’s its power. Niceness is a powerful satanic tool that is designed to confuse the simple. If you’re being nice, a nice Christian will be nice to you, but if you do something that to them isn’t nice, you’ll feel the prongs of their displeasure, and thus you’ll be pressured by guilt to re-conform to their niceness. When you re-conform you endorse your position under the power of the demonic spirit of niceness. Niceness is just a weapon to control you to conform to what the nice wants.

Temptation is not just the power of Satan to conform to Satan’s will

From Satan’s perspective, the purpose of temptation is to get you under his control, and from there, to get others under your control. Satan’s purpose is to take away your Godly authority. Satan uses temptation to manipulate you to covet a better deal. He whispers into your heart and entices you to envy a better position for yourself, James 4:5. Once you bite the apple you choose an elevated self-position in contravention of God’s will and put yourself under the influence of the demonic. This is what happened in the Garden of Eden. From there, you simply fall into the satanic pattern of wise in your own eyes, fear of getting into trouble, hiding from God and the truth, lie to protect yourself, blame everyone for your problem, tell everyone what’s right and how they should behave, and try to get other people to eat the apple too so they come under your control, just like Adam.

We are constantly tempted to put ourselves above others, to regard our opinion as superior, to judge others for not doing it right according to our rightness, to hold grievances against those who have hurt us, to seek what’s best for us in preference to our neighbour. It’s a never-ending fight to not submit to the tricks of Satan, but enduring the temptation is God’s exercise regime to learn to withstand the darts of the enemy by humbling yourself to God’s higher plan. Temptation can’t be avoided and even though temptation is satanic, temptation is actually God’s tool to strengthen His remnant against satanic deception and control.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers (many) temptations; knowing that the trying of your faith works patience, but let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and entire wanting nothing.” James 1:2-4

Whatever is not of faith is sin

You can’t defeat temptation in your own strength; it can only be endured by faith; by trusting God’s higher plan in the face of the mocking, threats, and manipulation to conform to the intimidator’s niceness. The temptation is God’s checking system to see if you will surrender to His plan or react and get sucked into the intimidator’s deception.

Faith doesn’t operate from a position of elevation; faith shines under temptation. In fact, you can’t have faith without temptation. In other words, if there’s no temptation you don’t need faith. Nice Christians generate their faith from elevation, but it’s fake. You can’t endure the temptation until you repent of your elevation, because you can’t walk by faith when you’re in the sin of elevation.

Faith suffers, it doesn’t elevate itself.

You can check if it’s genuine niceness

If you’re not nice, a spirit will bite you to get you to conform to its will. If you’re bitten for not being nice, know that the bite is from a demonic spirit. Holy Spirit does not bite you for your weaknesses; He convicts you of sin. If you’re called of God, people will hate you because you’re not nice to them the way they want. A false nice person will make judgments against you from their elevated position in contravention of God’s instructions.

God’s niceness

Selfishness defines nice according to DO and DON’T, but God defines nice according to position. Nice in God’s kingdom = humility, that is, ‘no seeking of position’. Whereas nice in Satan’s kingdom is always to get an elevated position. That’s the temptation that a genuine Christian must resist and endure.

We need eyes to see the trick, not the apple

It’s not the sin of adultery, or lies, or kill, or covet that’s the problem; it’s the sin of eating the apple; the sin of the envy of putting myself in a higher position over my neighbour and judging them for their weaknesses or un-niceness. The adultery, lies, cheating, and fears all flow from this higher self-righteous position. The reason you lie is to preserve your position. That’s why nice Christians don’t like being corrected; it makes them feel inferior to their position. The apple always looks nice. The apple is always position and the worry of getting it or losing it.

Solution

The solution isn’t to try and stop falling for your weaknesses. Contrary to what the world teaches, the solution to enduring the temptation is first to accept your lowly position; accept that you are the way God made you and stop striving to be someone else or wanting someone else’s status. Otherwise you’re telling God he made a mistake; you’re telling God He must give you a better deal. The solution is to trust God’s higher plan instead of seeking the best for yourself.

If Eve had’ve accepted her position instead of envying a better deal, sin wouldn’t have been the consequence. Instead she got sucked into envying being a god and lost everything.

Salvation through temptation

Unsuspecting to our human mind is one of God’s hidden secrets; the secret jewel of temptation. Temptation is actually God’s pathway to heaven and salvation. Without temptation you can’t get saved. Even Jesus went through the doorway of temptation before He started His ministry. It wasn’t just to prove His worthiness; it was to show us the path as His followers. Be thankful for temptation instead of murmuring about the hassle, for the crown of life is the reward for enduring it, James 1:12.

Pastor Craig Wright