51. CHARACTERISTICS OF A COUNTERFEIT

(The Single Woman Series – Batch 2)

A counterfeit in the Christian relationship world, means a man that parades himself as the real deal, in that he fools a woman into thinking that he is God-sent and a man of God, when in truth and in fact, he is NOT God’s plan for that particular woman and not one of his sons.

He is a man of the world, although he is disguised as a Christian. More times than not, he is there to fulfill the devil’s agenda in the life of that woman (whether he is aware of it or not), which is to kill, steal and destroy her purpose, her future, her happiness, her contentment, her dreams, her self-esteem, her dignity, her self-respect, her sense of self-worth, her values and her testimony.

Counterfeits leave a trail of devastation in the lives of Christian women and have done so for centuries. They mess some women up so badly, that, if it wasn’t for the love and power of Jesus to break every yoke, these women would need the rest of their lives to recover from the pain they endured from allowing such men time and space in their lives.

In these last days, counterfeits continue to be on the prowl for unsuspecting victims and women who have professed Christianity but are not walking closely with their Lord are VERY vulnerable and prone to be caught in their web of deception.

I have done Articles in the past on how to know if a man you’re interested in is THE ONE. Today, I am going to address seven (7) characteristics of a counterfeit. There are more for sure but I am only going to focus on these seven (7), particularly the ones that I have observed in my own experience and that of other women.

If you see them in the guy you’re interested in, dating or courting, then run! Even if you’re engaged to be married and you see these characteristics, please reconsider! At least arrange to go see a Counsellor with him or something! Your future depends on you making the RIGHT choice.

I am so tired of seeing women duped and mistreated and their whole life turned upside down because they thought they had found MR. RIGHT but realised too late that he was MR. WRONG. While they were busy doting on this man, he was busy with his mandate, which was to destroy you.

Make no mistake: Your loving a counterfeit does not change his assignment. He came to create as much havoc in your life as possible, so as to bring you and your testimony down and your ‘loving’ him, simply gives him the licence to do it.

I remember hearing a popular song over the airwaves recently while travelling in a taxi and the singer’s words were “How could an angel break my heart?” I thought to myself and as if responding to the woman’s query, “Because he wasn’t an angel in the first place!”

When the Bible warns us not to be unequally yoked, it is not to sound fancy. God is saying in simple terms, “Don’t hook yourself up with the devil.” Make no mistake, if a man has not submitted his heart and life to Jesus, then the devil is his master, no matter how nice or kind or good looking or well-mannered or well meaning he seems. The Bible is therefore saying to run from such a situation so as to avoid becoming a puppet in the devil’s agenda.

If you want to know from early on if he is THE REAL DEAL or a FAKE, it is imperative that you know what the characteristics of a counterfeit are. I have listed a few major ones below. If he has these characteristics, then he is certainly not God-sent and if he is not God-sent, then guess who sent him and for what purpose?

SEVEN (7) CHARACTERISTICS OF COUNTERFEITS

1 – They leave you guessing

They leave you guessing and anxious and uneasy as to whether they are interested in you or not or want you in a relationship or not or whether they intend to marry you or not.

Not knowing at first may seem exciting but after a while, you get tired of waiting and wondering and wondering and waiting. You want to take things to the next level but he is yet to express definite interest in you or to define what it is that you two have. Or he may have muttered something or given you signals but never gets around to asking you out or indicating that he wishes to begin to court you. Or you two have been seeing each other for a while, even years but he never gets around to asking for your hand in marriage and you are worried as to whether he wants to and whether he ever will.

Basically, he takes you on an emotional roller coaster and the technique he uses here is to give you just enough to make you think he is interested in a life with you, in order to keep you hooked. The devil knows that the longer you stay fixated on the wrong man, the older you’re getting, the more time you’re wasting and the longer it will take for you to finally meet and settle down with Mr. Right.

Sadly, I sincerely believe that there are women who, if they had waited on God, he would have provided a spouse for them but they wasted too much time being disobedient to his will and focusing on the WRONG man. When they finally come to their senses and this man leaves them in a state of disaster, it is too late.

For some women, God still steps in in his mercy and provides a spouse after all of that mess but for others, he does not. He can still extract beauty out of such a woman’s life for his glory but the script he writes for such a woman may no longer include having a husband. It is therefore a big gambol to play and waste time with a counterfeit.

2 – They specialize in mind games

You can’t remember signing up but a counterfeit will get you from level 1 to level 5 of a game that he alone knows the rules for. Without you even realizing it and as much as you hate the game, you’ve become addicted. You don’t want to play and in fact, you find the game to be more and more painful as you advance but still, like a puppet, you play along.

You fool yourself into thinking that, if you were to only play long enough, somehow, you would emerge victorious or there will be a win-win situation. Little do you know, that the objective of the game is to leave you in a mess, emotionally broken with feelings of worthlessness.

3 – They are full of excuses 

No matter the situation or how much they have messed up, counterfeits always have an excuse for it and are rarely genuinely ever sorry for what they have done. They simply do not take responsibility when things go wrong and much prefer to dismiss it. They may even become resentful when you insist that they are wrong and try to get them to see it.

Dear daughter of God, it is not that they don’t see it. It is that they simply don’t care. They did not gain access to your life to uplift you but to bring you down, so taking responsibility for their wrong is not going to happen. If you are with a Mr. Wrong, then what do you expect?

4 – They look to you for strength and covering

If you are saved and the person you have aligned yourself with is not or is not the person that God has for you, then one indicator of this may be that you find yourself, more times than not, having to uplift him. That is, you may find yourself in a situation where he expects you to be his pillar of strength.

The Bible clearly says that the woman is the weaker vessel and it is clear that although she is to be a support to husband, it is the husband that must cover her with his strength, spiritually, emotionally and physically. However, when God’s daughters align themselves with the wrong men, those men usually hold them in higher esteem than they should be held (at first) and consider them as a haven to go to when the going gets rough, the person to consult for advice and encouragement when they feel down and to give them much needed support. They may treat you as if you are perfect and can do no wrong and expect you to always be their source of strength when they need assistance, be it financial, emotional, practical or otherwise.

What do you expect? He perceives that the Lord’s Spirit (which is absent from him) is in you, so he relies on you to be the stronger person in your relationship. The problem with this is that all human beings are imperfect and a woman has been designed by God to have a man of God be her source of strength in a relationship, not the other way round. When it is in the reverse, a woman could become secretly resentful and very, very tired.

Instead of you being covered, you find that he expects you to always be his covering. You therefore find that you have no avenue to be truly vulnerable, to expose your weaknesses and to show your imperfections.

Living up to a perfect standard is exhausting and impossible. It was never a role God intended for the woman. The man is supposed to be your strength, your safe haven when YOU need encouragement and support. In fact, your husband is supposed to pray effectively for you but this man of the world obviously can’t because he has zero relationship with the Lord.

A woman should never align herself with a man who cannot be her covering. If you observe that he cannot cover you, then this is a strong indicator that he is a counterfeit. Escape while you can (if you have not yet married him).

5 – They continue to do the things that hurt and upset you

Even when you have explained to them how you feel about something that they have done or not done that upset and hurt you, they still CONTINUE to do the very thing, over and over again.

(This is a big one!) In fact, once you make it clear that their actions are displeasing to you, you find that their promise to change is shortlived or they make no effort whatsoever to desist from the practice and sometimes, the very actions increase in frequency. In short, their hurtful behaviour and the decision they have taken to persist, despite your communicating to them how you feel is downright degrading and disrespectful.

Make no mistake, counterfeits are in your life to destroy you and by any means necessary. Even when they are not in your life anymore, they may still seek out opportunities to hurt you, just at least one final time. They stay true to their mission and unless God does a work in their heart that transforms the way they think (and sometimes he does), they remain invested, even at a distance and even sometimes after many years of no communication between the two of you, in your being hurt.

And even when they are focusing on their own lives and have changed for the better and even found Christ as their Lord and Saviour, the devil may still try (unknown to them), to use whatever is going on in their life, to inflict some hurt on you, to keep you trapped in past pain and to create a legacy of hurt whenever you remember the person.

This is especially true if you disobeyed God to be with the person in the past and he chastened you severely, even many years after, as a result. It is easy then, to associate the person with all that you suffered in your chastening moments but we are responsible for our decisions, not anyone else.

To break that feeling, you need to forgive yourself, pray for the person, that God blesses him, his family and that God destroys any ill-feeling or hurt the devil may be trying to re-create in your heart because of past pains you went through.

6 – They don’t care much for the God you serve 

Even if they go to Church or sing lustily in the choir, you get the feeling after you have observed them, that they don’t have a relationship at all with the Saviour.

They may be religious and say they have Jesus. They may even act the part but your instinct (maybe the Holy Spirit?) is telling you otherwise. There is something about their spirit that is not in unison with yours. In fact, you may be in love with such a person and have some good times but there is no peace in your spirit about your relationship. This leads me to the next point.

7 – Their actions cause you to spend much of your time crying

Whether it is something that they have done or not done or some drama that surrounds them, you spend many days feeling sad, depressed and crying your eyes out because of something to do with them.

Surely, this is not the life God intended for you. The Bible says rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice but when a counterfeit is in your life, you may smile sometimes, even feel happy sometimes but for the most part, you feel miserable, sad, depressed and like you are losing yourself, what you used to stand for and your sense of worth.

Anytime you realise that you are losing good things about yourself like your peace, your sanity, your joy, your sense of contentment, your dignity, your standards, your close walk with the Lord and your very self, it is time to sit up and consider what it is or WHO it is that you have in your life. Put on your spiritual lense and take a look at him again (SEE Article 58 entitled ‘TO TELL IF HE’S THE ONE PUT ON YOUR SPIRITUAL GLASSES’)

8 – They bail on you when the going gets rough or become highly critical 

When you are experiencing drought or things are not going very well in your life, they don’t stick around to support you. At your worst moment, be it sickness, loss of a job, loss of a business or whatever, they choose that moment to abandon you and sometimes they pull a sudden disappearing act.

If they do stay, they get highly critical and constantly make you feel worse about your situation. If they leave, when things are finally coming together for you, they sometimes try to weave their way back into your life!

They are the good times only kind of guy. When its sunny, they want to be around but when it begins to rain, they don’t offer to shelter you below an umbrella. They bail and leave you to take the soaking.

Stop seeing everything through natural eyes dear daughter of God. This life is about spiritual warfare. Make no mistake, when they try to come back with sweet words of love, regret and forgiveness, it is not because they care. It is because you are trying to get back up and are not supposed to. It is because you are regaining your close walk with your Lord and your sense of worth and dignity and actually becoming the woman that THE RIGHT man would be attracted to.

I know that it is tempting to take him back but remember this: When the WRONG man tries to re-enter your life when things are finally beginning to look up for you, on a natural level, it is because he is selfish and self-centred and wants to benefit from your good times. Such a person is not a keeper because he will bail on you again when things get rough. But even more serious, on a spiritual level, it is simply the devil trying to get him to complete his assignment which was to destroy you. You were not supposed to make a comeback so it is very much like a hitman returning to finish the job he started.

CONCLUSION

On the whole, if that man you’ve been interested in or have been seeing purports to be a Christian but you see the red flags mentioned above, it is highly likely that he is not a Christian but a Counterfeit. That is he is an unsaved, ungodly, man of the world, sent by satan to mess up your life. In such a case, what you must do as a child of the King is clear. The Bible makes no apologies when it states that we should NOT be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. If he has proven to you by his actions that he does not know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, then don’t make the mistake of continuing to entertain him. Obey God and get rid of him. (SEE Article 148 entitled ‘WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEING UNEQUALLY YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER?’)

(Written on 30^th August, 2016)

Dear Reader, if you found the above Article to be informative, edifying or interesting, you may also be interested in reading the following:

• Note 8 – ‘My Quick Ten Point Checklist – Is He The One?
• Note 18 – ‘You Can’t Change Him’
• Note 21 – ‘When He Doesn’t See Your Worth’
• Note 53 – ‘God-sent vs Devil-sent – The Difference’
• Note 58 – ‘To Tell If He’s The One Put On Your Spiritual Glasses’
• Note 128 – ‘God-sent Or Just God-ly?’
• Note 130 – ‘Ladies, How Long Are You Prepared To Wait?’
• Note 144 – ‘Before You Say ‘I Do’
• Note 145 – ‘Does He Love You Or Lust You?’
• Note 147 – ‘How To Tell If He’s Your God-sent And Not Just God-ly’
• Note 148 – ‘What Does The Bible Say About Being Unequally Yoked With An Unbeliever?’
• Note 149 – ‘Making The Wrong Decision Can Be Costly’
• Note 258 – ‘The Man Of The World vs The Man Of God’
• Note 260 – ‘Common Sense Tips For Choosing The Right One’
• Note 271 – ‘Not Just Any Man Will Do – My Top Ten (10) Pet Peeves In A Man’
• Note 275 – ‘How God Wants Us To Treat With Our Idols’