There are no victims in the Kingdom.

That can sound like a strong statement until you stop and look at what victimhood actually means.

Being hurt and becoming a victim are not the same thing.

Someone can be deeply hurt and walk through painful circumstances without becoming a victim.

A person can be poor, orphaned, or handicapped and not be a victim. They can grieve, cry, be sad or disappointed and not be a victim. Or they can experience horrific betrayal and still not be a victim.

Jesus is the clearest example of this.

Has anybody in all of history been more treacherously betrayed, beaten and crucified than Jesus? He was probably the worst treated person ever, and yet, he was not a victim.

Victimhood is not about the experience of pain, but more about how that experience defines the thinking, behaviors, tendencies, and temperament of a person…and how it eventually becomes an identity that they operate from.

So the real issue is not what happened but how we respond to it.

The danger begins when a person agrees with being a victim and builds a false identity around what happened to them instead of who they actually are apart from the experience. That identity eventually becomes the lens through which they see themselves, other people, and how they approach God.

A victim mindset or victim identity is not a kingdom mindset and there are no victims in the Kingdom.

Unfortunately a lot of Kingdom people fall into this trap because it is one of the enemies favorite tools to use against us.

If he can get us to come into agreement with and embrace a victim identity, then it sets in motion downstream mechanisms that give him a legal right to gain entry into our lives so he can steal, kill, and destroy.

When victimhood becomes part of identity, it reproduces and has to keep being reinforced because a victim needs to be stolen from, taken advantage of, offended…

They need betrayal and hurt to keep happening so that it keeps their victim identity alive.

That’s why, every victim needs a villain.

If someone wants to hold on to a victim identity, then somebody has to be the one who betrayed them, hurt them, abused them, stole from them, or did something to them.

And if those things are not actually happening, either they will put themselves into a dangerous and reckless situation, or they will simply just invent a story to maintain their identity.

This is how even trustworthy people can incorrectly get assigned a villain role in their story, and this is how valuable relationships are lost.

Healthy, confident, secure people do not want to play the victim, and they do not want to become the villain in somebody else’s victim story…

This is why the connection between victimhood and trust is so important…

Victims don’t trust.

Beyond the fact that victims are inherently distrustful of people in a general way…left unchecked, it can eventually influence how they interact in the kingdom.

Victimhood keeps people anchored to what happened, while Kingdom identity requires they remain anchored to the King.

Ultimately, the distrust of a victim does not stop with other people. It reaches into how much they trust God.

To not trust God is the ultimate form of dishonor and disrespect. If God is truly King, then:

What problem do we have that the King is not big enough to solve?

That does not mean there is no grief. It does not mean pretending something painful did not happen. Jesus wept. There is still a role for compassion and grieving. But you can grieve and be sad without being a victim.

Painful things happen, but you can still go through hard things and not build an identity around it that causes you to distrust God and others.

That is the difference…

Where is your identity? Is it grounded and rooted in the Kingdom or in your circumstances and what happened to you?

Do you still trust God, fully? Because even in the presence of our pain…he remains trustworthy.

This is where humility and wisdom have to enter the conversation.

Trust requires enough humility to consider that the story you are believing may not be completely true. It requires being willing to search your heart, examine your thinking, and ask whether hurt, distrust, or a victim narrative has affected the way you are interpreting what happened.

The more willing you are to honestly explore the possibility that you might be wrong, missing something, or even deceived, the less likely you are to remain trapped in a story that is not true.

Admitting this and being willing to search things out requires humility.

So it’s helpful to create a habit of searching things with the Holy Spirit before we automatically defend the stories we are believing.

Let’s do this now:

Take one situation where you have felt betrayed, dismissed, rejected, hurt, or misunderstood and ask:

  • Am I holding on to a victim story here?
  • Am I projecting distrust onto others?
  • Have I made someone the villain in this story?
  • Where am I struggling to trust God in this situation?

Then bring it before God and ask for truth.

What happened may have been real. The hurt may have been real. The grief may still be real.

But none of those things require you to become a victim.

You can grieve and still trust. You can be sad and still trust. You can walk through betrayal and still trust.

Victimhood is incompatible with Kingdom identity because the Kingdom requires trust in the King.

So don’t allow what happened to you to become more powerful in your identity than who God is and what He says is true.

There are no victims in the Kingdom.

If you want to go deeper into conversations like this, where we examine the beliefs, stories, and patterns shaping our lives through a Kingdom lens, join us inside Kingdom Seekers. These are the kinds of honest conversations we have every week to help you grow in wisdom, trust God more deeply, and live out the Kingdom in practical, everyday life.