Strongholds

The continuation of my "Aha Moments"...

There are a few things that have come together lately in my life. They are separate things that have brought me to one main focal point. Let me see if I can explain...

At the end of 2006, our church finished up our series on Ephesians with a Sub Series on the Armour of God. Back in October I blogged about the Shield of Faith. Well, another lesson I learned was based on the Sword of the Spirit. There were 2 main points. First, it is to be used to stand your ground. I had realized this before… hiding His Word in your heart so that it would be easily accessible when we need to stand up against Satan's attacks and temptations. The second point is what hit me. The Sword of the Spirit is to be used to take back ground. If you give Satan a foothold, it will in time become a stronghold. So we have to use the sword to cut out the areas of sin in our lives, and give those areas back to God... the rightful owner. 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5 says “the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world… they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God….”

There were a few areas that I knew Satan had control over… that became clear to me that day. I handed those areas over to God. Don’t get me wrong, they are still areas of sin I struggle with, but I know that I have the tools I need to cut those areas out of my life. That said, I was not very good at using His Word to cut out these areas of my life. I held on to a bit of the control there… kinda tried to do it my way, and just try to be strong enough to resist. (I know… that is so not like me!!! *S*)

What was not clear to me was that there were areas of my life I had not thought of before. Remember that friend telling me to hand it over to God. Little did I know what I was about to hand over. It was big. Perhaps I had always thought my God was not big enough. It was a sin. I know for a fact that I had never seen it as such.

About a month or so ago, I was introduced to a book by Max Lucado entitled Facing Your Giants. As I read through the first Chapter and worked through the study guide, I had to list some of my "Goliaths"... some of the things that I had made bigger than God in my life... the things that I struggled against and focused on.

Last week another book made its way in to my life. The same friend who recommended the Giants book mentioned another book whose title sparked my interest... Praying Gods Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds by Beth Moore. It was the word "strongholds" that made me want to read it. It brought me back to the sermon on the Sword of the Spirit. I needed help praying His Word... using His word to cut out these areas in my life. I read the introduction and had yet another aha moment. First of all, it was then that I really understood what a stronghold was. Beth Moore used that same verse in 2 Corinthians... “A stronghold is any argument or pretension that ‘sets itself up against the knowledge of God”…A stronghold is anything that exalts itself in our minds, “pretending” to be bigger or more powerful than our God.” Wow. I had a lot of strongholds then! The table of contents listed several strongholds. Interestingly, this list closely mimicked the list of "Goliaths" I had made. Depression... feelings of guilt... insecurity of being unloved... the list goes on.

Perhaps it was only then that I truly understood what it meant to give these areas to God. Perhaps it was not so much an understanding of what it meant to give these areas of God, but rather an understanding of all the areas of my life that at one time or another pretended to be bigger than my God. I got it. Anything that takes the focus off of Him is sin and needs to be cut out of my life. Call them Goliaths. Call them strongholds. They have got to go.

That leads to my next aha moment... but it is late... so it will have to wait for another day.