WHAT ARE STRONGHOLDS?

WHAT IS A STRONGHOLD

this is a habitual pattern of thought built into one's thought life. it could be a way of thinking and feeling that has developed a life of its own in a person. Strongholds create an inner imprisonment to deception and misery. they can be masked by, the enemy, as something good so that you may not even know what the enemy is using against you. it may be something you don't trust God with or are striving to fulfill within yourself.

anyway overall, strongholds change our thinking patterns and base our thoughts on lies and deception

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT STRONGHOLDS:

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does, the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

HOW DO WE RECOGNISE STRONGHOLDS?

first, we understand that a stronghold is a strong belief of thought built into our minds that opposes what God says about us.

so the first way to recognize a stronghold is to see if it opposes God's word. The devil's main aim is to turn you away from God. we can recognize this even in the beginning, in Genesis when he tried to turn Eve away from God by making her believe the lie that if she ate the fruit she would be like God. What the devil did here was to make Eve believe that she wasn't already like God. you see when Jehovah was creating mankind he said, 'Let us create man in our image' meaning that he created us to be like him. meaning Eve and Adam were already like God. But you see what the enemy did was he twisted it all up by telling Eve that if she eats from the tree, she will become like God. If Eve knew better she would tell the Devil that she was already created in God's image.

so you see, the enemy has been using the same pattern repeatedly to deceive mankind. and the sad truth is that he succeeds. why? because it's easy for him to lie to us if we don't know the truth. the truth found in God's word.

HOW TO DESTROY STRONGHOLDS

So by now, you know what strongholds are and how to recognize them but now I'll speak about how to crush strongholds.

the enemy tries to twist God's word and make us believe in lies, that's his easiest way of destroying us. the first and most important way of destroying strongholds is by filling your mind with the truth and the best way to do that is by reading God's word. When you don't know the truth, it is very easy for the enemy to lie to you.

the second way you can destroy strongholds is by believing what God says about you. it's not enough to just know, you have to believe. the reason the devil was able to manipulate Eve was because she didn't believe that she was already created in God's image. therefore she quickly accepted the fruit because she thought that was the most sensible way to become like God.

the third way to get rid of strongholds is to repeat and continually remind yourself of God's word. My thoughts are very weird. you can be doing pretty great and then all of a sudden a memory of what someone told you comes into your mind and your whole mood changes. in those moments of the little pop-up thoughts, you need to remind and speak over yourself the word of God. For example, if a random thought comes into your mind of the day someone bullied you and called you ugly, you have to respond by declaring Psalms 139:13-14 which reminds you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. you see when you do that you don't allow space for the negative thoughts to fill your mind because your mind is already filled with the truth from God's word.

CONCLUSION

strongholds are one of the devil's ways to crush us. if we are not fully grounded in God's word we could easily be persuaded and lied to. That is why we need to read the bible and know the truth for ourselves. remember what 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says, "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does, the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds, we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."