Heart Thoughts - The Demolition

"We are human, but we don't wage war with human plans and methods. we use God's mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons, to demolish the devil's strongholds." 2 Corinthians 10:3-4...."A stronghold is anything you substitute for God...any tradeoff you make for God."......"Slavery happens when you are mastered by anything or anyone but the One who sets you free." Beth Moore

I think perhaps the greatest tragedy in the Church today is the diminishing role and Person of the Holy Spirit. A.W. Tozer wrote of this more than 60 years ago. It's not that we no longer name Him, but more that He has a steadily shrinking place in our consciousness. As one person put it, if the Holy Spirit were to fully withdraw from most fellowships today, would anyone notice? Would we?

The fruit of all this is glaringly evident everywhere. The less the presence of His Spirit, the more our reliance upon our flesh. The more we rely on our flesh, the less we become aware of the presence of the enemy of our souls, satan. The less aware we are of him, the more freedom he has to work against us. And trust me, he is always working against us. The Bible is clear that the devil has a strategy mapped out for each one of us. He knows where our weaknesses and vulnerability lie, and will seek entrance in every one of them. That is seen in his dealing with Christ in His wilderness temptation. What is also seen there, and in the promise of 2 Corinthians 10, is that the Father has provided us a weapon and strategy against which the enemy's has no chance. The power of His Holy Spirit filled Word. The mightiest stronghold, the heaviest yoke of slavery, have no chance against the Spirit filled promises and Word of God. Strongholds are demolished, chains are broken, because His Word is active and alive. When God speaks, it is. It's as simple as that. Is our faith simple enough to believe it?

Moore's words concerning strongholds and slavery echo loudly. Church fellowships are filled with those who are held captive by an endless array of such. We are held captive by not only many kinds of addictions, but also sinful and/or and killing attitudes of unforgiveness, bitterness, lusts, anxiety, fear, materialism, and on and on. Every self effort against such will fail because these are spiritual problems, not flesh ones. Yet He has given us every promise we need to literally demolish each one. His Spirit will lead us to the ones in His Word that provide the key to the demolition of every stronghold, the breaking of every chain. He leads us not to mere words, but to the Word that is Life itself. Led of His Spirit, we ask, seek, and knock, and in the power of the Spirit, He answers, He opens, and we discover.
The battle has already been won in Christ. Our part is to partake of it, and we do so on our knees, in transparency, seeking, confessing, repenting, and entering into His freedom. In this, we are no longer mastered by anything but, as Moore says, "the One who sets us free."

Strongholds and slavery are real. How real are they in us? Whose strategy is prevailing in our lives today, the devil's or the Father's? He has already provided the Victory. Are we walking in Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O