Spiritual Warfare – Strongholds

The definition of a stronghold is a fortress of those things in which we place our confidence. People who study human behavior tell us that if we continue to repeat an act for six weeks, we will form a habit. If we exercise that habit long enough, a stronghold will be established. Once a stronghold of a thought and response is ingrained in our minds, our ability to choose a different thought and response can be very difficult.

Think of it this way…as Radical Riders we use the avenue of snowmobiling to share the gospel. For those of you that have been snowmobiling you know that you need to stay in the tracks of the leader. After awhile, those tracks become ruts. After the ruts are formed the snowmobile will automatically stay in those ruts, you don’t have to steer the sled and any effort to steer out of the rut is a huge struggle.

Satan uses these strongholds to keep us in a rut of what he wants us to do. What are some of the strongholds of our mind? Let’s examine a few strongholds that Satan might be using in our lives to keep us from serving Christ effectively and let’s see what God has to say about them.

Fear – fear can come from a traumatic experience in our life. Maybe as a child your parents constantly told you of the dangers of this world: don’t touch that, don’t do that, be careful you’ll poke your eye out. Without knowing it our parents were teaching you to be fearful of numerous things. Satan will then feed that fear with thoughts of impending doom that awaits us. So we are locked into the ruts of never setting foot outside our comfort zone.

Depression – depression comes from circumstances that seem to be out of our control. We get overwhelmed with the pressures of the day and begin to see no way of getting through those stresses. We then start to focus on our own lack of strength. We begin to dwell on the waves crashing around us and start to believe that there is no hope.

Unforgiveness – someone from your past has hurt you. Maybe it was a relative that crossed the line and abused you sexually. Maybe it was a trusted friend that all of the sudden wanted nothing to do with you. Whatever the hurt was, we began to get bitter towards that person(s). After years of bitterness we believe the lie that we could never find it in our hearts to forgive that person for all the hurt they caused us. So we find it hard to trust others around us, and more importantly we find it hard to trust the promises God has for us.

Inferiority – nobody is born feeling inferior to anyone else. But you could be struggling with an inferiority complex if you kept getting the message from the world that everyone is better than you. You start believing the thoughts that Satan throws into your head about how worthless you are, how ugly you are, how useless you are.

Once these strongholds are in place it is easy for Satan to use those to keep us within his limits for our lives. For example a Christian may never go on a short term mission trip because of the fear of the unknown third world country. Satan uses that fear to keep them from serving God effectively. Satan then follows up that fear with thoughts of everything that could happen to them in this strange place. Strongholds are Satan’s favorite avenue of keeping us from being like Christ. Instead of having a confidence in Christ that He will protect us, we begin to believe the constant lies that seem to be always flooding our minds.

A Look Within: Can you think of any other strongholds that Satan has been building in your lives and minds throughout your life? How about physical addictions?