stronghold

"The Lord is my light and my salvation- whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life" Psalm 27:1

This verse was given to me by my sweet pastor's wife on our Wednesday night ladies group meeting. She gave each of us a verse to "study" for the week. This morning I was thinking of the word stronghold. She had said a stronghold is something that either keeps something in or keeps something out. Another verse also came to my mind this morning on the way to work as I was thinking about the verse she gave me.

"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."

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

These two verses use the word stronghold in different ways. Let's look at the second one because this is what I struggle with and what I need to stand firm in. In this verse it focuses on our powers, from Christ, to demolish strongholds that our enemy sets up in our minds. Do any of these following statements look familiar? They often seem to run across our minds like lit up marques. "You are not good enough." "You are a failure." "There is nothing that can cover up those mistakes." "Wow, those circumstances are challenging, and bigger than you...you should be worried." "No one loves you." "They are not going to love you because you are not pretty enough/skinny enough" "You messed up again." "You might as well stay down, because you are never going to claw your way out of this pit." "You can't do it." "Don't try to step out in faith...it is too scary, what if you fall..." "Just give up."

Sound familiar? Lie after lie that the devil uses to lay brick after brick of strongholds in your mind until you are trapped. Insecurity. Fear. Worry. Anxiety. Doubt. Weakness.

BUT WE HAVE GOOD NEWS! This verse PROMISES that we have the POWER TO FIGHT BACK!! Not only to fight back, but DEMOLISH STRONGHOLDS that try to set up fort in our mind and try to lessen the power of God. AMEN! WE ARE NOT WEAK, SO... DO NOT BACK DOWN!

Pray daily for the peace of God to guard your mind.

Because: God does love you. (John 3:16) You can do ALL things through Christ who gives you strength. (Philip. 4: 13) God's grace is abundant and the blood of Jesus covers ALL your sins and He gives you strength to keep going forward, so forget about your past screw ups! (Romans 5:17) (Philip. 3: 12-14) And no weapon formed against you will defeat you so do not be afraid.

Which leads me to the first verse. JESUS IS OUR STRONGHOLD! He has the power to keep in all His promises (peace, strength, joy, health, power, perseverance, love, grace, and so many more) so that we can stay firmly established in Him and live an abundant life. And He has the power to keep out all those weapons of warfare the devil tries to use to defeat us. There is power in the name of Jesus to destroy Satan's strongholds until they are just grains of sand under your feet! AMEN! There are so many promises in the Word of God that we can stand firm on. Get in the Word and get those verses written upon your heart. Call on the powerful name of Jesus to be your stronghold.