Human weapons

P 3149 Strongholds.

/ DVH

My first thought is this … never ever forget the prince of the power of the air … that guy is still around!  On to my subject for today… It is not comprehensive … this is about awareness.

It seems to me that we all have habitual attitudes that we have cultivated over the years. They profit us, as well as help us get our own way.  So when you keep coming up against the same ungodly attitude in yourself, it shows that there is a stronghold in your life. In my opinion, strongholds are sins that have dug in – something has dug itself into our roots in childhood, OR this captivity has taken advantage of our willing participation. We can, and must walk away from anything that drags us along.

Here’s my next point – people who have a stronghold don’t necessarily yell – they can also become pathetic on cue. Neither of these attitudes agree with what God says. Sadly rotten attitudes are often profitable – people get tired of the same fight over and over and give up! An immature personality often makes decisions about life and how to get what they want. They dig a familiar rut into the essence of who they think they are, and they march up and down in it, guns drawn, knives out – hankies and tissues by the score and … off they go! A stronghold is a collection of self-supporting thoughts that always have an answer, but it’s not what JESUS said in the book.

This is a diagnostic verse about strongholds: 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 “For though we walk (live) in the flesh, we are not carrying on our warfare according to the flesh and using mere human weapons. For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds, [Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) …” In other words, watch your thought life!

Many things roll about in our heads in thought patterns, or unsolicited emotional reactions, or even lies and deceptions we have believed about ourselves, and/or other people. We may have picked up judgmental attitudes from parental oversight, and now we are trapped inside those things – thinking: this is who I am – I can’t help it! When God’s Word plainly says we can! These deceptions can hold us captive. This stuff denies the power of God to transform us. It makes God less powerful in our eyes, because we are virtually saying – ‘He can’t fix me.’ I call this stronghold ‘internal deception.’

Some of us have been taught that the attitudes we have are the right ones, and anything else is wrong. Those things are roadblocks to change, because they get us stuck in man’s own version of reality. Often people’s decisions are based on the thought that their actions or reactions, are a human response or normal attitude. It stinks of pride. I call this one ‘the alternate reality’ stronghold. It’s not real.

However, the hardest mind-pattern to overcome is the one that says: ‘This is just who I am and you are rejecting who I am!’  These people use their stronghold to attack you for the very thing they are doing themselves. Many people don’t like anyone disagreeing with them and their ideas. When we hit that kind of wall, we are hitting a stronghold. We can’t argue others out of strongholds, that stuff needs repentance, and the person’s agreement that what they are doing is not profitable. They need to choose to believe this life can be better. I call it the unwilling to learn and change stronghold. To combat that, I throw His unconditional love at it. It is ‘the kindness of God that leads us into repentance.’

Strongholds are way beyond our ability of persuasion. Start releasing God’s Grace, Love, Joy, Peace etc. You can’t sin when you aim at these God-given Graces and give them away. The bible tells us ‘there is no law against those things.’ We are to live our lives so that others can be built up to embrace their godly purpose. Judgment has to go out of the window, it just muddies the water. Even if you have doubts about any stuff that you might be doing without even thinking about it – run your attitudes by your pastor, and the Holy Spirit, prayerfully. Ask the Lord to correct you with His eye on you, then deliberately take the time to listen. God’s power inhabits His Grace.

Here’s a couple of tips if you discover a stronghold in your life … Joshua and Co. walked around Jericho for 7 days – the Lord used obedience and praise to pull that stronghold down. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and Almighty God used that time to deal with their religious, idolatrous, gimme gimme attitudes. Sadly they all died off!  Lastly, I think that if we are provoked by what someone else is doing, then we are staring at a stronghold of our own. At the bottom of our annoyance is the reality that we don’t want to be inconvenienced by someone else’s learning curve!

And BTW, I’m not talking about this today so you can figure out what’s wrong with your spouse … we all need to be transformed. You’ll never know what else will change, when YOU change and start dealing with your own strongholds. You could end up being His catalyst. Bye 👋.

P 3104 Cultivate living faith.

/ DVH

“For although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons, using manipulation to achieve our aims. Instead, our spiritual weapons are energised with divine power to effectively dismantle the defences behind which people hide. We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 TPT.

I don’t have to think, or negotiate my way around your little peculiar habits or quirks or sins. I have the Holy Spirit as my Counsellor, and He made us both. He knows how to get through to you and I when we  shut down and we can’t hear anyone, anymore, because we are hiding. We can hum and haw about this and that, and obfuscate about why we did whatever it was – He knows the reality. We are so blessed, we have a secret weapon that cuts through everyone’s angst. He promises to show us how to reach others with His love and understanding. The Holy Spirit is our secret weapon!!

These verses are not about any on of us winning anything—instead we have chosen the Lord Himself to be victorious in all things. If we use the power of choice to get snarky and nasty and pay out on someone else, satan is the only being that will win. Plus he will postpone change in our hearts, in favour of petty squabbles and life-long longings for revenge. The way to be transformed is through God’s LOVE shed abroad, not just explanations! Or ignoring stuff and hoping it will go away. If you have sewerage bubbling up in your toilet, putting the lid on the top is a temporary solution. CALL A PLUMBER! 

Here’s some wisdom in its purest form … we can’t fix each other … we are ALL broken!“ ALL have sinned!” BUT! We know the Manufacturer and if we have faults and/or flaws, HE KNOWS HOW TO FIX THEM. Praise Him!! 🙌 

The Holy Spirit does these things in the quietest, most extraordinary way, and in our difficulties, nobody involved has a clue that at the same time, He is changing everyone who says ‘yes.’ Personally, I often figure it all out much later! Transformation happens when someone obeys Him – I love the way He does things. Retrospectively, we can see what was His doing, it was something He initiated that diffused the situation. However, the Holy Spirit will not blast His way in—instead He gives us understanding about Himself, ourselves and each other and a choice.

God is for us. We say that a lot, but sometimes I wonder if we know that when stuff happens. If we live most of  our lives, doing day to day things, unaware of Him – we will miss His miracles. When something unexpected and difficult happens, we can often drop into head knowledge and react in the flesh. I’ve found the very best thing to do is to pray that what we already know in our heads, will drop down into our hearts-–where it will do everyone good. Here’s a little test to see the difference between what you have carefully committed to memory and remembered – and what you know inside your heart. 

Are you doing it? Are you living your life differently because God Himself showed you a new way to do what you have always done? Has He helped you change your response to hard situations and difficult people, plus the way you see the Lord, yourself, and others? Otherwise all we will have is theories—or other people’s spiritual ideas. Those things that we desperately paste on the outside of ourselves hoping somehow that will do. Christianity is a personal, intimate experience with Almighty God and His Ways.

We are always going to experience some tension between knowing what He wants us to do, and our flesh. That is the place where what we want goes to the cross and dies. We always have a choice to die to self. Jesus Himself had a choice. He could have refused the cross. It was not inevitable that He died for us, it was His choice! “Not My will but Thine.”Jesus Himself set the example for us, He showed us that the seemingly impossible can be possible, with God Himself helping us.

If we are not aware of our spirituality, we can look at our lives as though we are all meant to be bright shining stars, and it is our attractiveness – spiritually, physically and mentally, that is meant to lead others to the Lord. But the truth is—one of our greatest achievements ever, might be learning to love someone who has treated us despicably! Yeah! I bet that is not written up in someone’s Facebook hall of fame! We must never ever forget the incredible POWER contained within redemption! When we choose redemption, instead of revenge God’s power of Grace and Mercy is released.

A living faith means we will put what the Lord Himself wants, first. Jesus shed blood through His pores because the pain of what He was asked to do, by His OWN FATHER, was so incredibly great and weighty on HIm. Yet His disciples slept through the whole thing! The truth is sometimes we would rather live this life asleep in the light, than face the pain it takes to put down our old self, and let Him help us put on the new one. Bye 👋