What are you waiting for

Part 2: Demolishing 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.

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What are you waiting for?

Continue to give generously

In 2007 I presented you with a challenge in your walk with Jesus. It was to let him guide you to give generously and perhaps irresponsibly and see him then provide for you as you were used by him to provide for his church and by the church to provide for our world of need. And that enabled us to buy the Vineyard Centre – which has been crucial to almost all the things we have been talking about.

Please continue to give – as many of you do. Please give generously.

Continue to walk across the room

In 2008 I presented you with a challenge to leave your circle of comfort, walk across the room, enter the zone of the unknown and share something of God’s love for another person. As a result, thousands of people have been touched by his love and mercy. Wonderful.

Please continue to walk across the room. Remember faith is spelt r-i-s-k. So please keep taking risks about reaching out to the stranger or co-worker or friend or family member. Keep sowing into people’s lives. Every person who crosses your path will be better off for having something of the touch of Jesus in their life and God will give you everything you need for this.

And this year, demolish strongholds

Just as it takes a step of faith to give and to walk across the room, it also takes a step of faith to deal with strongholds in our lives.

Two books which may help you think through the type of issues I am going to be raising:

"Battlefield of the mind" by Joyce Meyer
"The Shack" by William P Young

Maya Angelou, the American poet and author said,

“I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person from the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights.”

I would add to that things like:

• Getting cut up in traffic
• Turning up at a party to find someone wearing the same outfit
• Finding yourself alone with a very attractive member of the opposite sex
• Seeing your girlfriend smile at someone else
• Getting a bill or a bonus you weren’t expecting
• Persistent illness or pain
• Loss in love or life
• Personal criticism

How do you react? Do you find that sometimes you react in ways that surprise and shame you?

Well for me, a stronghold in my life which I is in the process of being demolished is taking offence.
When someone criticises something in which I am involved I find myself reacting very defensively. It is as though someone tugs on a wire to straighten my back, blinkers pop up in my mind’s eye and I lose the ability to stand back and look at something objectively and instead I start arguing and being critical in return.

“So you think I shouldn’t have made fun of that person huh? Well you can talk, you just don’t know enough Greek. You think it offended them? Well they shouldn’t get on their high horse and be so defensive…”

This comes from my personality which defaults to the option of “self-assurance” – in other words, I think I am right and if anyone criticises I receive it as personally offensive. You would have thought that if I knew I was right I would be easy to critique and keen to learn and get better. But instead I react in this defensive way which is both unhelpful for me and awkward for those trying to comment and help.

This was an area of my life and character that was well established and which, unless deliberately addressed, controlled my responses and behaviours in certain ways. I am in process of dismantling it with the help of friends and the Lord.

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What is a stronghold?

Last week the Sri Lankan government forces finally took control of a town called Kilinochchi which they called the Tamil Tigers’ “stronghold”.

What they meant was that this was the Tamil Tigers’ base from where they directed operations and controlled the surrounding countryside and towns. Although they managed to exert significant power and cause much damage from their stronghold, as you can see from picture by the time the Army turned up there is nothing much to the actual town itself.

We experience such strongholds in our lives. Places where the enemy can establish a foothold and then little by little, over time, build up a stronghold. A place from where he can influence and control part of our thinking and behaviour and lives.

A stronghold is a supernatural centre of influence that controls us in the natural. It contains thoughts, beliefs, philosophies, attitudes, actions and values that oppose God’s truth about living life according to his design and thus hijack the abundant life he wants us to have.

Strongholds can be small and almost hidden – just revealing themselves when the Christmas tree lights get tangled – or large and pervasive so that your identity begins to get mixed up with the stronghold – “oh you will have to walk on eggshells around David, he gets very defensive”.

A stronghold can reveal itself as:

• a character issue like anger or envy or impatience or fear;
• or it can be based on an painful circumstance such as suffering loss or being made redundant;
• or at root it can be a physical issue such as prolonged ill health or being a victim of violence.

That is not to say that: if you are ill or lose your job or get angry at something, you therefore have a demonic stronghold in your life. I am not saying that.

What I am saying is that those things can give rise to the enemy gaining a foothold in our lives to influence and control us.


One of the main stories in the Old Testament tells us about how the people of Israel spent 40 fruitless years wandering about in the desert because they got themselves into a way of thinking which gave the enemy a stronghold. They wandered close to the promised land but never got to enjoy it. They didn’t need to waste 40 years eating munching manna every single day and trudging around the desert. They could have gone straight in.

And to have such a stronghold in our lives is to miss out on the abundant life Jesus promises us:

The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it more abundantly.
John 10:10.

• I don’t want to spend years wandering about in wasted time and ineffective living for nothing. Do you?
• I am following Jesus because that sealed-in, sub-atomic sense of being deeply loved liberates contentment.
• I am following Jesus because I want to become more like him, now.
• I am following Jesus because I want to be used by him in bringing his kingdom to bear in this world, today.
• I am following Jesus because, one day I want to enjoy the new heaven and the new earth with my creator and saviour.

His Spirit ruling in our lives is the source of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control – all those ingredients that make for a recipe of happiness so rare in our culture and which release us to enjoy him, worship him and be used by him to bring about his kingdom in the world today.

Lord, let your kingdom come we pray. Help us live lives free of strongholds so that we are free live abundant lives and know your kingdom more fully every day now - and in the not yet.

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How does a stronghold get established?

1. The thief creeps in the window which is left open when we sin. That is the most obvious starting point. But it is not sin for which we ask forgiveness and leave at the foot of the cross. It is sin that takes shape as a way of thinking. It is a sinful mindset.

2. If we don’t capture the truth in the way we think, our minds become the first territory occupied. That is why the bible is always talking about being careful how we think, renewing our minds. Paul says, “We take every thought captive”. If we don’t, then we begin to think things like,

• I can never be forgiven for that – which leads to deep guilt and shame;
• I am right – I am going to do it my way or not at all;
• My behaviour may be wrong but it isn’t my fault – don’t blame me;
• I could never take on that responsibility – so someone else do it for me;
• My life will never get over that loss - I will always be sad;
• Someone has always got it better than me, I never get a break;
• Why shouldn’t I be envious when everyone else is better off than I am - I am always going to struggle with money;
• It will always be too hard – please make it easy for me;
• I deserve everything now – don’t make me wait.

As Joyce Meyer says, “Think about what you are thinking about.”

3. After a while, thinking inevitably influences the decisions we make and the actions we take. If our thinking is full of lies planted by the enemy: We decide to work longer because we are afraid of losing our job or not earning enough. We decide to drive aggressively because we have a right to get there first and we know best. We always take the blame because it must be us. We let people cross our personal boundaries because we think that is the only way to receive love.

4. If we keep thinking wrongly, and then making poor decisions and living disobediently, we eventually form values and a worldview centred around an enemy stronghold. We become people who could be characterised by the Mr Men series: Mr Angry, Mrs Envious, Miss Impatient, Mr Tight, Mrs Worried, Mr Fearful, Mrs In-Mourning…

5. And eventually the enemy establishes a stronghold in our lives. Although in bondage we are not possessed, we have just got used to an area of our life being so much just-like-that, that we spend some of the time thinking it is OK, some of the time denying its existence entirely and only an occasional minute or two of awareness that this is not the abundant life promised in scripture.

What are you waiting for?
Do you want to spend the next 40 years wandering round in a wilderness just across the border from the land of abundance and kingdom fruitfulness?

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I want to introduce you to my friend Chris (and Dawn) to tell us about a stronghold in his life that got demolished recently.

Before
Getting angry over silly little things.
Anger OK – but leading into sin.
Ephesians 4:26 – In your anger do not sin.

What happened?
Got angry trying to find somewhere to park..
Please God deal with this.
During worship – deliverance.

After
Doesn’t happen so readily.
More able to choose different response.
Having to address established thought patterns and instinctive response.

Dawn
He didn’t tell Dawn.
Noticed difference almost straightaway.
Tooth taken out, root gone.
Doesn’t react so aggressively, power has gone.
Would go deep purple before, now only pink.
Moved from expressing lots of anger toward God to walking with him and expressing hurt and pain as to someone you love.

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How does a stronghold get demolished?

This is where we re-read the passage I opened with:

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.

All the self help books and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in the world won’t demolish a stronghold built by the enemy on the foundations of lies believed and truth denied. Good thinking & therapy can help manage natural issues but they are not effective in the supernatural dimension. And a stronghold is a supernatural centre of influence that controls us in the natural.

How does a stronghold get demolished?

1. Ask God to reveal any stronghold in your life. This is where the gifts of the Spirit are helpful. Particularly prophecy. In a safe place the Holy Spirit can speak to you through another. Also through wise counsel and friendship. Two great reasons to get into a housegroup!

2. Admit that it is there, agree that it is there and shine a bright light on it and look at it. Find out the truth by reading the bible, sharing with your housegroup and giving them permission to speak truth to you.

3. Repent and pray – repent of believing the lies and thinking in a way that is contrary to what the bible says – change your mind by thinking a different way. Pray and ask God to demolish it (Chris, “Please God, deal with it”);
This can happen in various ways and at various times:

• Chris’ just one example;
• Me – placing myself where I can learn to receive criticism and believe God is still with me!

4. The worldview and lifestyle that got established under the influences of lies begins to change and you see things in a different way. It gets replaced with a biblical worldview. This sequence of events, empowered by the presence of the Holy Spirit, demolishes the stronghold at a supernatural level.

5. An abundant life is redeemed for us. At the natural level we then re-learn our behaviour. We need to identify old patterns of behaviour that seek to re-assert themselves, old tapes that want to re-run in our mind. But through repentance and the power of God’s forgiveness you no longer need to behave that way. Take off the old clothes and put on new ones. Live an abundant life.

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How does God help us through this relearning process?

God doesn’t promise to remove everything that caused you to struggle before – I still live in an environment where my performance is perpetually tested, Chris still finds himself in situations that could easily make him angry, someone who is worried about money will still find they don’t have enough. But it is precisely when we are in those situations we can learn to turn toward the Lord of our lives and seek his truth and his power to live as he designed.

o You young ones – take care to believe the truth and be ruthless in forbidding the enemy an opportunity to build strongholds in your lives. Seek out and destroy those young lies and falsehoods before they get a foothold. Go for the promised land now, don’t waste years in the wilderness.

o Those of you in middle age – you are in danger, if you have allowed strongholds to build, of living in denial or ignorance of them. Have you settled into deep patterns of behaviour and identity which are profoundly damaging to you and those around you and which drag you back from a fulfilling and purposeful life? Take courage, take captive every thought and ask God to help you demolish those strongholds so that your second half can be 100% fulfilled personally and productive for the kingdom.

o Those of you of senior years – relish the opportunity to spend your later years free of the enemy’s influence, drawing instead on years of experience and walking with God. I call you to believe the truth and confront the lies in your lives and in others wherever you see them. Set an example of lives lived free and finishing in harmony with God’s call and his kingdom.

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What is the result of a demolished stronghold?

Isaiah 61:3
He has sent me to … provide for those who grieve in Zion
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of joy instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called mighty oaks, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

Earlier in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul says this,
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ he/she is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”

We are promised new lives in Christ and these new lives are to be pursued and not surrendered to the enemy. We are promised lives of hope and freedom. We have a purpose and a future. We have a promised land to settle in. When we have the courage to confront strongholds in our lives we are liberated to live again and to live lives more abundantly. So as we set about demolishing strongholds let us see his kingdom come.

What are you waiting for?