Strongholds
1Cor 10:13: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man, and God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted He will provide a way out that you can bear up under it.”
Or are you ‘only human’ and subject to fall?
2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new” – or do you believe you are still in your ‘sin nature’ – a term, by the way, that does not exist in Scripture.
John 8:31-2 “If you abide in my word you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free….if the Son makes you free, you are free indeed.” Is the saint in bondage or are we free?
2 Tim 1:7 “God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and of a sound mind.” If it is not God who gives us a spirit of fear, why do we fear? If He gives us the spirit of power and a sound mind, why do we choose to take up our place in despair, wrath, or confusion?
James 4:7 “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” How does the devil have power over the saints? John 5:18
Did these men write as the Holy Spirit led, or did they only offer human encouragement to equally weak brethren?
Some who profess to be Christians seek supernatural power for remarkable demonstrations of change to the natural environment, yet deny God’s power to keep them from sin, from demonic affliction, or from mental distress.
Others deny the present working of the Holy Spirit in individual lives at all. Some preach that the Holy Spirit has to change men’s disposition from antagonism to acceptance of God in order for them to receive ‘faith’, yet maintain that after this change, men would still be held by the grip of sin as long as they wore their tent of flesh. Why?
Is it by God’s grace that we are saved through faith, and not by works, or shall we work our way into heaven? Has the law been made obsolete, or are we bound to its peculiar tenets?
The apostle Peter has assured us that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness.[1] Paul assured Timothy that all Scripture is inspired by God Himself and is profitable for the man of God to be perfect, and perfectly equipped to good works.[2]
If the word of God is ‘quick and powerful’ and able to divide between the soul and spirit[3] (the natural man and our spirit), how can it be inadequate as our source of knowledge and doctrine pertaining to the things of God? Do we forget that it is the product of the Holy Spirit Himself? This is the word of God to man. He has spoken that we hear. He has spoken truth, by which we are set free.[4] We can believe everything He says, and appropriate it to ourselves, because it is He who has spoken and He is truth.[5]
The devil has no authority over the saint of God; if we resist him, he must flee, for greater is He Who is in His church than he who is in the world. Only if we give him space, is the devil able to influence our lives.[6] Since in Christ we have the power to resist, he cannot have any stronghold in our life. If there are strongholds, it is sin, the ‘offspring’ of our own wicked desires from which we do not repent, and to which we have chosen to remain servants.[7] If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And he who is begotten of God keeps himself and that wicked one does not touch him.[8]
If we are in Christ, and He is in us, we are not subject to the devil, and cannot be made slaves again to sin. Christ has promised us freedom indeed if we “abide in His word”, and we become His dwelling place through the Holy Spirit. We cannot be held captive to the enemy of Christ because we are His temple, and He is our life.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”
[1] 2 Peter 1:3
[2] 2 Tim 3:15-17
[3] Hebrews 4:12
[4] John 8:31-32
[5] John 14:6
[6] Eph 4:27; 1Pet 5:8-9
[7] James 1:14-15; Romans 6:16
[8] 1John 1:9; 1John 5:18
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