We may not realize it but as God’s daughters, we’re in the middle of spiritual warfare being waged, and our minds are the spoils. Satan has declared war on us, and he focuses his attacks on our thoughts. His strategy is to trick and outwit us, hoping that we don’t know God’s Word well enough to catch on to what he’s doing. He’s aiming straight for our weak spots hoping to find a chink in our armor; being prepared for him keeps him from making inroads into our lives.
None of us are perfect; we all have areas where we’re prone to struggle. These are the areas where the enemy sends his demons to influence us with suggestions that contradict God’s Word. Their agenda is to get inside our heads and rip to shreds any peace and joy we may have. Ladies, it’s time to wake up, grab our spiritual weapons, and fight back.
Satan has an “office” where he designs his schemes to destroy us. If his files were to be opened and revealed we’d probably see some individualized plans designed to outsmart us so that we’ll fall for a lie. He’s been lying since the beginning when he slithered right up to Eve and subtly wove his deception, and he’s still at it.
The enemy tries to get us to hold on to things that we believed before we got saved. For some of us it’s worry, perhaps worrying the way moms do over their children. For others, it’s anxiety or fear. I’m no exception. The devil would probably say, “Taffi’s prone to burning herself out; she’s prone to anxiety, and she can easily be brought back to a place of fear. I’m going to do everything I can to get her to overcommit herself and to be overzealous about certain things. I can begin to destroy her life through frustration because of her overcommitment.”
Satan is not only a liar but a thief. He wants to wiggle into our lives to bring harm and destruction to us. My sisters, he’s looking to steal our peace, our joy, and the abundant life Jesus died to give us. He does this by introducing strongholds into our minds that he hopes to build on; these fortified places are where he hides and plans his next move against us.
The devil is very clever in the way he devises his schemes. He may target someone with issues from their past who’s struggling with depression, and decide to bring negative thoughts of how unworthy and ugly they are. He stays there and keeps hammering in those thoughts until the person starts to believe them. These thought patterns and ways of thinking are the building blocks the enemy uses to being his attack; it’s therefore imperative that we pull them down.
These strongholds are fortresses from which the devil can operate; he means for that fortress to be permanent. He makes himself at home there by getting a grip on our minds until we begin to think that there’s no way out. He wants us to believe that we’re hopelessly locked in a situation that we’re powerless to change. That’s when people say, “I can’t. I can’t. God, I can’t do it,” because the enemy has made himself at home in our heads. I used to have a problem with this until God delivered me from it.
I remember a time a number of years ago when the devil had built a stronghold of fear in my mind, where I had more fear than faith in my life. He had me operating on old information from an
unrenewed mind. He tried it with me, and he’ll try it with you. Thankfully, we have the authority to pull down that junk and arrest the negative thought patterns; we don’t have to let them simmer in our minds and just hang around.
Friends, don’t tolerate staying in prison when God has unlocked the door. Pick up your weapons. Don’t be afraid to use them. In Christ, you’ve already won!
