Pulling Down Strongholds
Pulling
Down Strongholds
Last week
we explored what to do if your conscience condemns you. We looked at how past
sin is dealt with in the new birth and we looked at how to deal with post-conversion
sin.
“…He does
not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay
us according to our iniquities….”
Psalms
103:10-12 (NIV)
For as
high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who
fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions
from us.
I want to
revisit post-conversion sin. I specifically want to focus on what I referred to
has habits, attachments, and addictions, to behaviors that are inconsistent
with discipleship. These are inconsistent behaviors we can’t seem to escape. We try and pray for deliverance but keeping
tripping up on them.
1 John 3:6 (NIV)
No one who lives in
him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known
him.
Reading this verse at
face value one can really get discouraged. It seems even though we are being
transformed in the image of Jesus by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we
still on occasion fall short. Ever have someone cut you off on the freeway and
almost cause an accident. Is your response, “Well Bless His Heart?” As I am cruising down the highway, listening
to my Christian music, talking to God along the way, “Well Bless His Heart”
might not be what comes out of my mouth. Then Matthew 12:34 comes to mind.
Matthew 12:34 (RSV)
For out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
I think,
is that what’s really in my heart. More scripture comes to mind.
Luke 6:28
(NIV)
“…bless
those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
Did I do
that? Did I bless? Nope. I did not follow the teachings of my savior Jesus,
therefore it is a sin. You might think this is a trivial matter but I hope you
see the bottom line on this. Let’s get a little more serious.
Cornelius
Plantinga suggests a definition of sin. “Let us say that sin is any act—any
thought, desire, emotion, word, or deed—or its particular absence, that
displeases God and deserves blame. Let us add that the disposition to commit
sins also displeases God and deserves blame, and let us, therefore, use the
word sin to refer to such instances of both act and disposition.” [Plantinga C
Jr. Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.
B. Eerdmans; 1995:13. Google Scholar]. The sinful disposition is that we generally
seek happiness apart from God. Another name for that sinful disposition is
egoism.
A habit is
something you do automatically; circumstances just seem to trigger a response.
For instance, it’s brushing your teeth time; you either use your left or right
hand, because it’s a habit. If you want to feel what not doing what is habitual
feels like tonight, brush with your other hand. It will feel weird and most
likely you will finish brushing with the hand you have always used.
An
attachment is something you do because it feels normal. We all want what is
normal to us. Let’s say you’re a neat freak, a place for everything and
everything in its place. Your kid comes
home from college and leaves dishes in the sink, dirty clothes on the floor,
and crumbs on the couch. Most likely you will feel exasperation, and either get
them to “clean this mess up right now,” or just do it yourself because things
aren’t the way they are supposed to be, they are not normal. With attachments,
we want homeostasis, the status quo, the familiar.
An
addiction is something that we physically or psychologically need to get back
to feeling like we want. I want to feel
good, I want to feel better, I want to do better, so I medicate. Eventually
what we choose to medicate ourselves, what made us feel good starts to take
control until you are the slave and it is the master. I choose gluttony, I
choose opioids, I choose violence, I choose porn, I choose alcohol, I choose
sex, I choose whatever makes me feel like I want. Nothing is as important as
the next fix. With addiction we are slaves to sin, “hopelessly out of control,
shrewdly calculating, masterful at justification and victimized. Yet we are
still the responsible party for our behavior.”
Now when a
habit, attachment or addiction has you locked into behaviors that are
inconsistent with discipleship, you’re sinning. Then after you have indulged
your conscience kicks in, the Holy Spirit uses your conscience, to inform you
that you’ve done wrong again. If this doesn’t occur, you have accepted your
sin. If you’re seeking deliverance, praying for forgiveness, wanting to change,
vowing “never again” you are still in the fight. But because these behaviors
have hard-wired in your brain it’s just a matter of time and you’re doing it
again.
There’s a
reason for this. You live in a village called Feeling Bad, just about a mile
away there is a village called Feeling Good. Between Feeling Bad and Feeling
Good there is a jungle. There’s no path, just a wall of green. So you take out
the machete and start hacking a path. And you finally make it to Feeling Good.
But every time you fall asleep in Feeling Good, you wake up in Feeling Bad and
have to follow that path you hacked out of the jungle. This happens so much
that the path becomes clearer, you don’t have to hack your way through you just
walk the path. But every time you make it to Feeling Good, you wake back up in
Feeling Bad. So off you go again, and again until that jungle path becomes a
street, and the street eventually becomes a highway. That highway is the habit,
attachment or addiction that takes you to Feeling Good. That’s what happens in
your brain. The path becomes your habit, attachment or addiction for it leads
to Feeling Good. Over time it becomes a superhighway in your brain, easy to
travel. When a habit, attachment or
addiction becomes master you can’t exit. You can go slow, you can resist the
fix, you can exert all the will power you have, you can pray, you can seek God
for deliverance and you are still eventually finding yourself traveling that
path to Feeling Good. Even when you become convinced that the path is not how
you want to get to Feeling Good, you’re on it over and over again.
Now I have
heard testimonies about miraculous deliverance; people quitting a habit,
attachment, or addiction cold turkey. So
I know God can deliver you in an instant. But I also know sometimes it’s a huge
battle because you have to make a righteous path to a different Feeling Good
village, and the old path is so very easy to travel and the new one so hard to
build. There is a way to accomplish this.
Romans
12:2 (NIV)
To tear
down the stronghold of a habit, attachment or addiction a transformation of
your mind, in your mind, has to occur.
For this
transformation to take place first you need a great desire to repent. No more
excuses indulging. I have kept a journal to write out my confession and my
desire to break these strongholds. It always helps me to write my thoughts out
on paper.
Psalms
32:5 (NIV)
Then I
acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I
will confess my transgressions to the Lord"-- and you forgave the guilt of
my sin.
For a
transformation of your mind ask God to allow the Holy Spirit to empower you to
say no to the old path to Feeling Good. I believe that God can deliver you instantaneously.
So ask for divine power to break into your life and set you free. You will no
longer be using your willpower; you will allow the Holy Spirits' power to
transform you.
2 Corinthians
10:4 (NIV)
The
weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they
have divine power to demolish strongholds.
The Holy
Spirit is a stronghold demolisher. We are to rely on His divine power, not our
will power. You are not in control. Surrender to God’s control.
The third
thing that will help you tear down these strongholds is being accountable to
another person. Someone you trust that will check up on you. This
accountability can also be found is a support group. As I mentioned last week Celebrate
Recovery has multiple support groups to tear down just about every imaginable
stronghold. The meetings on Fridays at Sea Coast Grace are the best I have
attended. Their mission statement is
“Welcoming God to free us from our hurts, habits, and hang-ups will introduce
you to true peace and joy.” It all starts at 7 PM. You need help to demolish
strongholds, the Holy Spirit’s power, and a group to encourage you.
Proverbs
27:17 (MSG)
You use
steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another.
An
accountability person or group will help you demolish your stronghold.
Fourthly you
need to cut a new path to a new village of Feeling Good. You want to feel good,
so you need to replace the old village of Feeling Good because the path to it
kept you in continuing sin. I have a couple of suggestions that have worked for
me: Praise and Worship; Getting into the presence of God; Casting my cares upon
the Lord; Exercise; Eating a healthy diet; which for me restricts sugar and
carbohydrates; Laughing; Being with good
friends; Doing new things; making things neat and tidy; using the gifts God has
given me; making other people smile. Your task is to find something new that
makes you feel good. Then when you’re feeling bad, you choose to get on the
path to the new Feeling Good, ignoring the old way. Ask God to show you the new
path to Feeling Good. It will be hard at first getting there because you have
to hack your way through the jungle, walk the path until it becomes a street,
then a highway, this happens through determined repetition.
One of the
secrets for tearing down strongholds is that it takes time. For instance, it
takes 21 days of ignoring, of stop feeding, of denying the old pathways and
replace it with the new one. 21 days is just the start because it’s like the
first machete hack through the jungle. So the pull of the old will still be
strong. It will take at least an additional 65 days of avoiding the old and
traveling the new to build that superhighway that is consistent with being a
disciple of Jesus. It takes 21 days to build a path and it takes 65 days to
build the highway.
[Just a
word of warning: The old way is still there. That’s why relapse is so easy.
That old familiar path to Feeling Good will always beckon until the time of
your full deliverance.]
James 1:21
(MSG)
So throw
all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let
our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of
your life.
Fifthly I
have found the meditation helps me get past the cravings, the sirens’ call to
that thick crust all meat pizza. This involves training your mind to think
about something else instead of indulging your addiction. “As we consciously
direct our thinking, we can wire out toxic patterns of thinking and replace
them with healthy thoughts” (Carolyn Leaf). That’s how we transform our minds.
Starving the old way, feeding the new way to the village of Feeling Good.
Back to
our scripture verse:
1 John 3:6 (NIV)
No one who lives in
him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known
him.
When we
are trapped in a stronghold of a habit, attachment or addiction that is
inconsistent with living the life of a disciple, the Holy Spirit will use our
conscious to reveal our problem. Our conscious may condemn us and based on the
verse we just read. Our conscience may even cause us to think that we aren’t
really believers after all. But when we are fighting for deliverance, battling
that pull of continuing sin, it may hinder your ministry, it may ruin your
effectiveness in the Kingdom, even destroy your harvest, but if you haven’t
given in, just not caring, rationalizing, excusing the behavior, God’s grace
holds you firm.
1 John
3:19-20 (NIV)
This then
is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest
in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. God is greater than our hearts,
and he knows everything.
If your
conscience condemns you because of your habit, attachment or addition know
this: if you are still determined to love, if you are still determined to obey
God’s commands, even if it is the hundredth time you have confessed and
repented, know that you’re still in the fight with the great hope of
deliverance. If you are not excusing habits, attachments
and addictions that are inconsistent with discipleship, keep on fighting and
know that God hasn’t given up on you. God does not condemn you when you are in
the fight for seeking deliverance.
So here’s
our bottom line. Ask yourself this question--
“Am I
prepared to put in daily practice those five action items for two to three
months to develop a new godly discipline which leads to life?”
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