Understanding Strongholds

Sep 21

5 min read

Your strongholds may have actually enabled you to survive terrifying circumstances in your past that were out of your control. This is one of the reasons you trust them. But if they are still in place in your life, they are providing access for the enemy’s assaults. They are also protecting wrong attitudes, beliefs and patterns of thought you have learned to trust more than you trust the Truth.

Strongholds and what they protect often cross and overlap and it is important to tear them apart and take them down, whatever their name. As you read the following list, remember that a stronghold is what we rely upon to defend and protect our right to believe something. What you believe will have a greater impact on your life than the Truth.

· Suspicion: Being painfully deceived can cause the building of a stronghold of suspicion to protect against being deceived again. This stronghold will resist intimacy with God.

· Doubt: The stronghold of doubt is usually one of the most obvious strongholds. It frequently accompanies a stronghold of suspicion which can masquerade so well, its existence is often totally denied.

· Independence: Rejection can cause the building of a stronghold of independence and self-sufficiency around pain, fortifying a right to never be vulnerable again. This can include any vulnerability to the work of the Holy Spirit.

· False Security: When unmet needs exist, a stronghold projects a façade of great strength intended to keep others from knowing how internally fragile and needy a person is. This can extend to keeping God at arm’s length, as well.

· Confusion: A stronghold of confusion is erected by the old nature to mask the true understanding of a given issue or many issues. This stronghold leads to discouragement and depression (which can be strongholds, too).

· Unforgiveness: When someone has been abused or deeply hurt, unless forgiveness and healing come, strongholds of unforgiveness, bitterness or anger are erected to justify the role of being a victim.

· Distrust: Betrayal can cause the building of a stronghold of distrust to prevent anyone from getting close enough to betray again. This person will generally also be unable to fully trust God whose perfect love casts out fear.

· Control and Manipulation: A childhood filled with chaos, instability and everything seemingly out of control can build a stronghold of control to prevent ever being at the mercy of another again.

· Self-Indulgence: This stronghold is built to justify and protect the right to indulge self to compensate for unmet needs and pain. This stronghold also justifies a right to chemically alter reality with drugs (even prescription drugs) or alcohol to blot out pain.

· Fear: Fear is a common, but slightly different stronghold. People generally do not build this stronghold for protection, rather it is erected around great apprehension and anxiety over unresolved experiences and memories. This is one of the Principalities that will be discussed more fully in later chapters.

· Denial: A stronghold of denial refuses to acknowledge any of the above things. Denial is a valid, temporary mental and emotional coping mechanism to enable the human mind to survive certain traumatic situations – similar to how shock shuts down and prevents a severely wounded body from death. Denial enables abused children to survive unbearable situations. But just as shock becomes dangerous and life-threatening when a person cannot come out of it, so does denial when it becomes a stronghold.

A DIFFERENT LOOK AT STRONGHOLDS

In Strong’s expanded dictionary, strongholds is defined as:

#2192 – to possess one’s thoughts, mind, to possess externally, to have in one’s power, control

#3794 – castle, fortress, to make firm, to fortify, the idea of holding safely

Typically, we have been taught that strongholds are bad. Based on the above teaching, I would agree with that. But then I had another thought about strongholds.

Can there be good strongholds? What if you are so rooted and grounded in the Lord that the evil spiritual strongholds no longer have the same negative effect in your life? Can you develop Godly spiritual strongholds?

Based on the above definitions, they sound like they can go either way – Godly or evil.

Psalm 27:1 “The LORD is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?” (NIV).

In the gospel according to Mark, Chapter 2, the author records a fascinating scene. Jesus was preaching the word of God in Capernaum and because the crowd was so huge, 4 men went to the roof to lower their paralyzed friend down to Jesus. Jesus looked down at the man, full of compassionate intent.

What would He do? Obviously, the man needed to be healed. He needed a supernatural interventional miracle. However, Jesus saw more than paralysis. He saw more than palsy. He saw a person.

The first words He spoke are recorded in verse 5; “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” Wait a minute, the man did not come to Jesus looking for forgiveness of sin; he came looking for healing from a debilitating paralysis.

Jesus saw that this man’s primary need as a person superseded his physical problem of paralysis. Jesus was interested in bringing healing and wholeness to the whole man, for he saw a person who was in need. Paralysis was one of the man’s needs – but not the only need.

In the hierarchy of needs, his first need was redemption and forgiveness of sin. Sin was undermining the work of God in his life and needed to be dealt with first. The supernatural is meant to work across the board, in a multifaceted and multidisciplinary way, in order to bring wholeness to individuals. It is this deeply intimate and personal concern that God has for every individual’s wholeness that is at the heart of the supernatural mandate.

A person who is healed of some sickness, but continues to struggle with anxiety and fear, is not a person who has been made whole. An individual who continues to carry around shame, even if he or she has experienced a degree of healing and freedom, is a person who has not yet been made whole.

From the gifts of the Spirit, to the fruit of the Spirit, to the empowerment of the Spirit, through deliverance and on to liberty/freedom – each step has as its goal, the gradual increase of wholeness, health, and healing of the whole person. Touching body, soul, mind, and spirit, God’s supernatural power is meant to be a supernatural resource to achieve this supernatural outcome.

Sometimes the greatest healing that can take place is when a person who feels rejected and unloved has a supernatural encounter with Christ. This encounter releases a new level of relational and personal wholeness for that person, which can lead to physical, spiritual, and relational healing as well. God will never stop working His supernatural works – in His timing, and with our cooperation – within us to transform and empower us to live in greater and greater expressions of His healing and restoring power.