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If we are going to demolish our strongholds, we have to recognize the power that lies have over us.
Are you also a prisoner, missing out on the life you want but believe you can never have? You crave close relationships but are paralyzed by the fear of rejection. You want to try something new but assume you are destined to fail. You long to be debt free and give generously but feel certain that could never be you. You dream of losing weight and exercising but feel resigned to fail yet again. You want to change but think you never can.
Why?
You are constrained by a lie, something that doesn’t exist. The Enemy has arranged enough hurtful circumstances, in key places of your life, in which you got just enough jolt — a bit of a shock, a sting of pain to your heart — that you have decided trying even one more time is just not worth the risk. What makes it worse is that the number of places where you have stopped trying is growing ever larger.
- The greatest weapon in Satan’s arsenal is the lie.
Perhaps his only weapon is the lie. The first glimpse we have of the devil in the Bible, we see him deceiving Adam and Eve in the garden. He created doubt in Eve’s mind by asking her,
“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” — Genesis 3:1-5
What Satan did in the garden back then is the exact same thing he will attempt to do in your life today.
In 2 Corinthians 11:3, our thoughtology professor Paul said,
I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
Satan will whisper accusing questions and deceptive statements. He schemes to twist your mind, because if he can, he then
- diverts you from your purpose,
- distracts you from God’s voice,
- destroys your potential.
If he can get you to believe a lie, your life will be affected as if that lie were true.
Unfortunately, Satan’s lies are easy to believe. Why? Part of the reason is that because of sin, we have a flawed internal lie detector. God warned us:
- “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jeremiah 17:9).
- “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).
That’s definitely the problem, so what’s our solution? How do we access God’s power to stop Satan’s lies? How can we demolish his strongholds in our lives?
- If Satan’s primary weapon is lies, then our greatest counter-weapon is the truth of God’s Word.
Not just reading the Bible but learning to wield Scripture as a divine weapon. God wants us to view His Word that way. See how Hebrews 4:12 offers a direct solution to the warning
of Jeremiah 17:9:
The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
In Ephesians 6:17, Paul’s legendary armor of God passage, the Word of God is called “the sword of the Spirit.” God’s Word was the first weapon I learned to use to remove lies and replace them with truth, changing both my thinking and my life.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. — Romans 12:2
The second half of that sentence is in the passive voice, meaning it is not something we do but instead something that is done to us. The good news is that God is ready to renew our minds by leading us to “a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:25). Why? So we can “come to [our] senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken [us] captive to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26). “Then,” as Jesus said, “[we] will know the truth, and the truth will set [us] free” (John 8:32).
Excerpted with permission from Winning the War in Your Mind by Craig Groeschel, copyright Craig Groeschel.
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Your Turn
The enemy has come at us to separate us from God with lies from the beginning of time. The number one way we can combat his lies is by knowing the Word of God and not letting him confuse us when he bends it! The truth will set us free! ~ Devotionals Daily
