3 Minute Church: How to Overcome Strongholds
This blog unpacks Pastor Rachel Culver’s sermon from August 4, 2024: How to Overcome Strongholds
"This is how we war, church. We pick up our weapons and we learn how to use them. We activate the word of God in our life."
Pastor Rachel Culver
We do not fight like the world, because we are not of the world. Our fight is not flesh and blood: it’s spiritual.
LET’S BREAK IT DOWN:
A stronghold is defined as one of the most protected fortresses in the heart of a city.
Well-fortified. A hiding place.
Strongholds exist physically, but also they exist mentally. In the depths of our minds, we have strongholds so deep, and so fortified that we hide in them…
And sometimes we hide from God in them.
When we’re facing spiritual warfare, there is a counterfeit builder that lays these strongholds brick by brick: The Devil.
Oftentimes we think that in order for the Devil to fester in our thoughts, he has to possess us—but the Devil is sneaky.
He manipulates, whispers lies about the truth, and likes to say that God isn’t good.
When we’re in some of the lowest moments of our lives, what lies do we often experience or hear the devil whisper?
“God. Isn’t. Good.”
“He isn’t blessing me.”
“He isn’t doing what He said he would.”
When we listen to the lies of the Enemy, it stops us from seeing the goodness of God around us, and leads us to disobedience.
Another lie the Devil likes to tell us is that our war is against people—someone who spread a lie about us, a broken relationship with a family member, etc.
He comes to SEEK and DESTROY.
People are not the enemy.
Our temporal situations on this Earth are not worth waging war over.
We have a much bigger enemy we’re fighting, and our fight with him wages on the spiritual battleground.
The devil continues to make a place in our strongholds because we haven’t fully put on the armor of God.
But here’s the good news: we can fight these thoughts when we pick up our armor of God and go to war.
When we are coated in His protection, it’s easier to take our deceptive thoughts captive instead of destroying a fortress of them.
We don’t fight like the world—carnal, bloody, and hateful—because our battle is not earthly.
We have different weapons: truth, hope, prayer, intercession, the Gospel.
But we have to pick them up and use them.
Christ is our firm foundation. The solid rock. The winner of our battle.
When we build new strongholds based on His truth, our foundation will never shake…
And the Devil will stand at the door, mystified.
Tap to watch Pastor Rachel Culver's sermon now on YouTube.