Spiritual Strongholds

What are Spiritual Strongholds?

First of all, we need to realize there is an enemy, "satan," and his effort is to capture the minds of men and women and their souls through spiritual strongholds. The mind is the strong tower of the soul.

Under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the mind rules our hearts and emotions and directs our lives. Satan knows if he can get hold of the way we think, he can expand his rule into every other area of our life.

Prov. 23:7 "for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."

Satan wants to control your thoughts in the conscious mind but also your motives and thoughts in our subconscious minds.

II Corinthians 10:3-5 "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses/storngholds. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

What is a fortress/stronghold? It is a walled city with access to its water supply and plenty of storage space for food. The enemy attacks with warfare against fortresses. When trying to break into a fortress, the enemy will dig under walls, climb over walls, bust down the main door, or whatever to get entrance by hurling bounders against the walls and firebombs over the walls.

Paul uses this knowledge to describe the attack needed against the spiritual strongholds of the mind. We can destroy every stronghold because our weapons are eternal and invincible.

The enemy tries to break in with lying thoughts, negative thoughts from others, or feelings that have developed a life of their own within us. We were created in the image of God, but somehow we believe what others have said, what satan says, the accuser or ourselves believes the opposite of God, and that is what a stronghold is. It is a thought or belief that is not true about you, but you believe it.

An individual stronghold is more than a habit. It is a belief of fleshly control within us that uses habits to maintain control over us. Like for example, through belief or feeling, a habit of temper can develop to defend or cover up the insecurity or jealousy of wants, believing God does not want you to be blessed, or developing alcoholism to cover up the pain you are not loved. God's word says you are the apple of his eye.

These strongholds are the fortresses of thought, emotion, feeling, or negative belief about self or what God says about you.

The function of a stronghold is to put up smoke screens to keep things like sermons, teachings, and counseling from piercing our inner man with truths that could bring repentance and freedom.

A stronghold guards the untruths that bond us to self and the flesh. It keeps you from being able to renew the mind from seeing your own deceptions.

Strongholds give us tunnel vision, preventing us from seeing what common sense would tell us is wrong. It creates an inner captivity to deception and misery.

Again, the central core of strongholds are lies the enemy wants you to believe in, getting you to believe they are true about you.

God does not want your past to hold you back! God has made a way out, a way to unpack your bags of grief, pain, unforgiveness, guilt, shame, or even old patterns of relating.

Keywords: strongholds, demons, deliverance, possession, evil spirits, exorcism, casting out demons, deliverance ministry, questions, faq, spiritual strongholds, legal grounds, deliverances

by: Traci Morin

Prescription Drugs - Third Cause of Death in America

Pharmakia is Prescription Drugs - The Third Cause of Death

The Greek word "pharmakia" literally means "drugs", and appears five times in the New Testament: in Gal 5:20, Rev 9:21, 18:23, 21:8, and 22:15. "Pharmakia" is translated into our English Bible as either "witchcraft" or "sorceries". We also get our English word "pharmacy" from the Greek "pharmakia".


In each of the above five passages, "pharmakia", or "drugs" is listed as a work of the flesh of man as opposed to the Spirit of God working in us.


For example, Gal 5:16-23 in the KJV:


16 "[This] I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

20 Idolatry, witchcraft ("pharmakia" or drug use), hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

23 Meekness, temperance (self-control): against such there is no law."

The King James Bible translators translated "pharmakia" as "witchcraft" because almost no one but witches and sorcerers used drugs 400 years ago. Drugs were most commonly used in pagan worship to hallucinate and to try to get in touch with evil spirits.

Our medical world is a mess! Every year in the US, there are:

12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgeries;

7,000 deaths from medication errors in hospitals;

20,000 deaths from other errors in hospitals;

80,000 deaths from infections acquired in hospitals;

106,000 deaths from FDA-approved, correctly prescribed medicines.

The total of medically-caused deaths in the US every year is 225,000.

This makes the medical system the third leading cause of death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer.

Since the FDA approves every medical drug given to the American people and certifies it as safe and effective, how can that agency remain calm about the fact that these medicines are causing 106,000 deaths per year?

Do the 106,000 deaths from medical drugs only involve drugs prescribed to patients in hospitals, or does this statistic also cover people prescribed drugs who are not in-patients in hospitals?

The pharmaceutical giants stand back and carve the populace into “promising markets.” They seek new disease labels and new profits from more and more toxic drugs. They do whatever they can—legally or illegally—to influence doctors' prescribing habits. Some drug studies that cast new medicines in a negative light are buried. FDA panels are filled with doctors who have drug-company ties. Legislators are incessantly lobbied and supported with pharma campaign monies.


This can be serious stuff! In Rev. 21:8, God says that people who are continually characterized by drug use will have no part in the Kingdom of God.

I recommend learning to walk in the Spirit and studying the New Testament Epistles to the Churches (Romans to Jude).

As we grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we will want to do things that please God.

Look again at Gal 5:22 & 23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering (patience), gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (self-control)"

Isn't that what the whole world is looking for? It's automatic when we walk in the Spirit!

The Christian life is a "supernatural" life; we cannot please God in our energy. We can only please God by allowing Him to work THROUGH us.

I have to assume that you love Jesus and want to please him, or you wouldn't even be concerned.

by: Traci Morin

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