Breaking Free - Chapter 41: Deprogramming and Reprogramming
1. What led you to be able to see a particular sin involved in a stronghold in your life?
Well as I've said before, fear has been an issue for me, and God has been working with me, to set me free for a long time, but one of the key moments was when I heard this...
"Fear is believing in the lies of the devil; faith is believing the promises of God."
When I started looking at fear as believing Satan's lies, it was a huge turning point in becoming free from this stronghold.
2. What are some of the lies that you have begun to identify that surround a stronghold in your life?
Here are a few of the lies Satan has tried to use on me:
- I'm not good enough.
- I'm not strong enough
- Bad things happen to everyone, God can't/won't protect me.
- Everyone else is better at just about everything than me.
- Friends will always leave just when I begin to let them close.
3. What is the meaning of the statement, "Deception is the glue that holds a stronghold together"?
Strongholds are made completely out of lies and deception, so when truth is applied, the strongholds crumble. Truth acts like a wall paper remover melting away the lies and setting you free.
4. Have you experienced difficulty with the lie that you are responsible to help every person who has a need?
Yes, as newly married young adults, my husband and I started attending a church that felt like home away from home...and very quickly we got involved and were loving it. But somewhere along the way, we bought into the lie that we had to help if we were asked, and so we said yes to just about everything. I worked in the church office and helped with just about every ministry of the church as part of my job, but in addition to that, we were collectively involved with the following...
Children's Church
Choir
Worship team
Drama
Ladies Bible Study
Boys and Girls Clubs
Men's Basketball
Quilts for Soldiers
and other miscellaneous outreaches and projects around the church.
We were at the church just about every day of the week and then sometimes two or three times a day. None of these things were bad on their own, and we truly loved helping, but Satan made us feel like we were evil if we said no, and so we kept taking things on to the point of being burned out. When we moved out of that area and started attending another church it took months for us to be ready to volunteer for anything, and to this day (5 years later) we are very cautious, because we don't want to get to that point again.
5. Why is identifying the lies that surround a stronghold an absolute necessity to a life of freedom?
Identifying the very thing that is holding you captive, and the lies that are holding it together, allows you to overcome it with the truth from God's Word and be set free, but if you don't identify the lies you will continue to believe them, and you will not find the freedom God has for you.
