BAPTISM OF HOLY SPIRIT
You own 10 acres. A homeless man approaches you. You want to help so you let him live on 1 acre among your 10 acres. Within a short time his loud music drives you crazy. You drive past and see his garbage scattered across the 1 acre. After a while his garbage is blowing all over your 9 acres. You ask him to leave. He refuses. He says he has a legal right to the 1 acre because you invited him in.
This is what happens to us when we let the devil into a small area of our life. The devil quickly gains a stronghold. “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds". (2 Corinthians 10:4). Stronghold simply means ‘fortress'.
The devil builds a strong fortress in our life because we gave way to him in a small area, that 1 acre.
Satan may not possess us, but he will dominate us with a favorite sin to which we have given him legal right. We can't get rid of it even after endless cycles of confession and forgiveness. Satan's fortress in us must be broken down.
Satan begins with our mind. After conversion the devil knows we now belong to Christ so he tries the next best thing - to steal away our joy, to keep us down, depressed, and frustrated. The devil starts with a thought that he brings to our mind. When we linger with that thought, and allow it to grow in our thinking, we’ve given the devil an acre, and he quickly expands out to more of us, because we’ve given him the legal right to do it. That's why the Bible says “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ". (2 Corinthians 10: 5)
So, a stronghold is a fortress Satan occupies in an area of our mind that should’ve been given over to the Holy Spirit. Click here for the notes and here for the video message.
HOW SATAN operates
A really vile thought comes into our mind. Where does it come from? It comes from Satan. It's a fiery dart. When it happens we only have a split second to say “No! I won't entertain that! You have no legal right! God help me with my thought life".
Permission leads to progression. If we don't stop the fiery dart Satan fires into our mind, it quickly leads to a choice. If we don't take the thought captive, it very quickly leads to a choice to entertain it further. A mistake repeated more than once is a decision. The choice we make leads to repetitive behavior. Spiritual war is now well underway in our mind. We lose the war the moment we entertain the thought. We are no match for Satan. If the behavior is repeated, it allows Satan to create a stronghold.
So here's the pattern: an initial thought is allowed to linger, which leads to a choice, which leads to behavior, which leads to repeated behavior, which leads to a stronghold. Common strongholds Satan builds in the mind are repetitive behaviors such as criticism, gossiping, vanity, judging others, hypocrisy and pride. At the extreme end are addictions such as porn, alcohol, drugs, gambling, and violent computer games.
It helps to know how Satan operates because we can now understand what’s going on.
VICTORY OVER SATAN
To break down strongholds Satan has created in our mind, this must be done:
Don't resist the Holy Spirit. He has revealed to you that you have strongholds that need breaking down. It becomes very obvious to us when we stop resisting the Holy Spirit. Believe the Holy Spirit has the power to lead you to victory.
Choose to repent. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you to a point where you become brutally honest with God and tell Him about all the strongholds in your life. Call them what they are: gossip, criticism, porn, pride, power seeking, gambling, drinking, vindictiveness, envy, lying etc. There's no point in saying “I'm sorry and I won't do it again" because within a day or so you'll be at it again. Let the Holy Spirit bring you to a deep, deep level of repentance. The Holy Spirit gives you deep repentance if you don't resist Him.
Ask God to cast out the evil spirit of gossip, criticism, lust, vanity, apathy etc, in the name of Jesus, and ask Him to break down Satan's strongholds in you. By doing this you remove the legal right to your life that you gave Satan by camping on his territory.
When we entertain a sinful thought we give Satan the legal right to gain a foothold in our mind. It quickly grows into a stronghold because we gave him the legal right to do that. When we repent we reverse this. We remove the legal right we gave him. By repenting we are saying “legal right removed" and it allows Jesus to break the stronghold.
Even after repenting Satan will still bombard us with evil thoughts, but the tug will be much weaker. Fueled with the power of the Holy Spirit we have a strong desire to dismiss such thoughts and renounce them. We don't try to argue with Satan or to out-smart him. We bring Jesus to Satan, and Satan will flee. Temptation is still there but its also much weaker. Our carnal nature is still there but it’s now heavily sedated. Try it!
The key is to first be clean by repenting, and then giving Jesus the master key to all the rooms in our lives. When Satan comes knocking, we let Jesus answer the door. This is not sanctified fantasy. It’s real. Until you see what a demon-possessed person looks like, you wont treat this subject seriously. It’s very real. Do it now.