Strongholds

For the past three weeks, my church has been walking through a series on strongholds. It’s been confronting in the best way.

A stronghold is a lie or mindset that sets itself up against God’s truth and gains influence over how we think, feel, and act. It’s not just a bad habit, it’s a fortified way of thinking that keeps us spiritually stuck.

The primary passage my church has been focusing on is 2 Corinthians 10:3–5. Paul says strongholds are arguments, pretensions, and thoughts that “set themselves up against the knowledge of God.”

In other words: a stronghold lives in the mind first. It resists God’s truth and shapes behavior secondarily. Biblically, a stronghold begins with belief (a lie accepted as truth). It becomes fortified over time (repetition, pain, trauma, reinforcement). It produces patterns (sin, fear, avoidance, coping behaviors), and is dismantled by truth, not willpower.

Strongholds aren’t always loud. Sometimes they’re quiet lies we’ve lived with so long they feel like facts. I have some that I’ve come to realize formed even before my walk with God.

One of them is the lie that I’m unlovable. Not just unwanted, but un-choosable. And that lie doesn’t just sit in my thoughts. It reaches for comfort wherever it can find it. For me, that’s where temptation creeps in. Not because I want sin, but because I want to feel desired, wanted, and seen, even if it’s counterfeit.

What’s hard to admit is that this lie doesn’t start at the behavior. It starts before that, in the moment I believe I’ll never be met, never be pursued, never be loved in a real, holy way.

The behavior is just the fruit. The stronghold is the root.

But here’s the part I’m learning, and what this sermon has been opening my eyes to: awareness is not defeat. It is the beginning of freedom.

God doesn’t expose strongholds to shame us. He exposes them so He can dismantle them. And the truth that confronts my lie isn’t “try harder” or “do better.” It’s this: I am already deeply loved, fully known, and intentionally chosen by God. Even here. Even now. Even while I’m still learning how to believe it.

We have to identify our enemy. Strongholds exist because of real spiritual warfare. The enemy is the father of lies.

So we arm up. We pick up our weapons and fight. Do you know our weapons? God’s Word. Prayer. Fasting. Praise and worship. How do you spend your time? What do you fill it with? Who do you fill it with? Is it true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, praiseworthy?

And we cut the lie off. We take our thoughts captive. What causes us to believe these lies? Cut it off. And once you cut it off, replace it. Replace it with truth. The more we do that, the more we obey God, the more these strongholds will crumble.

So, name the lie. Not because it defines you, but because it no longer gets to hide. Take up your weapon against the enemy and cut him down. Let truth be louder than the stronghold.