God as Your Stronghold


Origin
"My Life's Stronghold is God." -Ps.27

We read about it several times in the bible that God is a stronghold. Do we know what "stronghold" means? Often, we associate "stronghold" with the devil, like "the devil's stronghold." So, what do we mean by God is my stronghold? How does God become a stronghold? If you don't know what it means to have God as stronghold, that's a stronghold.

Devil as Stronghold

When a person has strong propensities to sin and evil, we say that it's due to a stronghold. And we mean that the devil's hold on that person is really strong. No matter how much that person wants to change and start going to church, he just can't. When presented with a situation that makes him choose between good and evil, he is likely to choose evil even if in his mind he wants good. If he chooses good, it'll just be for a moment---probably 5 seconds---and then back to evil again. That's a stronghold.

E-book on Genuine Revival. Click here for the summary!

And we know how big a problem a stronghold is. It's almost unbreakable. I've seen countless Christians attend summer camps and revival services and weep at the altar again and again---even share wonderful testimonies of how God had supposedly touched or changed them, to no avail. They always go back to square one of a sinful life. They are prisoners of the flesh.

The devil is 100 percent on you (riding on you and making a horse of you) so that your natural activity in life is to do what he wants. You're virtually his puppet. No matter if you bring the person to a summer camp or spiritual conference or prophetic and apostolic meeting or a spiritual warfare seminar, the guy wouldn't change unless the stronghold is broken. It doesn't matter if you bring that person to the most anointed man of God on earth or in the universe. 

We understand this concept very well---how the devil is a stronghold. But what about God as your stronghold?

God as Your Stronghold

It should have the same effect---only to the contrary. Here's what I mean. Stronghold keeps a man a slave in every situation, anywhere, and all his life. And I mean a slave. And there's nothing anyone can do about it---except if the guy concerned decides to quit from the stronghold for good. Except that happens, he has no choice but to do accordingly. The mechanism is embedded deep into his systems. He has no free will. He has no personality. He's a robot---although he strongly feels he is free to do anything he wants. Everyone enslaved by a type of stronghold almost looks the same. 

Now, God as your stronghold is like that. You always have the natural and strong propensity to do as God does. He is in you doing things in your life so that everything becomes natural. Wherever you go you cannot help but do what God does. No matter if your friends bring you to bars or night clubs or motels or sex dens, you remain holy without any effort. It's hard to break it---no amount of temptation is going to change you. And there's no escaping it. Why? Because you have God as your stronghold. You're helplessly "possessed" by him, like a robot, and yet you feel so free as the wind going wherever it wills or a bird that doesn't need to sow or reap and store in barns. 

No matter if they bring you to a very seductive, sexy young girl all naked ("anointed" for evil tempting), you won't change or give in. Why? God not only is in full control of you---he is in you doing whatever he wills. You do what he's doing, and it's all so natural. In fact, you no longer live but Christ lives in you.

Being in HIS Stronghold is Being Fearless

Psalm 27 says the fruit of having God as your stronghold is radical fearlessness. Specifically, it's the radical fearlessness of my Jesus. If you're not radical as my Jesus, you're still in the devil's stronghold. If you're still doing things in church and in your life according to human traditions and programs and the religious flesh because you fear getting out of them, you're still in the devils' stronghold. 

Stronghold Begins with a Foothold

Paul told the Ephesians not to give the devil a foothold. Once the devil manages to put just even a foot inside your life, he's in. If you don't throw him out pronto he captures territories in your life until he gets a stronghold. Now, it's the same with God. You've got to let God take a step inside your life and let him capture every area in it until God's stronghold is established in you, making it your very natural system. David gives us a clue here.

Dwell in the the Lord All my Life

In David's time, he desired to dwell in the temple building of the Lord. That was Old Testament. Today, our bodies are the temple of God. We must be able to "gaze at God's beauty" inside our bodies, our lives, when we look at ourselves. No, don't go to your church building and try looking for God's beauty there. God lives in bodies now, not anymore in buildings.

In short, we must dwell in God's presence (and ask God to dwell in our bodies) all the days of our lives. This should be the one ardent desire in our lives and which we should desperately seek for daily through His WORD. Then we make God our stronghold and we become radically fearless like my Jesus. Then we can't help but live God's LIFE in us through Christ.