Breaking Free Introductory Session

In studying Beth Moore’s Breaking Free, I am finding it is so very helpful to summarize or paraphrase what has been said in her workbook and in her videos and research further to gain better understanding. So, this is what she taught in the introductory session video and my research in my own words.

From the example in Judges 6: 1-6 on Midian’s defeat we can learn a few things; We, the people of God, can live under great oppression. Being a Christ-follower does not make us immune to the influences of Satan. He is the Oppressor and he has two goals for us: to make us unproductive and impoverished. He wants to make it so you aren’t saying or doing anything that benefits the Kingdom of God. He wants to suck you dry and keep you from your true source of nourishment, Jesus Christ. We also can learn from Midian’s defeat that if we don’t seek freedom, we will seek shelter. What does that mean? Freedom is found in our surrender to Jesus Christ. He proclaims it and we have to come and claim it. If we don’t claim freedom in Christ than we will seek shelter; we will curl up in a ball in the corner of our jail cell that has the door open wide and not come out. Whatever is keeping us from claiming our freedom is making us seek shelter and/or comfort and peace through other things like alcohol, drugs, over-eating, burying ourselves in our work, etc. A stronghold has kept us in the jail cell and keeps us in isolation.

www.gotquestions.org tells us what a stronghold is and how to bring it down:

The word strongholds is found once in the New Testament, used metaphorically by Paul in a description of the Christian’s spiritual battle: “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses [strongholds]” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4, NASB).

1)    Our battle is not planned according to the way this world fights; earthly stratagems are not our concern.

2) Our weapons are not physical, for our warfare is spiritual in nature. Rather than guns and tanks, our weapons are those of the “full armor of God” and consist of “the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:14-17).

3) Our power comes from God alone.

4) God’s plan is to demolish spiritual strongholds.

What are these “strongholds” or “fortifications” we face? In the very next verse, Paul interprets the metaphor: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). The “arguments” are the philosophies, reasonings, and schemes of the world. The “pretensions” have to do with anything proud, man-centered, and self-confident. 

Here’s the picture: the Christian, wearing his spiritual armor and bearing his spiritual weapons, sets out to “conquer” the world for Christ, but he soon finds obstacles. The enemy has erected strongly fortified garrisons to resist the Truth and thwart God’s plan of redemption. There is the fortress of human reasoning, reinforced with many subtle arguments and the pretense of logic. There is the castle of passion, with flaming battlements defended by lust, pleasure, and greed. And there is the pinnacle of pride, in which the human heart sits enthroned and revels in thoughts of its own excellence and sufficiency.

The enemy is firmly entrenched; these strongholds have been guarded for thousands of years, presenting a great wall of resistance to the Truth. None of this deters the Christian warrior, however. Using the weapons of God’s choosing, he attacks the strongholds, and by the miraculous power of Christ, the walls are breached, and the bastions of sin and error are battered down. The victorious Christian enters the ruins and leads captive, as it were, every false theory and every human philosophy that had once proudly asserted its independence from God.

2)      If this sounds a lot like Joshua fighting the battle of Jericho, you’re right. What a great illustration of spiritual truth that story is (Joshua 6)!

Sharing the gospel is not the only time we see resistance. We can also face demonic strongholds in our own lives, in our families, and even in our churches. Anyone who has fought an addiction, struggled with pride, or had to “flee youthful lusts” knows that sin, a lack of faith, and a worldly outlook on life are indeed “strongholds.”

The Lord is building His Church, and the “gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). What we need are Christian soldiers, totally surrendered to the will of the Lord of Hosts, who will use the spiritual weapons He provides. “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7).

Midian was a nobody according to Scripture. He was the least likely to be able to bring glory to God but God calls the meek, the low, the nobodies, the least likelies and He gives them the divine power to demolish the strongholds; the pride, lust, selfishness, etc.

The journey through breaking down the strongholds will be hard. You may feel like giving up, you may feel like you can’t take anymore, you may feel like it is killing you but God knows what you need. Ask him for the strength and wisdom to help you through this journey and he will fill you with the abundance of life he so wants to give his beloved child. Reach out from the corner of your prison towards Jesus who is standing outside the opened door of your prison with his hand reaching out to you. Reach, reach….keep reaching…

Psalm Prayers

Somewhere in all my research, I learned about reading a Psalm and writing a prayer based on what God speaks to you about. So here is my prayer based on Psalm 50:3 Our God approaches, and he is not silent. Fire devours everything in his way, and a great storm rages around him.
Lord God, You are among us, all around us, in us and yet I confess I cannot hear you. Help quiet my soul that I may hear your voice, see you in my world and in every circumstance and feel you by my side, in front of me, guiding my way and within me giving me peace, love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. Listening is where obedience comes from. May this day and the days to come be filled with hearing, seeing and feeling you with me. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Yank the Chains Out!

I heard something on the radio that put in my mind an image of a chain. The radio host was talking about the power of our thoughts and how if we think of something negative and not pleasing to God like hateful thoughts toward someone who has hurt us in some way or derogatory thoughts that put ourselves down and make us feel less than who we are in Christ than we are falling under the influence of the enemy. These kinds of thoughts and others that are not pleasing to God need to be yanked out of our minds as soon as we think them. This takes some intention in reminding ourselves through our prayer time with God that we have that tendency to think things that are not good. Some temperaments will have this tendency even more so but the fact is we are all guilty of negative, sinful thoughts, even the most godly people you know have had thoughts come into their minds that did not make God happy. He knows because he knows every thought, feeling and action we have done and will do. The Bible tells us to guard our hearts and gives us the tools to do that with the Word of God, with prayer and with the name of Jesus. There is power in these to help us conquer those thoughts that want to come into our head that are sinful, negative, degrading, mean and hateful. That first thought that comes in is the first link in a chain that can ultimately bind us and keep us from being all God wants us to be. Take your thoughts each day to the God of the universe who will help you guard your mind from being corrupted.
Romans 6:14  For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Day 18: Drawing Closer to God (An Arm's Length Away)

I read in The Jesus Code about how lifeguards are trained to stop within a few feet of the person they are coming to rescue and wait for them to stop moving. I did a little more research on this and found that they are indeed trained to watch the actions of the person before attempting to rescue. There is a difference in the responses you will see of a person who is truly drowning and a person who is in aquatic distress which is closely related. A truly drowning person will not have the ability to wave or shout as they are truly doing all they can just to come up for air one more time. In any case, there are many cases of a lifeguard going out to save someone only to be drowned themselves by the victim because they grab hold and won't let go. It is the natural human response to maintain control. We think we can save ourselves. I love how O.J.Hawkins put it in The Jesus Code: "We know we're going under, but we continue to kick and scream. We see the Lord an arm's length away. Why doesn't He do something? He may be waiting for you to come to the end of your self. He may be waiting for you to acknowledge that you are more in need of a rescue than you realized."

Lord, when I am feeling discouraged, down, depressed, it is time for me to stop kicking and screaming that you aren't doing anything. If I just rest in you, you will be there to rescue me. In your precious name. Amen.

Day 17: Drawing Closer to God (Battle of the Mind)

The book of Romans is one of my favorite books of the bible. It has a wealth of information about who we are as believers and where we came from. I see this a lot in my counseling of clients, the idea of our mind doing battle. Our sinful nature is a power within us that we have to battle to over come. It is the wrong in us that does everything it can to get the right in us to follow along and do the wrong. Because we as human beings have the power to choose, when presented with the wrong path as the snake did to Eve in the Garden of Eden, we, with the sinful nature within us have no means on our own to over come the sinful nature so we will choose the wrong path as Eve did. But our loving God, gave us a warrior who does the battle for us. I think of God looking down on his only son on the cross dying not because he was a criminal and did anything wrong like the other two beside him on their crosses but because he was doing the ultimate battle right than and there with sin. He died on that cross taking all our sins with us and went to Hell. He won the battle the day he rose from the dead and walked out of Hell. As a believer in Jesus, we are connected to him like a tea bag that needs water to produce any tea.  When we accept Jesus into our hearts his living water is poured into us. We now have the means to do battle with sin in our own minds. We just have to pick up the sword to do the battle each day. With Jesus, we are like a cup or glass of tea and the power of the Holy Spirit can heat up the tea to bring us comfort and peace and it can ice up our tea to give us inspiration and conviction. The sinful nature is still there within us but we have the connection to Jesus and the Holy Spirit within us to do the battle and help us choose the way of the righteous.
Romans 7:23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

DAY 16: Drawing Closer to God (Loving No Matter What)

Most mother's out there can attest to the frustrations of dealing with a preschooler. They have a tendency not to listen, not to sit still when asked, not to follow direction, get angry or upset at the drop of anything, call their friends names, play the blame game, tell on their friends and so on. They have SO much to learn. I remember the trying times with my own kids and am thankful to God that we made it through relatively intact and sane. Now, as a preschool teacher assistant, it is taking the power of God to seriously keep me from wanting to blow a gasket. My frustrations, mind you, are expressed to my fellow teacher who is also at the end of her rope so we manage to keep our cool and maintain an even keel. Today, I walked them through the story of the Good Samaritan with little Lego figures. They were engaged for the moment which was a total blessing but the rest of the day brought anger, cutting in line, blaming, not being kind to each other and so on. There are constant teaching moments in a preschool and especially when you have several students that have special needs at this time in their life. At the end of the day, I was to conclude the lesson by letting them take two chocolate hearts from a gold shaped heart bowl that I told them was God's love. We got back from music and the other teacher was in the frame of mind that no chocolate was going to go to the kids but I called on her to trust me and I sat down with them and talked to them about being frustrated and not very happy about how their behavior had been today. I told them that although I could choose not to let them come to the bowl and receive some love from God and also take a chocolate heart to give to someone else, I told them that I prayed to God and asked him to help me love them right now despite the not so good behavior they had presented this day. They were listening intently. As, I called them up one by one to get their hearts of chocolate, I noticed one girl waiting and crying. Did my talk get through to her? Hmmmm? I suppose maybe we will see in the days ahead of how setting the example of loving no matter what will hopefully take root in their hearts.

Day 15: Drawing Closer to God (Good vs Pefect)

It is a question that comes up sometimes in counseling of my clients. Why would God make us with weaknesses? I woke early this morning and tossed and turned in bed hoping to get back to sleep but ended up thinking about this question. My early morning thinking is by far the clearest and often God gives me such clarity on things in those early morning hours when I don't yet want to crawl out of bed. I rejoice in the Lord for this time of clarity on perfection and weakness. I, myself, have always just thought of humans as imperfect and we are but only because we have our sinful nature that has been passed down to each of us from Adam and Eve. But, this took me back to when God created Adam and Eve and the whole of creation. His comment about what he created wasn't it is perfect; he said "it is good". My answer to the question really remains the same as what I have been instructing my clients. God created a "good" creation that was designed to be in relationship with him. To have this relationship, we have connect to him through our spirit's because God is a spiritual being. Adam and Eve had that connection from the start. They had all of their needs met and any weaknesses they had were overcome solely because they were dependent on God. But they wanted their independence and our sinful nature had begun. Our sin keeps us from connecting spirit to spirit with our holy God. However, God knew even as he was creating Adam and Eve of what was to come and already had a plan in place to send his son to us, that we may regain the connection to his spirit and be back in real relationship with him. Jesus was the perfect man. This is possible because like Adam and Eve before the fall into sin, he was connected and relying on his Father. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, therefore he had the connection from the womb and on into our fallen world. It is through Jesus that we can regain the connection and allow the Holy Spirit to overcome our weaknesses, enhance our strengths and fulfill all our needs.