Gateways to Joy

Right before I got ready to publish this post, I received an email from another blogger, Angela England, whose post I subscribe to.  What caught my attention about this particular post was her title, 'The Power of Exposing Your Dreams.' I opened the email and this was her introduction: "Did you know that a dormant seed is so well protected it can survive for years in a dead-but-not dead, alive-but-not alive state? In fact, kernels of wheat found buried in ancient Egyptian tombs were able to be germinated. The wheat survived for centuries, yet never served its true purpose." We do that with our dreams, don't we?  We keep them safely tucked away and protected in the shell of our minds and hearts in a state of dead, but not dead, alive, but not alive, and no one benefits.  Why do we do this?   Because we're fearful.  Fearful of the unknown, fear of failure. After you read the blog post today, please take time to listen to Alma Loveland and Melani...

Are strongholds keeping you in a life of sin and bondage?  Are they holding you back, stopping you from being all that God wants you to be and needs you to be in order to build His kingdom? If you answered yes to these questions, I want to tell you that you already have what you need to resist their calls, lures and temptations.  That is, of course, if you are a child of God. Remember how good you felt when you first accepted Christ? I certainly do.  I was going to be God's favorite girl!  I was going to spend all of my life seeking to please Him.  I felt invincible. {image courtesy of: beginningandend.com} However, after some years, I found myself doing things that I never thought I would do, or doing things that I had left behind years ago.  I was devastated with myself and wondered, "How could this be?"  I was doing that which I didn't want to do. No one, not even Jesus, is exempted from the calls, lures and temptations of sin and b...

So how are y'all doing with identifying those strongholds? Last time we talked about what strongholds are, today let's look at where they start.  Before we do through, I want to recap what strongholds are.   "A stronghold is anything that exalts itself in our minds." Yes.  The battle begins in our minds first.  In Beth's book, she talks about the goal of warfare as laid out in 2 Corinthians 10:5.   The goal is to steal back our thought life and take it captive to Christ instead. The reason Satan wants to attack our minds is because it is the most effective way to influence our behavior and our thinking. HOW DO WE COMBAT THIS? As believers we must learn to use what God has given us:  our weapons, read Ephesians 6:10-18 to learn about the Christian's weapons. Beth says, "When seeking to demolish a specific stronghold, don't just pray through the list of Scriptures once, unless you experience the rarity of immediate release without sensing an...