Exchanging the Truth for a Lie
September 1, 2008
by Maria Simone
I’m not sure when I decided that the battle in my mind could not be won, but at some point in the last 6 months I did just that. I forgot how powerful my God is, and I gave in to the lies that said that I was worthless, weak and a failure. The result was depression and anxiety like I had not experienced before. Little things like being late for an appointment were making me anxious to the point where my thinking was distorted. I was having trouble sleeping, I was tired all the time, and having trouble relating to others. Sometimes I would cry for no reason and feel like the world was closing in on me. I thought I was losing my mind, and I felt a million miles away from the Lord.
After many prayers from friends and family, God began to deliver me from this darkness. He gave me a scripture that pierced straight to my heart, Romans 1: 21 and 25: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened…They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — Who is forever praised. Amen.” I had exchanged God’s truth for a lie, bowing down to the lies in my mind and letting them control me. Because of this, my thinking became futile and my heart was darkened.
2 Corinthians 10: 3-5 states “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought into the obedience of Christ”. Beth Moore, in her Bible study “Breaking Free”, makes two very important points about this scripture. First, the Greek word for “stronghold” in this verse is ochuroma, which means “a fortification or fortress”. A stronghold is anything we hold on to that ends up holding on to us. Strongholds are ways of thinking that we create, whether or not we are aware, for protection and comfort. Inevitably, however, these fortresses become our prisons.
Second, the Greek word for “demolish” in this verse is kathairesis, meaning “demolition, destruction of a fortress”. Verse 4 says that our weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds. At peak strength, human effort is useless in demolishing strongholds. No amount of discipline or determination will do it. Please hear this: Satanic strongholds require divine demolition. I remember saying to myself in my depression “this is too hard, I just can’t do this anymore, I can’t fight this”. I was right about one thing, I can’t fight this, but God CAN. When I hold fast to Him, and use the sword of the Spirit, the Truth of His Word, to cut down the lies, He will provide the divine dynamite to bring down every stronghold. I thank God even for the darkness that I went through, because I now know Him in a way that I had not known Him before, and His presence is sweeter than ever. He has filled me with hope again and restored my joy. His mercy astounds me. My prayer is that God will give each of us wisdom to recognize the lies in our minds, and strength to exchange them for His Truth.
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