“You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatsoever ye ask of The Father in My name, He may give you.”
John 15:16
Let's just imagine for a moment, that you have already been chosen by God, but all the enemy of our soul needs to snare you, are the strongholds pass down by your family to keep you from fulfilling God’s original destiny for your life. And, although strongholds can exist because of outlying circumstances within our community, our country, and so on; the most powerful accomplices of strongholds, are instilled in us through our families. Families have the opportunity and strength to literally change the way we were destined to become. Through their influence we can walk boldly into our destiny; strong, reverent, and aware of God’s power in our lives; or weak, ungodly, and ignorant of God’s desire for our life.
It can be reduced to the sins of the father, which the Bible says are visited on the children for three generations. Many of us understand and personally know about the sins of our parents; however, we may not know the sins of our great-grandparents. And, for certain, we do not know about the shortcomings of our great-great-great grandparents. We do not know about their personal strongholds, but the enemy of our soul does. And, a slip in one direction can mean instilling a curse into our entire bloodline. For example: imagine that your parents abused alcohol, or, had some other issue. It could have been suicide, atheism, murder, drug abuse, lying, cheating, stealing, tardiness, idleness, pride, jealousy, fighting, ignorance, promiscuity, hatefulness, gambling, gossiping, cursing, vengefulness, pessimism, complaining, racism, sexism, there’s tons more... –the list can go on. These traits are going to influence you simply by your parent’s daily and continuous interaction with you. It will permeate deep into your psyche, occurring so easily and naturally, you believe it is how you actually think; when in fact, it is what you were taught.
There is a wonderful adage that explains the true concept of what a generational stronghold really is. It’s about how an Indian elephant is trained. Indian elephants, although massive, are much smaller than African elephants. However, they are still massive. In order to train them, it has to start when they are very young, if not, they will understand their own personal power to leave their confines and/ or kill their owners. So, when an elephant is very young, its owner will use a strong rope to tie one foot to a very strong tree. The baby elephant, born with the awareness of the power God instilled in his spirit, will try to do everything within its power to free itself from the tree, pulling its foot, kicking the tree, even trying to use its small trunk to push the tree down. But, because the tree is strong, and the elephant is young, it cannot free itself. The owner will continue to tie the elephant to a strong tree throughout its infancy. By the time the elephant is an adult, although he is massive and powerful, because of its training in infancy, whenever he is tied to a small, insignificant tree, even with a weak cord, he will not even attempt to break himself free. He already believes that fighting the stronghold that holds him back is futile. The now adult elephant, although massive and powerful, does not know of its own personal power instilled by God from birth, to break free. He is unaware that God gave him the power to destroy every enemy, every stronghold, and every master that would attempt to enslave him.
It is the same for us. There are things that we dare not change, because deep inside ourselves we believe we are unable to fight. We believe we are powerless against something that is really weaker than we are. We could not fight back as toddlers; as children we were powerless against the strongholds within our family; however, now that we are adults, are we like the trained elephant? Are we ignorant of our power to vanquish the enemy of our soul? Or, do we open our eyes and accept the power already given by God at birth to eliminate any power, entity, or principality attempting to use its wicked influence on our lives. When we accept Jesus Christ into our lives, we not only have the personal power of choice God gave us from birth; we also have the additional power of The Holy Spirit to vanquish the devices of our enemy. Like the elephant, our lack of power exists only in our minds, not in Spirit and not in Truth. God says, “I knew you before you were born, and took the time to number all the hairs on your head.”
The question is, now that you know that you have the ability to break free from whatever stronghold is holding you back, what will you do? Do you remain hiding behind the misdeeds of others in your past, blaming them for what they did or did not do to you? Still giving them the power they had when you were a child; or, do you break free using the power God gave you from birth? Whether the issue is because of our parents, community, or country; Our acceptance of Jesus Christ opens our eyes to break free of every—not some, not a few; but, every stronghold in our life. The Bible says,
“...Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statues, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them.” Ezekiel 36:25-26
Upon our baptism as adults, after we have been baptized of The Holy Spirit, we are cleansed of all filthiness, idolatry, and any generational strongholds in our lives. It means that we have received a fresh start to our lives and no stronghold will imprison us again. It means we have received power from The Holy Spirit to eliminate anything we do not want within. The Love of God will break any and all strongholds in our life; yet, we must still make the choice to accept His Power to do so! Someone in the family has to be first, why not you? L.
Study Reference: John 15:16, Ezekiel 36:25-26, Jeremiah 1:5-10, Matthew 10:30
From: "New Generational Strongholds." In The Master's Hands: 365 Daily Devotions For Everyday Living.
Copyright © 2014 by Lavona E. Campbell
photo: Juniors Bildarchiv/Alamy
RSS Feed
