Breaking Strongholds and Taking Names

Have you ever been in a standoff with Satan? I’m talking you know he is in the room taunting you and you have to renounce him over and over. I felt that tonight. I felt it in the most unusual venue- when I was working out. I never saw exercise as a spiritual battle- until tonight. Tonight, it resonated with me differently.

Exercise has always been an extremely emotional moment for me. It holds both the highest highs and the lowest lows. It holds the triumph and the struggle and I’m not sure I realized until this moment how much Satan uses it to break me down. Exercise is a form of worship. By moving our bodies we see the glory of God. We see the ability God gives us to move beyond our mental capacity.

I think exercise is extremely vulnerable because it is a game of mental tenacity and as I have reviewed before, the mind is the devil’s battlefield. He just loves to stir up trouble in there. Have you ever wondered why something is so convincing in your head until you externalize it, it doesn’t make the same sense as it did when it was in your head? The accuser, the liar, the manipulator, the father of lies plays a little game of twister with your mind. Even though God has given you a beautiful identity, he wants to scramble that up and make us forget the person God created us to be.

I believe when our bodies are physically working at a certain level- it is the mind that can psych you out and believe you can’t. Tonight, in my mind and in my house, I felt and saw a battlefield. I saw strongholds breaking and Jesus taking names. When I stopped believing the accuser. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. In fact, I kept reiterating that to him aloud. Even though I felt like he was coming at me face to face, I knew who the real Victor was in that battle and it took away the fear.

During the first part of the workout, I was learning how to let God take over, in the second part of it, the TV started buffering. This was no coincidence! Satan didn’t want me to finish what God had started. I knew he was in the room and I just started telling him that he didn’t have to try so hard anymore because he wasn’t going to win. The TV kept buffering and I kept renouncing him over and over. Eventually, the TV started again but this time the picture was so blurry I couldn’t even make out the faces but I could see the moves. I will admit it was extremely annoying but it wasn’t going to stop me from finishing. I knew God had me and he wasn’t going to let me fail. Once I reached the end of the workout, guess what, to no surprise, the picture became clear as day.

When I was done, I didn’t feel him there anymore because he knew that the battle was not his. I said NOT TODAY Satan. I finished. I felt powerful and filled with the Holy Spirit. Through Jesus, tonight, strongholds were broken; a spiritual battle was fought and won.

It would have been so easy to quit, but I want you to make this your encouragement tonight. The battle has never been the devil’s- Jesus has the powerful to break every stronghold. We just have to let go and let him. We can’t secede the battle. We have to fight and let God be our victor.

Hallelujah and Amen!