Destroying Speculations and Lofty Things

I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save. 

- Isaiah 49:25b

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

- Romans 16:20

I am beginning to get very angry with Satan. God has been revealing lie after lie to me - lies that I have believed in my heart and mind for my whole life. It is a theme He is teaching me on right now. He and I spent about two years on Faith and Trust; now it seems we have moved on to Truth.

I am grateful for the revelations - because who wants to continue to be fooled by a lie? - but still, it is with heartbreak I have had to admit over and over how wrong I have been. At least God is giving me lots of practice, so each time it happens I am less surprised and less resistant than before. But it is still difficult to let go of ideas and paradigms you have based your value system and life on.

For so long, I have gripped tightly to "the way I was raised," even when it contradicted the Word of God. (That is one of the worst parts - I have been trying to compromise where the rules do not bend, and now I have to confront my own sin.) Professing to be wise, I became a fool (Ro 1:22). It has only just recently struck me that "the way I was raised" isn't the way things always were, so it stands to reason that there was another way - a way that probably worked at least as well if not better - before.

I have become a victim of the very thing I have always spoken against - tradition. I have been doing things and believing things the way I have always done and believed them for no other reason than that it was the way I always had. I thought myself to be so unconstrained, so individual. What a fool.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 

- 1 John 4:1

I have been believing in things that, in many instances, were created by the whim of the "knowledge" of man. Entire worldviews and thought processes have been replaced because one day, thousands of years after the world was made, some philosopher had an idea and thought that they had finally managed to figure it all out. And we, arrogant creatures that we are, convince ourselves that all of civilization and the history of the universe has been leading up to this moment - that our knowledge is the best knowledge, that our generation is the generation whose discoveries can't be topped. 

Why can't we just go back to the original - the truest form of knowledge, the knowledge that comes from God? How can we possibly believe we can progress from there - that we can improve upon the knowledge of the Creator, who was before the beginning of time?

My entire world has turned upside down in the past few months since God began leading me on this journey. Everything I've ever "known" is now in question. Everything I've ever believed could have been a lie from the Father of lies. So yes, I must test the spirits. I want no more enemy strongholds in my brain. I have been fighting the war in my heart for years; now it is time to take the battle to another front.

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

- 2 Corinthians 10:5