“You must not let anyone get close to you or you will get hurt again.” It was another lie. Jesus and His Word, the Bible, kept uncovering these lies. They are what the Bible calls “strongholds”. They are places in our heart given to the enemy because we allowed anger and bitterness to settle in. We all get hurt andwounded. The Apostle Paul, in the book of Ephesians says, “Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.”
A stronghold is a fortress that is built in our heart, built with the mortar of our strong emotions, and the stones of the enemy’s lies, on a place of woundednesswhich we gave to the enemy in anger. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ …”
So, what was I supposed to do with this lie? I needed good people to help me out of my godless lifestyle. King David said in Psalm 16, “Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust. O my soul, you have said to the LORD, “You are my Lord. My goodness is nothing apart from You.” As for the saints who are on the earth, “They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” “ First and foremost, my trust was to be in the LORD. Second, I was to trust the saints, believers in Jesus, to help me in my walk through life. They would not be perfect, but I could trust Jesus to use them in my life.
The writer of Hebrews says: “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” So, I needed to be in a Bible believing church. I needed to be with “the saints”. They were not perfect, but, like Daniel, they had “the Spirit of the living God” in their hearts.
God led me to a “reformed” church. They believed “the Westminster Confession of Faith.” I will talk more about this, since it was very helpful to my having a rightview of God and a right view of myself.