2 Corinthians 10:4 (KJV) says:

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;

In this Scripture, a stronghold is a system of thinking that formulates a persistent belief in a mistaken idea or concept.

CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is a type of psychotherapeutic intervention. This asserts that our behavior is a result of our associations and our thought processes that actually allow us to reinforce an idea in our heads. So, when faced with a stressful situation, (like having a strong desire to be married) you will be stressed partly because of the beliefs and associations you hold regarding that situation.

Strongholds Distort the Way You Think

In this stressful moment, most of the time you’ll start playing out what you expect to happen in your head based on a stronghold. And when this happens, areas of the brain respond almost as though that thing were really happening. You might imagine getting fired, having your house repossessed, or having an intimate relationship with someone.

This then causes the release of even more stress hormones, just as though you were really in those situations and you can end up anxious, aroused and potentially less effective to do what God has told you to do. This is where a lot of phobias come from, but it’s also what can make you less self-confident, less likely to take positive risks, follow God and generally less successful than you otherwise could be.

So, CBT aims to change this, partly by creating new associations and partly by changing the way you think, and changing what you’re visualizing.

There’s more to it than that of course, but this is the central concept and the tools used, to this end, are collectively referred to as ‘cognitive restructuring’. The Bible calls it “the renewing of your mind.”

Techniques to Reconstruct Your Thinking

So, let’s say that you want to be calmer at work, be at peace with not being married or you want to overcome a fear of heights. How might you do that using CBT to pull down strongholds?

The first step would be to become more aware of your existing thoughts, beliefs and emotions.

You can do this in a number of ways. One common tool is journaling, whereby you keep a journal of your thoughts, feelings and emotions pertaining to the thing that frightens you or is stopping you from applying God’s Word in your life. This way, you can really deconstruct the thought process that is leading to your fear, anxiety or disobedience.

This is one practical way of destroying sophisticated arguments and every exalted and proud thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God, and how you take every thought and purpose captive, bringing it to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5  AMP).

Take some time to write down your belief about:

Ø  Singleness

Ø  Dating

Ø  Marriage

Ø  Applying the Word of God

Ø  Money

Once you have identified the thoughts that make you stressed and you’re aware of what you’re visualizing – you can then deconstruct them and pull down any stronghold.

• For example, you may be afraid of what people think about you or their perception of you being single. You may have a fear of being alone that might have originated from negative experiences.

If you’re not married, you may think something must be wrong with you. This concept could have been ingrained in you since your childhood in the form of fairy tales or other people’s thoughts about marriage. As a child, you might have been raised by a single parent and grew up thinking negatively about being single.

Perhaps you just want to have sex, and as a Christian, you want to get married so you can do it legally.

What you don’t realize is that, by playing that negative video over and over in your head, it is strengthening those neural connections in your brain and coding the experience as ‘bad’ and ‘dangerous’ or pleasurable, making the response stronger in future.

Destroy the Strongholds

Let’s look at how the thought process works. There are 4 things you must know pertaining to your thoughts:

1. What you say is a result of what you believe; your belief system.
2. What you believe is a result of what you think; your thought process.
3. What you think is a result of your knowledge; what are you studying, looking at constantly or researching?
4. Your knowledge is a result of your source; is it from God, self or Satan?

So, now you’re going to unravel those beliefs and remove the negative ones; the strongholds. One way to do this is by ‘thought challenging’. Thought challenging essentially means that you’re going to really analyze your belief and decide if it might actually be true or not.

After you write down your list of beliefs, ask yourself:

• Where is the source of this belief coming from?
• Where did I learn this?
• Why am I thinking this way?
• Is what I’m thinking and saying Biblically sound and positive in nature?

When you study the Bible concerning that situation or fear and apply what you’re being taught about the purpose of being Single, you’ll create new associations, not only with God’s Word and having a Kingdom of heaven mentality, but also in your belief about singleness, thereby removing those old sin-natured associations and thought patterns.

You will, progressively, become desensitized from the world’s system of thinking as you learn God’s system and that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

This is how you destroy the works of the enemy, renew your mind, and live the satisfying Christian Single Life God has for you!