Psalm 22:3 says that God enthrones Himself in our praise. Think about this for a moment. Enthroned. Seated. Established. Sovereign authority. When we praise the Lord He fills our space with His glory.

Isaiah saw the Lord. In Isaiah 6:1 he wrote, “…I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.” Here is another example of when the Lord inhabits our praise.

King Solomon had just dedicated the temple. They were praising the Lord. 2 Chronicles 5:13-14 reveals what happened. Their praise, “…For He is good, for His mercy endures forever, that the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering…”

Psalm 146:1-2 says, “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! While I live I will praise the Lord; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.” Hebrews 13:15 helps us understand why praise is a life skill~

It says, “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” Why is it a sacrifice? When we want to complain about our circumstances, and instead we praise Him, we sacrifice our flesh. It is a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

We praise the Lord in the midst of our adversities, hard trials, or when we are facing what seems impossible. It takes our focus off of them onto Him. We exalt or lift Him up. It is another form of bringing every thought captive to Him.

The depth of our roots determines the quality of fruit. Inner strongholds make the soil of our heart stony. When we confess them as sin, He is ready to forgive and help us destroy them.

Hosea 14 was written to Israel. Embrace them for yourself. Verse 4 says, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him.” Verse 5-6 says, “….he shall grow like the lily, and lengthen his roots like Lebanon. His branches shall spread; his beauty shall be like an olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon.”

Read Jacob’s blessing on Joseph. Genesis 49:22 says, “Joseph is a fruitful bough, and fruitful bough by a well; his branches run over the wall.” What a picture of one being deeply rooted in their relationship with the Lord.

David was deeply rooted. What did he do when his army of men were ready to stone him? 1 Samuel 30:6 says, “Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved…But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.”

Colossians 2:7 says, “Rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” Colossians 3:16 is a picture of one deeply rooted.

It says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…” Everything in our relationship with the Lord is built around His word. If we are ‘word less’ then we are shallow rooted. Intimate communion with the Lord feeds our roots. It is the essential spiritual nitrogen that enables us to bear fruit for His glory.

Malachi 3:3 was written about Israel. We can still apply it to our hearts. It says, “He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.” 

Matthew 3:10 says, “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.” Verse 12 says, “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Our trials are designed to refine our faith. The intense fire is essential to bring up the hidden dross. Unconfessed strongholds (sinful habits) make us weak and unable to fight against the fiery darts against our faith ~ see Ephesians 6:16 and 1 Peter 1:7.

There is another key as to how enemy strongholds are built. It is revealed in the parable of the sower. Mark 4:16-17 was about the seed that was sown on stony ground. It says, “…when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in themselves…” 

Here is God’s way for root development. Psalm 1:2 wrote about the one who has a lifestyle of meditation in God’s word. Verse 3 says, “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water…”

Jeremiah 17:7-8 says that the one who trusts the Lord, “…will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.”

Strongholds, according to 2 Corinthians 10:5, oppose God’s way. It says, “Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Against versus obedience.

Deuteronomy 12:2 says, “You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.” The high places in our heart are for praise. Back to Psalm 149:6 which says, “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth…”

Psalm 145:1-3 says, “I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable.”

Inner enemy strongholds block praise. They cause our mouth to speak from discouragement, defeat, and spiritual barrenness. Psalm 137:4 says, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”

The antidote to spiritual barrenness is to sing! Isaiah 54:1 says, “Sing, O barren. You who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud…” Inner enemy strongholds have to be torn down through praise!

If you haven’t read Habakkuk 3 in a while, I encourage you to do so. There is a key for us in verse 13. It says of the Lord, “…You struck the head from the house of the wicked, by laying bare from foundation to neck.”

Persistent Faith is now available on Amazon.

It will be FREE today, Friday, and Saturday.

2 Timothy 2:26 says of those opposing God, “And that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” What did Jesus do to refute the devil’s lure?

Luke 4:4 says, “But Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” This is why we need to have God’s word hidden in our heart. We do not know ahead of time what lure satan will use to ensnare us.

Psalm 124:7 says, “Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

Psalm 149 is a triumphant psalm. Verse 6-9 says, “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute on them the written judgment—this honor have all the saints. Praise the Lord!”

Any vestige of our old heart idols, leaves opportunity for the enemy to use against us. His greatest goal is to keep us from intimate communion with the Lord. When we dwell in the secret place of communion with the Lord, all of his plans are blocked and ineffective.

God had a prescribed place for the children of Israel to worship. His instructions were for them to destroy all the places where the enemy nations had worshiped their false gods. Deuteronomy 12:3 says, “And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire…” 

As I read this verse, my mind skipped to another scene. Gideon had built an altar and worshiped the Lord after he received his startling announcement. The Lord would use Gideon to save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.

First, however, he had a specific assignment to fulfill. Judges 6:25 says, “Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it.”

Read verse 26 which says, “…and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.” The Lord did not want any groundwork left for future temptations. Ephesian 4:27 says, “Nor give place to the devil.” The Greek word for place means opportunity.

2 Corinthians 10:4 describes our destructive weapon as God’s word. It says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.” Leaving future temptations takes up real estate in our heart, that the enemy uses (inner strongholds) to keep us captive. The children of Israel did not obey the Lord’s command and they became ensnared.

Now Available

Just published this in paperback, and I am presently working on its ebook. Available on Amazon for $5.99

Deuteronomy 7:7-8 says, “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you…”

This was written about Israel. Deuteronomy 32:10 says, “He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept his as the apple of His eye.”

As you read Jeremiah 31:3, insert your name. It says, “…Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

We were without hope. We were spiritually dead. We were bound and held captive with no way to escape. “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” (Ephesians 2:4-5).

1 John 4:8 says, “…God is love.” That is the very core of His entire being. Verse 19 says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” His love for us was before ~ no effort on our part. The Father drew us to the One Who died for us. He put His hand on the latch of the door to our heart. He captured us by inserting a yearning in our heart to respond.

What do you yearn for? What captures your heart and won’t let go? James 4:5 says, “Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?” The J. B. Phillips says, “…passionate jealousy.” 

The Holy Spirit desires to capture all of our heart’s real estate. The children of Israel yearned (craved) for the things in their past. Their hearts were divided. Numbers 11:5-6 says, “We remember…but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing except this manna before our eyes.” They shunned God’s miraculous provision.

The verse in James was in the context of loving the things of this world. Verse 3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

If your heart is divided, I encourage you to ask the Lord to set a yearning for Him in your heart. A seed of yearning for Him will bear fruit. It is a prayer that He will answer because that is His heart’s delight ~ us delighting in Him as He delights in us.

Asking Him to plant that seed of yearning plays out like this verse. I’m capitalizing it as though she is speaking about the Lord. Song of Solomon 5:4 says, “My Beloved put His hand by the latch of the door, and my heart yearned for Him.”