Demolishing Strongholds

Johnny Hunt

Description

Get Ready to Win Your Spiritual Battles Ever wonder how to be a man of God in the trenches of lifein the day-to-day trials and temptations that hound you? It's not impossible! God's promises and strength are real, and you can claim them today. Whether you feel beaten down by your past failures or trapped in a corner by your current struggles, let hope lift you up. Pastor Johnny Hunt offers the biblical encouragement and guidance that will help you...navigate the dangers and discouragements of daily lifetake practical steps toward taming your negative habitsuse your blessings to influence others for God's glory It's time to learn how to break spiritual strongholds so you can move forward in God's will and become the kind of man you've always wanted to be.

Informations

• Publié par: Harvest House Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780736969383
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version . Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Verses marked ESV are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Italics in Scripture quotations indicate author s emphasis.
Cover by Bryce Williamson, Eugene, OR
DEMOLISHING STRONGHOLDS
Copyright 2017 Johnny Hunt
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-6937-6 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-6938-3 (eBook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hunt, Johnny M., 1952- author.
Title: Demolishing strongholds / Johnny Hunt.
Description: Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016037594 | ISBN 9780736969376 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780736969383 (eISBN)
Subjects: LCSH: Christian men-Religious life. | Success-Religious aspects-Christianity.
Classification: LCC BV4528.2 .H86 2017 | DDC 248.8/42-dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037594
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author s and publisher s rights is strictly prohibited.
Contents
Introduction: It s Time to Break Free
1 The Strongholds that Lock You Up
Part One: How Strongholds Imprison You
2 The Battle for Your Mind
3 Dangerous Relationships
4 The Distraction of Attraction
5 The Rationalization of Temptation
6 The Devil Desires to Have You
Part Two: Triple Play
7 Sex: The Drama of Seduction
8 Money: The Lure of Greed
9 Pride: The Devil s Sin
Part Three: Invincible Weapons for Demolishing Strongholds
10 Weapon 1: Confess and Repent
11 Weapon 2: Learn to Receive and Give Forgiveness
12 Weapon 3: Don t Let Your Sword Get Rusty
13 Weapon 4: Practice Walking in the Spirit
14 Weapon 5: Lean on Your Brothers in Arms
Epilogue: Live to Be Missed
Appendix: Key Scriptures for Persistent Strongholds
Notes
Other Good Books by Harvest House Publishers
About the Publisher
Introduction
It s Time to Break Free
Y ou want to be a man of integrity. You want to be godly. You want to think biblically, to have your wife or close friends say of you, I can hardly believe the great changes I see in you!
You want that. Maybe you even long for it.
But you struggle. You re not there yet, even though you really want to be there. Somehow, you keep stumbling. Falling. Failing. You feel trapped, stuck in a deep, dark pit with no apparent way out. You try hard to cover up your growing mess, but every day it gets harder and harder. You desperately want to win-but by now you doubt whether you ever could.
This book is for you.
For twenty-five years I ve helped men just like you to break out of and even demolish the strongholds that have kept them locked up for far too long. Don t get me wrong; I struggle too! But I know we can become the men we ve always wanted to be. We can become men who win. We can learn to do now what will make us glad then.
God wants His promises to become reality in our lives, and in this book I want to help you experience them. If you re struggling with one or more strongholds that are devastating your life, Demolishing Strongholds will help you find your way out of that struggle and into a life of winning.
Why Write This Book?
A quarter of a century ago I began to sense that I needed to do my best to influence the men of our church to become all God wanted them to be. I see men as a great, untapped reservoir of supercharged energy for the kingdom of God. The average evangelical church would be a total mess if it were not for godly women stepping up to the plate and taking the lead. I want to see strong, godly men once again taking their God-honoring places of leadership in the family and in the church. And I know married women want the same thing! Every week they tell me they long to have godly husbands who will take the mantle of spiritual leadership and run with it.
Each February at First Baptist Church of Woodstock, we hold a men s conference. Husbands and single guys, grandpas and grandsons, pastors and elders and laymen and thousands of others come from around the country to hear from God s Word and encourage each other to become the men they truly want to be. A few years ago we moved the conference to Super Bowl weekend so that on the last day of our meetings, the guys can enjoy the big game together and go home on a high note.
On Sunday night we begin our evening service with hundreds of men in every aisle of the auditorium, most of them on their faces and saying, God, help me to be a godly man. Help me make a difference in my family and in my workplace and community! Scenes like that confirm for me that I need to spend a good chunk of my life investing in men.
I didn t become a Christian myself until I was twenty years old, when God saved me out of a pool hall. I was a high school dropout, a teenage drunk, with no purpose and no direction in life. In fact, I quit high school because I refused to give a public book report.
But God had something better for me to do than shoot pool-and that very fact gives me a passion to help men become the leaders, the husbands, the fathers, the heroes that God means for them to be. If God can do anything with me, then God can do something with you.
I don t know what kind of stronghold has you pinned down, but I want to help you destroy it and then remove it so that it s gone. Is that really possible? you may wonder. Yes, it really is. I know it is, because over the past twenty-five years I ve seen it happen multiple thousands of times.
And now it s your turn.
1
The Strongholds that Lock You Up
I once met with a nationally known public speaker in the Fortune 500 world. With his wife sitting by his side, he told me, I get up every morning, spend a good thirty or forty minutes reading Oswald Chambers, and then go back to reading the Word of God. But even while I m reading, I m aware mentally of what I plan to do that night. I ve had two affairs and I ve been getting drunk on a regular basis for a couple of years.
Would it surprise you to hear that this man is at church every time the doors are open? He is, along with untold numbers of other Christian men. Frankly, I don t tell you his sad story because I think he s the exception. He s not. I believe he s the rule.
The fact is, the average Christian man is trapped in a vicious cycle. Maybe at a low point in his life he ll say, God, I m so sorry. I want to come clean with You. He does come clean, and for a while he feels better. But soon he begins another downhill slide. Eventually he finds himself right back at the bottom.
Then one Sunday, maybe he hears a great sermon and asks God to forgive him. He feels better again but in a week or two, he s back once more where he started.
I know this pattern repeats itself weekly in churches all across America. But I also know something else. I know that this man, and millions of others like him, want to do better. They want to be real men of God. They want to lead their families and pursue their work in a God-honoring, spiritually strong way. But an obstacle keeps getting in their way, something that traps them in a destructive lifestyle that ends up feeling a lot like prison.
The Bible calls this something a stronghold. And if a man doesn t deal with the strongholds in his life, he ll end up a long, long way from where he wants to be. Just like Bobby.
Where s Their Daddy?
If you ever come to First Baptist Church Woodstock and worship with me at 8:30 a.m., I ll show you just how serious a problem a stronghold can be. I ll point out a certain family to you. I know exactly where they sit. I can point out the lady, who will have six of her eight children with her. I can turn around and say, See the two girls sitting next to each other in the choir? They are the other two.
And where s their daddy? Well, that s a long story.
Bobby Apon used to perform with NewSong, one of the leading Christian singing groups in America. But then he got hooked on dial-a-porn 900 numbers. After about 11 p.m., a pretty woman used to come on TV and say something like, Hello, good-looking. Are you lonely? If you are, call me. I used to think, Ain t nobody going to call her. If they did, she s not the one who will answer. So why would anybody call? But half a million calls a day did go to 900 dial-a-porn services.
Bobby spent $435 a month calling these numbers. You may say, He was some weird dude, wasn t he? No, not really. If you had watched him on stage, you wouldn t have seen anyone in the auditorium more handsome. Nobody there would have had less body fat. The man stood 6 feet 4 and worked out all the time. They didn t call him Superman for nothing! He had a beautiful wife and eight amazing children. And yet Bobby got hooked on dial-a-porn.
I found out about it after I spoke in Euless, Texas, for a Bible conference, where NewSong had just performed. When the group sang