-We have to renew our mind after we become free.
In John 8 Jesus said,
to verse 31
and we've read that in previous videos,
but we are going to look through it again right now.
"Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him,
'If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'"
And of course they said,
"We've never been in bondage to anyone."
Jesus of course debunks that and says, "Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin."
And then Jesus in verse 36 says, "Whom the Son sets free is free indeed."
But verse 32 it says, "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free."
So at first it's like, okay, who is the one setting me free,
Jesus or knowing the truth?
See, you must understand
there is a strong man - it's a demonic entity that attacks a person
but a strong man builds a stronghold.
A stronghold is a mindset.
It's a pattern of thoughts build over time
that even if you remove the strong man,
the person is still tormented because of a stronghold
that the strong man has build while being tormenting the person.
I find it interesting that our Lord Jesus Christ
is addressing freedom on two levels.
He says, "Whom the Son sets free is free indeed."
But then He also looks at His disciples and says, "You must abide in My word,"
why? Because knowing My Word will make you free.
Free, but I thought Jesus You set me free.
Yes, I remove the demonic powers by My presence, by renouncing, by repenting.
We break the grip of a strong man
because the strong man comes in and plucks him out.
But sometimes a person who is delivered still lives in pain and torment
because their mind is not renewed.
Because their mind is not changed.
And how does your mind get changed?
Simple, Jesus gave us a solution here.
He said, "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free."
You have to understand, behind every stronghold is a lie.
Behind freedom is the truth.
Your renewing of the mind can only happen
if your mind gets exposed to the truth.
The truth destroys the lie.
Satan plants strongholds with the bricks of lies
added upon each other, upon each other.
He uses our circumstances,
he uses our failures,
he uses what people said about us and he builds a mindset;
a way of thinking, a way of seeing things, a way of expecting things,
our inner self talk,
that even if you remove the enemy, the person is still hurting
because of the mindset that they have which is build on pure lies.
Behind every stronghold is a lie.
behind deliverance is truth.
Behind renewing of the mind is truth.
And it's not the truth that sets you free, watch this:
it's the knowledge of the truth.
Truth is like soap.
By having soap in my house I don't become clean.
I have to apply the soap on my body to become clean.
The truth in the Bible doesn't make you free
until you know the truth.
The word know here is to intimately know, to experience.
That's why Jesus says, "Abide in My word."
And so that means that renewing of the mind must happen
and that happens when you remodel your thinking by the truth of God's Word.
You meditate on these verses.
You memorize the verses.
You confess the Word of God.
You live the Word of God.
You practice the Word of God.
It begins to shift your thinking which breaks mental strongholds in your life.
Let's take Israel for example.
They came out of Egypt, they were free
but in here they were slaves.
They were still slaves in here.
Because when Pharaoh came back three days later,
they panicked.
They were scared.
They said, "Let's go back to Egypt."
Because see, you can take a slave out of slavery,
that's deliverance.
But renewing of the mind is when you take the slavery out of a slave.
God was trying to do that in the whole wilderness.
He wanted them to think different.
He wanted them to view themselves different.
He wanted to break the grip of the damage that Egypt did to their mind
for many many years
by exposing them to His truth.
Sadly, most of the people, they were not willing to renew their mind.
And what they did, is they died as survivors instead of living as soldiers.
You used to be a slave,
God wants you to be a soldier.
What did soldiers do in the promised land?
They occupied the promised land.
See, a slave in Egypt expected deliverance
but a soldier in the promised land exercised dominion.
And renewing of the mind is this,
God is shifting you from a slave to a soldier.
You are shifting from God deliver me,
which happened already if you prayed, received prayer,
to Lord, help me to fight, help me to win.
God is moving you from freedom to victory.
He's moving you from slavery to being a soldier.
The original intent of God for us was never deliverance,
it was dominion.
In Genesis 1:28 the Bible says that God blessed them and God said,
"Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it.
"And have dominion over the birds of the air, over the fish of the sea,
and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
You were created for dominion.
Because we lost our dominion through sin, we were in need of deliverance.
We were in need to be liberated, but through Jesus Christ.
He doesn't just come and give us freedom.
See, God wants to renew your thinking.
That you don't just get freedom and you are an ex-slave,
ex-loser, ex-this, ex-that
but you become a soldier who possesses the promised land,
who occupies things,
who drives away the enemies from your promised land.
You become a soldier.
That's why the Bible says in Romans that through the gift of righteousness
and abundance of grace, we what?
Reign in life again.
Through Jesus Christ, the renewing of the mind happens.
God breaks the strongholds of lies,
the strongholds of pitiful thinking, victim thinking, stinking thinking,
poor me thinking, nothing good ever happens to me thinking,
worry thinking, panic thinking, anxious thinking, all of those thinking,
God wants to break it layer by layer,
fill us with the truth, with the knowledge of the truth
so that we can reign,
so we don't just get delivered,
but we walk in dominion which is our original intent.
So we don't just get freed from Egypt
but we occupy the promised land.
See, in Egypt you were a victim, in a promised land you are the victor.
So that if some kind of a thing still attacks you,
you don't wait for deliverance, you exercise dominion.
You take your authority in Christ, why?
Because your mind is renewed.
You are no longer a slave.
You are a son.
You are a soldier.
You are in the army of the Lord.
So deliverance must lead to dominion.
Removing the strongman must lead to breaking down the strongholds.
Keep few things in mind:
Demons come in quickly, they exit quickly.
Strongholds are build over time.
Demons can be removed quickly but strongholds are broken over time.
Demons require sin to come in, strongholds require lies to be build.
And freedom requires the blood of Jesus to be achieved
but the renewing of the mind requires the truth
and we need both.