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4. Roots of Deception

"Roots of Deception"
Strongholds and Unbelief

Like a toothache, the roots of deception can cause agonizing pain. Not long ago I developed a horrible toothache. As soon as I would lay my head on the pillow at night to sleep, the intense pain would start. It took two hours in the Orthodontist chair to excise the roots of that tooth.

Similarly, we have strongholds in our lives which prevent us from enjoying our life with God. Excising these problems and strongholds takes walking through an often painful process to get to the root of our issues. We usually try to overlook our problems, pretend they aren’t there, and they will go away but at night when we lay down to sleep the pain begins.

We can spend years doing this, but when the pain gets intense, we will go to great length to expose these strongholds so that our hearts may be healed.

So when the ache comes, when the pain becomes unbearable don’t run away, turn to addictions, or codependent relationships to escape the pain. Come to the great Physician. His desire is for you to be whole and healed. He longs to reveal the roots of unbelief and the places where you have believed the lies of the evil one.

Satan has come to steal, kill and destroy but Jesus has come to set you free from rejection, bitterness, abandonment, and betrayal. He longs to rescue you from the deception and doubts you have developed toward Him. He is a good God, and you can trust Him. Let LOVE Himself embrace you and whisper the truth in your ear.

The thing which separates us from God is our evil thoughts and actions brought about by believing the lies propagated by the evil one.

Adam and Eve had a beautiful relationship with God in the Garden of Eden but then our enemy, satan, came and planted thoughts in their mind which caused them to doubt Gods goodness and believe a lie, that He was withholding something good from them.

In my own life, I was abandoned by my mother when I was about a year old. So the enemy of my soul lied to me and deep inside I fear that God will reject me and abandon me. But God’s word in Isaiah 49:15 says, “Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has born? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!” And in Psalm 27:10 King David states that “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.”

Is God telling me the truth in His word? Yes, He is, but I have allowed the enemy to trick me into believing a lie based on a bad experience. So there are roots of deception that need to be dug up and disposed of, and there are roots of truth that must be planted in our hearts for us to grow healthy fruit in our lives.

God desires that we stand firm and believe the truth of the Good News that Jesus Christ died in His physical body to bring us into His presences and to make us holy and blameless as we stand before Him without a single fault. Col. 1:21-23

As we dig into God’s word, we develop a healthy root system established on truth and the unhealthy weeds which grow in our hearts due to bad experiences will begin to wither and die.

“Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your life be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” Col 2:6-7

God wants to come to the deepest places of your heart and reveal himself to you as the God of every moment, the God who does not sleep. Psalm 139:1-18 tell us that God is ever present and ever aware of everything about us. He made us and knitted us together in our mother’s womb. He saw us before we were born and recorded every day of our lives in His book.

Can so marvelous a Creator hate His creation? How could He possibly desert or abandon the very people He loved and created? But the sneaky snake, the devil, wants us to believe that he would. It is the same trick that he pulled on Adam and Eve, and he is still using it today to deceive God’s children.

After Adam and Eve sinned, they avoided God and hid from Him; believing the lie of the devil altered their love relationship with the Lord. If you have wavered in your faith, God is merciful, and He longs for you to return to Him, your first love.

In the book of Revelation, God sent messages to the seven churches. At the end of each letter he declares, “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.”

He longs for us to overcome the evil of this world. “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” Rev 3:20

He is issuing an invitation for us to share a beautiful, remarkable love relationship with Him. He pleads with us to be victorious over the roots of deception of our enemy.

Patricia Harris 

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