Tag Archives: poverty strongholds

Poverty Strongholds #10 – The Demonic Factor

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Poverty Strongholds – Post Ten – The Demonic Factor

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

I’ve introduced all the other strongholds, so today, let’s take a look at the 1st Poverty Stronghold – Demons

On our original pie chart and in our list of poverty strongholds we had demons as first on the list. This was because the thinking that led to this entire series began with a theology relayed to us of how demons were the entire problem for all poverty and for everything that goes wrong.

In a certain area in Uganda we were told that all of the pervasive problems of that region were due to this very large tree that had had a demon in it, and that when the tree was cut down and distributed throughout the entire area the demonic stronghold became established in the entire area. This was the understanding, the belief, the theology. This is what we were told was the entire problem.


demonic conversation extension 2

But of course, as a professional people developer and as a prayer minister, I know that if we give all blame (ie:credit) to the demonic we have just given fully 100% of our power away, we’ve become victims and have entered ourselves into apathy and despair. So I roughly jotted out my thinking about this issue with the result being this series of posts. Today, in this series, I finally come to address the demonic factor. Let’s talk about that.

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Poverty Strongholds #9 – Blaming & Excuses

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Poverty Strongholds – Post Nine – Blaming & Excuses

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Let’s take a look at the 8th Poverty Stronghold – Blaming & Excuses

Blame Wheel

We begin in life with the ability to take responsibility for our own lives within our specific context and circumstances. We would say that we have 100% ability to be responsible for our lives – this could be described as having the power to move our lives forward — As in DIAGRAM  A

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Poverty Strongholds #8 – Bad Theology

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Poverty Strongholds – Post Eight – Bad Theology

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Today, let’s take a look at the 7th Poverty Stronghold – Bad Theology 

Bad theology leads to many bad things. It is the root of all sorts of distortions and manipulations perpetrated by supposedly godly men and women. Here are just a few of the craziest things I have heard while overseas:

“The wealthier you are the holier you are.”  (this is a literal quote from a Kampala city pastor)

“The woman with the seven husbands, well, she killed them all and what we take from this story is that the seed must be planted in the right place, and this is the right place for your seed, so tithe to this church and you will be blessed.”

“We must all change our names because Abram’s name was changed”

“Do not sleep at the wrong times because this was the cause of the Hebrews being in slavery for 400 years in Egypt.”

Even as I write this I hardly have words. I am astounded time and again at the kinds of bad theology that I come across in my work. But, I am also, often enough to note, just as astounded by the bad theology found at home. For instance:

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Poverty Strongholds #7 – Agreements With the Enemy

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Poverty Strongholds – Post Seven – Agreements with the Enemy

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Today, let’s take a look at the 6th Poverty Stronghold – Agreements with the Enemy

Imagine this, on one side of you is God and he is saying all manner of life and blessing over you.

I have for you a future and a hope

I have known you since before time

I am with you always

I created you and called you good

In me (Christ) there is no condemnation

I have special work for you

And then, on the other side of you is Satan and he is saying all manner of death and destruction over you.

He comes only to lie and steal

He brings chaos

Death is his specialty

Despair is his voice

He accuses you

He is the tempter

And you are between the two.

The Bible speaks numerous times about the need for a second witness. Throughout historical times all matters of law had to be decided on the basis of two witnesses for instance. And Jesus himself asserted that where two or more are gathered in his name that he is among them.

And so, as we have God on one hand and Satan on the other, each speaking over us, we are the ones deciding with whom we will agree, we create the second witness.

And what we agree with is what is established in our lives.

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Poverty Strongholds Post #6 – Lack of Holiness

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Poverty Strongholds – Post Six – Lack of Holiness

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Let’s take a look at the next Poverty Stronghold – Lack of Holiness. By and large, within our christian communities, we do not seem to talk a lot about holiness and yet it is a critical piece of living within the Kingdom of God. It boils down to this: God is a holy God, and as He calls us He asks us to play the game (understand and know that the Kingdom is His and our participation requires we live by His rules) as he would have it played – this means that as God is holy we are called to be holy. Continue reading →

Poverty Strongholds #5 – Mind Sets (faulty thinking)

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Poverty Strongholds – Part Five – Mind Sets (faulty thinking)

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Today we look at Mind Sets, or faulty thinking and how the way we think may be keeping us locked into cycles of poverty.

On the Poverty Strongholds graphic I have faulty thinking noted as: 

  • layers of denial, optimistic without seeing reality
  • superstitious thinking and beliefs
  • rushing to conclusions (already addressed in Lack of Knowledge)
  • stuck on letter of the law without the spirit of the law
  • little innovation, stuck on how it’s always done
  • assuming bigger is better

In brief I will add some understanding to each one of these.

Layers of Denial: 

Layers of denial are habits of thought that keep us protected from bad news and from grief but also keep us from clarity and reasoning that can move us forward. Like the woman I mentioned in my first post under faulty thinking, she is protecting herself from the raw knowledge that she married a man that does not love her. He is refusing to care and commit to her, is using her for sex (unprotected sex even, as more children are added to compound her poverty), and meanwhile she continues in a habit of thought that continues to hold out hope.

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Poverty Strongholds #4 – Lack of Knowledge

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Poverty Strongholds – Part Four – Lack of Knowledge (common sense)

  1. Demons
  2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
  3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
  4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
  5. Lack of Holiness
  6. Agreements with the Enemy
  7. Bad Theology
  8. Blaming & Excuses
  9. Refusing to be a Blessing
  10. Pain Upon Pain

Today we explore a lack of knowledge, where common sense is missing, and where as a result faith is over-applied.

When I was working in the professional development field one of my colleagues would always comment on how people are meaning-making machines. His observation was that something would happen and that people, by and large, would rush to ascribe meaning to it, to try and make sense of what happened.

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Poverty Strongholds #2 – The Authority By Which I Speak

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In Part One of this topic I barely scratched the surface of the intricacies and poverty mindsets as many of us observe them, and/or live them out. There is so much that can be delineated within each of the ten strongholds as I am describing them. But let me continue on in this series with a bit about myself. I speak into this issue of poverty strongholds not from a place of observation or as an outsider, but I speak from a place of, “I’ve lived through these very same things”. I’ve intimately known the mindsets of poverty and the bad fruit that was piling up as a result.

For instance, there was a time in my history where I was continuing in bad relationship with ‘hope’ that refused to look at reality. There was a time when there was very little provision or food and I was starving myself so that my children could eat. There was a time when the money I did have seemed to be consistently and always disappearing as though my ‘bucket’ had a giant hole. And for years I carried accumulated pain upon pain (heart pain) that nearly stole my life in chronic autoimmune diseases. I’ve know what it is to be in despair and to be buried in pain that overwhelmed me in both good thinking and in energy required to rise above the current circumstances.

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Poverty Strongholds – Part One

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We were more than halfway through our ministry trip in Uganda. We had been alongside many, many pastors, had stayed in many homes, and had been to many districts and villages and churches.

So far, we had been experiencing a bounty of thought and action, of hospitality and sufficiency. Those we were alongside knew that God was caring for them, knew that life was good albeit hard, and out of that delighted in their care of us.

But then we ran across some thinking and perspectives that glared out at us as a poverty mindset extraordinaire all rolled into one. They claimed poverty as their biggest challenge and relayed to us stories of how the enemy was confounding everyone, literally everyone, in that surrounding area.

Now, we had heard bits and pieces of this same thinking in the months prior, but somehow it all came together in stark reality — all poverty was blamed on the devil; it was ALL satan’s fault.

Now, while we know that satan’s plan is one of destruction we could not abide by the belief that everything bad and wrong was of the enemy without any responsibility from the humans involved. If this were the case, then we would all be victims forever more, the end.

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