Genesis 2:7 – and the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
Genesis 1:28 – God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the year and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
Adam soul was created to dwell in God, encased in the light of Christ, in a heavenly place called the Garden of Eden. All the knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, counsel, power and the fear of God made up this spiritual place through all these; he was able to rule over the earth with the thinking in the mind of his creator. This dwelling place was an un-assessable fortress. That is to say, it was impossible for any kind of evil to penetrate it. It was God’s own dwelling place with man.
Moreover, God gave Adam the free will as a tool to rule, and put the full possession of it in his hands. Nobody could use this tool but man alone. Neither God nor the devil.
Satan, then, decided to seduce the woman’s mind, who used her free will to enter the devil’s terrain. As a consequence, man lost his spiritual dwelling place – the Eden, his soul was separated from God and he lost his eternal life. His mind was reduced to 2% of its capacity and in a best case scenario, a mere 10%.
The soul of man and his thoughts remained immersed in such a level of darkness and confusion that the only voice which would feed him was the Devils. From that moment on, the devil would be the only provider of all kinds of inferior, carnal, arrogant, sinful, limited and fearful thoughts, which would become the material over which the soul would build up its spiritual habitat. This is what the Bible calls dwellings of wickedness or dwellings of iniquity.
Psalm 84:10 – for a day and night courts is better than 1000. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, then to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
The earth is full of people who, literally, dwell in a spiritual and soulless place, totally opposed to the Eden. All the structures of iniquity control, dominate, and affect them, and fill their societies and lives with evil.
Psalm 74:20 – have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
After the fall man, God stopped reigning over the earth through his children and now it is the devil and death that reign through iniquity. The reflection of the Sheol thus becomes more visible by edifying in mankind all kinds of thoughts of death and fear that do not let them move forward.
Psalm 49:14 – like sheep that are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shell consumed in the grave from their dwelling.
Iniquity molds our minds by creating strongholds that, literally, dictate our behavior. An example of this is the case of King Nebuchadnezzar. God judged his pride and iniquity. After which, he adopted an animal mentality. Man’s behavior is a reflection of his spiritual dwelling place.
Daniel 4:25 – that they shall drive the from man, and I dwelling shall be with the beast of the field, and they shall make the to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet the with the dew of heaven, and seven-time shell pass over the, till thou know that the most tight rule within the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
Note in these passages how the spiritual world of darkness and death mold man circumstances in the material world. These dwellings are spiritual, mental, or emotional structures from which we operate and from where we make decisions that do not come from God. Everything that is not build up in God is edified with iniquity, which is the substance of darkness. All of us have built up this type of dwelling around our souls.
A dwelling is, so to speak, and in visible mold that surrounds and shapes our soul, and gives it a personality and an identity. These structures are made by an aggregate of thoughts that dictate all that we are, and determine the fruit that we bear.
Proverbs 23:7 – for as he think it’s in his heart, so is he: eat and drink, safety to the; but his heart is not with the.
Man is the reflection of his souls dwelling. A soul built up in God will think, act and bear fruit after God. The natural man or the Christian, who has not been spiritually edified, will think, act and bear the fruit of a limited mind structured by its culture and circumstances.
This structure, or dwelling of the soul, is the place of his security or insecurity; where he has settled on his own. It is a lie that is built up in his inner man which dictates what he has to be. It is the place where all his limitations have been built. It is what makes a person think one way or another. These thoughts structures and emotions have been edified in his mind and heart since childhood, they are the result of iniquity. They are not undone merely because we say: Lord, Lord, come into my heart.
These dwellings have to be undone by God’s power, through our determination to topple them and through our faith in order to replace the lies with God’s unlimited truth. It is not about repeating versus, but beginning to believe in a different way regarding ourselves. Seeing ourselves in the fullness of the greatness and power as God sees us, and acting coherently, leaves no room or for any sort of doubt.
These are the most common structures:
Dwellings of fear.
Dwellings of affliction.
Dwellings of illness.
Dwellings of scarcity and poverty.
Religious and Babylonian dwellings.
Cultural dwellings.
Dwellings of stress.
Dwellings of unbelief.
Dwellings of pride and egotism.
Dwellings of negligence.
Dwellings of addiction.
Dwellings of rejection.
Dwellings of destructive habits.
Dwellings of lust.
Dwellings complacency.
Each one of the sins we have persisted in, will edify a dwelling. In order to knock them down, we must first recognize them, and define how they are controlling our lives. They not only rule our lives but also attract to themselves what they display.
For instance: someone can attend church their whole life and still live in dwellings of poverty, fear, illness, rejection, etc. These dwellings exert a power of attraction to all of these things, because the soul has been settled down and rooted in places of darkness were poverty, illness and rejection reign. It does not matter how much that person proclaims with his mouth a biblical truth. As long as his soul keeps established in the structures of thought, he will be canceling God’s power in his life and he will never overcome that area of his life. His inner dwelling becomes a tradition, a way of living, and a prison that does not allow him see himself in a different way. This person has accepted a lie and he will live it until he decides to completely destroy it. Iniquity has formed a stronghold that needs to be demolished.
Mark 7:13 – making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which he have delivered: in many such like things do you. And when he had called all the people in them, he said under them, hearken unto me every one of you, and understand: there is nothing from without a man, that entering into them can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.
What we have built up since childhood, our limited and traditional way of seeing and understanding the world, is what has corrupted us. Therefore, it is reflected in what we talk about how we live.
This is why nowadays we have so many Christians who are sick, poor, oppressed, powerless, and dealing with deep character and sin issues. They have never destroyed the dwellings of iniquity in which their souls were formed. Besides, they have not established themselves in heavenly dwellings.
Many people relapse into their sins. They want to leave that lifestyle, and they do leave it for a while, but they never uproot the iniquity or destroy the dwelling that edified the sin in their soul.
We have the case of an alcoholic who fell into that slavery due to abuses he suffered in the past. His soul learned how to build up a structure using alcohol as a way to avoid or escape the pain. Later on, this man turns to the Lord and surrenders his alcoholism unto God’s hands. He is delivered from the spirits of alcoholism but he never undid the structure of evasion. Sooner or later the devil will use this edification to lead him into new ways of evasion through another type of sin, such as pornography, verbal violence or whatever.
The same thing happens with poverty and scarcity. Throughout generations people have been internally edified with thoughts of poverty, inability and endless limitations. When they come to the Lord, they become Bible heads, some even become God’s servants, but they never destroy those dwellings.
These dwellings are places of wickedness, that God did not build. People must leave them, otherwise, they will continue living with limited financial resources. Regardless of how much they sow into God’s kingdom, they will never prosper so as to reach the measure God has prepared for them, since their souls are surrounded by structures that attract poverty to them.
With their mouth they confessed God, but with their thoughts they make decisions according to their financial limitations. If they are going to build up a church, they picture it made of wood or inside a mechanic shop. God does not think that way. Everything God thinks and plans for us, is magnificent.
I can only become that which is the essence of my spiritual dwelling: either God’s dwelling or the dwelling places of iniquity.
The church’s main job is to edify God’s dwelling place in each believer, not to fill us with Bible verses and formulas that deny the effectiveness of God’s power.
Ephesians 2:20 – and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom all the building fitly framed together grow us onto a holy temple in the Lord: in whom he also or build it together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
Jesus came to the restore what had been lost. One of these things is, precisely, God’s dwelling in the soul and spirit of man. King David entered the beauty and the power of those dwellings; but he could not settle himself, since this was only possible after the Holy Spirit descended on Pentecost. Nevertheless, father allowed him to enter God’s dwelling, enjoy him temporarily, and see his magnificence, which would be the inheritance of Jesus for us.
Palm 91 – he that dwells in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver the from the snare to Faller, and from the noise him pestilence. He shall cover the with his feathers, and under his wings shall thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night; no for the arrow that flies by day; no for the pestilence that walk a thin darkness; nor for the destruction that waste is an noonday. 1000 shelf audit thy side, and 10,000 at the right hand; but it shall not come 9 the. Only with thine eyes shall thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because those made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most high, thy habitation; there shall no evil before all the, neither shall any plague come 9 I dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over the, to keep the in all thy ways. They shall bear the up and I hands, lest out – thy foot against a stone. Thou shall tread upon the lion and adder: the young line in the Dragon show thou trample under feet. Because he has set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him. With long life I satisfy them, and show him my salvation.
How wonderful are God’s dwellings! They are totally opposed to the devil’s dwellings, where people live full of insecurity, fear, lack, illness, and are assailed by the fear of an unpredictable future and their human fragility.
God’s dwellings are absolutely safe, impregnable, and full of health, abundance and the tranquility of a future designed and protected by God. However, God’s dwellings are not built up in one second, simply because we repeat the sinners prayer. We must build them up with material from heaven, with gold, with silver, and precious stones that come from God’s Holy Spirit.
He who has built his spiritual dwelling and has made it God’s dwelling place shall live peacefully, in safety, in divine health, in the confidence that no sudden tragedy shall come upon him. He will be prosperous all the days of his life, because his soul prospers from the earthly realm to the spiritual one.
Knocking all dwellings of wickedness down depends, first of all, on subjecting our will to God’s, so as to start effectively replacing lies with God’s truth. First, I must now, not only believe, then no one can possess my free will, which is the most powerful tool to enter God’s kingdom and his inheritance.
The biggest lie that the devil has made God’s people believe, is that he can possess man’s free will.
God granted man free will and no one, not even God or the devil can touch our will. God sealed it to become ours, for we will be judged for it.
The person who understands this will be truly free and will be able to grasp all the riches that Christ bought for us at the price of his blood. In Christ Jesus, I am and I have what I dare to be and to possess from his kingdom. He has already given us all things pertaining to life and mercy. He has already given us the kingdom, which means that the kingdom is here and now, but only the violent take it.
My will joined to God’s power is the instrument to knock down all the dwellings of wickedness that have ruled my life throughout the years.
By my own will, I decide to dedicate time and love to edify my inner self, and to meet up with Jesus in an unveiled face-to-face encounter, until I achieve the kingdom in my life.
Luke 11:9 – and I send you, ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Phrases such as: the devil does not let me pray or I cannot do God’s will because the devil doesn’t allow me are absolute lies. You are the master of your own will; neither God nor the devil can force you to do anything.
You have in your free will, the power to make radical decisions that will lead to change. Some of them will require a fight, yet you and only you decide if you will fight with God to win or if you will surrender to the devil to lose. The decision is yours.
When Adam left God’s dwelling, he found himself naked, and his alternate dwelling was to hide and to cover himself with vine leaves. God then asked him: where are you?
God asked you the same question today. Where are you? What dwelling are you operating from? What is your life’s condition? What are you producing in every aspect of your life? What is happening in your relationships with other people? In your health? In your finances? In your heavenly mission? When the world sees you, what do they see? Are the realities of heavenly truths being manifested in your life, or do you just live in alleged devotion to God, but your reality is full of limitations and dwellings that have been established in the defeated territory of the enemy?
God is calling us all to seek the true reality of the dwellings from where we operate. He is calling us to be aggressive against everything that is preventing us from entering the wonderful dimensions of his dwellings. He is calling us to leave the passivity and conformism of a church that moves on mediocrity and which is not shaming the wisdom of this world.
We will stun and humiliate the mighty and the wise of this world when sickness does not touch us; when we do not have to borrow but we become the greatest givers of the world, when we become and incarnate example of God’s love in this earth, and when people from the lost world see the dwellings of God in each one of us.