There’s an interesting passage from the Book of Exodus in the Bible where The Amalekites attacked the Israelites at Rephidim (while the Israelites were in the Wilderness of Sinai). Moses then instructed Joshua to go and wage battle against the Amalekites. He further told Joshua that he would be standing on a hilltop and raising the staff of God in the air. While the staff was raised, Joshua would win against the Amalekites, but the arms of Moses grew weary. As he dropped the staff, the Amalekites began to win the battle. Aaron, the brother of Moses and Hur, a companion of the tribe of Judah, helped Moses by assisting him as they held his arms and the staff up in the air long enough for Joshua to win the battle. Subsequently. Moses built an altar after the victory and called it: “The Lord is my Banner.” A hand was lifted up to the throne of God.
In the battlefield of your mind, strongholds are built to dissuade you from the almighty power of God. Sin becomes an insurmountable desire to substitute anything for God. Without the armor of God (Ephesians 6), one is a guaranteed casualty in the spiritual warfare that rages on every moment of every day while we live. The armor of God that the Apostle Paul describes likens to the armor that a Roman soldier would place on before battle. The belt on truth describes the holy Bible. The breastplate of righteousness declares the righteousness of Christ that a believer carries as Christ bore our sins and while He took on our sin, we took on His righteousness. The feet of peace signify the proclamation of the gospel and one lives it every day. The shield connotes faith, trust in God, Jesus, and the Bible. The helmet of salvation demonstrates victory to those who have become believers in Christ, they will spend eternity with Him in heaven. The sword is the word of God. Lastly, prayer (without ceasing) is a necessary weapon against powers and principalities of darkness.
Returning to the narrative in Exodus, God commands us to trust in His power. He alone has defeated the enemy and He alone can defend the believer from Satan’s crafty schemes. As trials and tribulations, pain and sufferings, inevitably come into one’s life, we need to have faith in the “staff of God” against all worry, despair, depression, and fear. If we cannot “hold our hands up “to the Father, asking Him for victory, we have two “Helpers” who can hold up our arms to Him; Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Jesus intercedes for us as we pray to Christ for help and He, who sacrificed His life for us, mediates for our supplications before the Father. In addition, all believers have the Holy Spirit in our hearts. He helps, comforts, and guides us to Christ. This is the promise of Jesus. Through Him, we as sinners, were reconciled to a holy God (the Father) through what Jesus did on the cross. His atoning sacrifice gave us grace and mercy to pray to God and that we’d be heard. This does not mean that all that we pray will be as we wish. Prayer is answered as God wills, not us. It is important to understand that while humans still have a sinful nature, we can fall prey to strongholds which can influence us in a very destructive way. Even believers can be influenced because, though inclined towards holiness because of salvation, they still continue to have a sinful nature. Possession, however, cannot ever be possible with a believer because he/she has the Holy Spirit. A house divided cannot stand against itself (Mathew 12:22-28), according to Jesus, so the enemy cannot take possession of a believer. For the unbeliever, that is a different story altogether and possession is possible and stories in the Bible clearly narrate these events as Jesus did cast out demons from unbelievers. In our daily struggles we put on our amor of God, relying on God to defeat strongholds and when we grow weary, we have Jesus and Holy Spirit to “lift our hands” towards the throne of God to fortify us against the enemy and his minions.