Have you ever had a thought show up in your mind and wondered where it came from?

Not a dramatic thought. Just a subtle one.

A thought about yourself.
About your future.
About your worth.

And before long, that thought starts shaping the way you live.

Fear changes how you make decisions. Anxiety changes how you see the future. Negativity changes how you see yourself. Most people never stop to ask an important question: Who planted this thought?

In week three of the “Deep Work” series, Pastor Rory explored one of the enemy’s primary strategies: planting lies in the mind until they become strongholds in the soul.

Jesus said in John 8:44 that Satan is “the father of lies.” That means deception is not just something he does — it is his nature. Pastor Rory pointed to Matthew 13, where Jesus describes an enemy secretly sowing weeds among wheat while everyone was sleeping. The enemy planted something destructive beneath the surface before anyone noticed it.

That is how spiritual warfare often works.

Not always through obvious darkness, but through subtle lies that slowly reshape how we think:

• “You’ll never change.”
• “God has forgotten you.”
• “Your future is ruined.”
• “You’re too broken.”
• “Things will never get better.”

The danger is that lies rarely appear completely false. They usually come wrapped in partial truth.

Pastor Rory used the story of Jacob in Genesis 37 to illustrate this. Joseph’s brothers dipped his robe in blood and presented it to their father. The coat was real.

The blood was real. But the conclusion Jacob reached was false.

That lie shaped Jacob’s life for decades.

He became fearful. Defensive. Controlled by grief. Even though Joseph was still alive, Jacob lived as though hope was dead. The lie became a stronghold.

Many people do the same thing today.

We build our lives around assumptions, fears, wounds, and false conclusions. We allow thoughts to grow unchecked until they shape our identity, relationships, and view of God.

But Scripture gives a different path.

In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul says we are called to “take captive every thought” and demolish strongholds through the truth of God. Pastor Rory emphasized that for every lie the enemy plants, God has truth that sets people free.

The process is practical:

1. Recognize the lie
2. Reject the lie
3. Replace it with truth
4. Retrain your mind around God’s Word

The goal is not pretending problems do not exist. It is refusing to build your identity around false conclusions.

The message closed with one of the most powerful moments in Jacob’s story. After years of grief, Jacob discovers Joseph is alive. At first, he cannot believe it because he had lived in the lie for so long. But when he finally sees the evidence of God’s goodness, “the spirit of Jacob revived.”

That is what God’s truth does.

It revives what lies tried to bury.

Pastor Rory reminded us that God is still working even when people cannot see it. While Jacob believed everything was against him, God was actually arranging restoration behind the scenes.

The same is true today.

You do not have to keep living inside thoughts that are destroying your peace, your faith, or your future. Wrong beliefs may build real strongholds, but God’s truth still brings real freedom — and His grace still writes new endings.