Before you were born, you had a target on your back.  Demonic strategy was already being formed and executed so that you come into the earth at a deficit although you possess tremendous value.  Demons use the 7 mountains of cultural influence to hinder you from discovering who you are and what you’re called to do.  And they also scheme to hinder you from actually doing it once you know it.  

They use lies and misplaced value systems to keep you at arm’s length from the truth.  Sometimes this takes place through sincere people who are doing the best they know, but they’re sincerely wrong.  And at other times it takes place through people who knowingly deceive others to take advantage of them.  In both cases, truth is sabotaged by lies.  Here’s the general order this takes place in:

1. Family- both generational curses & inaccurate family values

2. Religion & Education- religious indoctrination & education from the state contrary to biblical values 

3. Entertainment & Media- technology with an antichrist message and fleshly value systems, and slanted journalism

4. Government & Business- legalized sin, prohibited freedom, dishonest politicians & businessmen, and the love of money

As you go from infancy to childhood to adolescence to adulthood, you experience additional layers of cultural influence that war against any truth you may have embraced thus far in your life.  

Satan is known biblically as the father of lies and a deceiver.  It’s who he is and he’s good at it.  He uses a web of lies through cultural influence to push back on the influence of truth in your life.  True freedom is only experienced as you progressively come to a revelation of truth by dismantling the lies.  

The Holy Spirit comes to lead us into all truth.  This means unraveling the lies we’ve unknowingly embraced as well as revealing the truth of Kingdom Culture we’ve never known.  Without dealing with the lies we could never experience the freedom that truth brings.  To the degree you allow God to set you free from lies, to that degree you’ll understand who you really are and can carry out your purpose on earth.  

Truthfully, there are many believers today who know who they are but have become lethargic in the process of pursuing their own freedom and therefore lack the capacity to fulfill their purpose.  Seeing potential but not being able to achieve it is frustrating.  

Sometimes the process of breaking free from lies can be painful but it is well worth the struggle.  I would venture to say that most believers and leaders never reach maturity because they don’t fully participate in their own deliverance from these layers of 7 mountain cultural influence in their lives.  

Perhaps this is what Hebrews 12:1 means when it says “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”  

If we don’t lay aside things that weigh us down, we won’t have the strength to fulfill our course.  So the million dollar question is this:  what is weighing you down?  What ways have you been lied to through these 7 mountains of cultural influence?  Perhaps it’s time to get serious about your role in partnering with the Holy Spirit to unravel the unnecessary baggage so you can be free to run your course all the way to the finish line.