OUT OF EGYPT

     And after God had delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt and on their way to the promised land, the most difficult problem God had with the Jews was trying to help the people to get the religion of ancient Egypt out of their minds and to trust in Him.  The Lord also had to teach them how to dispose of both human and animal waste as well as to wash their hands.  They did not know God, nor simple hygiene, because of their association in an idolatrous nation for over four hundred years.
      Please consider a simple parallel between your mind and your stomach:
     Your stomach does not know the difference between good foods and bad foods, for this decision you make is from the responsibility of your taste buds; therefore, you prefer the foods that thrill your taste buds.
      If you will consider your mind as your stomach, neither does your mind know what is good or bad for it to receive.  This is the responsibility of your eyes and ears, which are the taste buds of your mind.
     Going further, if your mind has received a steady diet from the table of this world's systems through your mind's taste buds, you will develop a worldly mind and therefore continually return to the table for more and more of the same menu because your eyes and ears have been trained by what you have seen and heard.  Deeply embedded in your mind, however, these systems root and grow and thereby become a self-defense system against the Gospel of Christ, which you will likely resist at first.  You have been trained how to think and speak by your systems.
      Back in Egypt, God had to do a mighty work in to bringing down the strongholds of Pharoah before he would let the people go.  In the same way, God must do a mighty work in us to bring down the strongholds of our minds in order for us to see Christ and to follow Him to the promised land. 
     This process can take time, which is not easy for the Lord to do.  Nevertheless, the Lord is faithful:  He keeps digging at the roots of our unbelief, removing rocks and stumps and all kinds of trash that we have collected that have blinded us from the truth of Himself.  He never gave up on me and I have faith to believe that He will not give up on you.