Obtaining Victory

Hey everyone -

I hope this finds you all well. I took the month of July off from several of my duties so that I could rest up a bit. Now that we're practically into September, there are some awesome things that I hope to be sharing with you all within the next few posts.

This Wednesday we will be talking about Victory; specifically tackling the question: "How can you have victory over your character defects?" Now I want you to stop for a couple of moments and think about how you have attempted to gain victory over your habits. Maybe your head is instantaneously bombarded with strong, self-imposed resolutions such as, "I am not ever going to look at pornography again!"; or, "I am going to get eat less and exercise every other day!!"; or even better: "I am going to wake up early and spend time with God!!!"

Now perhaps you're able to make these calls and then automatically follow through with them without much effort or help. It is my experience and my understanding that tells me that many times, we come across with these wonderful statements of good intentions; only to end up failing because we're not as strong as we thought; which only makes us even more shameful, depressed and/or angry; which then leads us to more addictive, compulsive behaviors and so on and so on.

Principle 5 is in my opinion, one of the most incredible principles that we rely upon. It says:

Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask Him to remove my character defects.

James 4:10 promises us that if we humble ourselves before God - assuming that we are relationship with Him - that he will lift us up. Will it be easy? Probably not, but God has yet to follow through on His promises. We, however, must first keep our end of the deal and submit to His power, which is much easier said than done.

Be sure to join us on Wednesday evening as our teacher tells us in much more depth how to go about obtaining victory and what it means to "submit to His power."

Hope to see you all there -
JH