v.i.c.t.o.r.y?

I wanted to share with you a part of my devotional tonight, I hope it speaks to you as much as it spoke to me.
"You can not win if you refuse to fight. You are never going to win if you and I are just going to sit back and let the enemy come after our marriages- if you are married, our intergrity, our business, our homes, our relationships, our churches. If we're going to sit back, listen, he will come and take just one inch of ground after another until he's got everything that is precious to us. Will we sit back? Because if we don't learn to fight we are never going to win.We think somehow this is going to happen if we never engage in the battle. And it's not going to. We keep thinking somebody else is going to fight in our place. We keep hoping it's going to be a friend, or a pastor, or a leader that's going to battle for us.Let me tell you, there comes a time when it's just us.
A very wonderful greek word is used in Ephesians chapter 6 when it talks about our struggle not being against flesh and blood. The word that is used there is not a word for teams against one another, as much as we all need one another and want one another in the battle together, it's a word that means hand to hand combat.
There are times when as much as you want someone else to do the fighting for you, you've got to do it yourself. You've got to do it. There comes a place, i've become convinced of it through years and years of working particular with the theme of freedom over strongholds and bondage, that there comes a time when as much as everyone else has prayed for us we have to take up the battle ourselves. That nobody else can fight all the way, fight for you all the way to your victory. It just won't happen. No one can get you all the way there. People can pray that we'll become alert, that we will wake up to it, that we'll know where we've been had. People can pray all sorts of grace and strength of God upon us, but when it comes right down to it, if we're going to be victorious it will be because WE got up, and WE faught." -Beth Moore


It came from this website. The episode date was March 23,2011
http://lifetoday.org/video//?search=Beth+Moore

I had gotten to the point recently where I have completely stopped fighting for victory. Mainly because it seemed pointless to continue to wrestle with my flesh and strive for victory OVER AND OVER again... and failing at the hands of defeat.Tonight I was reminded of something very important: We CAN'T stop fighting. We CAN'T let the enemy win in our lives. Christ ALREADY has the VICTORY, we just need to CLAIM IT. So often we pray and we talk like we are PLEADING with God:

Lord, PLEASE. I can't take it anymore, I need you. I'll do whatever you want, just help me through what I am going through. SAVE me! Please Lord! I need you to rescue me again. I thought you rescued me last time but here i am again, same place. still stuck.

And it makes me wonder: Have I REALLY surrendered? Beth Moore was sharing before that passage about victory in God comes when realizing 1) who God is, 2) Who God says YOU are, and 3)walking in light of that truth. If I am who God says I am, chosen and set free, If I really believed this to be true, shouldn't it change how I respond to others? Shouldn't this change how I respond to myself? If I really, I mean REALLY, believed the Lord has set me free from my sinful nature shouldn't I be walking in that victory instead of cowarding in defeat and chosing to remain in defeat because it's EASIER?

Heart Check: Where am I at with my walk with the Lord?
Where are you at?











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