"How do I get victory"

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wyattearp Apr 26, 2006

Joe,This is the first post I have ever done in my life but your question "How do I get victory" is prompting my post. I hope this helps. To get victory over sin requires faith, "This is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith". Conversely unbelief keeps us from victory. I had allways thought God would do this for others but not me because I did not really believe that He loved me as He said He did. This was the source of my unbelief. I secretly held this doubt about Him all my life. Unbelief comes not from a lack of credible evidence but from a willingness to believe a lie. If He was not truthfull about His love for me than the fault was in Him and not in me. I had done all I could to try to persuade Him i.e. prayed for victory, but He would not do His part. The problem was He was not telling me my part was to pray, but my part was to believe. And not just believe something in general but to believe something specific. That He loved me and gave HIMSELF for ME. Joe I believe that when the Bible says the heart it means the will. So when God brought to my heart through a book I was reading that I was to believe His love for me really did mean me I willed right then and there that I was going to take Him at His word and would listen to nothing that sought to contradict His word. I didn't get half way out of the room before this thought came to me "That doesn't really mean..." and there I cut it off. Loved me means ME! My reply to your question "How do I get victory" then would be this. There is in you a willingness to believe something that is not true and/or an unwillingness to believe something God has said. I do not know what that might be but you do. Settle that once and for all."He that hath received His testimony hath set his seal that God is true". John 3:33

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W_D_J_D Apr 26, 2006

great response..... only thing i would like to say is to break up your post with dot points, paragraphs, breaks......dots where possible.great first post!

sermonindex Apr 26, 2006

wyattearp,I agree. Great post.I hope my contribution doesn't seem to complicate your message. The thing I would add on the matter of faith, is that for myself, I always had a lot of trouble believing everything God was saying to me; it didn't just hinge on one point as in your experience. And my will wasn't much use to me either. It seemed to will all sorts of things except righteousness. So, I asked for God to GIVE me 'faith', so that I could begin to believe. He did, praise His Name!Then, knowing it was God's faith that was working in me, opened up a whole new world, because it didn't matter if I struggled to believe, I just cast myself onto His faith in His word - knowing it had produced the whole of creation - and nothing seemed impossible ..... if He was asking me to lay hold on Him or His word for something specific. I have to stress here, I depend on the Holy Spirit to bring to my heart and mind, word from God, before I launch into depending on it. There is a verse in Mark which was a great help to me after I heard it expounded:Mark 11:22 And Jesus answering said unto them, 'Have faith in God.'This (I learned) can be read 'Have the faith of God', or, 'Hold the faithfulness of God'. These greatly increased my dependence on His faith. So, with regard to victory over sin, I also look to Him to give me an angle on how to pray over a problem area. Sometimes I ask Him to break the power of it (I only pray that once - not again and again.... because He has already broken the power of every bondage possible, through His death), to bring that universal victory into my private experience. Other times, if I sense my own unwillingness to deal with something, I ask Him to get me in a corner, because I know that when I've tried everything else, there will be only one way out - and that is through Him. Amen. Bless Him, He knows my heart wants to be right. But this only works if there is complete honesty on my side. I have to admit defeat, perhaps, several times, as I work through the alternatives. Now, this may sound like I'm messing around, but, it is a valid way of dealing with one's own heart before God, which He graciously allows; because otherwise, sin can be like a blob of mercury, slipping into another area of one's life, or dipping out of sight, only to re-appear, still unconquered. God knows I'm serious, if I let Him systematically dismantle my resistance. And the truth is, He is not only gracious, He is gentle and any pain is either unavoidable, or, my own fault..... it's not because God is trying to punish me for the sin.... (He's already punished Jesus); really, He's unearthing it to be dealt with for ever.

C

crsschk Apr 26, 2006

Welcome wyattearp,Believe you wanted this in the DO NOT RESPOND - unless you have victory over sin! thread.To respond to a posting, just click on the "Reply" button on the post you are reading and your reply will be inserted.You may want to copy and paste this into the post linked above. It keeps the discussions orderly and easier to follow. Thank you.

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wyattearp Apr 26, 2006

You are exactly right I did mean my post for that discussion. New guys, what a pain.