All too often, God’s people – who we’re told are meant to be more than conquerors – lie bloodied and beaten on the spiritual battlefield we call life. What they need is power, but they just can’t seem to find it. Well what if I told you that God has already provided you with all the power you need? IT’S TIME TO REPENT I want you to imagine a person who wants to become an elite athlete, whatever their chosen sport may be. This person sets out to become a great tennis player or footballer or track and field competitor and yet all they ever do is they sit on the couch eating chips and sweets and drinking sugar-laden soft drink. Would you expect that person to realise their dream of becoming an elite athlete on that sort of a diet and that sort of an exercise regime? Not likely. And yet that’s what so many Christians do. They want to live a life of spiritual victory in Christ and yet they fail to turn away from the things that are ruining their lives. Those things have a collective name in God’s Book – He calls them sin. Have a listen to the Apostle Paul’s take on all of this, Romans chapter 6, verse 21 to 23: So what advantage did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death but now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God the advantage you get is sanctification, the end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. For much of my life I shied away from God simply because I thought becoming a Christian meant living out some out dated, irrelevant bunch of rules that would restrict me and constrain me, a bit like a straight jacket. That’s the view that so many people have of being a Christian – you can’t do this, you can’t do that, how’s a person supposed to have any fun in this life? What surprised me though when I looked closer at it is that God only tells us not to do the things that are actually going to hurt us and hurt other people. And the list of do’s and don’ts, well it’s actually quite small in the scheme of things and yet still there’s always at least one of those that we want to hang on to in our lives, isn’t there? Listen up, there is no such thing as a small sin. Hang on to any sin and eventually it’s going to kill you, let it go and the reward is freedom today and eternal life for the rest of eternity. Over the last few days on the program we’ve talked a lot about the powerful transformation that happens to you and to me the moment we believe in Jesus. Our past is completely forgiven, as far as the east is from the west so far does God remove our transgressions from us. So much so that our past misdemeanours become completely irrelevant in God’s eyes and in God’s eyes we’re as pure and as blameless as Jesus Himself. That abundant mercy and grace is a kindness and a generosity that is simply indescribable and that kindness and generosity is actually meant to have a transformative impact on our lives, Romans chapter 2 verses 3 and 4: Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself you will escape the judgement of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Don’t you realise that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. Isn’t it funny how quick we are to judge others and yet how readily we find excuses to rationalise our own behaviour. Maybe it’s time for us to stop kidding ourselves. Other people’s sin, by and large, isn’t our responsibility but our sin is and one day Jesus will come back and judge the living and the dead, each one of us, Christian and non-Christian alike will stand before Him to give an account for our lives, our behaviour and our sin. Make no mistake judgement day is coming but right now God has done everything that needs doing, He has shown us every kindness, He has given us every opportunity to repent, to turn away from the things that we know are wrong and to turn our lives back to Him. The right response, the only response to God’s kindness is repentance. The right response, the only response to Jesus death on that cross is letting go of our sin and loving Him in word and in deed. Surely that’s not too much to ask, is it? And it’s not as though we’re powerless to change because God gives us the very power we need to leave that sin behind. He never takes us to a place where temptation is more than we can bear, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13: So if you think that you are standing watch out that you don’t fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with a testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. Let’s be honest we all struggle with sin, somehow each one of us has that one Achilles heel and one temptation, that one sin that we’re vulnerable to and doesn’t the devil know it. He waits for just the right time, when we’re tired, when we’re distracted, when we’re under pressure, when we haven’t prayed or opened our Bible for a few days or weeks and then whammo, he swoops in and he strikes. The result, we succumb to the temptation, we stumble, we suffer guilt, we suffer condemnation and we want to run and hide from God just like Adam and Eve did. What’s your Achilles heel of temptation and sin? What are you struggling with? Are you wondering what you can possibly do to overcome it? Well here’s a powerful promise from God, whatever it is He will never allow you to be tempted beyond your ability to withstand the temptation and He will always provide you with a way out. That’s Gods promise to you, He will always be there to help you overcome the temptation and that’s important because that sin robs us of the spiritual victory that He wants for our lives. That sin steals the very thing that Jesus suffered and died and rose again to give us, abundant victory. God’s thought of everything, of forgiveness, to be set free from the past and of the power we need to overcome the future. Yeah, God’s thought of everything THE POWER OF PRAYER For many Christians prayer is one of those optional extras. It’s something we fit in now and then when we can and it seems we’re especially good at fitting in a quick prayer when things aren’t going so well. ‘Oh God please help me, oh God please stop the pain, oh God when are you finally going to show up’? Sound familiar? Imagine that someone you love only ever talks to you when they’re in trouble, it wouldn’t make much for a relationship now, would it? I wonder sometimes if we don’t have a completely wrong view of prayer because the only sort of prayer that the Bible teaches us about is the sort that has powerful results. Let me say that again just in case you missed it – the only sort of prayer that the Bible teaches us about is the sort that has powerful results. Now when you think of it that way you have to ask yourself, so why do I keep banging my head up against a brick wall? Here’s how Jesus put it, John chapter 15 verse 7. He said that: If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you. In other words if we’re close to His heart, if we know what He wants then our desires will be aligned with His and in that context we can ask Him for whatever we wish and it will be done for us. That’s a powerful statement and when we live that out in our lives it yields powerful results. We’re in the middle of a series of messages called Your Road To Spiritual Victory because that’s what God wants for you, for your life, spiritual victory. And as I said at the beginning of this pro...

Released on 11 Sep 2022