Someone can decide they are going to become a world class athlete, and they can work and work to win that title. Bruce Jenner trained with an unheard of determination to win. Perhaps the greatest things that they have to overcome are the sore muscles from working so hard, as well as the sacrifices of the discipline required. Athletes of this caliber cannot go and do what others do because they have a goal that compels them. But when you are a Christian and you are trying to overcome yourself, it is an entirely different beast. Am I telling the truth? It is amazing to me.

Maybe before you got saved, you were a person of great discipline. Then you decide that you are going to go deeper in God. The enemy will come against you in every way he can to break that disciplined nature of yours so that going on in God becomes so difficult and so full of challenges that you have to give your undivided attention to doing it or lose the battle. You have to resist yourself more than you have to resist the devil. You have to refuse to settle for second best, or even third or fourth best. You have to refuse to be lazy and apathetic. You must fight against your will and against hurt feelings. The enemy loves to fill you with hurt feelings against the Lord or against someone else in the Church so that you will give up this conquest of self. He never lets it be easy.

You might say, “Well, why does God allow that?” You are cycling in Christ's victory. He overcame the flesh, the devil, and the world. He has already overcome. You have to come to a place where you recognize that this battle is the Lord's and you must only learn how to cycle in His victories. This is the key. Satan will make those victories so hard to achieve that you will want to give up. Only Jesus knows how to overcome your flesh and soulish nature. Only He knows how to overcome the devil and the world in you.

I used to ask Jesus, “Lord, why is this quest so difficult? Why can't I do it? Why can't I decide what is going to get healed emotionally or physically and what isn't? When You show me something that needs to be healed, why can't I decide how that's going to happen?” I sincerely wanted the answers to these questions because I was feeling very frustrated. He said, “Your soul is very fragile, as is the case with all men. Only I know how to work through the hidden corridors of your soul and heal you without hurting you. So I will lead you by a way you know not, so that you will not interfere with My work.”

I cannot tell you how many times He has taken me through the path of victory. Sometimes it has been very, very difficult, and other times it has been quite easy. I can tell you that every time He has taken me through the path of victory and He finally got taken care of what He was really after in my soul, I look back and realize that I did not even know that we were dealing with that particular issue. I thought we were dealing with thus and so, but we were not. He also took care of many other issues along the way so that He could take care of this big issue. Then I always praise Him as I think, “Lord, You're so smart, so wise!”

He knows how to overcome the flesh and the sinful nature in you. He knows how to overcome the devil and He knows how to overcome the world, but you have to do it. You have to set your will to stay in the cycle of victory—that is your job. You have to look for the wisdom of the victory in His Word. He will speak to you. He will guide, lead and help you. He will show you what you need to know because no one wants you to gain the victory more than Jesus. You do not want it more than He does. He wants you to have the victory over your self-life more than you could ever want it. Remember that.


You were created as a spiritual being. You did not just become a spiritual being when you accepted Christ. The fact that you are a spiritual being is why, deep inside, you have been searching for a long time for this spiritual connection. Because you are a spiritual being, you must have a connection to a spiritual kingdom. Either you are connected to the satanic kingdom, or you are connected to God's Kingdom.

I really do not know many people who are really true atheists, but even if you have been able to convince yourself that you are one, deep inside, you want to experience a connection with the realm of spirit. In fact, you are actually connected with the kingdom of this world. When God begins to lead you out, and He connects you to Himself, you have the higher connection that your soul needs. Then you have found what your soul has been looking for from the day that you were a little child. You have an innate need to be connected because you are a person of the spirit.

When you become connected to the realm of the Kingdom of Heaven, it begins to breathe life into your soul. It is a life that is beyond anything you have ever experienced before because it is not of this world; it is of the Kingdom of God. You are connected with the life-giving Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, to bring you into perpetual life. Now, those words may mean much or little to you depending on how long you have been saved, but you cannot imagine what it means to have the life of God breathed into your soul from the Spirit's perspective. The reason you cannot imagine it is because if the light of that reality were breathed into you upon your salvation, your soul could not contain it. It would explode.

It is similar to a newborn infant's experience of light. Have you ever seen a newborn baby opening its eyes for the first time? The first time it opens its eyes and it sees light, it closes them right away because the light is too bright. They say that a baby can see images, but it cannot see clearly when it is first born. The eyes have to develop the capacity to discern the images that are before it. This is like the life of the Spirit. Our spiritual eyes have to be developed. Our spirit being has to be developed, not only in knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and such as that, but it has to be developed to be able to stand before the Presence of God, let alone to contain the Presence of God within.

When you are freshly born again, you are like the little baby that God has to develop and nurture. Then you grow to be one year old in the Spirit, two years old, ten years old and so on until maturity, if you so desire. Most people never get beyond two or three years of age in the Spirit before they get to heaven because they never put the effort in to really come to know God. For that to occur, He must dispense the grace for this work to be done.

To be continued next week…

In Him,

Nita