WINNING THE WAR WITHIN

Not every temptation you face will be the direct result of a misplacement sense of security and significance. Those that are, however, can be dealt with by simply transferring your value system from the world’s standard to God’s.

Making the switch from your present set of values to God’s involves two steps. First of all, you must identify the things and people from which you draw your identity. I call this step of the process reviewing your life. It involves answering a series of questions:

1.  What do you fear the most?

2.  Who has the potential to hurt you?

3.  Who hurts you frequently?

4.  What areas of your life do you tend to over reemphasize?

5.  What circumstances make you feel really uncomfortable?

6.  In what or whom have you put all your hopes and dreams for the future?

When you prayerfully answer these questions, God will begin showing you the things and or people around which you are building your security and self-worth. When your behavior is controlled or at least highly influenced by forces other than God’s standard of behavior, things have gone too far.

A second step in making this switch involves renewing your mind to the truth. To renew your mind, you must remove the old ways of thinking and replace them with the truth. The truth is that all your security and significance is wrapped up in your relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Think through these questions:

1.   Who created you?

2.   Who chose you to live with Him forever?

3.   Who holds the power of life in His hands?

4.   Who is ultimately in control of all that goes on in the world today?

5.   Who sent His Son to die for you?

6.   Who promised He would never leave you?

7.   Who promised to be available at any time?

8.    Who has the power to bring about in your life all He has promised?

9.   Who has promised to structure your circumstances so that you will be brought to maturity?

10. Who has given you an eternal identity based upon His work?

11.  With whom, then, does your true security rest?

12.  What relationship is the true test of your significance?   

God created you, and He controls when your life on this earth ends. Along with that, His Son has promised to never leave. That being true, your relationship with God provides you with more security than any other relationship could possibly offer.

In regard to significance and self-worth, God loves you enough to apply His Son’s death on the cross to your sins. He accepts you just as you are. What you own, wear, drive, live in, or have in the bank holds no weight with Him. You are significant because He created you.

These are some of the truths on which you must focus if you are to break the power of sin in your life. What you view as your source will determine your course. There is no way around this principle. You can confess and promise and rededicate all you want. But until you are willing to transfer your sense of security and significance to your relationship with God, you, like the world, will spend the rest of your life trying to regain what was originally lost in the Garden of Eden. You will be a driven person, always looking for that thing or person to fill a void in your life that your Creator was meant to fill.

Begin today reviewing your life, asking God to show you the things and/or people you have allowed to replace Him. Think through the questions I have listed. Write down the things that come to mind. Then renew your mind to the truth about you and your relationship with God. In time even your emotions will change, and you will experience the freedom God originally meant for you to experience.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Pastor Maurice D. Carter