Never try to use your own power, knowledge and skills to accomplish God’s will for your life. I know a man who thought too highly of himself. He resisted God’s guidance. He thought that he was competent enough to manage his own life…alone. But he did not understand the ways of God. God had to show him. God was determined to use him. He was chosen. Just like you. You are chosen. God will never give up on you. God will take you to school. God will so that you might learn that it is God who doeth the work. You must learn to surrender your life, to yield to Him in every way. Then your strength comes. Your help comes. All you need comes to do the will of God by faith. You see, what God is trying to teach you is to walk by faith. Never rely upon yourself. Receive God’s words and step out in obedience to the word, but stay in the realm of faith. Keep all you do in the realm of faith and you will see the hand of God move in the earth. The greatest spiritual lesson one can learn on this earth is to let the self life go, come to your end, and then you can walk with God in the earth.

It is a serious thing to resist the God who wants you. You will never win. How long do you think that you can hold out? Just think back over your life and how far you have come. Do you think that you have made it thus far on your own power? No, God was there. He was right there at every turn. He was right there in the ups and downs. It is time to give up and surrender your all. It is time to get His word into you and to walk by faith. This journey will not be made on your own power. You must totally rely on the life of God within you. He will show you every step of the way. Don’t doubt now, just step on out by faith. Study the word daily. Get it into your spirit by day and by night. Then you will know when He is speaking to you. You will know when He is directing you.

Like Jacob, you got desperate. You even made vows. “Lord, I’ll do this, if you bless me.” “I’ll do that, if you just answer my prayers.” “Lord, I’ll go to church every Sunday and Sunday school too, if you just …” God did not want a vow from you. He wanted you. How many of you know that you are not going to be blessed by God with anything until He gets you? Now is time to give to Him your all, then the blessing will come. If you can be completely His, and can be proven to be faithful, then He will send the blessing into your life. If it were not for God discerning your true heart, there would be no hope for you. Be glad that He looks beyond your faults, your mistakes and failures to our heart. You could have gotten to your goal faster had you listen to God. You could have reached your heart’s desire had you gone about it God’s way. Surrender your all. Pour yourself out. And He will take what He created – that’s you – and form His image, His likeness, in you. then you can go forth manifesting the life of God in the earth.

If you could see what God sees; you see sin. You see weakness. You see a lowlife. You see a nobody. You see a failure. But God sees His son and daughter. God see somebody when completely yielded, He can use to bless the world through. People in the world, even some in the church can always see the worst in others, but God is always looking at what He has made. God always discerns the true hearts desire. And that’s it. God sees your heart’s desire. But you can not see what God can see. God is talking to somebody today. You want God’s blessings on your life. You have been crying, sometimes all night. But your tears won’t make God bless you.  Your troubles are great. You have been trying to do it your way. You told God what you wanted and you went about trying to get it your way. God told Jacob, “I am with thee, and will keep thee… I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee…”  How many of you have left God? You could not wait for Him to bless you so you walked off and left Him to do it your way, to live life your way. You thought that He was taking too long, so you walked off and left Him. It is time to come back to God. It is time to come back and live life His way. Say that, “I am coming home God”.

You could be the lowest and the weakest one among us today. You could have committed every sin in the book.  Every man in town may know you. Lust could be dripping off of your lips. But because God loves you, you still qualify…you still count. There is something in you that God can use, if you but give your life to Him completely. For with God, it is not what you have done but what He is going to do in you and through you. It is not your past; it is what He is going to do with your future, if you but give Him a chance. You could be like Jacob, a worm, but God took the worm and made him a prince; and he had power with God and man. Many of you messed up. Many of you did it your way. Many of you have kept walking, acting like you did not hear God.  You still have your pride. Your ego is still in tact. The only thing that is keeping you here — not your money, not anything good you are doing, not your position — but the fact that God loves you and He still wants to use your life.

What it all comes down to is this, what you set your mind on. Rom. 8:5-6 “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Do you want life and peace in that situation that you are going through? Then set your mind on the things of the Spirit. Do you want to overcome this thing that has held you bound all these years? Then be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And once your mind is renewed keep it set on the things of the Spirit. Do not let the devil and the world plant negative thoughts or as far as that matters, worldly thoughts into your mind. Do you believe there is something better in life for you, that there is a real work that God has called you to? Then with your renewed mind keep believing what God has said to you. Keep your mind set on it; expect it to come to pass in your life; don’t let any negative thoughts come into your mind and God will honor the person whose mind is set on Him.

The thing that makes the difference in your life is the word of God in your renewed mind. The things that take you up into what we call a new world when the devil wants you to stay on their level is the word of God in your renewed mind. If you learn to see what God sees and to say what God says when tried, tempted, attacked by the enemy; if you learn to see what God sees and say what God says when attacked in the body; if you learn to see what God sees and say what God says when going through trials…when walking through valleys, when nothing is going right in the natural, then what you see through the eyes of God and what you say out of your mouth from the mouth of God will come to pass. For it is not what the world says about you that is going to come to pass. But it is what God says about you that is going to come to pass. Your mind must be renewed to what God has said and stop letting the devil take your mind. Come on, repeat after me, “I have got to take my mind back.”

Spiritual battles can only be won by spiritual means. God has given to us spiritual weapons to use in the fight for our minds and for any thing else the enemy has stolen. Paul wrote in IICor.10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; What we have to fight with, to do warfare with against these principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, wicked spirits in high places are not carnal. They are spiritual and they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. So we can get our minds back by using the spiritual weapons that God provides. We can also win in the battles with the same weapons. We serve a mighty God. The life that He has given to us is a great life. Never stop reading the word. For in the word you will find all you need to overcome in this life. In other words, you will win in the battles of life. You will overcome. Do not ever give up nor give in. Stand. Stand on the word of God given to you by the Spirit of God. You are never alone!

Because many do not know the word of God, they try to fight their own battles – in carnal ways.  They try to overcome in self.  But the word teaches us that though we are in the flesh we do not war after the flesh.  This is spiritual warfare; and the first thing we take back if we are going to win in these battles is our mind.  For the only way the devil can defeat you, hold you in bondage, take what belongs to you – your kingdom blessings, make you his slave and prisoner for life is to hold under siege the control center of your life – your mind.  May I plant some spiritual knowledge in you today? Your mind belongs to you. God gave it to you. Not only that, but your body belongs to you, your spirit, will, imagination, conscious, everything given to humankind in the creation belongs to you. The devil and the world want what belong to you – so much so that they will deceive to get it and even fight you to get it. When Jesus came into your life, you received eternal life. You became a citizen of the kingdom of God. Thus you are to no longer think like the world, talk like the world, nor act like the world. You have a new spirit in you now. God has equipped you with all you need to live in the earth and advance His will and never return to a life of bondage again.

No one ever told us that our battles are spiritual battles. We have been fighting in self, in the flesh, trying to overcome the trials, the attacks, and the difficulties of life. How many of you are going through something, you are trying hard to come out of it but nothing you do seems to be working? It is a spiritual battle. One of the biggest tricks of the enemy is to keep you ignorant of his devices. It is a screen to keep you from knowing the truth. The enemy knows that if you knew that you were an overcomer; if you knew that by the stripes of Jesus you were healed, if you knew that no weapon formed against you shall prosper, if you knew that all things work together for good, if you knew that faith worketh by love, if you knew that the Lord will supply all your need, then nothing and no one could in any way stop you from having the joy, victory, peace and prosperity that is yours in Christ Jesus.