No Excuses: Bury the Past, Grow On Purpose

Spiritual growth doesn't remove temptation. It raises resistance. Here's the thing. Paul's or James says, each person is tempted. He's talking about we will be tempted. And what are we going to be tempted by? Lured and enticed by our own desires. What you desire in your heart is what you will be tempted on. Temptation loses strength when it reckon when we recognize it early. Mature believers don't entertain temptation. We interrupt it. We say, nope. Not today, Satan. [01:01:51] (41 seconds)  #InterruptTemptation

I think a lot of times we try to fight the flesh first and we just kinda use the spiritual side as, oh, okay. I'm a Christian. I'm good. We need to flip that up. I'm a Christian. I walk by in the spirit and the rest will come. So as the spirit gains influence, the flesh loses its authority. [00:54:57] (22 seconds)  #WalkByTheSpirit

Well, it that this is the part that we have to do something. We have to do the work. We have to put the groundwork into it. So we can't just do nothing. So the first point of today is growth is a choice before it's a change. So what you choose spiritually determines what you resist physically. Spiritual choices shape our inner strength. [00:45:00] (23 seconds)  #ChooseSpiritualGrowth

First thing that I like to do is just wake up and say, alright, lord. What what do you want me to do today? What what's what's on your agenda? Because here's my agenda. But how but what's your agenda? And when you do things like that, you'll start to find out that god will use your agenda for his glory. [00:52:49] (21 seconds)  #StartWithPrayer

I can say no to sin. If I can work that hard to push physically through something, I can say no to sin because I've never walked away limping when I've said no to sin. I may have walked away limping when I've said yes to sin. I may have walked away with my tail between my leg and say, you know what? I lost because I sent but I've never walked away limping from from defeating the the temptation. [01:00:55] (31 seconds)  #StrengthToSayNo

So Jacob buried his past. Israel moved on. And today, I think some of us in this room, we need to bury our past. I think today, some of us need to bury the things that we love, but those things that we love that may get us in trouble, like the the fleshly desires of our of our flesh, those things that we need to move on. Those excuses that we make to keep us back. We need to bury that and move on. So, this year is the year that we drop our excuses. We move on. [00:40:03] (31 seconds)  #DropYourExcuses

Because if you don't feed the spirit and if you don't start out feeding the spirit and walking in the spirit, you will never be able to get rid of those fleshly desires. You'll never be able to stop craving those donuts or the pizza or whatever. Maybe it's alcohol or a cigarette. Whatever that is that you want to stop without feeding that spirit first. [00:54:01] (29 seconds)  #FeedYourSpirit

So, we don't we can't overcome temptation by focusing on the temptation. It's not a secret that I struggle with a food addiction. I love food. And not just food, but a lot of food. And a lot of the bad food. And I will tell you that if I think about food all of the time and I think about the bad food all of the time, it's always up here in my mind and it's always tempting me. And then when it's always up here in my mind, that's when I can start making those excuses and self justifying why I deserve it. [01:03:57] (44 seconds)  #DontFeedTheTemptation