Strength to Overcome

My morning devotional today really hit the nail on the head in regards to our current culture that has access to so many things to satisfy any craving anytime. It reminded me of how we are taught often that we can make it through most anything when we rely on God instead of solely relying on ourselves. That we find strength when we stop relying solely on ourselves and rely on God’s strength. However, what does that really look like? I mean really look like practically speaking. I guess I always interpreted it to mean through prayer and while that is true there is so much more to that.  

The key to tapping into God’s strength, wisdom, guidance and knowledge is through more time with Him. The key to overcoming sin and bad habits, that leave you feeling shameful and defeated over and over again, is to feed your soul and mind with things of God MORE than you feed you physical desires and brain. We find the strength to overcome strongholds when we starve our earthly desires and feed our spirit and soul through prayer, scripture readings, wholesome books, movies, music, etc. An illustration that helped me get this a while back is if you have two dogs, one is a black dog and one is a brown dog. Which dog will be stronger? Of course, the one you feed the most. So we must ask ourselves, what are we feeding more? a. My soul b. My flesh Take that line of questioning a little further. Who do you follow more, which determines, who or what leads you daily? a. God b. Satan “...choose this day whom you will serve...as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord .” Joshua 24:15 You can’t spend each day allowing all kinds of things into your eyes and mind, even seemingly innocent things, and not spend ample time in God’s Word to counteract it and expect to have the power to resist temptation. Satan works overtime to trip you up, so don’t be too sure of yourself and ability to not stumble. Because that area right there is Satans bullseye because He knows it’s your unprotected blindside. We must live each day plugged into the True Power-Source to find strength in Him, to find Victory in Him, otherwise we are only being fools being lead astray by little daily compromises. “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for (idols of any kind) images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Romans 1:21-23 “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.” Galatians 5:16-18