The podcast episode centers on the theme of living a victorious Christian life, as emphasized by the speaker's reflections on biblical narratives, particularly from the book of Joshua. He expresses gratitude for his family, illustrating the importance of support and faith in one's community. The speaker draws parallels between the struggles faced by the Israelites and the challenges that modern Christians encounter, highlighting the necessity of prayer and dependence on God in overcoming life's obstacles. He warns against the deceptive tactics of the enemy, asserting that spiritual vigilance is essential for maintaining faith and integrity. Ultimately, the episode serves as a reminder that God's desire for each individual is to lead a life of purpose and triumph through faith and daily spiritual disciplines.

Takeaways:

• Speaker A emphasized the importance of living a victorious Christian life, which is rooted in faith and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
• He reminded listeners that Christianity is not merely a religion defined by rules, but a relationship with God who loves unconditionally.
• The speaker discussed the necessity of prayer and dependence on God, highlighting that neglecting prayer signifies pride and a lack of reliance on divine guidance.
• He warned that the enemy uses deceitful tactics, urging listeners to remain vigilant and to recognize the subtle ways Satan can lead them astray.
• The episode underscored the concept that God's desire is for every Christian to achieve greater spiritual heights, often referred to as 'higher ground'.
• Speaker A concluded with a powerful reminder that mistakes and sins can ultimately bring individuals closer to God if they seek forgiveness and restoration.

And the three young men in the center there are my three sons.

I'm just so thankful to my sons who faithfully serving in our church.

And that was my daughter in law playing the piano and I think she was singing too.

I think, I think I heard her and just so proud of her and her parents in our church and just, just a blessing.

Blessing.

Some of you got to see my kids, you know, grow up.

So yeah, especially the youngest one.

We'll talk about the youngest one for a while because that's who we pick on the most.

He was the strong willed child.

So yeah, we have teachers in here who taught Micah.

Yeah.

His toddler.

Yeah.

Turn if you would in your Bibles to Joshua chapter nine and continue our series and really along our theme for the year, higher ground.

Think about in Joshua, chapter 14, 45 years after Caleb was promised that mountain, 85 years old, said Lord or he said to Joshua, give me the mountain, Lord, give me the mountain.

And the analogy or the metaphor, the teaching, the application is again that we as Christians, we are.

Our purpose that God has for us as born again children of God is to live a victorious life.

That's what his desire is for every child of God is to live an abundant life, a victorious Christian life.

And so we compare Joshua, the book of Joshua to the book of Ephesians in the New Testament and we see again the importance of Christians realizing their purpose again, that is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to walk in his steps, to have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

I was reminded again this week that Christianity is not a religion.

It's not a set of rules.

There's not a set of rules by which we gain eternal life.

Or there's not a set of rules by which we gain love from the Lord.

No, no.

Now Jesus Christ, the God of the universe, loves us unconditionally.

Unconditionally.

Salvation is not by works, lest any man should boast.

It's by faith.

It's by grace, through faith.

And so we talk about again higher ground or that victorious Christian living and reminder of that.

I'm not going to read this whole chapter because we already have some time is flying.

But look at Joshua, chapter 9, verse 1.

And it came to pass when all the kings which were on this side Jordan in the hills and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea, over against Lebanon, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusites, I just call them all the ITE people heard thereof in other words, they heard what God had done.

They heard what the children of Israel had done.

And of course, they here give credit to Joshua.

But Joshua didn't do it.

The Lord did it.

Defeating Jericho and defeating AI, crossing the River Jordan.

Verse 2.

That they gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and with Israel with one accord.

And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to AI, they did work wily.

There's your word.

Wily.

And went and made as if they had been ambassadors and took old sacks of upon their asses and wine bottles and old and rent and bound up, and old shoes and clouded upon their feet, and old garments upon them.

And all the bread of their provision was dry and moldy.

And they went to Joshua unto the camp of Gilgal.

I just want to point out where they were at.

We talked about how that Gilgal was going to be the home base.

It's kind of the place they would come back to after every battle.

After every battle.

So we see that after chapter eight, they made their journey back to Gilgal.

All right?

Remember, they were in Shechem and between the two mountains.

And so here they're back in Gilgal.

And the Bible says, here, and look back there, Gilgal.

And said unto them, look at verse six.

And they went to Joshua into the camp of Gilgal and said unto them, to the men of Israel, we be come from a far country.

Now therefore make ye a league with us.

So here's the Gibeonites.

And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, peradventure ye dwell among us, and how shall we make a league with you?

And they said unto Joshua, we are thy servants.

And Joshua said unto them, who are ye?

And from whence come ye?

And they said unto him, from a very far country, thy servants.

By the way, it was 25 miles away.

They didn't come from a far country.

They came 25 miles away.

Servants.

Because the name of the Lord thy God.

For we have heard the fame of him talking about God and all that he God did in Egypt and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond Jordan.

Sihon, king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, which was at Ashtaroth, by the way.

Og king of Bashan was taller and bigger than Goliath.

His bed was 14ft long.

It was nine feet wide.

He was of.

The Bible makes it clear.

He was of the giants.

He was a big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big man.

Verse 11 Wherefore our elders and all the inhabitants of us, saying, take victuals with you for the journey and go to meet them and say unto them, we are your servants, therefore now make ye a league with us, make an alliance with us.

This is our bread we took hot from our provision out of our house on the day we came forth to go unto you.

But now behold, it is dry, it is moldy, and these bottles of wine which we filled were new.

And behold, they be rent, you know, again talking about the leather pouches or leather wine holders.

And these are our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of a very long journey.

And the men took of their victuals and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord.

Verse 15.

And Joshua made peace with them and made a league with them, alliance with them to let them live.

And the princes of the congregation sware unto them.

And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league with them, that they heard that they were their neighbors and that they dwelt among them.

We'll stop there.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we do pray that you would again bless the reading of your word.

Lord, may we be reminded today of the enemy and may we keep guard.

May we not be gullible and fooled by Satan's devices.

Lord, may you give us the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of life that we need to overcome, to live victoriously.

We thank you in Jesus name, Amen.

God's desire again for every Christian is that you live a victorious life.

God's desire for every person is that they would come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I hope this morning you know you're saved.

I hope this morning that you have been rescued, that you have been rescued from the penalty of sin.

And realizing what I'm saying is that there is a penalty for sin.

The wages of sin, the Bible says, is death.

But the gift of God is eternal life.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we can have eternal life through Jesus.

He died in our place.

He died for us.

He paid the sin debt for us.

He was our substitute on the cross.

He shed his blood for us.

He shed his blood for me and for our sins.

Well, how do we get saved?

How do we have eternal life?

By trusting in him.

By transferring your trust from any other source.

In other words, by transferring your trust from maybe a baptism that you think is getting you to heaven, maybe it's good works you think that are getting you to heaven.

You think that when we get to heaven that there'll be a big Scale up there.

And your good works will go on one side and your bad works will go on one side.

And.

And if your good works outweigh your bad works, then you get to go to heaven.

That's not what the Bible says.

Again, it's not of works.

Lest any man should boast.

Salvation's by grace, through faith.

It's freely given.

It's not earned.

It's a gift of God.

The Bible says, not of works.

And so understanding that it's not St. Peter sitting at the gate deciding who gets in, who has to stay out, that's not it.

By the way, Peter doesn't have the keys to death and hell.

Jesus Christ has the keys to death and hell, not Peter.

Peter does not have the key to heaven.

I hope you're saved this morning.

I hope you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, he desires that that's the purpose for everyone's life.

He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

The blood of Jesus.

The blood of Jesus.

He died for all.

He died for all.

At the moment of salvation, we begin a battle.

At the moment of we accept Christ as our Savior, a battle begins.

A spiritual battle begins.

Salvation happens in a moment when you truly trust Jesus Christ as your Savior and you ask him to save you.

You repent of your sins and understanding and knowing that my sin put Jesus on the cross and I'm asking him for forgiveness of that sin.

And Lord, I believe you lived and that you died and that you rose again.

Lor, I trust you for my salvation at that moment that you truly transfer your trust to him and him alone.

By faith you're saved.

Eternally saved.

But also at that moment begins a process not concerning justification and salvation, but sanctification.

In other words, it's God working in us.

That little song that I learned as a kid.

He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.

Took him just a week to make the moon Took him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars how loving and patient he must be he's still working on me There really ought to be a sign upon my heart don't judge me yet I'm finished.

I'll be perfect Just according to his passion by the message.

Okay, what's sad is all those songs are still stuck in my mind, taking up room that could be used for other stuff.

He's still working on me.

The Bible speaks about him working us, doing his good pleasure he's working in us still.

In other words, that growth process as a Christian, from growing from a babe in Jesus, being born again, to being the toddler and being a teenager.

And that analogy, for us to understand our Christian growth process, it's a process.

It's a process.

Romans, chapter eight, we quoted here just a few weeks ago, that God works all things together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

But the next verse of verse 29 says, whom he did predestinate to what?

To be saved?

No, to be conformed to the image of His Son.

In other words, as Christians, we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

That should be our goal.

We want to be like Jesus, to be a Christian.

The word Christian means imitator of Jesus or imitator of Christ again following in his steps.

And that is the process by which God is continually working in us, working through us, and again from the inside out.

It's an amazing thing how God continues to work on us, conforming us, he says, into the image of His Son.

That was, by the way, that was a sculptor chiseling away at a sculptor.

Did everybody get that one?

I had to explain it, didn't I?

No.

He's sculpting us.

God is conforming us into the image of His Son, that selfless Savior.

Faith and obedience, lived out by the power of the Holy Spirit, is the key to victory.

Winning any war requires planning and strategy requires discipline.

And we as Christians should have a plan.

And let me put it this way.

Again.

The Christian life is a daily process.

Take up thy cross daily and follow me.

The inward man is renewed day by day again.

You don't have to wait till January to have a New Year's resolution.

No, in the Christian life, you can start.

No, you can't.

You do start over.

Every day.

Every day and every day.

There ought to be a plan in place in your life.

A game plan, a strategy.

There should be some daily disciplines there that enable you and encourage you and strengthen you to overcome and live a victorious life.

These disciplines do not necessarily guarantee success.

You can memorize all the scripture you want and get up in the morning and read your Bible 75 times.

It doesn't necessarily mean mean success in your life that day.

Now your heart makes that decision.

We, again, understand those disciplines put us in a position where the Lord can give us victory.

These disciplines, again, do not guarantee success.

The enemy.

The enemy.

The enemy is the world.

The world system.

The enemy is the flesh.

You've seen that little cartoon that says, I met the enemy, and it's me.

And I would say if you.

You know, there used to be a show where a little kid used to say all the time, he said, well, the devil made me do it.

Well, we blame a lot on the devil, that it's just us, our flesh, but the enemy is the devil.

These three enemies are described over and over again in the Bible.

Again, the devil uses our flesh and uses the world.

I mean, the devil's the orchestrator of it all.

And man is he conniving, deceitful.

The Bible describes him as a roaring lion seeking whom they devour.

And we use.

I use that verse a lot.

But I always need to remember that Bible also describes him as a snake.

And a snake can be far more dangerous than a lion.

Lion roars, makes a lot of noise.

The snake, you know, sneaks up on.

You hear the hiss or you hear the.

If you live in Texas.

And here we see a classic example of the wiles, Wiley, the wiles of the devil.

So we see here the victory may bring a more organized enemy.

So the first place, the very first verses, here we see the Canaanites said, all right, let's put away our tribal squabbles.

You know, they were infighting, fighting each other.

And they set those things aside and said, all right, let's come together and let's go and battle against Israel.

And setting those things aside, the word had spread.

I want to remind you that after a great victory many times, and it doesn't even have to be of a great victory, but battling and blessings kind of go side by side.

If you're attacked, the Bible says you should take joy in that.

How in the world can you do that?

How do you take joy in being under attack?

Well, it's a good sign that you're being tempted or tested from the right and from the left and from the back and from the front.

And James said, in James 1:2, he said, Count it all.

Joy.

When you fall into diverse temptations, when you fall into various testings and various again, you know, detours in life, it means you're doing something.

It means you're going forward for the Lord.

It means you're in the will of God.

And the devil hates that.

And he's going to throw everything he can at you to try to divert you and get you off course.

He uses many of his wiles, his trickery, in fact.

If you haven't been tempted or tested lately, why not?

Maybe you need to go to God and ask him why you haven't been, you know, are you going forward?

Are you living victorious life?

Are you?

Amen.

Ask the Lord to show you.

A church not under attack means it's not doing nothing.

That's the way you say in Texas, not doing anything.

Many times, a church that's not under attack, most of the time, when a church is not under attack, it means they're not doing anything to cause Satan to fight against it.

You know, if they're just a social club, why should the devil fight against them?

If they're just all coming and hanging out and, you know, no, no, no.

He fights against the churches that are spreading the gospel because he hates it.

He hates the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he hates that a church would make that their number one purpose.

Instead, we see churches all over the globe whose primary purpose is not spreading the gospel.

I had a lady walk up to me last night at the Fall Fest.

I don't remember her name, but she said, I love this because we hung a lot of door hangers around our community.

And we got a few negative comments by way of email.

In fact, one really interesting one.

But last night, this lady walks by me and says, thank you for putting a door hanger on our door.

She said, you're the only church I know of who's actually in.

Her indication was that it's propagating the gospel that is evangelizing the community, who's getting out there and doing it.

And I can tell you, a church that's doing that, the devil hates it.

And there's enemies.

Constant and constant struggle and a constant battle.

And we as a church need to stay focused.

We did not let petty squabbles distract us or divide us.

Remember, oh, Nehemiah, in the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah had the opportunity to go back to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

He heard the walls who had fallen down, and he got permission from the king.

And the king gave him everything he needed to rebuild the walls, the material and everything he needed.

He goes back and he begins to rebuild the walls.

And didn't take long.

Sanballat and Tobiah, right?

Y' all know, most of you know the story.

These enemies from without began to spread rumors that Nehemiah was trying to make himself king.

They began to spread rumors to the king, Artaxerxes, and there in Medo, Persian, hey, he's trying to overthrow.

He's setting himself up.

But he wasn't.

They were just trying to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

And if it wasn't Sanballat and Tobiah, the enemy from without.

It was the priests and some of the leadership inside the walls.

It wasn't just the waves and the wind coming in the boat and the water coming in the boat.

It was the guys in the back of the boat drilling holes in the back, in the bottom of the boat.

You're going, really?

I've got to contend with this from without and this from without and this from without.

And then I got people in the back of the boat drilling holes in the bottom of the boat.

Listen, we need to be careful.

That's the enemy.

That's the devil.

He wants a church to be divided.

He wants a church to lose focus.

He wants an individual to be divided, if you would.

He wants an individual to lose focus and keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, keep our focus on the Lord, stay united.

Don't be one of those people.

You know, we got enough issues outside the church to have church, you know, stuff inside the church.

Thankful for a good church, thankful for a church that can put on a festival like we did last night.

In fact, this lady commented, she said, I don't know if any church that get volunteers to go out and do door hangers.

I had a guy call, we had a guy call several years back and said, hey, would you tell that company that's distributing your flyers to stop putting them in our door.

I said, oh.

And then he also accused him of stealing shoes off the front porch.

Ms. Eva, you remember this one?

And we knew who did that, who hung the door hangers on that street.

And we're like, yeah, it wasn't.

He didn't take your shoes.

And that was a volunteer.

That was not somebody being paid to do that.

And this guy finally figured out it wasn't our.

Yeah.

Anyway, he had to eat his own words.

He did apologize, but thankful for volunteers who will get out, who will propagate the gospel, who will again put door hangers in the community, who will support missionaries around the world, who will keep the main thing, the main thing.

And boy, the devil hates that.

We got to move on.

We see here the inhabitants deceitfulness again.

Israel was going forward.

They had some great victories and they wanted to go forward.

But we have the Gibbonites.

They heard of Israel's success and the Bible says they dealt with them wily.

That means deceitfully or craftily or again, they just clearly lied.

They only lived 25 miles away.

They were pretending to have traveled a long ways.

Old shoes, old clothes, moldy food.

Man, does this not describe for you Satan as you think about what Satan does and can do.

And he is our adversary.

That's what Satan, the name Satan means.

He's the deceiver.

That's his title, Lucifer.

He knows we're on guard.

If you're going forward, if you're trying to live with Jesus and you're trying to live a holy life and you're trying to stay focused, the Devil knows that.

And many times he's not going to come to you at your front gate.

He's going to be deceitful and try to get you from behind.

He's going to come at you from a different angle.

He's not going to come for you from an obvious direction.

No, no, no.

He's going to deceive.

He's deceitful, he's slippery.

And that's why again, Ephesians chapter six says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the what wiles of the devil.

It's the same word.

Wily wiles of the devil.

The trickery, the deceit of the devil, the wiles, the artful method of persuasion.

To trick so as to deceive or snare.

Ever built a trap for trying to catch a rabbit?

You get the box with a stick, some bait underneath.

The box.

Never works, but as a little kid you thought it would.

Maybe it worked for you.

I have add.

I'd set the box up, do everything and then I'd just walk off from it.

Or I would stay there like maybe, you know, 35 seconds, but I'm not patient enough to wait.

Mousetrap.

Think about it.

By the way, here recently I have a barn and I have rats about this big.

And I was looking for old fashioned rat traps.

I mean the big ones, you know, they would kill a person.

And you know what, a lot of places don't sell those anymore because some kind of they're not humane.

I had to go like to the old Ace Hardware, finally found some of these rat traps this big, put them out and it was remarkable how well they work.

Bam.

Done.

Snare that bait, brought that rat in.

And that's what Satan does.

He puts the bait out.

He puts the snare out.

The art of persuasion.

He's being deceitful.

And man, when you're not looking, bam, it comes down on you.

We need to be on guard, we need to be aware.

He attacks where we are vulnerable.

He knows our weak spots.

He uses discouragement.

He uses again moral failures and frustrations.

And I could go on and on and on.

He can use possessions to.

Again, to entice you.

He uses all sorts of methods and things.

He can use position to entice you, a person, whatever it may be.

We ought to be aware of his devices.

But many times it's not that obvious.

Many times it's subtle.

Maybe he whispers in your ear things like, you're too committed, you're too zealous.

Remember when David danced before the Lord as they came back with the Ark of the Covenant?

And his wife looked down and saw David dancing before the Lord leading the ark.

He had taken off his royal robes, and his wife looks down and the Bible says she disdained him, that he would stoop to the level, that he would dress like a commoner, and that he would dance and be zealous before the Lord.

And sometimes the devil whispers in your ear.

Maybe.

Maybe you just need to pull it back a little.

You know, maybe you just a little too much, loosen up a little bit.

Give it.

Give an inch.

Compromise this or compromise that and.

But I'm telling you, you can't give him an inch, by the way.

You can't give your flesh an inch, much less Satan.

Maybe he appeals to your common sense.

Maybe he appeals to just rationalization, that faith is irrational.

Maybe he gets to try to get you to doubt what you believe in and what you put your trust in.

Can I remind you that who you're listening to by way of podcasts and other things is.

You got to be careful.

The Bible makes it very clear that the devil is.

He is not.

He is not.

He is not this guy who's red with the little horns and the pitchfork and the tail.

No, the Bible says he's an angel of light.

In fact, the Bible says he was a beautiful creation and he absolutely comes to us in that form and again deceives us.

First John 4.

Again, verse 1 says, Try the spirits.

In other words, we need to be careful.

Whomever we're listening to, whomever we are allowing to influence us.

Do they line up with this?

Try the spirits.

Whether they be true.

You look to that verse up, it's First John 4.

1.

And we see this in this passage, if you've noticed, in chapter 9, verses 9 through 13, the Gibeonites use.

They use Bible.

They're like, we've heard of your God and how your God.

And they began to use religious terms.

Listen, just because somebody's using religious terms doesn't mean.

Doesn't mean they're right.

Doesn't mean they're of God.

Be careful A lot of.

Lot of religion today, a lot of Christianity today are wolves in sheep's clothing.

Do they line up with this?

Search the Scriptures.

The Bible says.

That's why we encourage you to bring your Bibles or encourage you to bring your Bible on your phone and listen not only to the preacher as he's preaching, but.

But look at the Scripture again.

Satan uses many devices.

Maybe it's, he says, whispers in your ear, one drink won't hurt you.

One try won't hurt you.

One.

One click of the mouse won't hurt you.

One look won't.

Won't hurt anything.

One word, man, our tongues get us in so much trouble.

One date.

Well, I can go out with so and so, or I can go out with so and so.

I know they're not a Christian.

I know they're not saved, but, you know, it'll be okay.

No, the Bible says don't be unequally yoked together.

How could together be.

I encourage you young people.

Listen, you date saved people.

You date other Christians.

By the way, Bible says not to be unequally yoked together.

It means a saved person shouldn't marry a lost person.

I'm just putting it out there.

You find yourself in a mess, making a mistake, and that's what Israel did.

They found themselves in a mess and they made a mistake.

They sinned.

They sinned, but what happened?

The Lord intervened.

Aren't you glad for second chances?

Say, I'm only glad for second chances.

I'm glad for 95 chances because I need every one of them.

Say, well, is it too late?

You know?

No, it's not too late.

Mistakes made in battle does not mean you lose the war or that you have to lose the war.

God is able to overcome any sin or mistake in your life if you'll just turn them over to him.

By the way, he could take those mistakes and make them a blessing.

You have to go read the rest of the rest of the chapter.

But we know at the end that Joshua makes the Gibeonites servants.

Servants of what?

Well, to cut wood and to supply water for the temple.

That's a lot of work, by the way.

Sacrifices were made morning, noon and night.

It's a lot of work.

The Gibeonites were made to serve.

In other words, who they deceived.

Who the Gibeonites deceived, they were now servants of.

They were humiliated.

Hmm.

I tell you, one mistake, one sin can bring about a lot of destruction.

But I am thankful that God is well able to overcome our own stupidity.

Good.

I'm so thankful for that.

By the way, if you read about the Gibeonites, later down the road, the Name changes to Nihams.

500 of them come back to help rebuild the temple from Babylon.

They were still around.

Apparently they became believers.

It's an amazing thing to give you some more application and we'll be done.

I'm thankful that God empowers and strengthens us by way of His Holy Spirit, that His purpose for us and his goal for us as Christians is to live on higher ground.

And if we are to do that, then we need to have some daily disciplines in our own life relying on the Holy Spirit.

Understanding and knowing the enemy is important.

And we need to be careful of the wiles of the devil and be alert.

The Bible says, again, put on the whole armor of God.

I did not read verse 14.

We did read verse 14.

What did verse 14 say?

It says they did not pray and ask God for counsel.

Why did this happen to them?

Because they did not pray.

They did not pray.

That's why it happened.

Why were they deceived?

Because they did not pray.

Why were they tricked?

Because they didn't go to God for counsel.

Again, we need a reminder here.

What happens when you neglect prayer in your life.

It's a sign of pride.

Going to God and praying to him is a sign of dependence upon Him.

And there's so many decisions that we reason out and we maybe use common sense and we should be praying about those decisions.

And the devil, he'll use that on you.

He'll say, well, this is a small matter.

This is a little thing.

You don't need God on this.

No, no, no, no.

We need the Lord.

We found that out at AI.

Israel had already found that out at AI.

They were defeated at AI not just because of the sin of Achan.

They were defeated at AI because of a lack of dependence upon God, a lack of prayer.

Prayer is the muscle that moves the arm of God.

And prayer is one of the most neglected things in our Christian lives.

We need to be zealous when it comes to having a daily discipline, a daily plan, a daily strategy in our own life.

And that includes daily prayer, praying to him on a daily basis, spending time with the Lord, walking with the Lord, not trusting our own judgments, but waiting on Him.

If you don't have time to pray for some decision, then don't make a decision.

If you haven't prayed about a decision, then don't do it.

If you haven't gotten peace about a decision, then don't make the decision.

Don't do it until you do receive that peace from God.

I'm so thankful that God can take a mistake and make them a blessing, and that's what he did.

You say, well, how can God take these sins and mistakes and make a blessing out of them?

Well, because it's in those mistakes and those sins that we go to God.

And if you're going forward, if you're wanting to live victoriously, if you're wanting to live the abundant life, then it's those mistakes and those sins that bring us to God to pray for forgiveness first.

John 1:9 as we pray for forgiveness, we feel the weight lifted.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And we feel the weight lifted and we will feel closer to the Lord.

The fellowship is restored.

And as this happens time and time again, because we're just sinners saved by grace, we will find ourselves getting closer and closer and closer to Jesus Christ.

And through these things, our memories will help us.

That in that mistake and in that sin and in that, you know, that problem that I created that God was able to take that and bring me closer to him to make my relationship with him sweeter.

That's possible as we see in this story.

If you will go to Him.

This happened because of lack of prayer again.

The memories of my failures the memories of my failures drive me closer to the cross.

The memories of my failures and past mistakes drive me to the cross daily.

Because I need him if I'm going to live a victorious life.

Let's all stand, have a verse invitation.

This is.