Episode 253-More than Conquerors

One of my main goals is to be a victorious Christian. I want to be an overcomer. I want to be able to conquer whatever difficulties come my way. Romans 8:37 tells us that in all things we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. But what does that really mean? First and foremost I know I cannot be victorious without God’s leadership. That means I have to lean on Him every step of the way.

Paul, in Romans 8:35, asks the question. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Then he goes on to list a bunch of things that are real fears people have. These are things we are afraid might cut us off from God and everything we love.

As I share this list that I compiled from various versions of the Bible, think of your own life. Have you encountered any of these things: trouble, hard times, tribulation, calamity, anguish, hatred, distress, hardship, persecution, harassment, famine, hunger, homelessness, deprivation, bullying threats, backstabbing, destitute, naked, danger, peril, sword, threatened with death, or the worst sins listed in Scripture.

To be victorious, to overcome, to be a conqueror, I can’t focus on difficulties that are happening or may happen. I really have to follow 2 Cor. 10:5 which tells me to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” In other words I have to intentionally take authority over my thought life.

In this episode we talk more about how to do this and how to be victorious in our lifestyle change journeys.

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Episode 252-God Is For Us

Do you believe God is for you? Are you living that our in your everyday life? Are there times you think you are all alone and have to protect yourself because you feel vulnerable?

Romans 8:31 NIV asks a really poignant question. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” The issue for us is believing completely that God is for us. As this passage continues it uses words that remind us of a courtroom scene.

Romans 8:32-34 NIV: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.“

In this scene, God Himself is our judge and Jesus is our defense attorney. The question asked is really a no brainer. If the Judge, is for us then who can ever be against us? Really believing this, though may take some introspection on our part.

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Episode 251-What is My Destiny?

You can probably quote from memory the main verse we’re talking about this week. Romans 8:28 NKJV, “We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”

We might see this verse as meaning God is behind the scenes pulling the strings and we are all just puppets. We also focus on the word good thinking this means that nothing bad will ever happen to us. So we think, why do we need to pray if everything is going to work out anyway? Why do we need to try to do what He wants for our lives, if it’s going to turn out great whatever we do? Still we realize that bad things have happened to us, so what does this verse really mean anyway?

Romans 8:28 is talking about our belief in the promise of what will happen if we are in Christ. It might be said this way: We have God’s sure promise that everything will work out for good because we are called by God. Our confidence is based around our belief in God and His calling on our lives.

This verse is here to comfort us and let us know that even the bad things which happen to us are things God can weave into our lives and use them for good. I have seen this in my own life. I have made so many blunders and mistakes on my journey. Eating myself towards an early grave was one of those that took up a huge part of my adult life.

For more watch the podcast.

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Episode 250-Towards Glory

As we’re running this race called life it’s good to remember that we are headed towards glory.

‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬Suffering is part of living in our very mortal bodies. But suffering for Christ, either physically or in any other way, is not losing. It is winning. Romans 8:18 tell us that “what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.”

2 Cor. 4:17 NLT echoes that. “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!”

I’ve know some great moments here on earth, sweet, intimate moments with my husband, loving moments with my children, beautiful moments exploring God’s creation, awesome times celebrating with family and friends. Multiply those by 1,000 and it still doesn’t come close to the glory that will be revealed to us one day.

1 Cor. 2:9 NLT says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

It’s almost as if God is pulling back the curtain just a little to give us a taste of what is coming. In the great scheme of things, the suffering, the disappointments and pain that we encounter today are not such a big deal because we are in a race to the finish line. We are headed towards glory!

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Episode 249-Run the Race

We have a race to run while we are here on earth. It’s leading us towards a heavenly prize God already has waiting for us. Of course, we know we have an enemy that does not want us to run the race or obtain the prize.

One big obstacle our enemy throws in our way is condemnation. He makes us feel condemned or ashamed, guilty, fearful, unworthy, forgotten, useless, good-for-nothing.

God, though, tells us in no uncertain terms that we are not condemned. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1 NIV says. Or as TPT puts it, “So now the case is closed. There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One.”

As a Christian weight loss coach, I talk to a lot of women who feel condemned and like there is no hope for them because they just love to eat or feel like they are addicted to certain foods like desserts. They try to stop. They know God wants them to get healthy, but they just can’t.

When I was in this position and weighed 430 pounds, I felt condemned, ashamed and guilty. I worked through that but it took some time.

If you are feeling condemned, remember what Paul said in Philippians 3:12-14 NLT, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

We don’t live in the past so let’s step out of shame, guilt, worry and fear, forgive ourselves and then start running the race. That’s what Jesus is calling us to. His goal is for us to gain the victory prize He has waiting for us.

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Episode 248-The Conundrum

A conundrum is a difficult or confusing problem or question. It’s like a mystery we can’t solve. In Romans 7, Paul shares a conundrum that I identify with and I expect if you are honest, you do too.

Like any problem or mystery, I want the conundrum to be solved in 30 minutes like a good tv show. I don’t want to be left hanging to find out how things are solved for a week! Good or bad, I want it brought to end right now! However, for years I had no idea how to solve this issue that kept turning over and over in my mind.

Paul is really bold about his issue. He doesn’t tell us what the exact thing is he is referring to, but in Romans 7:19 he tells us straight out: “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”

Why can’t I do anything right? Why can’t I do the things that are pleasing to God? I want to do them, but many times I end up doing the opposite. Why is that? These are the questions Paul, is grappling in this chapter. And they are the questions we all struggle with.

None of us are perfect, even Christians, and we shouldn’t purport to be. In this chapter Paul makes that clear. He also tells us how the law shows us our sin, why we struggle with sin and what we can do about it.

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Episode 247-What War?

We are in a war. We may not realize it as we walk through our daily lives but we are. Romans 5:17-6:23 talks about this as a war between the power of sin and the greater power of God’s wonderful grace.

If we belong to Jesus, sin has no legal control over us. We are free to follow God. However, we are just as free to be entangled again in the pull of sin.

Romans 6:6 TPT: “Could it be any clearer that our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power? For we were co-crucified with Him to dismantle the stronghold of sin within us, so that we would not continue to live one moment longer submitted to sin’s power.”

The whole purpose of Romans 6 is to remind us that we can choose to disentangle ourselves from the power of sin walk freely following God.

Romans 6:23 MSG: “Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.”

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Episode 246-Patient Endurance

If you’re like me, somewhere along the line in Sunday School you learned the nine fruit of the Spirit which include: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are all great virtues we should be incorporating on our Spirit-Led Transformation journey.

As I was reading Romans 5 this week, I realized that as Christians there is one of these virtues we rarely talk about. That might be because along the way someone somewhere told us to never pray for patience because if we do something difficult will happen that will teach us the hard way how to be patient. How to endure.

After the list of virtues, Galatians 5:23 TPT says: Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless. In other words, all nine virtues are things we should desire to have in our lives in limitless quantity, especially patience.

We may not like learning to be patient, but apparently God feels it something we need. In Romans 5:3 we read a bit about why this is. “With joy let us exult in our sufferings and rejoice in our hardships, knowing that hardship, distress, pressure and trouble produces patient endurance.”

All the bad stuff we have to go through in this life helps to produce a virtue God wants us to possess. We need patient endurance to get through whatever is going to be thrown our way in this life.

Hebrews 10:36 TPT really sums up what this entire episode is all about “You need the strength of endurance to reveal the poetry of God’s will and then you receive the promise in full.”

As always the action steps and challenges for this lesson will be in the Spirit-Led Transformation course along with the video and transcript. This course is only available in Overcomers Academy.

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