Breaking Free: Discover the Victory of Total Surrender

God surpasses our dreams when we reach past our personal plans and agenda to grab the hand of Christ and walk the path he chose for us.  He is obligated to keep us dissatisfied until we come to him and his plan for complete satisfaction.

Five obstacles block our access to the benefits God wants for us: Unbelief, which hinders knowing God Pride, which prevents us from glorifying God Idolatry, which keeps us from being satisfied with God Prayerlessness, which blocks our experience of God's peace Legalism, which stops our enjoyment of God's presence

God will sometimes allow things to get bad enough that we will be forced to look up. Victory always begins with a cry for help. When we come to the end of ourselves and cry out for help, amazing things happen.

When you are trying to discern whether God or Satan is the author of a hardship, one of your best clues is whether sin is involved. God never entices us to sin, nor does he employ sin or perversion as a means of molding us into the image of Christ. Impossible!

The enemy's hope for Christians is that we will either be so ineffective we have no testimony, or we’ll ruin the one we have.

We can be saved, the Holy Spirit can dwell in us, and yet we can continually live in defeat because the enemy can outwit us if we do not depend on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.

A Christian is held captive by anything that hinders the abundant and effective Spirit-filled life God planned for him or her.

We have a crippling tendency to forget what God has done for us. For a while, we’re humbled. Then, if we do not guard our hearts and minds, we begin to think we must have done something right for God to have been so good to us. Therein lies another road to captivity. It is the road of legalism.

When we’re most exhausted, we’re expending more energy fighting the enemy than we are seeking God's presence. More than you seek to win, seek Christ! More than you seek to defeat the enemy, seek his foe! More than you seek victory, seek the Victor!

To be free in Christ, our high places will have to fall. We must be willing to take a stand against idolatry.

Beloved, whatever we are gripping to bring us satisfaction is a lie—unless it is Christ. He is the Truth that sets us free. If you are holding anything in your craving for satisfaction right now, would you be willing to acknowledge it as a lie? Even if you feel you can’t let go of it right this moment, would you lift it before Him—perhaps literally lifting your fisted hand as a symbol—and confess it as an idol? God does not condemn you. He calls you.

We glorify God to the degree that we externalize the internal existence of the living Christ. A life that glorifies God is not something we suddenly attain. As we spend time in the presence of God, His glory both transforms us and radiates from us.

Every human being longs for unfailing love. Lavish love. Focused love. Radical love. Love we can count on.

I don’t believe God allows surrendered hearts to continue to long for things He will not ultimately grant in one way or another. Our disappointment with God is often the result of our small thinking.

Let's consider a series of lessons that lay the groundwork for our discussion of breaking free. I will list them as nine lessons about captivity and freedom. LESSON 1 The people of God can be oppressed by the enemy.

No amount of determination will bring freedom. We’re going to learn to be victorious by surrendering our lives completely to the Spirit of God, not by gritting our teeth and trying harder.

We live sacrificially when we’re outside the will of God, giving up all sorts of things that were meant to be ours in Christ. We want to claim those things back, but in the process we’re going to be putting a few other things on the altar.

We’ll probably never learn to enjoy our storms, but we can learn to enjoy God's presence in the storm!

Please don’t be dismayed if you feel you are not already living a life that glorifies God! He never sheds light on our weaknesses or shortcomings for the sake of condemnation (Rom. 8:1). God makes us aware of hindrances so He can set us free!

Psalm 63 offers insight into the satisfied soul. Look at David's descriptions of satisfaction: “My soul thirsts for you, / my body longs for you, / in a dry and weary land” (v. 1). “Because your love is better than life, / my lips will glorify you” (v. 3). “My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods” (v. 5). The most obvious symptom of a soul in need of God's satisfaction is a sense of inner emptiness. The awareness of a “hollow place” somewhere deep inside—the inability to be satisfied.

Christ came to set the captive free—no matter what kind of yoke binds them. He came to bind up the brokenhearted—no matter what broke the heart. He came to open the eyes of the blind—no matter what veiled their vision.

In part III we’ll explore some personal matters. We’ll take a look back for the right reasons. We’ll see how strongholds take such deep root in believers’ lives. Only by facing some ancient ruins and broken hearts will we find the freedom God promises.

God desires to change us from the inside out—renewing our minds, starving our self-destructive tendencies, and teaching us to form new habits.

Godliness is not perfection.

In Psalm 51:1, King David cried out, “Have mercy on me, O God, / according to your unfailing love.” Please receive this truth: God cannot be unbiased toward you. He cannot set His love for you aside and make an objective decision. Once you become God's covenant child, He cannot see you through anything less than a loving Father's eyes.

When God's glory appears, it just can’t help but interrupt any routine.

The ability to believe God develops most often through pure experience. “I found Him faithful yesterday. He will not be unfaithful today.

God is calling you a mighty warrior. This study is about God's teaching us to live like the mighty warriors we can be in Him. Are you sick of deceit and ready to learn how to live like a mighty warrior?

Oh, God, awake our souls to see—You are what we want, not just what we need. Yes, our life's protection, but also our heart's affection. Yes, our soul's salvation, but also our heart's exhilaration. Unfailing love—a love that will not let us go!