INTRODUCTION
Attention
Greatness is God’s expectation of you. Note I said expectation of and not desire for you. It is what he expects or not what he wants to give you. He needs it to change the world.
Problem
In the question to achieve greatness, you have an enemy so you don’t often achieve it.
Orientation
To achieve greatness, you must defeat the enemy who opposes you.
Purpose
To show worldchangers how to defeat the enemy that stops them from being great.
Background
From the story of Paul we see a man who wants to do God actively resisted from doing it.
IDENTIFYING YOUR ENEMY
1. It is hard to kill an enemy you have not identified.
2. We think the enemy is the devil. He may not be THE real enemy of our progress.
3. Many make a living or excuse of fighting the devil. What if he is not the enemy?
4. To find the enemy you have to identify the battlefield.
a. The battle for success in life is not out-there it is in-here – in the mind, 2Cor. 10.4.
b. The enemy has to be there. But the devil is not in your mind.
c. The devil is defeated so what is holding you back, Heb. 2.14.
5. Paul describes the enemy
a. He is your member.
b. Les Brown, “If there is no enemy within, the enemy without can do us no harm.”
c. He is not a person but a law – principle, ideology, mindset, etc.
6. Illustrations
a. Who is the real enemy of the man’s life, is it the snake that bit him or the poison it left inside of him. Supposing this man kills the snake, is he free?
b. Israel saw their captor destroyed and yet desired to go back, Ex. 14.13, 31; 16.2. Who was calling them back? If they went back, how will they explain it?
c. If we fought the real enemy, we would have been further faster.
ACTIVITIES OF THE ENEMY
1. The enemy is the way your mind is not configured or programmed.
a. What you achieve comes from what we do.
b. What you do does not come from what you want to do or willingness to do it.
c. What you do comes from what you are bound (yoked, programmed) to do.
2. Two principles are working inside you.
a. The principle of your decision
b. The principle of your inclination/mindset
3. Wanting to do something can largely a waste of time.
a. Have you ever wanted to do something but find you couldn’t?
b. So why get excited when someone promises to do something.
c. This is why New Year resolutions don’t work and marriages fail.
d. Emerson, “Of what use is it to make heroic vows of amendment if the old law breaker is going to keep them.”
4. If you want to do something bind yourself to it. God even swears oaths.
a. Don’t trust someone to do something they have not bound themselves to do.
b. Don’t just make a decision of what you want to do, bind yourself.
OVERCOMING THE ENEMY
1. The stronghold consists of all limiting beliefs lodged in your mind from you infancy.
2. You fight stronghold with stronghold, bondage with bondage, yoke with yoke.
3. The battle is to reprogram your mind and create a new stronghold or bondage.
a. Jesus invites us to take on his own bondage. The yoke that will make us do good.
b. Use God’s word to reprogram yourself.
4. Reprogram yourself by repetition and reinforcement.
5. This is tough because the mind refuses the new. It sees the first as original and right.
6. You reprogram your mind by never letting what God tells you – vision, mission, goals, etc. – to leave your mind. You do that by
a. Meditation day and night
b. Renewing your mind daily
c. Never letting what God tells you depart out of your eyes
d. Binding the word on your hand,
e. Writing it on your walls, and doors and gates
f. Speaking of them everywhere.
7. Illus.: how long might you look away from the road when driving or take your hands away from the steering.
APPLICATION
1. David was anointed to be king. It didn’t make him king. It helped him stay focused on what he was chosen to do so that he will live in accordance with it.
2. Let’s anoint ourselves daily to stay focused on our assignment.
CONCLUSION
Only by programming your mind can you defeat the enemy. Programming is done overtime by repetition and reinforcement. One way to do that is by anointing yourself daily to remind yourself what you are called by God to do.
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