Zion Chapel
Missionary Baptist Church

9:45AM - Sunday School
11:00AM - Worship Experience

Tuesday

6:30PM - Perfecting Class

Wednesday

There is no way we can follow God with 'self' in control. We must deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him (Luke 9:23). In order to be victorious in life, we must follow God. Tragically, most of us, though saved, do not know how to live for God.

A. What one is to be can only be brought about by the Holy Spirit (when we embrace the Holy Spirit to lead us to a higher purpose) not by what we choose to do or not to do. We must submit to the Holy Spirit to impart what we need to know in order to walk in victory. It is foolish to think you can start with God to get saved and then go back to the flesh to stay saved. (Galatians 3:3)

B. We didn't perform works to get saved; so we can't perform works to stay saved. God pronounces righteousness unto people not by their works but by belief and faith. (Romans 4:5)

C. As long as the devil keeps us thinking that the power source is in us, he can defeat us. What it took to save us is the same thing it takes to keep us saved (John 14:6, Romans 8):

1. The focus is Christ.

2. The object of faith is the cross.

3. The power source is the Holy Spirit, not 'self.'

D. To live victoriously, we must remember the following:

1. Stop trying to not commit acts of sin, but rather start understanding how the sin nature is to be controlled. Then and only then can you live victoriously over this sin nature. Realize that a sin becomes sin long before the act itself; so find the root cause. If the sin nature is not properly controlled, acts of sin will rise up - no root, no fruit. (Romans 7:15)

2. There is no possible way to live a saved life without Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We must go to Calvary daily (take up our crosses daily). (Galatians 1:11)

3. The Holy Spirit is given to us to root out all sin from our lives. We can only please God with what pleases Him, not with what pleases us (do what God wants us to do when He wants us to do it, not what we want to do or when we want to do it).

4. The cross is the power of God because that's where our sins were paid. At that moment, the Holy Spirit was given the ability to work mightily in our lives.

Every believer has a two-fold problem: self and sin. The cross is the solution to that problem. The cross is an offence because it: shows that man cannot help (redeem) himself, shows how wonderful God is, and is our only way to God and to Heaven.