A Good Start In Life

And he was like:  aghhhhh! Whoo!  It felt good! (laughing) the devil stole my childhood because my dad was sexually abusing me.  I resented that for years, but then one day I decided I was going to be a kid in my old age (cheering) because I’m taking back everything the devil stole! And you can, too!  You don’t have to go around resenting the fact that you didn’t get a good start in life.  Just make your mind up that you’re going to have a knock-down, drag-out finish. (cheering) you say, “well, I just wish that I had an up personality like that.” (laughing) I decide how I’m going to behave; I don’t go by my feelings.  Amen? (amen.)

A guard is defined as a lookout, a scout, a bodyguard, a keeper or one who keeps. Do you think the president’s bodyguard has a casual attitude? “well, gee, I just hope nobody bothers the president today.” (laughing) or do you think… You see, a really good bodyguard doesn’t even just take action when there’s sudden trouble. A really good bodyguard watches for the trouble and they get so good that they can spot one person in a crowd of 5,000 people that they can already tell is there to cause trouble, and they’ll deal with them before the person they’re guarding ever even knows there’s a problem.  We need to be on guard against the devil. We need to be like eagle Christians. An eagle has tunnel vision. They can spot a storm coming miles away. We have discernment. We have wisdom.  We don’t always have to be taken unaware and shocked. “i can’t believe this happened to me.” well, why not?  The devil hates you. (laughing)

You cannot afford to have a casual attitude when you have an enemy who wants to destroy you. God is for you, but you’ve got to do your part. It doesn’t have to be difficult. Fighting the devil doesn’t have to be difficult. God’s given us what we need. Let’s talk about a few of the offensive weapons that we have. What about just some of these things we hear about all the time? The word, the name, the blood. If we’re not careful, even the name of Jesus just becomes so ho-hum.  The bible says that at the mention of that name, every knee has to bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. The name of Jesus embodies all that he is.  And when you speak the name of Jesus in faith… And see, that’s the thing; you can’t just tack it onto the end of your prayers like a magic charm. You’ve got to know what that name means and when you speak it, you have to speak it in faith. When you do that, all power is made available to you.

You know, one way we can share our faith with someone is to treat them with love.