How to Break Free from the Battle Within (And Win It Daily)

What it means to make Him Lord and full surrender

the battle of your flesh. Choosing not to let it win. I mean choosing to meet my body in submission. I'm not going to let my flesh pull me down into strongholds. I think every thought captive that my flesh wants to do. And I got to put it down against the Word and figure out which one I'm going to choose.

It's every thought, every decision. He was like, you can't do that about everything. No, you really need to. So I've been asking people everywhere, what's it mean to make Him Lord of your life? What's that even mean? What's full surrender mean?

Yeah. Is that me? It's full surrender. It means he's Lord. You know, it's like the Step Three. You know, I turn my will and my life over to the God of understanding. Like, I just checked the box when I did that and I was never coming in the ring. Yeah. I don't know what that meant to turn my will over to something else. It's not get high. Yeah.

That's how it starts, right? Yeah. And so I think that, you know, that's what I tell people that are in that stuff. Like go back and really do Step Three. Figure out what that means to say, "I'll surrender." It's what it is. It's like I'll turn my will over to his will.

Walking out Lordship in daily decisions and relationships

I mean, to me, that would mean any important decision during the day, any, any, I don't know, anything that like you felt like maybe at the moment the Lord wasn't giving you guidance on you would be referring back to what Scripture says about it. So just walking out from the things that you know, right? And not being about yourself in any way, thinking about what the Lord has to say about it, what he has said about it and what's best for others in almost every situation.

Today we were talking about how the trial is literally just picking yourself over the relationship with someone else. But not, not even like in a hurtful, intentionally harmful way, just like so. If we're going to go eat something like me just being like, well, I'd rather eat this. And so that he only gets one piece of food or, you know, he only gets two for Chinese. Like that's selfish.

Which is probably we don't think we're like the trial is like stabbing somebody in the back for real. Like you know what I mean? Like stealing their car. But it's not—it's simply choosing yourself over the relationship with someone else. Yeah. And that's the same way within it. Like that's what it was. That's what being lower boils down to everything.

First Peter today. It's like he goes on in 1 and 2. I think the beginning of 2 he's like, get rid of all hypocrisy, jealousy, this and that. It's like none of that is the outward sin that we're talking about. That's this stuff on the inside. And so to make him Lord, like what you were saying, if I'm making him Lord every decision, so if you stabbed me in the back, if you betray me, I don't—I gave up my rights to get mad at you and treat you like crap.

Forgiveness, the King’s standards, and spiritual practice

Because if he's Lord, I have to go by what he did and what he said. If he's my King and I'm following his rules and the King of heaven, then I forgive you. Seven, seven, seven, seven. Yeah. And I love my hidden peace and pray for those. The person you—I don't get to—well, you don't know what they did. I don't get all those excuses because I've made him Lord.

That's, you know, the Matthew 5, 6 and 7 teaching. Yeah. It's the hard gut stuff that if he's Lord, we have to look at and transform into walking it out. If he's not, we're still. That's just the way I say. I think it's pretty easy to slip in and out of that Lordship thing.

It is. On a daily basis, even moment by moment, you can slip in and out of that. What about us? Yeah. It's freeing. No, if you really live that way. I live a fence-free. That's why I love one of the things that that I'm on top, like I said, like I gave up. I gave him subscription to life issues. Just gave him up, subscribe to him.

I don't get it right to check the box of being offended and manipulated and all that. Either way, I love you. And I'm a look at the spirit behind it. I mean, Jesus is like, forgive him; they don't know what they do. So in the moment, in the moment, it's hard. It is because we battle at least.

Spiritual warfare: taking thoughts captive and pulling down strongholds

And I think that's even what he says. And first you think he's like, I don't look at it to see. But it's like making a choice not to act on that. Making a choice to the battle of your flesh only is choosing not to let it win. You know, I mean, choosing to, it's my policy that I will, you know, meet my body in submission. I'm not going to let my flesh pull me down into strongholds.

His weapons are mighty. Second Corinthians 10, you know, by pulling down strongholds. I think every thought captive that my flesh wants to do. And I got to put it down against the Word and figure out which one I'm going to choose. You said, shoot, it's every thought, every decision. It's like, hold on.

If he was like, you can't do that about everything. No, you really need to. So going back to strongholds. When we talk about pulling down strongholds, what does the word strongholds mean to you in Scripture? I don't know the Greek word for that translation, but what does strongholds mean specifically to you?

Beliefs as strongholds and replacing lies with God's truth

To me, stronghold is something that you've locked into your mind. So it's a way of thinking. It's what you really believe. So they're going to be good strongholds and bad strongholds. If the Word of God is your stronghold, and that's what he's saying, like, if that's your stronghold, then nothing can change it. So you take a kid—we've told him, if it's my kids, my parents may never—but if I tell my son, Santa Claus is real, you got to fight him too. And now they change that, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And everything. It's something, so it's a stronghold. They've been told it. They believe it. And so like, you know, in an addiction—well, you're always going to be an addict. There's a stronghold. I can never get really free. Best I can do is be sober. But I'm always going to be an addict. No, that's a total lie. It doesn't line up to the Word of God.

Who the Son sets free is free. And he's my stronghold of the Word of God for that. And so you have to be able to pull down the old stronghold. I think a lot of people try to work to dismantle them, but then never build new ones. You don't know what I mean. So you have to take what you did believe and replace it.

I think my counselor in prison said it will—they're little tags we hang in our mind. It's truth. It's like, I believe this is the truth. Okay. Well, if the Word of God says something different, you have to pull it down and then you have to replace it with what the Word says. Because your brain functions in normal things, it consistently will go down a track. You have a neural pathway; it forms a right-of-way, or almost like a road, and you have to dismantle that thing.

Renewing the mind, discipleship, and craving the Word

Every time it begins to come up, you have to stop it and shoot it on another path. And it takes a while to shoot it on the path before it becomes new. You could be trying to rewrite a 30-year thought process. It's hard to do. So the longer you've had it, the more you have to renew your mind. Really, you have to. That's why discipleship is important. That's why fellowship.

But it's not just a Sunday morning thing. You have to engulf yourself. And 1 Peter, he says, you know, crave the Word like pure spiritual milk, like a baby does, until it transforms you and matures you. You know what I mean? And so you have to get into that thing constantly. I mean, yeah, kids—do I have a 10-year-old? Well, same table. Was you around when he was little? Yes.

Okay. So how often did he want to dive on a bottle? One of his all the time. Every two to four hours. You know what I mean? Like do we crave the Word that way? Do we walk—this is what I think. I think when you get born again, you do.

Keeping spiritual hunger alive and handling dry seasons

You know, I think the question really is, how to keep that fire lit? How to keep that hunger stirred? Yeah. And I've noticed that my spiritual hunger will flame up at certain times throughout my life. And it's almost like an opportunity for me to seize it and chase it. It's almost like, and I'm like, oh, I can feel it. And if I don't, it like it'll dwindle back. Like, it's weird.

And I'm like, did I miss that? Like, was that the Lord prompting me or popping that scripture now because it snowballed at one point in my life? You know what I mean? And it really, I was burned for a minute. And it's, um, I think when that flame—now, not that my desire to know Scripture, to know the Lord has diminished anyway, but there's a difference in just generally wanting to know more, you know what I mean, and to walk further with the Lord and then that burning.

Yeah. That like, that takes me back to my first love, burning like that. When you first experience the Lord in a way that you never had. And sometimes I'm like, I wish, I really wish I could get back to that. Well, that's why in Ephesians he likens it to marriage because it's like when they get married, the honeymoon season—everything's good. You know, intimacy is really good.

You know what I mean? And then life happens. But it drives me crazy when you talk to people who've been married 15 to 20 years and they're like, oh, well, that doesn't even happen anymore. Yeah. I mean, that was, yeah. It's like, why not? Where's the passion, though? You know, I mean, because it becomes normal and mundane, and we get used to it and take it for granted, I think.

Practical rhythms: worship, personal time, and trusting God's presence

And so you have, you know, in a marriage, I mean, you live together, got kids, life gets connected. It's hard to keep the same driving passion you had when you were first married. And so you have to find ways. This is why I think, you know, getting together and going on trips together and fellowship and having men's conferences or something—outside of the big things—little things, too, that you can just do with the Lord. And then having your own personal intimate time with the Lord every day is vital.

If you don't do that for a while, then it's like, I don't know. This is all right. You just kind of snowball away from the Lord. So let me ask you something. When you have your personal time with the Lord, do you do it in the morning or in the evening? And I do it a lot, but the morning I start out with you.

When you say you have super, super intimate time with the Lord where you can feel his presence, you feel like he's speaking to you, the Holy Spirit's moving in prayer time, or if you're doing a little bit of worship, then you have other days where you can read and read and read and pray and pray and pray. What do you do when you start to have more days of that than more days of feeling?

Combatting dry seasons with rooted truth and practical habits

It's a good question. I know we're not—we don't base things off feelings. We don't base things on feelings. We base them on what we know the Lord is. But the fact of the matter is, feeling the Lord, his manifest presence and feeling the prompting of the Holy Spirit does make a difference in your life. So when you don't for a while, you can act like it doesn't affect you, but it does.

So how do you combat those dry seasons? I had this conversation with a brother that I just talked to for the first time yesterday. He reached out to me, lives in Hampshire County. We had some really good talks. And it's the same talk that we had. So it's like you have—this is where the stronghold has to be rooted in your brain.

So to know that even on the days I sit with him—I'm trying to teach my five and six year old this now—because sometimes he comes in the room and we do like five minutes of worship and five minutes of prayer and five minutes of the Word within the night. I do. And I try to get him to sit and listen to the worship, not really saying every once in a while those are high-energy breaths. I'll put him in the fast and let him dance. But lots of times, two or three times a week, I get him to sit.

Knowing God is present even when silent, and mature faith in friendships

And I'm like, listen, one of the biggest things is knowing even when God's silent, he's still there. You know what I mean? And so I know we like the conversation and all of that and the feeling of knowing him, but rooting the stronghold of the Word that says he never leaves you. Even if you make your bed in hell, he's with you. If you're up in the day, if you're out at night, like knowing that and making that a stronghold, then in days that you don't feel it, you know it.

You know what I mean? It's like, even though I don't feel it, I know the Holy Spirit's in me. And the devil will talk you out of that stuff. See, this is a phase, you know what I mean? But then you're like, no, you know what? The same power that raised him from the dead is in me now. Even if he's not speaking and not talking and I don't feel the goosebumps and I don't feel good, he's there because his Word says he is, and I know it. I'll just believe it.

So that's just part of my journey as a Christian. I think you're walking. So let me ask you this. On a natural level, do y'all have—maybe not, because I'm not out in the world a lot—I don't have too many friends like this. I do now. But I have friends now that are more in here. You can make more of a Christian around the bend. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's not like I didn't meet him, but I've seen his songs and videos. Yeah. So me and him has been good brothers for six. Me and Justin. We've been friends for—and I don't talk with him—I did miss him. I thought that we can't, like, great, even talk to him in a while. What's up? You mad at me? But I know that he can call me or I can call him, and we don't have to really ask all those questions.

We take up the phone, and it's like, when you pick it up. You know, we don't have to say, hey, where are you at? You know what I mean? Like, so there's this relationship that even in the silence, you don't get insecure and worried. And that's rooting that Word in you. That's what rooting and knowing and making that a stronghold is. Because it's like, no, God never leaves. He's with me no matter how bad this looks right now. He's right here with me. And even if I can't feel you, I'm going to believe what your Word says because it's true.

And that, like I said, is even carried over into my friendships. And me and Morgan sometimes don't talk for three months. They call each other back and never quit talking. You know, so it's that and knowing that one scripture says he came and made his home on the inside of us. Like his home. This is his home. He's in—he's in—he's in. He's checking out when I'm not acting right. He's still there.

So this is making that a stronghold. And that does come to maturity and growth. Just like a word with a woman, you start trusting, you get there a little bit and after a while you're comfortable and you know that she could go overseas and you don't have to worry about her cheating. You know? Yeah, yeah. So just, it comes with that bit in. Good stuff. Yeah.