Fight Head to Heart

The powers and principalities of the air are too strong for you. When you attempt to "turn over a new leaf" you put yourself onto their battlefield. You cannot fight them head to head, stop trying. Fight them head to heart. Your heavenly Father owns your heart. He purchased it through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, and the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead indwells Your heart through the Holy Spirit.

You cannot devise a battle plan that will thwart the enemy's strategies against you. You must operate on a different plane. Those who trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior have been given the ability to walk in the Spirit, and in the Spirit your enemies cannot touch you. It is your Holy Spirit fueled love for God that will cause their strongholds to fall.

The Cross has been placed as an immovable sign of absolute victory over the turmoil and grief in your heart.

Scripture: "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross," (Colossians 2:15).

"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires," (Romans 8:5).

Mercy, not Sacrifice

Do not make it your aim to do everything “right” or even “righteously". Purpose instead to manifest the Lord's mercy and compassion to those around you. The Lord asks you to be identified with His interests in other people not in order that you may do for them, but so that you may be for Him.

Compassion does not always carry a mandate to perform some action in the physical realm. You have shielded your heart from compassion for those around you because you know that you have no surplus of time or strength for a physical sacrifice of work. You have forgotten the power of prayer. There are very few true intercessors, because intercession is a labor of the heart. There is always time to pray, and the Holy Spirit supplies the strength.

Scripture: "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6).

Faith First

Self-castigation will not have the effect you desire; you cannot draw near to God by reviling yourself. You must partake of God's mercy rather than pleading for Him to be merciful. He IS merciful; stop begging Him to be what He already is. You do not have to pay penance. You do not have to analyze how you have gotten into your present state. You seem to believe that this analysis is necessary so that you can retrace your steps, but there is no going back. You cannot travel into the past; you cannot "have another go." You can only walk forward from this point in time.

You've come to believe that your heart can be reconciled to God through obedience. This is incorrect. Peace with God is possible only as you partake of the Holy blood of Christ. Obedience is a natural outflow of love for God. Nurture your love for Him and obedience will flow. No program of self-improvement will change your course of healing. God is the one who will heal you. You do not procure healing for yourself; you receive it as a gift.

Set your heart on things above and quit worrying about your circumstances. The day-to-day responsibilities God has allowed will take care of themselves; you cannot affect them either for good or for evil through worriment. Rest in the Lord. He is in your circumstances.

Your circumstances may have eroded your ability to obey, but they have not touched your faith. Obey out of love and gratitude to God, but do not seek to set up for yourself rules in an attempt to earn His favor. You can never come to Him through obedience; you come to Him through acceptance. Remember this one principle and your life will become one of unadulterated joy and freedom in Him.

Scripture: "...from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth" (2 Thessalonians 2:13).