What the Christian life boils down to is decisions.

It is the process of making right choices without being swayed by Satan's input into our appetites or emotions.

We will begin our look at the enemies of the controlled Christian life by looking first at the enemies of God-controlled responses.

We will begin by focusing our attention on the central enemy: Satan's attack on our response to making the decisions themselves.

Read lesson: 907A

Nearly every page in the book of Proverbs reveals the need for self-control: Godly restraint in our attitudes, godly restrain in our appetites, and godly restrain in our actions and activities.

Only the Christian under the Spirit's control can experience the miracle of self-control that the book of Proverbs describes as the normal Christian life.

We are to choose who we will serve - the spirit or the flesh.

Read lesson: 906B

How does God go about getting our attention so that He, in us, can change our attitude?

God is looking for correctable Christians.

See how God uses the Word to change our hearts and minds. He may also use those in authority over us to rebuke us and turn our hearts around.

What is our response to rebuke?

There is also a pressure God places on us through counsel and through divine discipline.

Would we make a choice to be a correctable Christian?

Read lesson: 906A

God is looking for men and women who want to be changed - who want to be changed so badly they will cooperate with joy when He sends rebuke or admonition or counsel into their lives.

How correctable are you?

How graciously do you respond to rebuke?

That's the question we're asking in this lesson from the book of Proverbs.

Read lesson: 905B

How often do we search the Scriptures with the same intensity we would if we were searching for hidden treasure?

When we begin to see a nugget of truth appear, do we take all our tools, our concordance, our translations, our Bible dictionaries, and do we dig and dig?

The Word of God is the treasure house wherein all the rare jewels of spirituality are buried at different levels beneath the surface.

We need to become treasure-hunting Christians who daily uncover the priceless gems that turn the commonplace into crowns, the natural into the supernatural, the daily discoveries of life into the dynamic of discipleship.

Read lesson: 905A

How many times have we faced circumstances that were completely overwhelming?

We had no idea how to deal with them and seemed powerless to face them.

Jehoshaphat had the same feeling as he was surrounded by his enemies. In fact, he cried out to God, "We have no might, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are on Thee."

God must have smiled. He knew all along that the battle would be won by Him, not Jehoshaphat; and so it is with us. We must turn to Him, because He gives the victory.

Read lesson: 904B

Peter said, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God."

Just how do we go about doing that? Our goal is to examine seven ways to do that.

As we humble ourselves before God, we are purposing before God to cooperate with Him as He does the rest.

There are at least four tools that God uses to humble His saints. We find these tools in the lives of Joseph, Job, Peter, Paul and Moses. The cost is high, but it is worth it.

Read lesson: 904A

Landmines and lies. Subtle. Well-hidden and devastating if ignored.

In this lesson, we will look at three landmines known as the landmines of kingdom ambition, that attitude that is so busy competing, seeking to be the greatest, that it misses the message of the cross.

We need to be careful also of silent battlefields. The absence of warfare doesn't mean the war is over.

We must be careful to guard against the perennial problem of success, of watching God do the impossible, only to be deceived into thinking we made it possible. These are all part of the perennial problem of pride.

Read lesson: 903B

What are the reasons for spiritual pride?

What are the land mines and the lies that the father of lies uses to deceive the children of God?

We will ultimately be looking at nine ways Satan trips up the Christian and causes pride to surface in robes of spirituality.

We step on these landmines, because we don't exercise caution in our walk in the area of spiritual pride, and behind or beneath each land mine rests a lie from Satan. We will take a look at nine of those land mines which damage our walk with the Lord.

Read lesson: 903A

Spiritual pride is perhaps Satan's most impressive tool.

Through its deceptive destruction, he has moved right onto the Christian's home turf, taken the very things that mean the most to him and used them against him, and in essence has literally used the building blocks of spiritual success to build an altar to the false god of self.

It's so subtle, so disguised in spiritual robes, that we miss it.

What God wants is serving saints, not proud of their church, their spirituality, their leaders, or talents - just in love with Jesus.

Read lesson: 902B