Walls Must Fall: Day: 11: Guarding the Divine Promise: Overcoming Temptation and Disobedience

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Music.

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Welcome to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast with your host,

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Connie Morris, where healing has a voice and truth is no longer silent.

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Father God, like Jabez, we cry out that thou would bless us indeed.

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Bless every woman listening beyond trauma, beyond limits, beyond what she thought

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was possible. Enlarge her territory.

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Expand her purpose. Let your hand be upon this moment.

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Saturate every word with oil and truth. break cycles, cancel every curse sent

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to silence her. This isn't just a podcast.

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This is holy ground. In Jesus' name, amen.

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Hello, and welcome back to Diary of a Black Woman podcast,

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and I'm your host, Connie Morris, and today we are on day 11 of our Walls Must

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Fall 12-day devotional series of consecration and dedication.

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Today's topic is guard what God gave you, protect the promise.

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I hope you are enjoying these episodes. They have been so powerful to me, I tell you.

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And so our two foundational scriptures today are coming from Joshua 6,

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Proverbs 4, and then I'm going to be reading from Joshua 7.

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So let's start with Joshua 6 verse 18. It says, but keep away from the devoted

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things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them.

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I want you to pay attention to what Joshua was saying here.

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It says, but keep away from the devoted things so that you will not bring about

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your own destruction by taking any of them.

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So he's already giving you heads up that don't you be hoarding anything.

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Don't you be like having no other God before God, because that will bring you destruction.

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Proverbs 4, 23 reads, above all else, guard your heart and for everything you do flows from it.

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And we know that to be true. So let's talk about it.

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We see victory came quickly, but so did temptation.

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After Jericho fell, God gave clear instructions.

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Don't take the devoted things. Do not defile what's sacred.

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Yet in Joshua 7, one man's compromise, Achan's disobedience,

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brought defeat to the entire nation. Let's see what Achan did.

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Let's go to Joshua 7. I'm going to start off. You got to read the whole chapter

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because Joshua was not having it.

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Joshua was, the Israelites were sent to war. They got, God sent them to war. They got defeated.

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And Joshua was a winning type of guy.

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He was wondering what was going on. And then the Lord told him there is sin

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in the camp. And he said, who?

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Sinning in the camp. After we'd have had this great victory in Joshua 6,

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now in Joshua 7, we got somebody sinning in the camp.

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Who is he? Take a sip of water real quick because I'm about to get this going.

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And so you pick it up in Joshua 7 verse 19. Joshua spoke to Achan.

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It was Achan, my son, give glory to God, the God of Israel.

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Make your confession to him. Tell me what you did.

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Don't keep back anything from me. So Joshua called him out.

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Achan answered, Joshua, it's true. I sinned against God, the God of Israel.

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This is how I did it. In the plunder, I spotted a beautiful shenan robe.

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200 shekels of silver and 50 shekels bar of gold, and I coveted and took them.

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They are buried in my tent with the silver at the bottom.

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Okay, let's just kind of back this up a bit.

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Please understand that when the Israelites left, they left with silver and gold,

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so they don't want for anything in the wilderness.

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Okay. Understand that. But Achan thought it was like good for him to covet.

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Let's see what he coveted. Why? I think this is powerful, especially for us

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ladies that he coveted and he said it. Look how he described it.

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Come on now. He still coveted it while he's describing it to telling Joshua.

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He didn't say, I just grabbed a robe and some gold and some things.

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No, look how he described it. It's in the message. Joshua 7 in the message describes it.

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I plunder. In the plunder, I spotted a beautiful Shinaro.

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200 shekels of silver and 50 shekel bar of gold, and I covered it, and I took them.

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They are buried in my tent at silver and the silver at the bottom.

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Joshua sent off messengers. They ran to the tent, and there it was,

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buried in a tent with the silver at the bottom.

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Just like he said, they took the stuff from the tent and brought it to Joshua

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and to all the people of Israel and spread it out before God.

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So he said, Lord, look, you told me who it was.

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I discovered the evidence of what it was. And look what happened.

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Joshua took Achan, the son of Zerah, took the silver, the robe,

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the gold bar, and his sons and daughters, his ox, his donkey.

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Sheep and tent, and everything connected with him.

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All Israel was there. They led them off to the valley of Acre,

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which means trouble valley.

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Joshua said, why have you troubled us?

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God will now trouble you today. God will trouble you today.

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And all of Israel stoned him, burned him with fire, stoned him with stones.

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They piled a huge pile of stones over him. It is still there.

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Only then did God turn from his hot anger. that that's how the place came to

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be called Trouble Valley right up to this present time.

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We see here that there was sin in the camp. We see that God was angry and it's

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like God was pointing down on heaven and said, it's him.

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Joshua said, who was it? It's him. It's him right there. But in Joshua 6, 18,

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which we read first, it says, but keep away from all the devoted things so that

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you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. But yet.

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His only job was not to take any of them. But for some reason,

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he thought God had changed his mind or turned away.

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And we see here that Achan died. Not just Achan. They took his family, his donkey. Let's see.

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He didn't leave nothing. It says Joshua took Achan, son of Zerah,

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took the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and his daughters,

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his ox, his donkey, his sheep.

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And 10, everything connected to him and stoned him.

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Was it worth it? I don't think so. We got to realize that our sin is connected to our family.

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His irresponsibility, his disobedience to the commandments of God got his whole family killed.

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Every breakthrough, every healing, every new door comes with responsibility

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and stewardship. God is reminding you today, what he gave you must be guarded.

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The enemy may not be able to rebuild the wall.

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Still, he may try to slip through the cracks of your distraction,

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your disobedience, or compromise.

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It is not just about gaining victory. It's about maintaining it.

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Guard your heart, guard your habits, guard your home.

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You've come too far to lose ground.

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You come too far to even lose your life over some stuff.

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You see, it was stuff. It was just material stuff.

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And even when he was describing it, he said it was a beautiful robe as though

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Joshua might change his mind or God might change his mind. He said no.

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And when no means no, no means no. You know, one thing that always ring a bell

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to me, and you'll remember this, you always have a person who decides to go do something great,

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right? They do something really powerfully great.

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And then they might pull out of, like say for them, they might pull out of the

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gang and then they pull out the gang and then something happens where they get killed.

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He was getting out of this. He was getting out of that. But some of that leads

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to us not, we talked about that in one of the episodes, not like burning those bridges.

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But this one is that sin of disobedience. It was this direct disobedience.

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God told him no, and he went anyway.

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And many times we don't know the story of the person who died.

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And a lot of things are happening in the world today. We don't even know the story.

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I'm just kind of pausing because this is so amazing to me how the Bible just keeps it so real.

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And we just have to, this title of this story, this title of this devotion should

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be When God says no, he means no.

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When he says don't touch it, he means don't touch it. And so you have to guard your heart. Let's pray.

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Father, help me protect what you've entrusted me.

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Expose every hidden thing that could sabotage my breakthrough.

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Remove the desires to return to old habits.

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Strengthen me to live in holiness and wisdom.

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I won't just walk into victory. I will walk into integrity.

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Let's decree. I decree that I will guard my gates.

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I will not allow sin, compromise, or distraction to rob me of what God has given

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me. I am covered by the blood of Jesus.

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What God has blessed, no man can curse. I will protect the promise.

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1 Peter 5a tells us to be alert and sober mind.

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Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion. He prowls around like

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a roaring lion, but he can't touch you in your obedience.

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But he can tear you up. Remember, he has a roaring lion, so he's faking it.

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But he's dangerous still.

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He's dangerous. Because when you're disobedient, look what happened.

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His own people had to kill him.

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Took him out. His sons and his daughters died because of this Achan's disobedience.

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I'm still having a moment here. Let's keep going.

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So how are we going to maintain this guarding of what God has given us and during

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our fasting focus? I want you to really think about that because this man did

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not have to die, but he did.

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Not just him, his family and everything that was connected to him.

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That wasn't the first time that happened.

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We can go to number 16 about Korah and his family and his crew die.

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But let's talk about the fasting focus. Fast with intentional vigilance.

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Vigilance is being alert. Reflect on the areas that are most vulnerable to

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after a spiritual victory. Just like you get a super victory and then you kind

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of let your guards down as though that's it for the day.

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The victories are, they happen fast, but you still got to buckle back up, get ready.

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Because if you don't, he's going to hit you in that spot that you forgot to cover.

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Recommit to daily discipline. Like, yes, you won.

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The victory is yours, but we are not in heaven yet. We're still in a war zone.

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We're still in a war zone, y'all.

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Recommend to daily disciplines, prayer, words, worship, and healthy boundaries.

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So you still have to maintain your workout plan, your spiritual workout plan,

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your emotional workout plan, your obedience workout plan.

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You have to keep your spiritual atmosphere strong around you.

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Put on your armor. You have to stay focused. Something to journal.

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Where have I been careless in my time, my thoughts, or behavior since my breakthrough?

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Because Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

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You think he's going to let you just keep, you can victory and jump around,

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yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what?

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Snatch and you lose it. So he says, stay on guard.

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He says, guard what God has given you. And last journal prompt is.

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What boundaries do I need to reinforce to stay in line with God's promises?

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You have to remember you're always in a war. As long as you're breathing on

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this earth, we are in a war. You might not see it, but you're in it.

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And so, yes, you're going to have victories. You're going to have victories because God is a winner.

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But yep, but Satan is a stealer, killer, and destroyer. So you're going to win some.

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I ain't going to say you're going to lose some, but you can lose some if you're

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not paying attention to your victories, amen?

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So I wanna, hey, I want you to leave you with this one.

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Guard what God has given you. I want you to protect the promise.

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Until next time, I'll see you on the next episode.

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Thank you for listening to this episode. And before we close out,

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I wanna speak a word of promise over you from Jeremiah 29, 11 through 14.

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Father God, you declared, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper

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you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

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So today we receive that truth.

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You said when we call on you, you will listen. So we pray.

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You said that when we seek you with our hearts, you will be found. So we pursue.

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You said you will restore us from captivity.

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So we declare freedom over every place where our listeners feel stuck, silenced, or small.

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Thank you for always drawing near when we show up in faith. In Jesus' name, amen.

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Music.