5 Quick Ways to Deal with Defeat

April 19, 2012 - Learn how you can live a more victorious life with insights from Billy Graham.

Adapted from The Billy Graham Sermon Series

1. To Achieve Victory, You Must Surrender
Take an honest inventory of your life. What things do you count on instead of God? In prayer ask God to point out what needs to be yielded. They might be your skills, family, money, health, intelligence, or anything else that has your trust. A life that wins is a life wholly surrendered in every part to Christ.

"Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, ... but rather offer yourselves to God" (Romans 6:13).

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2. Confess Your Sins Daily, and Be Free of Them
If you have unclean hands, unclean lips, unclean tongue, unclean feet, unclean thoughts, or an unclean heart, you will suffer continuous defeat in your life. Prayerfully review the lists given in Romans 1:29-31 and 1 Corinthians 13. Take time daily to identify your sins and confess them to God. When you name the sin in sincere confession, God has promised to forgive.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us form all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9 NKJV).

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3. After Confessing, Yield
If you find yourself having to confess the same sin over and over, take a further step. God forgives, and God forgives over and over, but He wants to clean out and transform trouble areas. Ask Him to do so. Zero in on what is causing the sin, and surrender that to Him.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12:1).

Learn about resisting temptation »

4. Learn the Power of a Daily Devotional Life
It's true that your quiet time—your prayer time and the time you spend reading the Bible—is absolutely essential to a happy life. You simply cannot live a winning life as a Christian or consistently experience spiritual power in your life without this regular time of listening and talking to God.

"Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed" (Mark 1:35, NKJV).

Read a Daily Devotion with Billy Graham »

5. Hold Firmly to Your Faith
If you are striving to surrender your life to Jesus Christ, spending consistent time with Him in prayer and in the Word, confessing your sins, and caring for others, and yet still feel defeated, lift up your faith and your prayer to His throne of grace and be still. Also, seek the counsel of a pastor or another mature Christian.

"Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess" (Hebrews 4:14).

Read "The Battle For Your Mind"—a sermon by Billy Graham »