Wrestling With God Submitting The Devil

Wrestling with God Submitting the Devil

Before I was saved, I definitely was living for the world. I was trying to make as much as I could so I could get as much stuff as I could. The more I got the more I wanted and but I never was truly satisfied. I spent a lot years living for me but with no real purpose or direction. Then things got out of control or at least out of my control. When I finally hit bottom and surrendered my life to Jesus is when my life took a whole new direction. When I started down the path that God wanted for my life, some things had to change God needed to work on some things in me. When he was doing this it was a process and sometimes I definitely fought against him. But I needed to go thru the struggle with God to make me strong enough to face the Devil because he was not going to be happy that I have turned against the path he had me on, and now I’m trying to do things God’s way the devil is going try to distract me to trip me up. So what I wanted to talk to you today about is, wrestling with God, submitting the Devil.

In my house my wife is completely out numbered. It is a very male filled household with a lot of boy stuff going on which grosses her out constantly. It’s also filled with a lot of testosterone so there is always a test of wills between all of the boys and a test of patience with us as parents to the boys. A few years ago our 12 year old Aiden wanted to do MMA because I watched it all the time. So after looking at all the different Martial arts that I could get him involved in I decided to enroll him in Jiu-Jitsu. For those of you that do not know what that is, it is a form of martial arts that involves the wrestling that takes place on the mat once a fight goes to the ground, it’s about controlling your opponent to inflict damage or preventing him from inflicting damage to you, hopefully leading to a submission. A submission is when you put your opponent it a hold or lock that makes them tap out due to the pain that your inflicting or you make them go to sleep due the choke that you have placed them in. After about a year of my son participating in this at 35 years old, I decided to get involved and participate myself and I lost a bunch of weight in doing so and also became somewhat obsessed in a healthy way with getting better and better at Jiu-Jitsu. Now why I’m talking about this and how I want to use what I have learned through this sport and apply it to our everyday life and the struggles that we face wrestling with God as believers and how we can overcome the Devil by submitting him.

I have 3 things that I want to cover with you today. I hope helps when you’re wrestling with God and trying to choke the devil out of your life. The first thing that I want to cover is;

1. Preparation –

In Jiu-Jitsu there are several tournaments that I get ready for throughout the year and when I start preparing for one of these I have to start changing a few things, that I don’t normally do to get ready to compete. The first thing that I have to do is change what I eat, if I am going to compete in the weight class that is optimum to my size then I need to cut a few pounds so I can maximize my strength in the class that I am competing in. Now I compete at 205 and I normally walk around at 215 or so. This doesn’t sound like a lot to cut but it is very hard for me, so I have to eat very clean to get there. No more white carbs like potato, white rice or flour based products. I also have to cut back on the amount that I eat no more large portions I have to eat several small meals a day to keep my metabolism up to have energy but still lose weight.

We need to change a few things in our lives to be properly prepared as Christians. The first big change that happened after I was saved was what I watched, what I listen to and what I read. I am not going to tell you what you watch is wrong and the music that you listen to is wrong and if you’re not reading your bible only, that you’re not saved or not a good Christian, that’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is what you spend the majority of you time putting into your body whether it’s your ears, eyes or mouth, it will affect you.