Practical salvation. I'd like to start by asking you a question. What kind of habits do you have in your life? Now to try and help you understand what exactly the question is, let me explain to you what a habit is.

A habit firstly is something that you do frequently. Usually you do it without thinking. It's something that you are comfortable with.

You're comfortable doing it. Now amongst all of those we have two kinds of habits. Good habits and bad habits.

What are the good habits? The things that you're doing that you're pleased with. They're activities and actions that bring good results and you'd like to keep doing those. You don't want to give them up.

And then there's the bad habits. That's the thing that you're doing that you wish you weren't doing. They're actions that bring bad results in your life.

Usually they're activities that you like to give up but you can't. Those are the bad habits. Now your successes and failures in life all result from your habits.

So you need to get rid of the bad habits and you need to develop some more good habits. Because if you're honest, the scale usually sits this way with the bad habits being the maximum. We've got to try and swing the balance.

Make the good habits in your life more than the bad habits. Now you're never going to get to the stage where there's no more bad habits. Not while you live in this body.

But we can start working towards it. And so today I would like to speak a bit about changing our habits. Because you see this is practical salvation.

See when we came to accept the Lord we were placed in a position of being saved. And as I've taught before there's three tenses to salvation. There's a past tense, a present tense, and a future tense.

Notice this verse here. Paul spoke about the gospel that he preached them and he said, through which also you are being saved. The Greek tense there is the present continuous tense.

It's a continual present process. You are not saved already in the fullest sense of the word. But you are being saved.

A lot of the problem lies in our understanding of what salvation is. We think of salvation as I'm not going to hell anymore. I'm on my way to heaven.

I accepted Jesus as my savior. But the Greek word salvation and if you think about it even in English, salvation is a lot more from being delivered from the consequences of sin and going to hell. Salvation involves deliverance from everything in this life that can stand in the way of us living the abundant life that the Lord intended for us.

So salvation means walking in all of those things that we've been talking about for months now. All the blessings that God has for us in this life are all part of our salvation. Now the gospel is what started it off.

The gospel was the good news that says you can have it. The trouble is once we've received that good news, we now have to go through a process of applying practically what God has offered to us. In other words, we've got to make our salvation real and experimental in our daily lives.

To do that, we're going to have to change our habits. You know why? You know what's your biggest habit? S-I-N. That's the biggest habit we have.

See, what's a habit? Something you do frequently. Something you do without thinking. Something you're comfortable with doing.

Now the first time you did it, you probably felt uncomfortable. You thought, that's wrong. I shouldn't do this.

If you've ever taken up smoking, the first cigarette you smoked, you probably felt quite bad about it. Probably did it behind your parents' back or something. I don't know.

You felt quite bad about it. Your conscience pricked you and you did it. The next time you did it, your conscience pricked you a little bit less and eventually got to the stage where it didn't worry you anymore.

Didn't even think about it. See, that's how a habit develops. And we've got to change our habits.

And we've spoken a lot about this, but today I'd like to zero in and show you how it's going to start happening for you. The first thing is you're going to have to make a decision to change. It's not going to fall on you.

Well, one of these days, the Lord's just going to take that habit right out of me. Hallelujah. I will go forward and somebody will lay hands on me and I'm instantly delivered from the habit.

You know, people who believe in deliverance ministry think that they can cast a habit out like a demon, but you can't. Because the habit didn't just jump in. A habit was formed over time and a habit's got to be removed.

You need to identify what the bad habits are and you need to be honest about it. And then you have to find a good habit to replace it. You see, you can't stop doing the wrong thing.

You can only start doing the right thing. We've taught on this in many places. I'm just laying a foundation.

Scripture says, put off and put on. Put off lying, start telling the truth. Put off the sinful habit, put on a righteous habit in its place.

So you need to identify the bad habit, you need to find a good habit to replace it, and then you need to start developing that new habit. That is how we change our lives. That is how we begin to make our salvation practical in our daily life.

Now, how do we get to that place? How do we get to that place where we stop doing what we were doing and change and start doing the other thing? This is what I want to zero in on firstly today. What is your motivation to change? Why should you? I enjoy this bad habit. It actually makes me feel good.

Yeah, I know it's bad for me. I know I shouldn't do it. Man, I enjoy it.

It meets psychological needs. It puts me in my comfort zone. I feel great.

So why should I change? You see, all of us eventually develop what I call a spirit of complacency. We got used to coasting along. Yeah, there's a few inconveniences along the way, but you know, we can live with it.

Life is not perfect. You know, I may not be living the kind of life that I wish I lived, but you know, that's good enough. We can make it through.

We can make it through. I can handle the few inconveniences. And you know what we do? We settle for second best.

We settle for second best. We settle for less than what God intended for us. How foolish.

But it's human nature, isn't it? See, we've developed these habits over a period of time. We settle into our little rut of complacency. How do we break free of that? Usually nothing happens until we face a crisis experience in our lives.

Now this has been described in different ways. Amongst the self-help teachers, one of the greats, the late Jim Rohn, had an expression. Jim Rohn was the son of a preacher.

He was a Christian, but he taught in the secular realm on principles of success. And he coined this, the day that turns your life around. The day that turns your life around.

He shared his own experience of how he reached a place where some little girl scout was trying to sell cookies. And he wanted to buy them, but he didn't even have the money to buy to help this poor little girl. And he felt such a heel.

They have to actually admit, you know, I can't even afford your cookies. That's how poor I am. He said, that's when he reached the point where he said, I don't want to live this way anymore.

He said, that's the day that turns your life around. When you come to the place, when you say, enough. I'm tired of going on this way.

I've got to change. I've got to do something. Oh, you know, we all face in different circumstances and in different areas of our life.

The day that turns your life around. Let me tell you what was the most important day that turned your life around was the day that you accepted Jesus as your savior. Salvation.

And the salvation experience comes as a result often of a crisis experience. Perhaps there's a death in the family or somebody that you knew died. You suddenly start thinking about eternity and you realize I'm not ready for this.

If I were to suddenly die, you begin to realize you're a sinner. And the year you hear the good news of the gospel, Jesus has paid the price. And you say, that's it.

I'm no longer going to live this life of sin. Bible calls that repentance. And you know, we often think of repentance as being sorry for our sins, but actually the Greek word repentance actually means to change your thinking, to change your mind.

See, change your mind. See now, if you needed to repent in order to get saved, in the sense of being born again, how about all the other aspects of salvation? See, repentance is the day it turns your life around. Because repentance means I'm walking in this direction and repentance means I turned around and I start going.

That's exactly what repentance means. I start going in the other direction. You did that when you became a believer.

But how about the other aspects of your life? How about finances and prosperity? You know, many of us, we earn an income and we struggle along and we wish we had more, but we do the best we can. We hang in there with our job and we just work and hope and pray. We keep going that way.

People around us are getting rich and wealthy. We say, aren't they lucky? We start believing the lie that we're not capable of this. That God never intended this for us.

That God wants us to be poorer. I was reading a book that I found on the internet this week, written by a Jewish rabbi. And he pointed out that if you look at the list of the top wealthiest people in the world, most of them are Jews.

He said, why is it that Jews are always wealthy? Because Jews have built into the fabric of their thinking that wealth and business is a good thing. It's a moral thing. It's the right thing.

And they even link it with their commitment to God. Because God promised them abundance. He promised them the promised land and wealth.

You can't get a Jew to go for that. It's good to be poor thing. It just reacts against his whole programming, his whole archetype.

But we do, don't we? Well, the Lord said, blessed are the poor. That's because the poor need blessing. That's why he said that.

He didn't say it's better to be poor. But you know, our whole programming, hasn't it? Has taught us that we shouldn't aspire for wealth. So we go in our super spirituality, faithfully doing our work, not asking for too much.

We just ask the Lord for enough. You know, the Lord gave them the manna every day, which was just enough. Well, let me ask you a question.

Did God intend them to continue living in the wilderness of manna? Was it his plan for them to always have enough? No, he offered them a promised land with abundance. It's more than you could ever need. Sometimes it takes a crisis, financial crisis, bad financial experience to make you wake up and say, I'm tired of living this way.

You see people all around you rising up and prospering. You see people that you grew up with and that you knew. People who often were less educated than you, had less capabilities than you, came from a worse part of society than you, and they rise up and they become wealthy.

What do we do? It's not fair, Lord. Lord, it's not fair. I've been faithful to you, Lord.

I've served you. I've given. I've done all the right things.

Those guys are heathen and he's prospering. David had that problem once. Don't you know that the salvation that Jesus purchased for you? Scripture says, though he was rich, he became poor so that you could become rich.

God doesn't want you to be poor. He doesn't want you to be poor. Then you hear the good news.

There's a new way of making money. You know where most of that good news comes from these days? It comes from the world. We'll say that only once.

Or it comes from the Jew. Kind of brings God into it, not Jesus. But if a Jew who only had the Old Testament and not the new covenant, if an unbeliever who doesn't even have Christ can prosper in this world, what's wrong with us? Leave the lie.

Deluded. What's it going to take to make you wake up? Come to the place where you say, why should I settle for this? Sometimes you need the day. It turns your life around.

You know, when that day comes, suddenly you find that living the way you were living and following the habits that you were, are not going to bring the results. It's going to have to be some changes. It's going to be some changes in your thinking.

Is there repentance involved? There's going to be a change in your habit patterns, in the things that you do. There's going to be a change in your passions and the things that you desire. Why are you just going to stay the way you are? How about health? Well, I'm going along okay.

I don't need to do too much exercise because I'm pretty fit, you know. You're going fine. I always loved running.

It was the only thing I was really good at. I was too small to run in races and things, but I did cross-country running. I could run nice good distances.

My legs were fairly fit. I held up pretty good. I can't say that I ate healthily.

I ate the things that I liked. I can't say that I really did exercise. I hit a gym, but I held it together.

I was pretty good. Then the years started to go, and in my mind, I still had the same picture. I was now in my 40s, round about, I think.

One day, my son-in-law kind of made a jibe at me about physical fitness and everything. I said, listen, I will race you around this park, and I'll beat you. I thought I could do this.

I'm good at running. He said, you're on. Now, we started off.

You know what? My body and my mind were in two places. My mind thought I could do it, but my body said, who are you talking to, me? I started out with great gusto, tripped and fell, and my glasses went flying. I lay there in the dust, embarrassed.

He had to come and help me up. It could have been the day that turned my life around. It wasn't.

It should have been. Yeah, some of these experiences. Suddenly, you find your health isn't what it should be.

You see, normally, something like that doesn't have the motivation. What does have the motivation is when suddenly you find that you're not feeling so good, your blood pressure is going up, things are not the way they are, and you see the doctor, and he says, let me give you an ECG. He runs it, and he says, there's something wrong with your heart.

I'm sending you to a specialist. You go see the specialist. They run a whole pile of tests, and then they come with this checklist.

This is wrong with you. That is wrong with you. You have an enlarged heart.

You've got diabetes. Your cholesterol is too high. You've got a blockage in your heart.

One of the veins is blocked, according to what we see. Suddenly, you wake up, and you say, hang on. I can't die.

I'm still too young. I've got a whole life ahead of me. That's what turned my life around.

That's the day that turned my life around, when my health was concerned. They wanted to load me with a whole lot of drugs. I said, no, I'm not taking all these drugs.

I'm going to trust the law. I spoke to the specialist, and I said, I believe God can heal me of the diabetes. He said, you believe it when you see it.

For the first time, I started to look at what I eat. I started to think about how immobile I was and how little exercise I did. I started to test my sugar and my blood pressure every day to see where I was at.

I started to become aware of my body. For a while, I reached a point where I thought, it's over. I'm getting on years now.

I was in my 50s, I think. I'd done a lot of work. I'd set up a ministry.

I felt my time was coming to an end. I handed everything over to my kids. I stepped back.

It's not what God wanted. It's what Satan wanted. Don't think God brought the day that turned your life around.

It wasn't God that brought it. He stood back, and he let you go and run straight into that wall like an idiot. The question is, what are you going to do about it now? Well, folks, having been there, I want to say to you, you don't have to wait until that happens.

Before you wake up, you can do something about it now, about relationships. Well, you know, I'm happily married. Everything's great.

I'm quite happy, not having friends. It's my family, my husband, or my wife. Things are going great, or I've got my boyfriend or my girlfriend.

I've got my fiance. Things are going good. What happens if suddenly that relationship comes to an end? What happens if you get dumped unexpectedly? She found somebody else.

He dumped you for somebody younger and more beautiful. What then? What about if it gets to the point of extreme separation and divorce? Now you're on your own. Now there's nobody in your life anymore.

Is that spirit of complacency still going to continue, or are you going to come to the place where you say, hang on, do you know what? I should be doing something more. It's myself and my life. You're now a little older, and you know, when you were young, it was easy to find people to date and go out with, to have relationships.

Now you're a bit older. You know, you don't have those curves anymore. You don't have the six-pack and the broad shoulders anymore.

Who's going to look twice at me? Eh, I've been there. For the first time, I started washing my hair more regularly, putting facial creams on my face to get rid of some of these wrinkles and make myself a little bit better. Check what kind of clothes I wear.

Try and get a bit fitter, because if I'm going to meet somebody new, I'm going to have to impress them. I can't go on the way that I am. What does it take to bring you to that place? The pain of loneliness, where you go out to eat at a restaurant, and you're sitting at a table all by yourself, and all around you, you see the couples laughing and joking, touching each other, holding hands, sometimes kissing.

Painful, painful experience. You get invited to a wedding, and it's one of your friends who really was not very attractive. You had far more going than her, but she's got this awesome guy.

And now they're married, and you're sitting there as the guest at their wedding, and you're wondering, is this ever going to happen to me? Have you been there? Well, was it serious enough for you to say, I'm not going to go this way anymore? Let me tell you, it's not going to change until you change your habits. You're going to have to do something. You're going to have to change and be something different.

It's practical salvation, folks, because God has provided these things for you. Jesus died on the cross to save you from every one of these things in life. Salvation is more than a position.

Positionally in Him, by His stripes we have been healed. I am in perfect health. Positionally in Him, He was made poor so that I could be made rich.

Positionally in Him, we have fellowship with one another and lots of relationships. That's our position. But what's our experience? Your experience is determined by the habits.

A lot of the time, the bad habits you've developed in your life. So what are we going to do? Are we going to wait for a crisis, something urgent, or are we going to decide, I'm tired of going the way I am. I'm going to embrace the promises of the Lord, and I'm with His help, I'm going to change some of my habits, and I'm going to become a different person, and I'm going to apply the power of His salvation practically in my life.

You can have the day that turns your life around without having a crisis, folks. It's called repentance. I repent of being complacent, of accepting mediocrity.

When He's called me to stand up and stand out, that's not going to come free. It's going to cost you. It's going to take stirring up of your passions, stirring up of your desires, of moving out of your comfort zone.

You'll stay there until you die. Once you make that choice, a new process begins. You cannot go on the way you are.

You realize that this is going to cost you, and you make up your mind that you are prepared to make the sacrifices. You decide to change some of your habits. You start praying more.

Not, please, Lord, please, Lord, please. It's not praying. Oh, Lord, you know how much I want this.

Please, Lord. You know what? He's busy somewhere else when you're praying like that. Don't even get his attention.

God has moved by faith. Thank you, Lord, that this is what you have for me. I reach out and I embrace and I take it with my hand of faith.

It is mine. It is mine. I put my foot on it and I claim it.

That's the kind of prayer you need to start praying. You might have to do that every day, twice a day, three times a day. How desperate are you? But I'll wait until the Lord decides to give it to me.

He gave it to you already 2,000 years ago. He taught on this. He's put it in you.

You've got to reach out and take it. You need to start getting into the word more. Why? Because that's what builds your faith.

That's where the promises are. That's where the principles are. That's where you will learn what to put off and put on.

You need to start applying good principles for change and success. The day that turns your life around. You've been there? If you haven't, here's your chance.

Let today be that day. The day that turns your life around. This is a universal principle.

It's taught in the world. We have so much more. There's a couple of other principles that are taught in the world.

I'm going to share some of them with you quickly and I'm going to show you how they're totally scriptural as well. It's a principle called the law of use and it says what you use will increase and grow. What you do not use will atrophy and shrink away.

The Bible gives us a parable of Jesus where a man gave talents to his servants and went off on a journey and some of them, they took the talent and they used it to make more. I know people love to say talent is your ability. The talent here was money actually.

Effectively, what do you have in your hands right now that was given to you? One guy was given quite a lot. I think he was given like 10 talents. One guy only got a little bit.

He only got one talent. He only got one. But you know what? Everybody's given something.

You may look around you and see people that are very talented. They've been given a lot. They've been put in good places.

They've been put in wealthy families. They've been put in places where there are opportunities and you're not. But you know what? I don't care if you're the little guy with one talent.

You're still being given something to use. Are you going to have the attitude of the guy with the one? Well, you know what's the point of me even trying? Actually, his attitude was arrogant and selfish. He said, what's the point of me multiplying this? The master's going to take it all away anyway in the end.

Why should I bother? You know what? He lost it. But those who took it and traded and made more, they were given more. Eventually, the talent was taken away from that guy and given to the guy who had the most, right? It's called the law of use.

What has God given you? What are you doing with it? What are you doing with it? What abilities do you have? What finances do you have? What mental skills do you have? What artistic abilities do you have? Every one of us has been given something different. But you know, you don't have to stay with that. You can develop it and get more.

You know, all I've got is this one little talent. What are you doing with it? Oh, what's the point? I can't compete against these people. You know? Yeah, I am with my little ability.

And there's this person. Oh, they got the world at their feet. Everything just falls in place for them.

Don't you hate them? No, don't hate them. Try and compete with them. Take what you've got and multiply it.

By how? By using it! You go home today, I want you to sit down, make a list of all of your talents and what's been given you. Every single thing you own, whether it be temporal, spiritual, or emotional, or intellectual. Make a list.

Then ask the Lord, Lord, what do you want me to do? Give me the wisdom to take this and use it, to multiply it, to get more. There's some people, they coast on their talent. They just coast on that one talent.

Do you know that you can get more talents? Say, well now, she was just born with that beautiful singing voice. No, actually, she cried about the same as every other baby. Couldn't tell the difference.

See, but over time she developed that. Yes, there are hereditary characteristics. If your father was a singer, you have a good chance of having a good singing voice.

I don't know. But does that stop you from developing what you've got? You may never become a famous singer, but you know what? You could sound better than a frog. I know this one from experience.

I know people that just born. My ex-wife just had a beautiful singing voice. They kept asking her to sing in church all the time.

I was the schmo who had to play for her because I couldn't sing. Well, you know what? I'm not afraid to stand up and sing, lead the worship now. And I may not have the kind of voice that's recordable and people will buy, but you know what? It's good enough.

It's good enough. I've given it to the Lord and he's using it. See, so what talents don't you have that you would like? How are we going to get that? Take the ones you do have, sow them.

We're going to get to that next and they'll grow. Use them and they will grow. Okay.

Well, what do you have to start with? You have a body. What can you do with your body? Well, you can start with feeding it the right kind of food, giving it some simple exercise and making it more efficient. It makes your body an asset instead of a liability.

Some of us, our bodies are a liability. I'm doing it in spite of my body. You got a soul? What can you do with that? You can educate it.

You can fill it with knowledge. You can spend a bit of time visualizing and meditating, planning, setting goals. You have a spirit and you can get into the word and feed it and you can start developing the fruits and the gifts of the spirit.

Take the law of use. Take what you have and start using it. It's like a muscle.

The more you use it, the stronger it gets. I read years ago in a Reader's Digest article, and I don't know if it's still true, but they said that proved that if you flex the muscle for six seconds a day, it'll start to grow. Six seconds a day.

You know, I don't have time to exercise. One little second, two little seconds, three little seconds, four little seconds, five little seconds, six little seconds. Wow, that just took all my time.

Now you're just too lazy. Use it and it will grow. Don't complain because you got nothing.

Take what you have and use it and it will increase. Second law, which I just touched on now, is the law of sowing and reaping. Scripture says, whatever man sows that he will reap.

There can be no reaping in this life without sowing. But how do we sow? The first thing you do is take your eyes off yourself and become other oriented. Start looking around you at other people's needs instead of your own.

Become giving oriented instead of taking oriented. You know, when you throw your seed in the ground, you've given it away to the soil. Until you're prepared to stick it under the ground and walk away.

It's going to stay in your hand. It's just one little seed. Take your eyes off yourself and start looking around you who you can give to.

Oh, what do I have to give? Oh, did you make that list of your skills and assets and what you've been given? Every one of those is something that you can give. Not just money. You got money here, that's easy.

You got things, that's easy. Start sowing and you'll reap. We can sow to the body and to the soul and to the spirit and we'll begin to reap in all of those areas of our beings.

Oh, do you know I need to hold on to what I have? Do you know what? If there's no money at the end of the month, we're in trouble. I have a little thing and I've shared it before and I'm sharing it again. I have a little expression and I call it taking out your big guns.

Jesus stood and watched everybody put all of their money into the collection box there in the temple and along came this poor little widow and she put in like a couple of cents and everybody sneered at her. Now, I just put in a hundred dollar bill. If she could put in his two cents, she'd escape.

What did Jesus say? She gave more than all of them because they gave out of their abundance but she gave all that she had. See, she took out her big guns. She took out her big guns.

I proved this principle years ago and I've proved it over and over again. The first time I really applied it, we were in a desperate situation. I'd lost my job.

We had a bit of money, like about a third of the money to pay the rent. I didn't know where the money was going to come from. Somebody invited us to a birthday party and I know they were poor people as well and I thought, I've got nothing to take as a gift.

I can't afford it. So, I made out a check for about half of the money I had and I gave it to her as a birthday gift. My wife at that time wanted to divorce me.

She fought with me all the way. She said, you're mad. I said, I'm doing what God said, taking out my big guns.

You know, it wasn't long, things started to happen. Somebody invited me to preach a little group of people and they took up an offering. Wow, it's quite a huge amount.

When it was over, one guy called me over. He said, we've just sold our business and we're just waiting for money to come through and God's told us we need to give you. He said, we're not wealthy but we'd like to give you out of what we got from selling the business.

People started to appear at the door and say, God told me to give this to you and they hand me an envelope with cash notes in it. Tell you what, I didn't only pay the rent, we eventually had more than enough money to buy an airfare to come back to Johannesburg. At that time, we were in Port Elizabeth.

God provided for us in abundance because I took that step. I took out my big guns. You know, we're going to take our little pea shooter, you know, I'll just give five rand here and ten rand there.

Just using your pea shooter. I know the big preachers out there are telling you they got your credit card and make a donation for a thousand dollars. You know, I don't go for that.

I don't go for that. You never hear me telling you to give me money. We offer partnership, we offer products for sale.

See, open your eyes to the needs around about you and see somebody who's in need and ask God where you must sow your seed. Ask him where you must sow your seed and then sow it. Don't give with a mean attitude.

Scripture says God loves a cheerful giver. Take out your big guns. Well, you know, if you don't want a big return, that's fine.

If you're happy with your finances the way they are, that's fine. You don't even need to give anything, actually. You could just carry on struggling the way you are.

Pleading with the Lord, please, Lord, please, Lord, please, Lord. The Lord says I offered you an opportunity and you didn't take it. Oh, but Lord, I would have lost everything.

No, you wouldn't have. What did Jesus say to the rich young ruler? Go and sell everything you have and come give it to me for my ministry. No, he didn't say that.

He said, go and give it to the poor. You'll have treasures in heaven. I'll tell you what, if he had obeyed, he probably would have taken Judas's place.

He probably would have been the one Jesus could trust to handle the finances. Without sowing, folks, there's going to be no reaping. What do you have to sow? Look around to see where you can sow it because you're guaranteed to get a whole lot back more.

Now, we don't preach tithing. I teach against it because tithing is an obligation. Your giving must never be an obligation.

It must be given in faith and hope and love. Faith in God, in hope that he will provide, and in love and care for the person that you're sowing into. Not sowing them with that.

You're just throwing it by the wayside like the seed that the birds came and took away, sowing it in bad soil. Final law I'd like to look at is known as the law of compound effect, and it links with all the others. I spoke about six seconds.

You know, you don't need to start out with an hour-long workout every day. I know some of you love this. Some people are addicted to exercise.

They thrive on it. I'm not one of them. I must admit I've got to kick my backside a few times, force myself to get into it.

I guess I need to come to the place where I can say I love it, but, you know, maybe if I say it long enough I might believe it. Sometimes you tell somebody you love them, you don't really feel a thing, but if you say it long enough, you start to feel. So perhaps that's one of the things you could do.

But the important thing is that small actions, repeated over and over again, begin to build on one another and accumulate. If you put a small amount of money in the bank consistently every month, over time, as interest is added and as more money is added, that money will begin to grow. There's lots of illustrations that have been used for this.

You know, some people have used it for soul winning. One guy says, I'm going to preach and win a thousand souls to the Lord every day, because I'm a great avenger and I can draw the crowds. Well, good luck to you.

It's going to be hard work. Other guy says, you know, I can lead one soul to the Lord every day. I really make the effort.

Then I'll teach that person to do the same thing. They will both win a soul to the Lord. So it starts out with one, two, four, eight, sixteen.

See, after a certain period of time, this guy has been winning a thousand every day to the Lord. He's growing weary, but he's consistent. He's winning his thousand souls.

But the guy who started out winning one and teaching them has already reached the whole world. So I don't have time to go into major exercises. You know what? I can't just change my diet.

I can't live on salads. I hate salads. I hate pushing weights.

You won't catch me in a gym. I don't have time to go to gym. What can you do? What can you start with? I don't have a lot of money, so I can't really invest or sell.

How much have you got? You know, I've heard people give a testimony, you know, where they stood up there and the appeal was made for finance and this guy had fifty dollars in his pocket. And he felt the Lord say, give the fifty. And he said, Lord, but that's all I've got.

The Lord said, that's all I want. It doesn't matter how much. The point is, if you will start and you will be consistent and make it a habit, the law of growth will kick in.

The law of sowing and reaping will kick in. And especially the law of compound effect. Gradually over time, begin to turn its wheels.

What started out as a small effort, as a small sowing, a small giving, a small activity of using what you have, suddenly it begins to grow. And you look back on yourself and you see how far you've come. You say, wow, how did that happen? How did you get started? Well, you can wait for circumstances or you could read the word and get direction or you could pray and you could get revelation.

How do you maintain it? I tell you now, you're going to need help. We've got help because we have the power of the Holy Spirit. Every fruit of the Holy Spirit gives you abilities, love, joy, peace, patience.

Do you know what patience means? The actual Greek word there means endurance. See, the power of love will help you to overcome all your fears. Joy is strength.

The Bible says the joy of the Lord is our strength. And when you've got peace in your heart, you will not be moved. When you've got patience, you will endure and keep at it.

You need the help of the Holy Spirit. So you need to tap into the Holy Spirit. If you ever hope to succeed in this.

Now, you may leave here today very motivated, very charged up. The day that turns my life around. From now on, things are going to be different.

Until tomorrow. Because when you wake up, that feeling's gone. And next week, you forgot what I preached.

Like even I forget what I preach. You're going to need the Holy Spirit to remind you. You're going to need the Word of God to remind you.

So you need to learn to tap into the Spirit daily and do what the Bible calls walking in the Spirit. You know, a lot of us seem to think walking in the Spirit means living without sin. We try so hard and we fail all the time.

But actually walking in the Spirit is far simpler than that. Walking in the Spirit simply means following the voice or the leading of the Holy Spirit. Well, how do I move from where I am to walking in the Spirit? I'm going to give you a very simple, simple, you won't forget this, a simple method.

Right now, you're breathing in and out all the time without even thinking. If you stop, you die. Okay, so now, by an act of your will, breathe out.

Is that difficult? Okay, now breathe in. Sometimes a bit more difficult. And I want you to take all those bad habits, everything you want to get rid of, and I want you to breathe them out.

And you have to just push them away and say, there you go. I don't want you anymore. Now as you breathe in, I want you to imagine that as you're breathing in, the Holy Spirit is coming into you, filling you up, just like your lungs get filled up with air.

And He's now inside of you. And now He's taking control. Now all you do is invite Him to start living through you.

It's as easy as breathing, like seconds. Father, in the name of Jesus, I give up. I choose to let go of all the bad things, all the bad habits, all these things that are stealing from me, the blessing.

Holy Spirit, I invite you now to come in and take control. I'm ready to listen to you. Next step you take, you're walking in the Spirit.

You can do this often during the day. As soon as you get stressed and things get tough, just stop. Breathe out those cares.

Breathe out your fears and your cares, and then just breathe in the Holy Spirit and say, I'm handing over to you now, because I can't do this. I'm inviting you to take control. Then ask yourself, what would Jesus do? And then let Him do it through you.

Start off small. You build up to something big. The study of the book of Ephesians reveals that there are three main words that are used.

Great, late teacher, Watchmanee, has a book called Sit, Walk, Stand, based on the book of Ephesians. And he shows that we got to start our spiritual lives seated, and then we begin to walk. Only then can we stand against the onslaughts that come against us.

Start in the sitting position. Start by examining yourself, and I've actually taught on this. Don't review all the preaching I've been doing about setting your goals, all those things.

Lay it all out in your mind. Don't make that list of your abilities and your bad habits. Get to the place where you've got it fully formulated before you take a step.

And as you sit there, receive the Holy Spirit. Now begin to walk. And you don't walk the way we normally walk spiritually, because the sitting part remains.

You walk seated. Yeah, maybe you're in a wheelchair. I know that's a dumb illustration.

But you're going forward, retaining your confidence and your position of knowing who you are. Don't ever be moved from that or you'll lose it. Start slowly and you're ahead.

Well, I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to go on the diet. Let's see which diet can I have.

There's hundreds of them out there. Pick one. Nobody's ever lost weight permanently on a diet yet.

You're going to have to change your diet. You're going to have to change what you eat and how you eat and when you eat. And let me tell you how you're going to change it.

You're not going to be foolish like so many of us have done and say from now on, I'm not eating this anymore. I'm not eating that anymore. I'm not eating that anymore.

I'm just going to eat healthy, fresh. I went on the raw food diet once. Decided I was not going to eat cooked food anymore.

I was quite bold. It did me great for about six weeks. I think I managed that juicy steak.

That's so good. And I start by the process of getting rid of old habits and adding new ones. And the best way to do it is not to get rid of the old habit first.

Just leave it right where it is. You're comfortable with it. You don't have to work on that.

Start working on the new habit first. So if your diet is bad, don't stop eating what you eat. Just start adding some new things that are healthy for you.

Over time, those new things will begin to replace the others and they'll fall away automatically. If you are physically unfit, don't go out there and sign up for a gym. They always want you to commit to your 24-month contract.

You're going to waste your money because you're not going to go for a week and then it's over. Start by adding one additional activity. Maybe park your car further and walk a longer distance every day.

Just add one extra activity that will increase your physical fitness. Build it up slowly. Start with the pluses, not with the minuses.

Put in one extra hour of work. Maybe one extra hour of prayer. Maybe one extra hour in the Word.

Start small until it becomes a habit. They say out there it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Some people say it takes 30 days to form a new habit.

I think it's all baloney. It's never worked for me. I've tried.

You're going to need the Holy Spirit to help you with this. You're going to have to come to the place of feeling comfortable with this and get to the place where you do it without thinking anymore, without anybody telling you to do it. Ask the Lord's help.

Ask somebody else to help you. Ask them to remind you. Do whatever it takes.

Start changing your habits in the small things. See that it's faithful in the small things becomes faithful in the big things. So start where you are and each one of you is in a different position.

Each one of you has different gifts and abilities. Start where you are. Sit until you're ready to start walking.

Climb into the Spirit and walk. Let the Holy Spirit lead you. Your life will get turned around and you will start practically experiencing all those things that you reached out and received by faith from the Lord.

Father, I thank you for your Word. I pray that it'll find a resting place in the hearts of those who heard it. I pray that we'll all be challenged and motivated.

That desires will arise. New desires, Lord, that will be fanned by the flame of your Spirit. And Holy Spirit, I ask you to take these words and bring conviction to your people.

Stir them up, Lord. Motivate them and empower them to become all that you designed us to be. To recover everything that you brought back for us on the cross of Calvary, Lord.

To stop giving to the devil and his crowd all the blessings that you have for us. I ask you for abundance of health, abundance of prosperity, abundance of good relationships, and true happiness and fulfillment in this life. For each person who hears this Word, I thank you for it now in Jesus' name.

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