Welcome to vlat Subject Podcast.

Our mission at Vlatimer Subject Ministries is to reach the world globally and disciple them digitally.

Let's dive into this episode, four destructive habits that keep Christians weak.

Let me start with something you need to hear.

Many Christians are not losing to the devil because he's stronger.

They're losing because they have habits, quiet once daily habits, and these habits are draining their strength little by little until they have no more fight left.

He Brews Shepherd twelfth, verse one tells us throw off everything that hinders and.

The sin that's so easily ensnares.

This means there are things in your life right now that are not just bad choices, that actually waits.

They are slowing you down.

And weak Christian is easily discouraged, easily tempted, prayerless, inconsistent, powerless is spiritual battle.

And the scary part is you can love Jesus and still be spiritually weak.

Today, we're actually going to help you to identify four habits that will keep you spiritually weak.

And if you will break them, you will see your faith, you will see God's power, and your joy rise to a whole new level.

The first one is the habit of a neglecting prayer in the world.

Jesus made it very clear Matthew, chapter twenty six, Verse forty one.

Watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

The truth is, most Christians don't fall into sin because they woke up one day and decided to walk away from God.

They fell because they drifted, they stopped guarding their time with God.

Think about it.

If you go for days without food, your body will become weak, shaky, and slow.

The same thing is true spiritually.

The Word of God is your food.

Prayer is your drink.

It's like oxygen.

Without them, you will get weak.

And here's the deception that if you skip prayer and the Word for a day, you might not feel different.

But see, over time, your sensitivity to God will be dull, your resistance to temptation will drop, and your faith and fire will feel dry.

If you want to break this habit, you gotta stop treating prayer and the Word as occasional spiritual snack.

Make them your daily bread, your daily meal.

Start your day with God before you start it with the phone.

Read the Bible until it speaks to you.

Pray until your heart softens toward God.

It's not legalism, it's your spiritual survival.

And maybe you're into place right now where you don't have a desire to read the Word, Like, yeah, yeah, have lat I understand, I'm weak, resistance to temptation has dropped, and my faith is low and my joy is low.

But I don't even want to read the Word of God.

Well, ask the Holy Spirit to give you the desire and then actually go and read the Word of God.

Why Because the hunger for God's word comes from reading God's word.

Hunger for prayer comes from praying.

So you're gonna have to put in some discipline and go to work.

The second habit that will keep you spiritually weak is feeding on worldly influences.

Roman chapter twelve, verse two.

It says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

If the majority of what you watch, what you listen to and scroll through, is godless, do not be surprised if you feel far from God.

Don't be surprised if your sensitivity to Him is not there.

Garbage in, garbage out, every song, every movie, social media, feed, conversation is feeding your spirit or feeding your flesh and starving your spirit.

You cannot fill your mind with lust, gossip, violence, and negativity all week long and expect to be on fire for God.

This is like trying to plant flowers in the garden while pouring poison into that soil every single day.

So the practical challenge I'm gonna give you is this, take a one week media fast.

Replace Netflix with worship music.

Replace endless scrolling with listening to a Bible or sermons.

Pay attention to how your mind feels after that one week.

As you feed on the right things, your spirit will thank you.

You know, one of the prophets was told by God to eat the scroll.

And one time I was reading and I felt the Holy Spirit say, he says, you are eating the scroll.

And I was like, yeah, you know, I'm eating this the word of God.

But the Holy Spirit also convicted me.

He's like, your generation is eating the scroll as we scroll.

We're eating, we're eating the scroll.

But God told the prophet to eat the scroll.

The scroll was the word of God.

Today we're eating the scroll of social media.

We're eating the scroll of TikTok.

We're eating the scroll of reels and memes and all of that.

And I'm not against social media.

You're probably watching this on social media.

What I'm saying is that you're eating it.

So if you're noticing, you're what you're feeling is not on fire.

For God, you're not strong.

What you're feeling is directly connected to what you're feeding yourself.

If you sow into the flesh, from the flesh, you will reap destruction.

If you sow into the spirit, you will reap life.

So just become intentional about your seeds.

Prioritize.

I tell people take a season where you cut off social media completely, and after that come back and treat social media differently.

The idea isn't to cut off the social media, even though for some of us that's the case.

The idea is to treat it differently, and to do that, you're going to have to take a long break for a season.

I remember I did that for a while.

I removed social media from my phone.

I don't know how many months it was, and then I came back.

Some apps are not even on the phone.

Some accounts I deleted completely, like I don't have Twitter, anymore.

I don't have LinkedIn and other ones, some of them because they were places of temptation.

Some of them were the places of like a lot of political stuff I was exposed to that just kind of was messing my perspective.

And I said, I need to cut some things off, and the other things I had to reduce when I just remove it from my phone and I don't have access to that.

But I did that after taking the time to completely stop.

Why because I want to be fed spiritually.

I don't want to feed the flesh.

So a third habit that you have to have if you want to be weak, and I will also give you what you need to do if you want to be strong.

If you isolate from the godly community, Satan will use that to keep you weak.

Hebrewshipter ten, verse twenty five.

It says, do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another.

See the devil loves to isolate believers because alone we are weaker.

Just like a coal pulled out of fire quickly grows cold, a Christian disconnected from fellowship will lose their spiritual heat.

This does not mean that showing up a church is enough.

You gotta be planted.

That means you gotta have some people, brothers and sisters who actually know you, encourage you, pray for you, and keep you accountable.

If your only spiritual input is a YouTube sermon once a week, you're missing the strength that comes from walking with others.

Iron sharpens, iron that happens in proximity and friction.

You cannot have that by watching YouTube.

You got to get into a local church.

And if you are in a local church and it's a big church, you're like, yeah, but it's so big.

You know, churches have small groups.

This is where that friction and proximity happens.

I challenge you.

One of the reasonist people are weak is because they are alone.

Church heard offense the churches to big business excuses, and you become weak.

It's not just about what you're feeding and the diet of God's word.

It is about your association.

You don't have to be the best friends with everyone in church, but you need few people in your life who can look you in the eye and ask you how's your soul?

And that's how you become strong.

And the last habit that Satan will use to keep you weak and you have to break that, and that is tolerating secret said.

Psalm sixty six, verse eighteen says, if I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

David makes a connection between the spiritual strength, receptivity to God, God listening to your prayers, and actually hidden compromises.

Hidden sin is like a slow leak in the tire.

You keep going for a while, but eventually you'll break down.

It will rob you of your spiritual confidence, boldness, and intimacy with God.

Secret sin will make you actually hide from God instead of hide in God.

It will make you avoid prayer, avoid fellowship, and avoid worship.

You'll end up living in the shadows instead of walking in the light.

But here's the good news.

The moment you confess and turn away from it, the blood of Jesus cleanses you and restores your strength.

Proverbs twenty eight thirteen, it says he who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses them and renounces them finds mercy.

Don't live in the prison of secrecy.

Confess it, kill it before it kills your fire, And can I submit to you?

Sometimes it's not some kind of a big sin as much as it's this brewing offense hurt where you're carrying something against someone but you're too afraid to come to them and to tell them that.

So you're carrying that andy eats you on the inside, anger, resentment, and then you begin to walk on eggshells around them, and then you begin to notice everything they do.

You begin to intrepret that through the lens of your offense.

And I've noticed a lot of people on fire for God lose that fire, not necessarily because they watched the porn, or they lied, or they stole, or they slept with somebody.

It's this thing that gets built up that takes away their strength, and it's called a fence.

And all you gotta do he's going to lean into awkward leaning too awkward conversation with that person.

Sometimes I say, Hey, I've been carrying this thing.

I'm bringing it into the light.

I don't want to live in the dark.

You know.

Interesting, Actually I had to do that today.

There was something one minister did that just kind of didn't sit right with me.

And I also felt like there's not understanding on his end.

I could have just brushed it off and moved on, but I was like, no, it's been twelve hours and it's kind of brewing there.

I do not want to build an offence and the enemy to allow a root of bitterness.

See, I can't get better if I'm bitter and so and I call it leaning into awkward and I send that message and I said, hey, I'm just going to lean into awkward.

I want to build a relationship with you, and I don't want to have misunderstanding and offense.

Here's what I stand.

Here is what I feel.

Help me to understand your side of the story.

Next thing that happens is this way.

I don't walk in this offence.

I walk in the light.

So these four habits, neglecting prayer and the word, feeding unworldly influences, isolating from godly community, tolerating secret sin and offense are silent killers of your spiritual strength.

The good news you can break them starting today.

You don't have to stay weak.

You can be a Christian who stands strong, who resists temptation, and who lives with joy and power.

If you've recognize one or all of these habits in your life.

Let's pray right now, Lord Jesus, I confess that I have allowed habits into my life that have made me weak.

Forgive me for neglecting your word.

Forgive me for feeding on wrong things.

Forgive me for isolating and tolerating sin and offense.

I choose today to break these habits and to live in your strength.

Fill me with your Holy spirit.

Set me on fire for you again in Jesus name.

Amen.

If you praaye that take action today, message a Christian friend, open your Bible before you open your phone, turn off that show that feeds your flesh.

Make a change right now.

And if this message helps you, share this with somebody who needs to hear it.

Subscribe for more biblical teaching that will challenge your faith.

And I'll see you in the next video.

But before I let you go, I want to let you know.

But actually just released Make the Devil Homeless, and it's a book Unactually, Deliverance has a lot of powerful prayers for those of you who may be like Vlad.

You know this is great what you shared, but I feel like I got like some spiritual problem.

So this will really help you and you can get it on Amazon or my store.

It will be available as well for free download on my website.

Thank you so much.

God bless you until next time.

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