1. Look beyond the lure! See Satan for who he is: a thief, a destroyer, a liar, a deceiver with a plan, a plot and a strategy to tempt and destroy your life!
2. Know your weaknesses. If your weakness is sex with your boyfriend, don’t be alone with him. Kellie Copeland says, “The time to decide not to sleep with him is not when you’re in his bedroom. The time to decide is before you even go out with him.”
You ?ght fear with a plan! Why? Because you know you’ll be tempted. You’ve recognized it’s a weakness in your ?esh. You know the outcome will not be good. Remember: when Satan observes a weakness in your behavior, he makes note of it to bring that temptation back into your life over and over until you fall. He will, on purpose, arrange for you to be alone with him so you’ll be so tempted to give in.
Think back over your life. Where have you had the most struggles? Be honest with yourself. Satan knows your weaknesses, your vulnerabilities – you need to know them!
3. Get an accountability partner. It’s amazing how having accountability to someone else will help you stay strong. You need someone you can trust and con?de in. You need to be able to tell someone, “I have a weakness in this area and I want you to hold me accountable for staying focused”. Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron.” We need each other. Proverbs 18:1 says, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire. He rages against all sound wisdom.”
We need to help each other and not freak out when someone tells us their weakness. Just because your weakness may not be their weakness, don’t put them down or look down on them. Build them up! Help them stay strong. I’ve heard people say that we are the only ARMY who beats up their wounded when they’re down. We need to build each other up, help each other stay strong, not judge each other.
4. Value your life. God has given you an assignment and a certain period of time on earth to ful?ll your assignment. Satan’s knows that, too! That’s why he must work overtime to tempt you! God has something special for you to accomplish. You have to guard your heart and not allow just anything in there. My mom says, “Don’t let your heart be like a Denny’s Restaurant: Always open! 24 hours a day… everybody welcome!”
Romans 6 (Message Bible) says, “As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. “But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more life on the way!” God can rebuild anything that’s been demolished!
5. Pray. Pray. Pray. “Pray so you won’t come into temptation.” (Matt. 26). I saw a billboard one time that read: 7 days without prayer makes one weak! Remember, temptation comes to us all. We never get to a place in our lives where there’s no more temptation. It’s something we all have to daily guard ourselves against. The best way to stay guarded is to stay focused on a daily plan to spend time with God.
God is available to help you 24 hours a day! He never gets irritated or impatient when we keep coming back to Him. His love is everlasting! If you have to cry out for God 500 times in one day – do it! Spend some time with God today – even if it’s 5 minutes. Be conscious of His presence at all times. The more time you spend just talking with Him, the closer you’ll get to Him. The closer you get to Him, the more you don’t want to disappoint Him. Value the life God has given you. It’s precious. It’s signi?cant. It’s not wasted. It’s not over.
After all, God has the original tailor-made plan for your life. It appeals to your greatest strengths, talents and abilities. He’s been sizing you up for a custom-designed future!
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For years, Terri Savelle Foy’s life was average. She had no dreams to pursue. Each passing day was just a repeat of the day before. Finally, with a marriage in trouble and her life falling apart, Terri made a change. She began to pursue God like never before, develop a new routine and discovered the power of having a dream and purpose.
As Terri started to recognize her own dreams and goals, she simply wrote them down and reviewed them consistently. This written vision became a road map to drive her life. As a result, those dreams are now a reality.
Terri has become the CEO of an international Christian ministry. She is an author, a conference speaker, and a success coach to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Her best-selling books Make Your Dreams Bigger than Your Memories and Imagine Big have helped people discover how to overcome the hurts of the past and see the possibilities of a limitless future. Her weekly podcast is a lifeline of hope and inspiration to people around the world.
Terri Savelle Foy is a cheerleader of dreams and is convinced that “if you can dream it, God can do it.” She is known across the globe as a world-class motivator of hope and success through her transparent and humorous teaching style. Terri’s unique ability to communicate success strategies in a simple and practical way has awakened the dreams of the young and old alike.
Terri shares from personal experience the biblical concepts of using the gift of the imagination to reach full potential in Jesus Christ. From stay-at-home moms to business executives, Terri consistently inspires others to go after their dreams. With step-by-step instruction and the inspiration to follow through, people are fueled with the passion to complete their life assignment down to the last detail (see John 17:4).
Terri and her husband, Rodney Foy, have been married since 1991, and are the parents of a beautiful redheaded daughter, Kassidi Cherie. They live near Dallas, Texas.