Jesus, up until now, You been showing me WHAT all the benefits of General Spiritual Growth and Victorious Christian Living are. You helped me examine its power, its blessings, its superior methods, and its wonderful effects on my life and on my problems like drugs issues. From here on I ask you to help me dig into HOW to go about taking advantage of these dynamic principles of God, because these principles are going to set me free. BUT, help me understand four things about myself. Teach me that they are expressed in Mark 12:30 (NIV) Love the Lord your God with all your HEART and with all your SOUL and with all your MIND and with all your STRENGTH.

Jesus, help me understand that I have four major parts to me that God needs opened to Him. Help me understand that these four parts of me are called: my HEART, my SOUL, my MIND, and my STRENGTH. Teach me that my body has a brain that my MIND uses; my brain is in my body and my mind is in my spirit. Show me that a part of my brian contains a storage system that is often called the subconscious mind. It is the part of my brain my HEART uses. Teach me that the subconscious mind is in my body and my heart is in my spirit. Help me understand that my SOUL is the mechanism that ties my body and my spirit together. Help me be aware that I have to have it to live here on earth; it is my human life; it is how I, as a spirit being, am able to access my brain so my mind can tell my body what to do. Help me see that if I lose my soul, I lose my life. I have to leave the planet and go see my Maker.

Jesus, help me start looking at myself like this:

• A spirit being is WHAT I am; it is the real me and CAN base its decisions on spiritual concepts.


• My heart is WHAT I am basing my life on now; it makes its decisions and communicates with me through feelings and emotions.


• My mind is WHO I am becoming; it bases its decisions and communicates with me through reasoning and logic.


• My body is WHERE I live; it is animalistic; and bases its decisions on selfish, self-centered, and pleasure oriented experiences. Teach me that it has a will, desires, and animalistic drives that have to be brought under Your and my control.

Jesus, make it clear to me that I have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit Who is from God, that I may understand what God has freely given me (1 Cor 2:12). Teach me that what happened to me when I was born again was, I became a child of God. John 3:6 (NIV) Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. Show me that my first parents were human; they caused me to be born with a fleshly body which was human. Help me understand that when I was born AGAIN, my heavenly FATHER caused me to be born as a spirit being. John 4:24 (NIV) God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. Teach me that this birth empowered me to be able to comprehend and understand spiritual concepts. Now I can be trained in on how to live as A CHILD OF GOD!

1 Cor 2:13 (NIV) This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. Jesus, help me see that most of my life I have been being trained on how to live as a human. I have been trained by the world using human wisdom. Make it clear to me that human effort and world training WILL NOT work in living the Christian life. You have to RETRAIN me on how to live my everyday life as a child of God. Teach me that the REASON God had me be born as a human on this planet was to give me “life classes.” Show me that as a human, I won’t be able to do much damage to myself or those around you. But, I can be taught how to get God’s character and attitudes so I can be trusted with His power as a spirit being.

Jesus, help me understand that right now I am stuck on this planet as a human for training purposes. Show me that it is like being in a childcare room where children are only given those things that are safe for them to “play” with. Teach me that the “toys” provided me are human, worldly and temporary; they are like the toys given to children. Teach me that the things on this planet are similar to those things I will be using as a mature, adult child of God; but, they are just spiritual “toys.” If I don’t learn the PURPOSE of these spiritual “toys,” they won’t get me ready for my REAL life as a child of God. So, show me that You are here ready to train me in on how to be successful now and how to get ready to be successful as a mature, adult child of God in eternity.

1 Cor 2:14 (NIV) The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. Jesus, help me understand that prior to salvation and justification, I was only able to learn human things. Then I obeyed Romans 10:9-10 and in an instant I was born again; my abilities changed drastically; I was instantly empowered by my heavenly Father to comprehend spiritual words, concepts, principles, and truths. BUT, all my life I have mostly been taught human wisdom and world training. So, help me see that the day after I was born again, here is the way I started out my new life as a Christian: Rom 7:15 (NIV) I do not understand what I do. For what I WANT to do I do not do, but what I HATE I do.

1 Cor 2:15 (NIV) The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: Jesus, help me understand that for the first time in my life I KNEW how to treat myself, other people, and God’s plan. The things of God started making sense to me; I started WANTING to do the right things and started HATING doing the wrong things. BUT, make it clear to me that I immediately started using the ONLY training, systems, principles, and belief systems I had. All I knew was how to live as a human; all I had been trained with was world training. All I believed in for how to live life was human and world belief systems. So, help me see that when I tried using all these things, here’s what happened: Rom 7:19 (NIV) For what I do is not the good I WANT to do; no, the evil I DO NOT WANT to do--this I keep on doing.

1 Cor 2:16 (NIV) “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. Jesus, make it clear to me that now I have the mind of Christ; I CAN understand spiritual principles; I CAN be trained in on how to live the POWERFUL child of God life. I have Your mind, Jesus; I have the Holy Spirit inside me ready to explain the Bible to me; and, I am being led into these studies by You so I can give up my human, world training and learn God’s way of doing things. Teach me that as a child of God, I need to learn how to win over this life and how to get ready to do awesome, supernatural things in eternity.