Student Study Guide
Lesson 31
Strategies for Walking in Constant Victory - Pt. 1
Foundation - We Can Walk Free
From the Seven Lies to the Seven Strategies
We have broken through the seven lies the enemy uses to keep believers in bondage. Now we move into seven practical and powerful strategies for walking in consistent victory over temptation - every single time. God is not asking us to white-knuckle our way through the Christian life. He has given us real, workable strategies. But we have to use them.
Before we begin, one more foundational piece: God is teaching us throughout this series to take responsibility for our sins, actions, and reactions. It does not ultimately matter what someone did to you. It only matters how you responded to it.
1. We can walk free of willful, sin. That is not idealism - it is the promise of the new . Jesus is coming back for "a glorious church, not having or wrinkle" (Eph. 5:27).
The Standard: There are sins of omission - things done out of ignorance or immaturity. But the willful decision to yield to temptation is always a choice, a rejection of God's rightful authority over your life. And it always costs far more than it appeared to be worth. The torment of resisting temptation is nothing in comparison to the torment of the consequences of sin.
Your Reflection
Section 1 - Strategy One: Close the Eye Gate
Guard What You Set Before Your Eyes
✍ David and Bathsheba - The Eye Gate
David should have been out in battle with his men. He was home when he should not have been. He walked onto his roof. He saw Bathsheba bathing. And he looked just a little too long. He did not have to look twice. He could have turned away.
The entire catastrophe of that season - the adultery, Uriah's death, the infant's death, the rebellion of Absalom - all of it began with a moment when David did not close the eye gate.
2. Sixty percent of all teenage crime is not just similar to, but an exact of something the young person saw on television or in a movie. What you set before your eyes creates in your mind. If you yield to the pictures in your mind, you will eventually on them.
The Honest Question: Do you want to walk in victory, or do you want to walk in defeat? Do you want to be filled with the holiness of God and fulfill the plan He has for your life? Or do you want to keep battling the same things year after year, never quite sure if you are going to make it? There is no third path. Shut the eye gate.
3. It is not just pornography. We are talking about violence in video games, movies and shows that feed a spirit of , rage, or perversion. Whatever your specific area of temptation - identify the eye gate points and close them.
4. Do not measure yourself against the most standard in your peer group. Measure yourself against the .
Your Reflection
Section 2 - Strategy Two: Shut the Ear Gate
Guard What You Allow Yourself to Hear
5. People listen to philosophies of the world through television, music, conversation, social media, books, and podcasts - and those philosophies begin to their sense of what is normal, what is acceptable, what is right. They begin to . And they often don't even notice it happening.
✍ Two Accounts: The African Preacher & The Music Research
The African Preacher: In Africa, a local preacher was making factual claims about a political situation with no evidence. He stated them as proven facts. He had heard it enough, from enough voices, that it had become his reality. He had not closed the ear gate. He had not been discerning about what he let in.
The Subliminal Research: Stores playing inaudible subliminal messages about shoplifting see up to a seventy percent reduction in theft - not because shoppers consciously hear the messages, but because the ear picks up everything. Your brain is far more receptive than you realize. You are being preached at all day long by whatever you are listening to.
6. One of the subtlest ways the enemy uses the ear gate is through . Many Christians open their spirits daily through the ear gate to music that is preaching , violence, perversion, and worldliness at them. "I don't listen to the words; I just like the beat" is simply not how your works.
The Defeat Anthem Problem: Some so-called Christian songs preach defeat, bondage, and spiritual resignation. One famous band had a song that spoke of chains "serving them well" - as if the believer should make peace with their bondage. Young people latched onto it because it matched their experience of low-level Christianity. But the ear gate was open. And what goes in is what gets built.
7. You need to hear words that declare who you are in Christ. Words that say you are more than a , you are an , you can break the power of wickedness, you can walk free and holy. What you shapes what you believe. What you believe shapes what you become.
Apply Ears To
The Word of God • The voice of the Spirit • Godly instruction • Voices that declare who you are in Christ • The report of the Lord
Shut Ears To
Philosophies contrary to God's Word • Music that preaches lust or perversion • Gossip and murmuring • Negative medical reports • Critics who contradict the Word • Evil reports
8. Gossip and murmuring are ear gate issues. The person actively to gossip becomes as guilty as the one speaking it. God hates the sowing of among brethren, and it requires two: someone to speak it and someone to hear it.
9. If you cease to hear the right instruction, the Word of God, the voices of mature believers, you will . It is inevitable. Gathering with the saints, immersing yourself in the Word, listening to solid teaching - these are not optional for the serious believer.
Your Reflection
Section 3 - Strategy Three: Meditate on the Word
Active, Engaged Immersion in Scripture
10. The word "meditate" here means to or speak out under your breath. This is not passive reading. It is an active, engaged on the Word - turning it over in your mind, speaking it out, asking how it applies to you personally.
The Self-Righteous Spirit: A self-righteous spirit loves to quote the Word without having truly meditated on it. When it reads a scripture, it immediately thinks: "I wish Sister So-and-so were here, she needed to hear that." It always applies what it reads to someone else. The most dangerous place to be is when you think all your own planks are gone. The Word of God always has something to say to you.
11. Real meditation is not going down a memory verse list. It is spending time on just a few verses, sitting with them, over them, letting them speak. It is the difference between eating food and sitting down to a real meal.
12. The tree planted by the river does not have to for water - its roots are in the source. When the Word is in you like that, the temptations that once had great power will begin to lose their . Not because you are grinding harder, but because the root of your inner life is nourished from a different .
If you are spending your mental energy on the things of God, you will have no space left for the enemy to work with. The mind cannot focus on two things at once. Filling it with truth crowds out the lies. Filling it with the Word crowds out the temptation.
Your Reflection
Lesson 31 - Practice Test
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Part A: Multiple Choice (5 questions · 2 pts each)
1. What does the lesson say David's sin with Bathsheba reveals about the eye gate?
2. What does the lesson say the research on subliminal messages in stores demonstrates about the ear gate?
3. According to the lesson, what was wrong with the Christian band's song about chains?
4. What does the Hebrew meaning of "meditate" in Joshua 1:8 reveal about what the strategy actually requires?
5. What does the Psalm 1 image of the tree planted by rivers of water illustrate about the effect of genuine Word meditation on temptation?
Part B: True or False (6 statements · 1 pt each)
1. The lesson teaches that walking free of willful, conscious sin is an unrealistic ideal - a standard believers should aspire to but not expect to actually reach in this life.
2. The lesson says that adults in their twenties and thirties who consume violent and sexually charged entertainment face the same eye gate dangers as teenagers.
3. According to the lesson, a person who actively listens to gossip is less guilty than the person speaking it, since they are passive participants who did not initiate the content.
4. The lesson teaches that a self-righteous spirit can quote Scripture frequently while never having genuinely meditated on it, because it always applies what it reads to someone else.
5. Closing the eye gate is optional for mature believers who have already developed strong spiritual disciplines, since they have built enough character to process most content without spiritual harm.
6. Gathering with the saints, immersing yourself in the Word, and listening to solid teaching are described in this lesson as essential practices for keeping the ear gate open to the right things.
Part C: Fill in the Blank (5 items · 1 pt each)
1. Psalm 101:3 - David's commitment: "I will set nothing before my eyes."
2. Mark 4:24 - "Take heed what you hear. With the same you use, it will be measured to you."
3. The Hebrew word for "meditate" in Joshua 1:8 means to or speak out under your breath.
4. The mind cannot focus on two things at once. Filling it with truth crowds out the . Filling it with the Word crowds out the temptation.
5. Proverbs 19:27 - "Cease listening to instruction, my son, and you will from the words of knowledge."
Part D: Short Answer (completion credit)
1. Using the David and Bathsheba account, explain the mechanism by which an unclosed eye gate leads to catastrophic consequences. What specific choice was available to David at each stage, and when was the decisive moment?
2. Explain the principle in Mark 4:24 and how it applies to both secular music and so-called Christian music that preaches defeat. How does the Hitler quote on repetition connect to the ear gate principle?
3. What is the difference between genuine Word meditation (as the lesson describes it) and the self-righteous spirit's relationship to Scripture? What question should mark every session of genuine meditation?
Part E - Before You Leave
Name the two most significant eye gate entry points in your life that are feeding temptation patterns. What specific, concrete step will you take this week to close each one?
Compare what currently enters your ear gate daily with what Joshua 1:8 requires. What is one thing you will start listening to, and one thing you will stop, beginning today?