(*information obtained from sermon by Pastor Darby – Out of Control: Learning to Fortify)

You can be in Christ as much as you try to be but can hear a song that will take you back to a place where you almost feel like falling because Satan is working on your resistance. Ask yourself to have you ever built control mechanisms in your life.

Control mechanisms are foundations you build that work by cruise control or auto-pilot. There are times when my spirit is weak, but I have built things in my life that will take over when I am weak. The barriers I built will fight for me.

Our goal is to control what goes in and what goes out. If we can control that, then we will stay in peace.

BIBLE says the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. That is why we fight our flesh daily.

So when my flesh is weak or my spirit is weary – the control mechanisms I have built will goo on auto-pilot so they will work when I am weak and if you don’t build those things – you will find yourself struggling all the time with the pettiness of sin.

What you allow in is what you plant on – what you allow in becomes the foundation of the truth you stand on – so if I allow worldliness in – then that becomes my foundation so when Satan shows up I do not have anything to stop him because everything I have built is part of his device/mechanism.

The greatest maturity period is the ability to be in self-control. That is when you become mature – when you let nothing outside disturb your peace and you let nothing inside disturb your peace.

My self-control is predicated on what I let in.

We must control ourselves. Bible says, what profits a man to gain the whole world and lose control of his mind, will and emotions.