Some people don't have that kind of responsibility, but they are faced with the same stress that those other people are, paying rent, feeding the screaming kids and trying to maintain a normal existence.

Then there are those that don't have the luxuries that even they have, and yet they have stress in their lives too. It doesn't matter what our level of responsibility is, if we don't do things that are going to ensure success for that day then we will be disappointed, and stress will become the normal way of life for us.

The point is that we all suffer from stress from one degree to another, and if we aren't equipped with the right attitude to deal with that stress about our life situation, then we will go from stress to depression.

Some here today are depressed. Depression is a very big monkey that some people carry their backs and they don't even see that they are carrying it. It sneaks up on you and you don't even see it coming. There is so much depression these days that people do whatever they can to get rid of it.

Some people are under their doctor's care and take prescribed medication, some can't afford a doctor and deal with it by abusing alcohol and drugs. Either way you end up on a downward spiral that is almost impossible to recover from.

But there are 6 steps that we can take in order to help us recover from depression and stress. I know that these steps work, because I had to do them myself.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The scriptures say:

Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life. Proverbs 4:13

When we reject good sound advice from the people that care about us, and we turn away from it and go our own way, even though we know what was said was good and sound advice, then we open up a Pandora's box full of trouble in our lives.

Think back to a time when everything was good, when you were about to make a decision that you knew would be a life changing decision, and you asked for someone's advice, and although you knew it was good advice, you did what you wanted to do anyway.

What was the outcome of that decision ?

It probably is one of your biggest regrets to this day in your life. I have one that I can remember clear as day. We all do. And because of that decision our lives turned out to be a total disaster, we never became what we thought we would be.

Unless we have faced that critical moment in our lives, we are probably still being influenced by it and denying that it is there. And until we quit lying to ourselves, and admit that we aren't as content with our lives as we want to be, and deal with that decision, then nothing will ever change.

1. We have to realize that we have a problem and deal with it.

We have to be Truthful and Honest with ourselves accept responsibility for our lives. We have to hold ourselves accountable for the decisions we make.

In order to have victorious living in our lives, we have to stop lying to ourselves. That is the hardest first step that we have to face, none of us want to go there because it is easier to just give up.

We can hide behind whatever it is that we want to hide behind, whatever our choice of self medication is, but we all know that we cannot hide from the truth. As much as we want to avoid it, as much as we want to make it go away, as much as we just hope it will disappear, it always rears its ugly head up and we find ourselves staring at it face to face.

We always will until we go back to the problem and deal with it once and for all.

2. We have to face our problems with honesty and truth.

We have to admit that we are the blame for the way things are in our lives and not someone else. There might have been someone who started the ball rolling down hill, but we didn't have to let it keep rolling.

As in water face reflects face, So a man's heart reveals the man. Proverbs 27:19

As this scripture says, no matter what we do with our problems we all have to see ourselves for what we are and what we want to become. We can accept defeat in our lives if we want to, we have a choice, or we can change the outcome.

How doe we see ourselves ?

Your heart reveals who you really are.

Do you have the heart of a champion or the heart of someone who stays beaten down by life and circumstances ?

How do you want people to see you ?

If nothing ever changes in your life, and you wake up everyday, and everything is the same thing over and over, day after day, do you think there just might be a problem with being content with your life ?

That would make me crazy !!!

I have to have successes occurring in my life on a daily basis, or else I feel like I left part of my life on the table. Maybe some of you don't feel that way, but I do, and if I am feeling that way, then I'm going to change something.

Which brings us to the next step:

3. We have to want to change.

Change doesn't come about by passively blurting out a wish list of things that we would like to have happen in our lives, or we wish would happen.

How many people dream about winning the Lotto and what they would do with the money if they really did ?

Unfortunately, you have a five times better chance of being hit with lighting than you do with the lotto.

Does that mean people won't spend a dollar or two on the lotto just because of those numbers ?

No. They always say why not me, why couldn't I win ?

With that small amount of hope people will play, but when it comes to making positive changes that will affect the outcome of their lives, they put in less effort than playing the lotto.

Instead of the impossible odds of winning the lotto, if you just put any effort into changing your life for the better, you will win 100% of the time for the energy that you invest into your life.

It takes an proactive effort on our part to bring about change in our lives, change doesn't come by doing nothing or the same thing you do every day, change comes by changing the way that you do things.

Who is like the wise man? Who knows the explanation of things? Wisdom brightens a man's face and changes its hard appearance. Eccl 8:1

What this scripture says is that if you really want to change then you have to seek out wisdom and apply it. You have to go looking for because it isn't going to walk up and kick you in the butt to get your attention.

If you put out the effort to gain this wisdom, this scripture says that your life will change, there will be a transformation that nobody will mistake about you, because it will show on the outside as well as the inside. Your whole appearance will change right before everyone's eyes.

That brings us to step 4 in our teaching on Six Steps to Victorious Living:

4. We have to understand that we can't change on our terms.

I have been dealing all week with a young man with a drug problem who has been trying to tell me how he wants me to help him.

How do you think that has worked out for him so far ?

I didn't go looking for him, him and his mother came looking for me. He and I had a couple of meetings to determine what kind of facility would be best for him to go into since he was working and had two jobs.

His mother was desperate to have the boy back that she loved so much before and I could see that this was her final last resort. It was sad to see that this boy would bring so much heart ache to his mother and have her in a place where she dreaded for his life.

Long story short, he said a lot of things that he thought we wanted to hear, things that he thought he could manipulate the circumstances with, and in the end he ended up alienating himself from his mother and never fulfilled his part in the agreement he made with us and himself.

People want God to help them on their terms, they want God to conform His majesty to there thinking. God speaks Galaxies into existence, He places the stars in their places, He organizes the cells of every living thing into a complex and organized format that makes us what we are.

And we think God is going to conform to our ways ?

The scriptures says:

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Prov.14:12

Everyone has their opinion about how we get to heaven, if there is a hell or not, how we should live our lives, or if there was really a God and Savior, we can speculate all we want about God and His ways, but one thing is for sure, he left us a road map to heaven and what we have to do to get there, if we don't except it then that is on us and not God.

We are weak, a fallible creation. We don't always do and understand things the way we should, that's why we get ourselves into trouble, that's why we ruin our lives.

We need a Savior.

That brings us to step five of Six Steps to Victorious Living

5. We need a Savior's strength to help us overcome our shortcomings.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Matthew16:24

We have to deny all that we have been taught by our teachers in the world, we have to renounce the secular thinking that we have made apart of our misguided faith. We have to believe that God had to send His Son to die for the sins of mankind and that we couldn't do it for ourselves.

The world doesn't want you to believe that, it wants you to think that everything is fine just the way it s now and that you can do anything you want just as long as it doesn't hurt anyone around you.

Do you know what the problem is with that thinking ?

It hurts everyone around you. When Roe vrs. Wade was passed and abortion was made legal, everyone that fought so hard to get that law passed, thought we would eliminate the problems that came with unwanted babies.

What they didn't see was that it would eliminate 25 % of the future American population and that there would be catastrophic circumstances that they never saw coming.

1. There are too many old people and not enough young in our work force and social security will run out of money.

2. It eliminated people who would have been business owners and workers in the workforce that would be paying taxes and generating the needed revenue for our government to support programs that were supposed to help our well being and make the government function.

3. It has made us weak to passive take over from foreign governments that are sworn enemies of this country. We will loose this country within 50 years because they are having babies and out populating the American people if we don't change our thinking now.

4. Extreme Liberals are trying to change this country into a Socialist society without the funds to pay for it, which means that they will raise everyone's tax burden even higher than it is now.

If it didn't work in Russia, why do they think it will work here ?

They have all these so-called good intentions and they want to be the ones that save us from ourselves, but there is only one Savior, and He died on a cross for our sins. He is the power that helps us overcome all the things in our lives that plague us.

Some Christians think that they can say they are saved and not live like they are. They think God will not punish them for sin just because they said the magic words. Nothing could be further from the truth.

6. We have to walk the walk in order to talk the talk.
Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips 25 Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. 26 Make level [ ] paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm27 Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. Proverbs 4: 24-27
1It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Gal 5:1
13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature[ ]; rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."[ ]15If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. Gal. 5:13-14
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Gal.5: 16-26