The Bible addresses our efforts to please Him in our flesh: “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3). Trying to establish our own righteousness is actually our flesh at work!

Trying to please God in our human power robs us of our joy and peace with Him. Any victories will be short-lived and we will fall into temptation again. The enemy will keep harassing us and a conversation with him might go something like this:

We can all say, “I am redeemed by the blood of my Savior, but I have not yet fully attained.” We sing and shout praises to our God and yet many of us still continue to strive to please Him.

You may win an occasional victory and feel so good about it. You tell yourself, “I did it. I knew if I put my mind and heart to the matter, I would get the victory.” Your tendency is to feel proud about what you’ve done and then go around judging others who aren’t victorious.

When Satan tries to convince you that you are unworthy to walk with the Lord and serve Him, you know it is not true. However, you may have a hard time being fully assured that He has made you clean and fit to stand before Him and faithfully serve Him. But the Word of God says that He has!

Who tells you that you are unworthy, no good, useless, unusable to God? Who keeps reminding you that you’re weak, helpless, a total failure? And who tells you that you’ll never measure up to God’s standard?

Who tells worship team members they’re not worthy to sing praises in God’s house or musicians they’re not worthy to play instruments of worship? Who tells ushers, elders, Sunday school teachers, volunteers, people in the pew that they are unworthy?

God describes Himself this way: “I taught Ephraim [Israel] to walk, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them” (Hosea 11:3).

In the original language, this verse reads: “I came to them in their despair and tenderly nursed them through foul, rugged places. I held them in My arms as a nurse!” But verse 7 reads, “My people are bent on backsliding from Me.” The word bent here means “hanging in suspense, hanging in doubt.”

If you want the peace of God to reign in your life, you must quit several things:

• Stop trying to figure out how God will work things out
• Stop worrying and fretting (Philippians 4:6: “Be anxious for nothing”)
• Stop telling God what is right for you
• Stop thinking you are a failure and you can’t please God

One of Satan’s most effective traps for robbing Christians of peace is to convince them they must strive in the flesh to please God. He springs this on me all the time!

“Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful” (Colossians 3:15).

This one verse contains an incredible command; the entire body of Jesus Christ has been called by God to let His peace rule and govern our hearts, minds and bodies! The peace of God is to sit as ruler over everything. And if there was ever a time this call needed to be sounded, it is today in this hour of turmoil and confusion!

Do you sit under strong preaching that lovingly exposes your sin? If so, do you allow that word to convict you? Or, do you continue in your sin without grieving at all?

If you are rejecting the warnings of the restraining Holy Ghost, disobeying God time after time, then you are being recruited for the cult of Antichrist. The devil is silently initiating you into his mystery of iniquity. And when the promising, miracle-working Antichrist comes along, you’ll be swept up in his lies and given over to a delusion!

Throughout Scripture, God gives us a clear picture of how important it is for us to obey His Word. We see one such example in the life of King Saul, to whom God gave clear, specific commands through the prophet Samuel. “Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Samuel 15:3).