Discipleship Tape Ministries

When you look at the cup of life, is it half-full or is it half-empty? When someone asks you, "How was your day?" do you tell them the good or the bad? It is our perspective that causes men and women to give a bad report, or conversely, a good report. We sometimes get so busy describing the size of the enemy that we forget how big our God is. We need to have the right perspective. Read l...

Proverbs is practical, and it practically puts the arguer in his place. It says arguing is a senseless pastime enjoyed only by fools who are prompted by pride. It elevates self, wounds others, and breaks the heart of God. The process is to trace the spirit that causes us to argue and root it out, replacing it with the cleansing power of the Word of God. Read lesson: 916B

Is it possible to control your tongue? Is it possible not to live on a highway paved with regrets over words you wish you had never said? Is it possible not to have to spend the rest of your life constantly asking for forgiveness for things you uttered in anger or frustration? Is it possible to bring the tongue totally under control? If you are a Christian the answer is "Yes." Read lesso...

Part two of this lesson on what Proverbs teaches about drunkenness delves into issues and answers on the subject of intoxication. It will seek to answer these questions: Who says I can't drink? Who's in control of my life? Who's watching what I do? What kind of fruit is my life producing? What is the issue of the hour? What are my options as a Christian? Read lesson: 915B

We come to the sixth roadblock to godliness, which is so clearly defined in the book of Proverbs - the issue of drunkenness. It involves behavior, but it involves more than behavior. It involves why we get drunk, how we get drunk, what happens physically, what happens emotionally, and finally, what happens spiritually. Let's take a look at what the Scriptures say on the subject. Read lesson: 9...

This part of our study on gluttony should be entitled, "The Road to Moderation." How do we get back to the constant control of our will over our own emotions? If controlling our appetites frees us in the spiritual realm to receive greater feasts from God's table, then the logical end of self-control in this area of our lives is fasting. We will also look at the purposes and promises...

It has been said that the most crucial test of a man's character comes as he slides his tray through a cafeteria line. It is then that the real person emerges. Today, we look at the principles from Proverbs on gluttony. God deplores gluttony. The reason is simple - it wrestles control of a key area of a person's life away from the Holy Spirit, and exercises his own will in response to an a...

The purpose of this lesson is for us to see adultery from God's perspective - adultery of the eye, mind, will, body, and spirit - and having seen it from God's perspective, never again to toy with immorality. Can we walk through fire and not be burned? Can we toy with immorality and not be burned? We cannot. God has erected signposts in His Word that clearly warn us: Danger: Hot Coals - St...

In this lesson we will take a look at both the character of God, which makes morality possible, and the portrait of His holiness, which makes our morality essential. The power to behave is not based on our determination, but on God's nature, imputed to us by virtue of the new birth. His Spirit placed in us gives us the capacity to behave. We must choose to behave so that the portrait of our Sa...

Self-control has two parts: Internal attitudes, a process of transformation, and external behavior, a principle of obedience. It is into that painful second area that we are moving in our study of Proverbs. We will look at four public enemies of the Christian faith over which the Christian is commanded to exercise self-control—sexual immorality, drunkenness, gluttony, and the tongue. Read lesson: ...

In this lesson, we are going to look at the subjects of why not to fear and how not to fear. God says we have no basis for fear because of Who owns us. We need to trust His Sovereignty. So, how do we conquer fear? Find the two keys that will drive out the Satanic fears that hover over us and threaten our peace. Read lesson: 912A

God does not want us to be afraid. He does not want us to fear what man can do. He does not want us to fear what Satan can do. But above all He is saying that He does not want us to fear what He can do, if we will but let him. He wants to be Lord and rerelease first-century power into twenty-first century Christians. He will do it, if we will just stop being afraid. Read lesson: 911B

What are you afraid of? Do you have a stronghold that holds you in bondage in an area of living in which God intended you to be free? Does Satan approach you with a temptation to fear saying that God is not in control? God has created an alternative to fear. This alternative is the fear of the Lord. We will discover just what the "fear of the Lord" is in this lesson. Read lesson: 911A

Envy. It will surface in your prayer life, both in who you pray for and who you don't. It will surface in your thought life - the people to whom you compare yourself. It will surface in your relationships and how you spend your money. How do you combat this enemy called envy? Let's begin by asking some hard questions from the Scriptures concerning envy. Read lesson: 910B

Taming the temper involves redirecting the energy of anger into transforming, revolutionary spiritual power so the curse becomes a blessing, and the enemy is not only withstood but totally defeated. God is calling us to resist the devil, to choose not to get angry, and then to go on the offensive. Let that temptation to anger become a springboard to loving, blessing, praying, and doing good until...

In this fourth of a series on dealing with anger, we are given three practical ways of dealing with our anger. These three principles, if put into practice, will give us victory over anger. Victory will not come overnight, but one day we will awaken to find an ebbing of the old urge to retaliate, a softening taking place in the spirit. The bitterness and rage will be gone. It starts when we begin...

Much of our anger comes from claiming rights we do not have. The violation of those imaginary "rights" brings about a response in us that God never intended us to have. The result is that we demand our day in court, or boil with resentment, or explode in a rage because we have assumed the place of God. What rights are we claiming that are not ours? Read lesson: 909A

The essence of anger surfaces in detail in the New Testament which seems to reflect three expressions of anger that simply are not acceptable to God. As we look at these different types of anger, we need to ask God to search us for what rights we are clinging to that we have not given to God. What should our proper response be? Read lesson: 908B

Anger is the emotion that, if not properly handled, unravels reason, distorts the truth, and releases a venom that falsely accuses, denies sensibility, and becomes on occasion vicious, vengeful, and vindictive. Is it any wonder that a life under God's control must also have under control the enemy of ungodly anger? Is it any wonder that taming the temper is no option for the Spirit-controlled...

Decisions are a major part of God's scheme of things. If we accept the Scriptures for what they are: a living God speaking without error, and if we accept life for what it is: a temporary journey through a foreign country as a chosen ambassador for a conquering King, then all of life's decisions are made through the Word with eternity as the only criteria. If we learn that, decision-making...

What the Christian life boils down to is decisions. It is the process of making right choices without being swayed by Satan's input into our appetites or emotions. We will begin our look at the enemies of the controlled Christian life by looking first at the enemies of God-controlled responses. We will begin by focusing our attention on the central enemy: Satan's attack on our response to...

Nearly every page in the book of Proverbs reveals the need for self-control: Godly restraint in our attitudes, godly restrain in our appetites, and godly restrain in our actions and activities. Only the Christian under the Spirit's control can experience the miracle of self-control that the book of Proverbs describes as the normal Christian life. We are to choose who we will serve - the spirit...

How does God go about getting our attention so that He, in us, can change our attitude? God is looking for correctable Christians. See how God uses the Word to change our hearts and minds. He may also use those in authority over us to rebuke us and turn our hearts around. What is our response to rebuke? There is also a pressure God places on us through counsel and through divine discipline. Would...

God is looking for men and women who want to be changed - who want to be changed so badly they will cooperate with joy when He sends rebuke or admonition or counsel into their lives. How correctable are you? How graciously do you respond to rebuke? That's the question we're asking in this lesson from the book of Proverbs. Read lesson: 905B

How often do we search the Scriptures with the same intensity we would if we were searching for hidden treasure? When we begin to see a nugget of truth appear, do we take all our tools, our concordance, our translations, our Bible dictionaries, and do we dig and dig? The Word of God is the treasure house wherein all the rare jewels of spirituality are buried at different levels beneath the surface...