Pathway to Victory

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Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory and Dr. Robert Jeffress.

We're dedicated to bringing you bold biblical teaching that transforms your life and strengthens your walk with God.

And you can study God's word alongside Dr. Jeffress in person on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska.

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Have you ever witnessed the breathtaking majesty.

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Of massive glaciers rising from crystal blue waters?

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Or stood in awe as bald eagles soar over snow capped mountain? I want you to experience these unforgettable moments with me on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 13th through 20th, 2026.

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Join Dr. Jeffress and the Pathway to Victory family for a spectacular seven-day adventure aboard Holland America's luxurious Koningsdam.

Indulge in elegant staterooms, world-class dining, and expansive decks perfect for breathtaking views.

Visit historic ports like Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, where wilderness and frontier history await.

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There's something powerful about connecting with God.

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And fellow believers in the majesty of his untamed wilderness. I truly believe this journey will refresh.

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You spiritually, physically and emotionally.

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Cabins are filling quickly, so reserve yours today. To book your spot on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska, call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

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Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.

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On today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

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I got on the scales and figured it out. My pants weren't shrieking. I was expanding. I had to come up with a plan. A few more minutes on the treadmill every day.

If a physical transformation requires a plan, shouldn't we be surprised that a spiritual transformation of our heart also requires a detailed plan?

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Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. The kingdom of God isn't just a far-off destination we reach after death. It's a reality we can experience right now.

But entering this kingdom requires more than just behavioral changes. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shows us that becoming a true disciple of Christ begins with a transformed heart.

But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

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Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. What does it mean to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ? Maybe it's following the rules in the Bible or becoming an evangelist for the gospel. Well, that's certainly part of it, but in our current series, we've discovered the true essence of a disciple of Jesus. A disciple of Jesus is someone whose life has been changed from a transformed heart.

To be perfectly clear, transformation is a fancy word for change. Look, most people want to change. They want to become better people. But some feel stuck in a rut. Change looks impossible. So in a moment, we'll discover how God can transform your life from the inside out.

To help you with your journey of transformation, we've prepared a brand new ministry resource called Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple. It can be challenging to stay connected with God in our busy lives. This beautiful full-color padded hardcover book provides practical insights that'll help you experience God's presence throughout your day. Each devotional reading is paired with a scripture verse, a brief prayer, and a breathtaking photograph of God's creation. And each chapter, printed in a large format, can be read in just under two minutes. A copy of Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple is yours with our thanks when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.

Okay, we'll say more about the book and other resources later in the program, but right now let's resume a study we started Friday on Pathway to Victory from our series on the seven Marks of a Disciple. We're talking about spiritual transformation. For that reason, today's message is titled Heart Surgery 101.

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Today, I'm gonna answer three questions about spiritual transformation. Number one, why is it necessary? Number two, who's responsible for it? And number three, what is the process by which it happens in our life?

Let's first of all talk about spiritual transformation. Why is it necessary? Turn to Second Corinthians, chapter 4. 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, "Therefore we do not lose heart. But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day." Now, when we talk about spiritual transformation, we're talking about the transformation of our heart, our mind, our will, and our emotions. Why is that transformation necessary? Well, look at what the Bible tells us about the heart. There are three insights the Bible gives us about our hearts.

First of all, our hearts determine our behavior. Secondly, the Bible teaches our hearts have been polluted. We have all inherited a polluted heart. People today want to talk about the goodness of the human heart. That's not God's point of view. By God's absolute, pure standards, every heart is desperately wicked. How did that happen? How did our hearts become wicked? Romans 5:12 tells us this virus that infects our heart came through Adam. "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." Our hearts are the center of our actions. Our hearts have been polluted.

Thirdly, our hearts can be transformed. That's the good news. Now, in Ezekiel 11:19-20, God points to that day when we're going to receive a brand new heart. Look at verses 19 and 20: "And I shall give them one heart and shall put a new spirit within them. And I shall take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them. Then they will be my people and I will be their God." Did you know one day you're going to have a heart transplant? God's going to give you a brand new heart that is free from any defect whatsoever. How many of you are ready for that kind of heart? Well, the good news is it's coming. The bad news is you have to wait for it.

Does that mean then I have to walk around with this defective heart that is opposed to God and keeps me from benefiting from the kingdom of God? No. Even though we don't receive a new heart right now, we can experience a transformed heart. Well, then that brings up the second question. We understand why it's necessary to have something change in our heart, but who is responsible for that spiritual transformation of our heart? Is God responsible or am I responsible?

You know, Dallas Willard has a great insight on this. He says, "Grace and effort are not opposites. Grace and earning are opposites. Working for your salvation is heresy, but working out your salvation is basic Bible. Grace and effort are allies, not enemies." Let me show you that in Scripture. Turn over to Philippians 2:12-13. Paul says, "So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling." He didn't say work for your salvation. He said, "Work out your salvation." Then he goes on to say in verse 13, "For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."

God is the one who is in you, giving you the power to become the person he wants you to be. But it takes your effort, combined with the Spirit of God, his power, to become that person you dream of becoming. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is working within you. If you think this is bordering on heresy to say, "Well, we ought to partner with God," and God's power is not enough, just think about the scripture passage, 2 Peter 1:3-4. "Seeing that God's divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and excellence."

See that the moment you become a Christian, God gives you his Holy Spirit. And according to Peter, that Holy Spirit is everything we need to live a godly life. God doesn't shortchange you when you become a Christian. He doesn't say, "Well, I'm gonna give you a little bit of the Spirit, and then later, if you act right, I'll give you some more of the Spirit, and you can have another experience where you get more of the power of God." No. The moment you are saved, that fertilized egg is planted within you that has all of the energy necessary to grow into the kind of person God has planned for you to be. It's the same way spiritually. The Holy Spirit has all the power necessary for us to become the people we want to be. But it's not enough.

God's given us everything he has. But notice verse 5. "Now, for this very reason, also applying all diligence in your faith, you supply moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love." You see what Peter is saying? God's given you everything you need for a godly life. He's done his part. Now, this is what you need to supply, not for your passage to heaven. This is what you need to supply in order to have the benefits of living in God's kingdom.

Right now, the Bible says our salvation is something God does by himself. "For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." But our transformation is a joint project between God and us.

Okay? We've talked about spiritual transformation. Why it's necessary because we have defective hearts. Secondly, we've answered the question, who's responsible for it? It's not just God. It's not just us, you know? Without God's power, we cannot be transformed. Without our effort, we will not be transformed.

Thirdly, okay, what is the process? How does it happen for your heart to be transformed, to become the person God wants you to be? There are three essential components to that spiritual transformation. Write them down.

Number one. There has to be a desire. There has to be a desire for spiritual transformation. I remember growing up in this church. There's a little chorus we used to sing a lot. I bet some of you remember it. "Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart." There it is in my heart, "Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart." Anybody remember the second verse? "Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart, in my heart, Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart." Aren't you grateful I'm not the minister of music? But in that simple chorus is a profound truth. We will never be a Christian. We will never be like Jesus without that desire that comes from our heart.

For example, in Romans 10:9, the desire to be saved comes from the heart. "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved." Not only that, our desire to live like a Christian and be like Jesus comes from the heart. Ephesians 6:6 talks about doing the will of God from the heart. But here's the problem. When we are born into this world, we are born not just with a defective heart. We are born with a heart that is absolutely dead. It doesn't beat.

If you believe that's an overstatement, look at Ephesians 2:1-3, where Paul describes our spiritual condition apart from Christ. He says, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sin in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world." Our state apart from Christ is we are spiritually dead. Now, I don't know if you've been around a lot of dead people before. My line of work requires me to hang around corpses quite a bit. And a lot of times I'll be standing down at a funeral service next to the open casket, and people proceed by to see the dearly departed. And every now and then somebody will lean over and say, "Oh, doesn't he look good?" Good? I think he's dead. There's nothing good about that.

Oh, sure, he may have a head and have arms and legs. He has a heart still inside of him. But that heart is not beating. It has stopped. And that's why he is dead. That's the way you and I are. Without Christ, we are spiritually dead. I think I've told you this before, but one day I was standing by a corpse, and before people started proceeding down, I saw a giant fly land on the nose of the corpse. I thought. And he wouldn't leave. I thought, what am I going to do? So without anybody looking, hopefully, I just went over and I kind of flicked the fly off the nose of the corpse. That corpse said, "What are you doing?" That corpse sneezed. Of course not. He was absolutely incapable of responding to any external stimulus. That's what happens when you're dead? You can't respond.

Now, here's the point. You and I are spiritually dead. Our heart doesn't beat. That means we will never, on our own, have a desire to be a Christian. We will never have a desire to live like Jesus because our hearts are dead and we are dead. You say, well, then how does anybody ever have a desire to become a Christian? How does anybody ever want to be like Jesus? Well, here's the good news, verse 4 of Ephesians 2. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. For by grace, you have been saved."

I was watching the other night an old episode of 24 with Jack Bauer. Remember 24? And one of the episodes, Jack Bauer had flatlined, and the little instrument started just Z. And the doctor yelled, "Get the paddles! Get the paddles!" And so he rips open Jack's shirt, and they get the paddles and put them on his heart and send the electrical surge. He jolts up, you know, and his eyes open, his heart starts beating, guaranteeing next week's episode is going to be here on schedule. You know, what it took was an external stimulus to get that heart beating again.

The Bible says that is exactly what God has done for us. When we were spiritually dead, God got the spiritual paddles and he put them on our heart and he gave us life. He made those of us who were spiritually dead spiritually alive so that we could respond to the gospel. And I want to be clear here. I don't believe that act of making somebody who was spiritually dead spiritually alive makes them a Christian automatically. I don't think God forces anybody to be a Christian. We are not a Christian until we personally believe and trust in Jesus for our salvation. But what Paul is saying is you and I wouldn't even have any awareness of our sin. You and I would not understand the gospel were it not for the Spirit of God, who makes us alive and aware of God and our need for a Savior. That desire to be a Christian comes from God. That's where that desire comes from. "For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God."

Likewise, once we're spiritually alive, we will never have that transformed life God wants for us unless we have that desire to have a transformed life. So it all begins with desire. But that's not enough. Secondly, we have to have a detailed plan. We have to have a detailed plan. Talking about awakenings, about a few months ago, I had my own awakening. I discovered it was the oddest thing, that my pants were shrinking. Have you ever had that happen? Here's the oddest thing. I couldn't figure out if the dry cleaner were putting some new chemical in there, what was causing my waistline to shrink. I got on the scales and figured it out. My pants weren't shrinking. I was expanding. And so I decided, I don't want to look like this. I don't want to feel like this. I want to get rid of that weight. I had the desire, but guess what? Desire alone won't take off the weight. I had to come up with a plan. A few more minutes on the treadmill every day, eliminating some food from my diet. It wasn't going to happen automatically.

Now, in the same way, if a physical transformation requires a plan to make it happen, in addition to desire, shouldn't we be surprised that a spiritual transformation of our heart also requires a detailed plan? We're going to talk about those detailed plans in the weeks ahead. But if you're going to have a spiritual transformation in your life, it starts with a desire. Secondly, it requires a detailed plan. But thirdly, it requires discipline. Discipline. You know, I can desire to lose weight. I can have my detailed plan to lose weight. But what happens on those mornings when I decide I'd rather pull the covers over my head instead of get on the treadmill? What happens when I've had a particularly tough day and decide I need some comfort food that evening to kind of help maintain my equilibrium? What do I do? It's at that point that in addition to a detailed plan and desire, I need discipline.

Discipline. A great definition for discipline: Discipline is doing what you know you should do when you don't feel like doing it. Discipline. Doing what you know you should do when you don't feel like doing it? Many of you know the great late baseball player Ted Williams. Ted Williams was known as a natural hitter. Whenever he heard that, he scoffed at the idea. He said, "There's no such thing as a natural born hitter. I became a good hitter because I paid the price of constant practice." Constant practice. And the calluses proved that. It's the same way with becoming the person God wants you to be. It requires discipline. It requires hard work.

The great Elton Trueblood, a great Christian writer, said, "Acceptance of discipline is the price of freedom." Now, I want you to tune into this for the last three minutes of the sermon. I want you to write down this phrase: Discipline is the price of freedom. Discipline is the price of freedom. He goes on to say, "The pole vaulter is not free to go over the high bar except as he disciplines himself rigorously day after day. The freedom of the surgeon to use his drill to cut away bony structure close to a tiny nerve without severing it, that freedom arises from discipline. It is doubtful if excellence in any field comes in any other way than through discipline."

Discipline is the price we pay for the freedom to live as God wants us to live. If you think that's a lot of positive thinking mumbo jumbo, listen to what Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:7. He says, "Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness, for bodily discipline is only of little profit. But godliness is profitable for all things since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." That word discipline, Paul uses, it's the Greek word "gumnos." Sound familiar? It's a word we get gymnasium from. "Discipline yourself for godliness." Just reading that, I mean, when you think of a gymnasium, you think of that aroma of sweat, don't you? I mean, you've got sweat all over.

This verse that Paul is writing here, he said, being the person God wants you to become takes hard work. It takes holy sweat, but the end result is well worth the effort. Bodily discipline, yes, it has benefits. Admiring glances you get from other people, a longer life, winning the athletic contest. But spiritual discipline, it benefits you not just in this life, but it benefits you, beginning right now and extending past the grave through all eternity. Discipline is the price we pay to become the people we've dreamed of becoming and experiencing the kind of life that is beyond imagination.

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And in that spirit, we're so glad to have you listening today. Becoming the person God wants you to be takes hard work. And the fact that you're engaged with today's studies suggests that you're on the pathway to victory. Pathway to Victory has prepared a book that'll inspire you to become more Christlike. It's called *Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple*. And in a moment, David will give our contact information. So please get in touch with us today.

Too often, our daily lives are filled with activities that keep us running from sunup to sundown, and we leave little margin for restoring our soul. *Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple* will help you focus on what's truly important. Each chapter is intentionally brief, and the reflections are complemented by a Bible verse and a brief prayer to guide you. Our hope is that you'll enjoy spontaneous moments with your God as a result of pausing for a sip of cool water from the spring of life. So be sure to request a copy today. It's our gift to you.

When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, rest assured your generous support will make a significant impact on other disciples just like you. For instance, Brent jotted us a note and said, "Pastor, this program has helped to change my life. A new birth has taken place in my heart. What a difference this has made." Oh, that's so encouraging, Brent. And to anyone who's given generously to Pathway to Victory, this thank you note from Brent belongs to you. We couldn't succeed as a nonprofit Bible-based ministry without friends like you.

Here's David to repeat these details and give our contact information.

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You're invited to request your copy of *Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple* by Dr. Robert Jeffress. When you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory with a generous gift, simply call 866-999-2965 or visit online@ptv.org. For your ministry gift of $100 or more, we'll be pleased to send you the Encouragement Resource Set, which includes the new devotional, six clutter-free prayer cards, the *Clutter Free Christian Book* and *Life Application Guide*, plus the seven marks of a Disciple message series on both DVD and MP3 format audio disc set.

Again, call 866-999-2965 or visit online@ptv.org. You could also write to us at P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. One more time, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas.

I'm David J. Mullins. It's all too easy to make excuses when it comes to prayer, but tomorrow Dr. Jeffress will give us four compelling reasons why we really should pray and how it relates to our heart's transformation. Join us Tuesday for Pathway to Victory.

*Pathway to Victory* with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Experience the breathtaking majesty of America's last frontier on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska.

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This seven day journey combines spiritual growth with unforgettable adventures aboard a five star luxury cruise ship. It's a vacation you won't soon forget.

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Space is limited, so reserve your cabin today. Call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org.

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To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.