10 Minute Transformation: Recent Episodes
Dave Milford
00:00 Introduction
1:19 What is Biblical Hope?
2:10 Hope is Getting Pregnant
4:18 Expecting
5:14 Getting Pregnant with the promises of God.
8:20 God’s Hope is Our Anchor
9:57 Activation
Is your hope a fragile thing, easily shattered by life's ups and downs?
Most people are trying to have hope, but getting beat up by the troubles and stresses of life. God wants to lift you above your circumstances and give you hope that can’t be shaken. This video will show you how to do that.
God wants to lift us above the circumstances of our lives and brings us to a place of unshakable hope and peace.
What is Biblical Hope?
In our culture, we use the word “hope” to mean a wish – like crossing our fingers for something we want to come true but don’t know if it will or not.
That is not Biblical hope!
God has many names in the Bible. One of them is “the God of hope.”
Romans 15:13 NIV
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit
God wants us to live “overflow(ing) with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” He wants us to live as He lives – supernaturally filled with hope that doesn’t fade or fail. And He makes it possible by “the power of the Holy Spirit” and the Word of God.
Hope is Getting Pregnant
God promised Abram that his barren wife, Sarah, would bear him a son. God said Abram would be the father of many nations. God said his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. (See Genesis 18, 21)
God didn't fulfill that promise for 25 years. Then Isaac was born to 90-year-old Sarah. Abraham was 100 years old when he held his son for the first time.
Romans 4:18-21
18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.
20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed.” Even when there was no reason for hope, and many reasons to lose hope, Abraham kept hoping and believing that he would have a son and become the father of many nations. Why? God promised it! And he was (v 21) “fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised.”
What God promises, He does. He is utterly incapable of not fulfilling his promises to those who believe.
Expecting
When a woman is going to have a baby we say she is “expecting.”
Now compare that to how most of us try to have hope when we’re going through a tough time. We fret, we worry, we doubt, our hope goes up and down like a yo-yo.
Biblical hope is getting pregnant with the promises of God.. God’s Word (his seeds) also take time to grow and mature before they come to life in us.
1 Peter 1:23
23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (See Matthew 13.)
All God’s promises are true. And all God’s promises are ours, through Jesus. Numbers 23:19 NLT, 1 Corinthians 1:20
Biblical hope, is “a confident expectation“ of a future outcome. We don’t have it yet, but we will. Romans 5:5
God’s Hope is Our Anchor – It Holds Us Fast as the Storms of Life Rage Around Us
Hebrews 6:19, Romans 15:13 NIV
See the Activation
What if declaring God’s promises in scripture could revive your hope, invigorate your faith, and release God’s power to cause breakthrough in your life? This video reveals how declaring God’s word over your life turns your struggles into strength, and your greatest trials into opportunities for God to show up for you in miraculous ways.
You could be in a dark place right now, caused by a painful failure, economic hardship, a devastating loss, a broken relationship, a debilitating illness or injury, or a situation that is entirely beyond your control.
Regardless of the circumstances, these times of darkness and desolation can leave you feeling drained, hopeless, and uncertain of the path forward. Ezekiel reveals God’s provision for you to overcome.
Link to “Igniting Hope in 40 Days” as promised: https://amzn.to/3XFSPjs . (This is an affiliate link)
00:00 Introduction
2:18 Dry Bones, hear the Word of the Lord
2:46 The Word and the Spirit
3:41 Speak to the Dead Areas of Your Life
4:21 Jesus Spoke Life to People and Situations
5:26 Speak God’s Promises to Your Problems
6:54 Why do we need to declare God’s promises?
7:50 Speak to the mountains (problems) in your life
9:32 Activation
Ezekiel 37: Dry Bones, Hear the Word of the Lord
Holy Spirit led Ezekiel to this valley filled with human bones, thousands and thousands of bones – old and dried out. As they walked among the bones,
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
How did the old, dead bones come together and human bodies be formed around them? Holy Spirit told Ezekiel to prophesy to the old, dry bones scattered throughout the valley: “Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.”
An army of people was formed, but they were not yet alive.
What brought them to life? The “ruach” – the Hebrew word used in scripture to mean breath, wind, and the Holy Spirit of God.
Ezekiel prophesied to the wind and the Holy Spirit brought the army (the Hebrew people) back to life by breathing God’s life into them.
This is a also prophetic picture of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit bringing Christians to life and bringing to life the dead areas of our lives.
As we speak the Word of God over our lives, Holy Spirit brings life to the dead areas of our lives.
“You and I also must continually speak to dead areas in our lives and circumstances. A main method of God bringing change to a situation is for one of His children to speak His promises over people and circumstances. "God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did" (Romans 4:17).” Steve Backlund, Igniting Faith in 40 Days.
As a man, Jesus frequently spoke to problems, commanding them to submit to God’s word. John 6:63 NIV, 2 Timothy 3:16
You, too Have the Power to “Speak Life “ as You Speak God’s Promises Over Your Circumstances Proverbs 18:21, 1 Peter 1:23, Romans 10:10 NLT, Romans 10:17,
We live in a fallen world. John 16:33, 1 John 5:4
Jesus Told Us To Speak to The Mountains (our problems) Mark 11:23
What can Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem teach you about how to rebuild the brokenness in your life? Nehemiah is an Old Testament story with a powerful New Testament application!
00:00 Nehemiah and King Artaxerxes
3:36 Types and Shadows
– Nehemiah (Holy Spirit)
5:06 - Rebuilding the Temple (Salvation – born again)
5:50 -Broken Walls and Burned Gates (damages of sin)
walls – Biblical principles and truths that protect and create safe boundaries
Gates – decision making (self government)
7:18 Rebuilding is hard
8:58 Satan Resists Us. We must fight back.
12:01 4 Key Take Aways from this Video
14:07 Activation
How Nehemiah enabled the people of Jerusalem to rebuild the destroyed walls and gates of the city in 52 days. The People had been trying to do that for almost 70 years!!! How did he do it?
Types and Shadows
Nehemiah’s name means “comforter or consoler.” Nehemiah is a type (a prophetic symbol) of the Holy Spirit, who was given to all men upon Jesus’ death and resurrection. Holy Spirit is the comforter Jesus promised to send to us in John 14:26.
Restoring the Human Spirit and Soul
The rebuilding of Jerusalem is a type (a model) of the restoration of a person.
The Temple Represents the Spirit of a Man
The rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem is a type of the spirit of a man being regenerated - born again.
The Broken Walls and Burned Gates Represent the Damage Done to Our Souls (minds, wills, and emotions) by Sin
The walls – are the boundaries (the principles and truths established by God) to protect us and keep us within God’s will. They keep us in a place of blessing and safety.
Gates in scripture represent government (it’s where the important decisions in a city were made). Gates are our ability to govern ourselves – our decision-making ability. Our gates must be rebuilt – our ability to make good, godly decisions about what to let in and what to keep out must be restored.
Nehemiah Empowered the People to Do in 52 Days what they Could Not Do in 66 Years
Nehemiah 6:15-16
So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.
16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.
Key Points:
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You can’t fix your brokenness. Only Holy Spirit can.
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Holy Spirit directs the work. He initiates, He provides the materials to build (the Word of God, the power of God, and relationship with God and God’s people). Your role is to take the materials He provides and use them to rebuild the brokenness in your life as He directs..
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If you don’t co-labor with Holy Spirit, you will not rebuild your personality. You will be saved, but living in the rubble of your past. Your gates will be down. You will be a broken Christian, saved but broken, open to ungodly influence, and unable to fulfill God’s purposes and plans for your life.
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Nehemiah’s work required the King’s authority to get the job done. Satan will oppose every step you take to become who God created you to become. Jesus warned us, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
1 John 5:4 This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
Faith isn’t faith unless you act on it. Our actions solidify and strengthen our faith.
James 2:17 NLT
So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
ACTIVATION: Please see the video and do the activation!!
For years I was taught God was strict, harsh and just waiting to punish me if I sinned. Many years later, I came to know Him. And he is just the opposite – powerful, yet humble, loving, kind, understanding and wanting more than anything to have relationship with me.
Instead of doing a traditional teaching, I felt God saying to let His Word speak directly to you.
Let these words wash over you, renewing your mind, strengthening your faith, and drawing you into a revelation of the heart, power and purpose of God for you.
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Romans 10:17
7 Cornerstone Beliefs of a Biblical Worldview (1 of 7)
Cornerstone Belief #1 God is the creator of all things. He is all-powerful, knows everything, and is present in all places at the same time. He is loving, righteous, merciful, and he wants relationship with everyone.
00:00 Introduction
56 Scriptures:
0:50 1. God is the Creator of All Things:
Isaiah 45:12, Colossians 1:16, Psalm 33:6, Revelation 4:11, Hebrews 11:3, Jeremiah 10:12-13
2:46 2. God is All-Powerful (Omnipotent):
Jeremiah 32:17, Isaiah 40:28, Matthew 19:26, 2 Peter 1:3,Job 42:2 , Luke 1:37,
Colossians 2:15 , 1 John 4:4, 1 John 3:8
4:32 3. God Knows Everything (Omniscient):
Proverbs 15:3, Hebrews 4:13, Isaiah 46:9-10, Isaiah 42:9, Psalm 139:1-4
5:56 4. God is Present in All Places at the Same Time (Omnipresent):
Proverbs 15:3, Jeremiah 23:24, Psalm 46:1, Psalm 139:7-10, Matthew 28:20, Matthew 6:6, Job 34:21
7:29 5. God is Loving:
Exodus 34:5-7, Psalm 136:26, Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:4-5 , Romans 8:37-39,
1 John 3:1, 1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:19
9:21 6. God is Righteous:
Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 145:17, Isaiah 41:10, Isaiah 5:16, Romans 3:22, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 2 Timothy 4:8, Psalm 71:19
11:07 7. God is Merciful:
Lamentations 3:22-23, Psalm 103:8, Ephesians 2:4-5, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Hebrews 4:16, Psalm 23:6
12: 35 8. God Wants Relationship with Everyone
Jeremiah 29:13, Revelation 3:20, John 3:16, John 17:3, James 4:8, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, John 1:12-13
1 John 5:4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
I pray that this video strengthened your faith to know the power, the love, and the purpose that God has for you.
“We get saved by believing in Jesus,
but we get free by believing like Jesus.”
Steve Backlund
00:00 Our worldview – hundreds of decisions each day
0:52 Biblical Worldview
1:51 American Adults Have Rejected a Biblical Worldview
3:01 Keep Yourself in the Love of God
6:56 7 Cornerstone Beliefs of an Unshakeable Christian Worldview
10:53 Activation
Introduction : Our Worldview determines the hundreds of decisions we make each day. It determines the direction of our lives. Without a core set of beliefs, a worldview, we would stumble over every decision.
Worldview is a lens through which we see the world. Through our experiences and influences of others around us (family, school, work, culture, media, social media, etc) we create a framework of core beliefs which become a mental, spiritual, and emotional filter through which we make choices. This filter determines what we believe is true, important, and appropriate.
Every decision we make goes through that filter. What we believe determines what we will do.
A Biblical Worldview.
A Biblical worldview is simply to think like Jesus. Thinking like Jesus will set you free to live like Jesus. Hebrews 4:2 AMP
Problem: Dr, George Barna ,The American Worldview Inventory 2024 reveals that American adults, including many in the church, have rejected a Biblical Worldview and have created their own ideas of what is true, important, and appropriate.
66% of American adults self-identified as Christians. But only 6% had a Biblical Worldview.
Psalm 11:3 AMP
“If the foundations [of a godly society] are destroyed, What can the righteous do?”
What can we do to make sure we don’t fall victim to false beliefs that look and sound good? What can we do to believe like Jesus and live a godly life when we’re bombarded by so many conflicting ideas? When we’re pressured to go along?
Keep Yourself in the Love of God
Jude 1:20-21
by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love ...
We stay under the love, the protection and care of God by staying within the walls of protections he has created for us. The principles of the Word of God are the walls of protection that protect us, that give us life and defeat the schemes and destroy the works of the devil.
We " keep ourselves in the love of God" by
*Pray as led and empowered by the Holy Spirit and
*We build ourselves up in "our most holy faith." We believe what God says, and nothing else. His Word is truth. Everything in conflict with it is NOT TRUE. It doesn't matter what we think. It doesn't matter what we want or how we feel.
Dr. Barna’s 2024 Research
He found 7 cornerstone beliefs that were accurate indicators of a Biblical worldview. 83% (4/5) people who had a Biblical Worldview believed all 7 of these beliefs. Only 2% of people who rejected 1 or more of these 7 cornerstone beliefs had a Biblical Worldview. (American Worldview Inventory 2024)
The 7 foundational beliefs below are a starting place for us. They are a simple, yet powerful way to build your life on the solid foundation of God’s Word. They and 7 simple beliefs to teach our children and new believers. To give them a foundation that can’t be shaken. You know your children are going to be exposed to many conflicting ideas in school and throughout their lives. What if you could establish these as their worldview – their mental filters which would help them sort through and reject all the clever deceptions they will be tempted to believe? Wouldn’t that be powerful? And not just for your kids, but for you and I. And new believers!
See the podcast for the 7 Cornerstone Beliefs and the Activation
Have you every been embarrassed, even ashamed because your personality or your behavior doesn’t measure up to your faith as a Christian? Be encouraged, the God who saved you will restore you. That process is in this podcast.
You are born again. You really do love God. And you know He loves you. But you may struggle with anger that erupts. Or lust that runs wild in your mind. You might struggle with insecurity, anxiety and fears, despair or depression or something else. After you’ve experienced failure in your weaknesses again and again you begin to feel helpless to change them.
You don’t want to be this way. You wonder, “Why am I so broken?” “Why can’t I be who the Bible says I am? You may blame yourself. You may start having doubts about God.
The God who saved you WILL restore you. Redemption includes salvation of your spirit and restoration of your soul (your mind, will, and emotions.) God regenerated your spirit and he will restore your soul. But it is a process and you need to get involved.
God’s plan is to restore us to the high destiny and purpose Adam and Eve had before the fall. To do that, he needs
1st to restore our relationship with Him as our Lord, our Father, and friend.
2nd God needs to restore our ability to rule the earth. This begins with the ability to rule ourselves.
1st Restoring Relationship. When we were born again, our spirits were regenerated. We became new creatures.
Our spirits were sanctified by God. Sanctified means “to make holy” and “set apart for God’s special purposes.”
2nd Restoring rulership.
Before we can effectively co-labor with God to establish His Kingdom here on earth, we need to rule ourselves.
The soul (the mind, will, and emotions) is the command center of man. Unless our souls are restored by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, our behavior will driven by what we think, feel, or want. We will live soulish lives, driven by our basest desires. We do whatever we want. See Galatians 5:17 NLT
We sometimes don’t do the right thing, the thing we want to do. We give in to our desires and emotions.
Unless we are healed and restored, the wounds and pain of our past will cause us to limp through life, born again but broken and causing ourselves and others great pain.
Only God Can Restore Our Souls.
Restoration is Called Sanctification in the Bible
See 1 Thessalonians 5:23
Sanctification is God’s process to restore us to be whole and complete – who God initially created us to be. Sanctification means “to be holy” and “to set apart for God’s special purposes.”
Our spirits are made holy and set apart for God’s special purposes when we are born again. Our spirits are regenerated. They are sanctified by God.
Our souls (our thoughts, beliefs, desires, impulses, drives, and feelings) are NOT sanctified when we are born again. They are sanctified over time, as we submit to Holy Spirit and renew our minds with the Word of God
Our bodies are not sanctified on this earth. But we can discipline them and develop good habits. We will receive new, sanctified bodies in heaven.
Activation: Do this and be changed. See the video. (Not included because of space limitations)
As you do the process above, Holy Spirit will rebuild that part of your personality, healing old wounds and restoring you to become the person God created you to be – a new creation who thinks, looks, and acts like Jesus because you have the heart of Christ.
You will live life with joy and peace, purpose and power. Others will look at you and want what you have. That is God’s plan for your life.
“What the Holy Spirit is up to is bringing the whole life of Jesus Christ into the whole of our personalities so that the whole love of God can be relayed to the whole world.”
Jack Hayford
Do you believe your present failures mean that God won't be able to complete his purpose in your life? Learn how to grasp God’s power to heal and restore you. The God who saved you WILL restore you!
00:00 Introduction
1: 17 Is that You? Are You Saved, but Feeling Inadequate to Be Used By God?
2:56 Only You Can Stop God’s Plan For Your Life
4:56 The Intent of Your Heart is Greater Than Your Failures
5:49 Activation: Take Daily Steps in the Right Direction
6:44 How to Pray
Pastor Jack Hayford, who pastored a church that grew to 10,000 people over 30 years, writes:
“I have spoken with thousands of people who view their present failures as guarantees that God will never be able to complete His purpose in their lives. For these people—indeed for most of us—a call to obedience seems a virtual seal against victory, because, they feel, perfect obedience eludes them.”
“Rebuilding the Real You, p 51”
Is that You? Are You Saved, but Feeling Inadequate to Be Used By God?
I had been an alcoholic for 10 years when I was born again. That’s exactly how I felt. I was ashamed of my outbursts of anger, the lust I struggled with, and I was discovering just how shellfish I had become. How could God ever use me?
John 10:10 AMP Jesus said:
The thief [Satan] comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].
1 John 3:8 NASB
Pastor Hayford writes:
The Lord who saved you has a long - term purpose for you . You will be moved from being marginalized in life to finding the central purpose of your life .
you will come to know what “ holy ” really means — “ wholly whole , ” completely restored .
You are learning how God’s restoration program is included in His gift of redemption in Christ . He regenerated you; He will restore you . Redemption includes a reborn spirit and a restored soul — a certain recovery of all that’s been stolen in the past
Rebuilding the Real You, p 46
Only We Can Stop God’s Plan For Our Lives
If we get discouraged and quit, Satan wins.
Your heart’s desire is the only thing that will limit you. Are you willing to do whatever God wants you to? Is your heart set to please God in the time you have left on the earth?
Paul wasted 30 years of his life. He chased, imprisoned, and killed Christians. Paul became perhaps the greatest Christian to ever live. He wrote 2/3 of the New Testament. Despite his horrible beginning, Paul was able to say at the end of his life: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7
How could God do so much through Paul? Paul’s heart desire was to complete everything God had planned for him. If that’s your heart, God will use you greatly too!
Your Heart For God is Greater than Your Failures
Your sins and failures have been forgiven and forgotten by God when you were born again. Isaiah 43:25 NKJV, Romans 8:1 NASB, 2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV
Pastor Hayford concludes:
‘…. The intent of your heart to obey the Lord counts far more than what kind of a personality or performance record you possess. First Samuel 16:7 says, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
Clearly, God is not as concerned with our perfection as He is with our direction. The praying heart that is intent on obedience may not immediately perfect those intentions, but God is set to respond to us according to our “heartset.” ‘Ibid p 51.
Activation: The Way Forward – Take Daily Steps in the Right Direction (see the video)
What is more devastating than having your dreams, your hopes or expectations crushed? How can you recover from that? Declaring God’s Word will release His power into your situation and lift you out of the disappointment, doubt, fear, and discouragement you are experiencing.
00:00 *Know who we’re fighting.
02:34 *Take Heart, Jesus Defeated Satan!
3:02 *Our Faith in Jesus applies His victory over Satan to Our Lives
3:42 Jesus Spoke God’s Word to Defeat Satan – You Can Too!
5:10 The tongue has the power of life. How can that be?
7:18 Speak to the Mountain
7:56 DECLARATIONS
*Know Your Enemy
We have an enemy who hates us and is actively trying to destroy us. We need to fight back. He won’t leave us alone until we force him to.
Satan means “adversary.” Satan is God’s adversary. He opposes God, the things of God, and anyone God loves. He can’t touch God, so he comes after you and I – those whom God loves.
His common name is Devil which means “false accuser” or “slanderer.” He sows seeds of doubt, deception, confusion, discouragement, depression, temptation, and offense.
Somehow, he is able to place these seeds as thoughts in our minds.
Disappointment is one of his weapons to hurt us. He uses disappointment to create great pain in our lives. Pain that can drag us down and hurt us over a long time. Pain that causes us to give up on dreams and live defeated lives. It’s time to fight back .
Human beings are no match for Satan.
But We Are Not Alone. We Have God* – God is infinitely more powerful than Satan. When we unite our lives with God, through Christ, God makes His power available to us. Joshua 1:9,** 1 John 4:4
*Take Heart, Jesus Defeated Satan!
Satan is a Defeated Foe. Jesus completely defeated him for us. But we have to enforce Jesus’ victory.
Jesus said “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
*Our Faith in Jesus and the Work of the Cross applies His victory over Satan to Our Lives
1 John 5:4-5 NIV
for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
God speaks things into existence. We do too!
Genesis begins with God creating things by speaking them into existence. God’s Words have creative Power.
Jesus Spoke God’s Word to Defeat Satan – You Can Too!
Satan came into the desert to tempt Jesus who was weak from 40 days of fasting.
Satan twisted scripture into lies to deceive and tempt Jesus. Jesus had the same answer to every temptation: “It is written” and a Bible verse. Speaking Bible truth defeated Satan every time. (John 4:1-11)
Jesus said: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.” John 6:63 NIV
This means The Holy Spirit is at work producing life through Christ’s words. All scripture is God-breathed. 2 Timothy 3:16 Speaking God’s word creates life.
Proverbs 18:21
The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.
The tongue has the power of life. How can that be?
Romans 10:17 Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
1 Peter 1:23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
Speaking God’s Word plants powerful seeds of life in us. John 8:31-32
Speak to The Mountains, The Problems in Your Life. Mark 11:23
God has a very powerful way of dealing with difficult, even impossible people. It defies logic. Yet, the results are astonishing. Let’s explore God’s answer to the difficult people in our lives.
00:00 Frank’s Story
03:57 What is Agape?
05:31 4 Real Life Examples of Overcoming Evil With Agape
David Wilkerson
06:26 Stephen,
06:43 Corrie ten Boom,
07:40 Elizabeth Elliot
9:10 Activation
Human love is transactional. If you love me, I’ll probably love you back. But if you are rude or do something I don’t like not only will I withdraw my love, but I’ll respond in kind.
God’s love – agape is God loving us because of who He is, not who we are or what we do. God commands us to give love to people.
Mark 12:30-31
Real Life Examples of Overcoming Evil With Agape
Agape is David Wilkerson, a small town minister whose heart was broken by the lives of gang members in New York City. In 1958, Wilkerson met Nicky Cruz, leader of the most violent gang in New York. Wilkerson told Nicky: “God has the power to change your life.” Nicky cursed, hit Wilkerson, spit in his face, and told him, “I don’t believe in what you say and you get out of here.” Wilkerson replied, “You could cut me up into a 1000 pieces and lay them in the street. Every piece will still love you.” Nicky couldn’t stop thinking about Wilkerson’s words of love. Nicky Cruz’ life was radically transformed by God’s love flowing through David Wilkerson. Nicky not only gave his life to Christ, but he became an evangelist.
Agape is Stephen, as the mob stoned him to death. Acts 7:60: Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” Then he died. He loved and forgave his murderers with his dying breath.
Agape is Corrie Ten Boom forgiving Jan Vogels, the paid informer, who sent her family to concentration camps for helping Jews escape the Nazi’s in Holland. Her sister, father, and brother all died as a result. Vogels was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death.
God told Corrie to forgive him. She couldn’t. God gave her Romans 5:5 so she could forgive him.
“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
She prayed and Holy Spirit poured God’s love into her heart. She forgave Jan Vogels with the love God gave her. She wrote a letter to him saying she forgave him. He wrote back. If you could forgive me by God’s love, there is hope for me. He gave his life to Jesus.
Agape is Elizabeth Elliot returning to the Waorani Indians in the jungles of Ecuador who killed her husband and 4 other missionaries with spears. She and others brought many of the isolated Waorani to Jesus.
Agape is selfless, unconditional, sacrificial love. It is love that only comes from God. This the love God commanded us to have for others.
Agape is love that flows from who you are in Christ, not who the other person is or what they do. So their response to you is irrelevant. God’s love never fades, never fails, and is never withdrawn. David Wilkerson, Corrie ten Boom, and Elizabeth Elliot all learned to move and live in that bottomless, unconditional love of God. You can too!
God wants us to come alongside people and show them the possibilities of life. He wants us to show them what it looks like to be loved by Jesus and to be changed by Jesus' love. We are His message, written on human hearts.
John 13:35
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Activation – Go love a difficult person
How can you possibly trust God in the times you are drowning in hardship, suffering and heartache?
Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, remained a slave in Egypt for 11 years, then his life went from bad to worse. He was falsely convicted of rape and put in prison. How could anyone trust God after all that? Joseph’s life reveals 4 keys to trusting God despite the circumstances of your life.
00:00 Joseph’s Story
4:08 Key #1 to Trusting God. God causes all thing to work for your good.
6:03 Key #2 To Trusting God. God is Greater than anything you face!
7:02 Key #3 to Trusting God. God’s plan is greater than your understanding.
8:29 Key #4 to Trusting God. God’s Love for You is Real, It’s tangible.
10:14 Activation
Promised Link: Chuck Colson’s great book: “Born Again” https://amzn.to/3WCCiNY This is an affiliate link.
Joseph’s Story (see the video)
*Key #1 to Trusting God. God causes all thing to work for your good.
How God turned everything that happened to Joseph into something amazing – he became #2 in all Egypt. Chuck Colson’s story of redemption.
Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Ephesians 2:10
*Key #2 To Trusting God. God is Greater than anything you face!
Genesis 29:20-21 tells us “the Lord was with him”, was kind to him and gave him favor.
Even more so, the Holy Spirit is always with us to help us and be with us forever:
John 14:16-17: Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. … he lives with you and will be in you.
1 John 4:4
You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
God, the Holy Spirit who is always with you, is infinitely more powerful that Satan, the fallen angel and all his minions combined.
Key #3* to Trusting God. God’s plan is greater than your understanding.**
First, God has a plan. A great and wonderful plan to redeem mankind. God’s primary goal is to save us and transform us to be like Jesus.
There will be things we don’t know or can’t understand about God’s greater plan and what is happening to us. What is happening in our lives may not make sense. For 13 years, Joseph’s life didn’t make sense. Then, suddenly, it did! Joseph’s life was lived to save the lives of everyone in his family, the Israelites.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
In the prison, at the lowest point of his life, God was working in Joseph. It may have felt like God had forgotten him, but God had great plans for Joseph.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
God’s plans for you are good! God is the redeemer – who turns bad into good in our lives.
*Key #4 to Trusting God. God’s Love for You is Real, It’s tangible.
What God did for Joseph, he will do for you. He will use your greatest struggles to grow your character, then lift you out of those struggles when you are ready to do the things God has planned for your life.
Isaiah 59:14 is a precious promise.
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
See Activation. #davemilford
By the end of this video, you will have 7 keys to help you tune into God’s voice and to be confident that you hear him clearly. I’ve taught others to hear God in online and face to face courses. I believe nothing will improve your life more than hearing God clearly.
00 7 Keys to Hearing God Clearly
3:06 1. God still speaks to people today.
4:02 2. God speaks from His dwelling place, our hearts.
4:39 3. God gives us the privilege and the responsibility of hearing His voice.
5:30 4. If you want to continue to hear from Jesus, do what He told you to do.
6:39 5. Silence other voices.
7:31 6. Does it sound like Jesus?
8:52 7. Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
9:51 ACTIVATION
Links Promised
The Purple Pig and Other Miracles, Dick Eastman https://amzn.to/3zXXC7r
Questions for Jesus, Tony Stoltzfus https://amzn.to/3WtqYDx
These are affiliate links.
I’m looking for You, Jesus
I went all over Beijing asking missionaries, “Do you hear God?” “How do you experience Jesus?”
I began to have precious times with Jesus, all alone, in my room at a small college over an hour north of the heart of Beijing. I felt His presence. He talked to me. Not long conversations, but I began to “hear” Him more and more.
Over time, I learned to know His voice and the ways He “spoke” to me. I realized he had been “talking” to me for years. I just had not realized it was Him.
My Sheep Know My Voice
If you are a Christian, You hear Jesus.
John 10:27 (NLT)
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me."
You are a Christian today because you heard His voice. Keep listening. He's still speaking.
7 Keys to Hearing God Clearly
1.God still speaks to people today.
To hear God, you need to believe that God speaks to people today.
God often speaks to us when we are reading the Bible. The Bible is the Holy Spirit talking to us. God sometimes talks to us in a “still, small, voice” See 1 Kings 19
2.God speaks from His dwelling place, our hearts.
The Holy Spirit lives in us once we are born again. So, it is only natural we would hear Him within ourselves. See 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NKJ)
When God speaks to us it is often a quiet thought or impression that flows out of our hearts and into our minds.
3. God gives us the privilege and the responsibility of hearing His voice.
Jesus calls us His flock. He doesn’t drive us like you drive cattle. He walks ahead of us, and we follow Him. How can we follow Him and not someone else? We know His voice. John 10:27 NLT
4.If you want to continue to hear from Jesus, do what He told you to do.
Once Jesus tells you something, act on it. If you don’t, He may just quietly wait for you to obey. Quietly. I’ve had times when I couldn’t hear Him. I asked why and suddenly I remembered that He told me to do something. Once I did it, I could hear Him speaking to me again. Jeremiah 11:5 (TLB,) Psalm 66:18 – NIV
5.Silence other voices.
There are 3 voices we can hear in our heads: our own voice, Satan’s, and God’s.
Our path to silencing other voices is: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 NIV
6. Does it sound like Jesus?
Everything Jesus says to you will always be consistent with the Bible, with Jesus’ character. Jesus will sound like the Jesus you find in the Bible. Just as you and I have unique voices. Jesus still has the same “voice.”
7. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Nothing helped me hear God more than this deeper yielding to God, which is what the 2nd bapti
Testimony in Hebrew Means “to do again.” As we share what God has done for us, God plants seeds of faith in the hearts of people to grow that testimony. Testimonies of salvation often lead to others being saved. Testimonies of healing give others faith to reach out and receive the same healing from God. There are many, many examples of this happening.
00:00Your Testimony has tremendous power!
4:00 Your Testimony is Personal
4:52 You Must Earn the Right to Share Your Testimony
5:28 What did Jesus think would transform nations?
5:59 Jesus’ Strategy Works!
9:28 We Overcome By the Blood of the Lamb, the Word of Our Testimonies & Courage
10:20 Activation
Acts 1:4-5, 8-9 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.
Don’t leave! Wait! For What? The gift Father God promised.
5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;
What is the gift? The Baptism of the Holy Spirit and power. What was the power for?
Acts 1:8 continues:
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
Jesus’ mandate to the early church was to be his witnesses: to tell the world what they had seen Jesus do and heard Him say.
Your Testimony is Personal
To testify about something in court, a person needs to have personal knowledge. Only what a person saw or heard is admissible. Only their personal experience will be heard. Their ideas, speculations, what they heard others say, etc. is NOT admissible because our courts believe that information is not as reliable as a witness’ personal experience.
We are most credible when we are telling others our experiences with Jesus and what God has done for us. People can argue with your theology (what you think is true about God), but it is hard for them to deny your experience.
What did Jesus think would transform nations?
This was Jesus’ plan – Holy Spirit empowered believers all sharing their testimonies throughout the world. And Christianity going viral!
Can you see it? Can you see the power of your testimony multiplied by untold thousands of thousands of people. Imagine the impact on America (or your nation) if all Christians openly and freely told their stories of what God has done in their lives. And their experiences with Jesus!
Your testimony is not just how you were born again. Your testimony is how God touches every aspect of your life. How Holy Spirit leads you, gives you wisdom, convicts you of sin, and loves you into wholeness. How you hear God speaking to you. How God set you free from addiction, provided for you during tough time financially, etc. God helps us every day. We have so much to testify about.
Your Testimony is Powerful!
Jesus met and talked to a Samaritan woman with her scarlet reputation, but what happened when she told her personal testimony about her experience with Jesus?
John 4:39 NIV
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”
Her testimony created faith in their hearts.
How We Overcome
Rev 12:11 NKJV
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
Activation – see the activation
This podcast exists for the purpose of transforming people to be like Christ and to equip them disciple nations.. Today’s video reveals how to receive God’s power to serve others – the power to transform nations through Christ.
00:00 What Made Jesus Credible?
03:26 The Disciples Receive Salvation
04:13 The Disciples are Give Authority and Commission to Disciple Nations
06:19 The Disciples Receive Power to Disciple Nations
07:07 My Story
09:50 Activation
What Made Jesus Credible?
Many men have claimed to be a god. In Jesus’ time, the Roman Emperors did. What made Jesus different?
Acts 2:22 NIV
The signs and wonders Jesus performed gave Him credibility. The works He did announced clearly that He was the Savior - the Messiah.
Jesus said: "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves." John 14:11
The Disciples Receive Salvation
The first time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was resurrected, he breathed the breath of life into the disciples and they were born again and filled with the Holy Spirit.
John 20:22 “And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
God did the same thing when He created Adam See Genesis 2:7
So the disciples were born again.
Jesus Gave The Disciples Authority and a Commission
Matthew 28:18-20
The authority God gave to Jesus, Jesus gave to us. He gave us the right to use His name. And He gave us His mandate - disciple nations.
Jesus’ Final Instructions
Acts 1:4-5, 8-9
4 … he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
Like Jesus, we need the power of God to do the work of God on the earth.
On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell on everyone who was there, in the upper room, waiting, praying, and praising God. The received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and power.
The signs and wonders God performed through the disciples drew people to the Gospel and quickly grew the church. They had “favor” with all the people. See Acts 2:47
Jesus’ instructions to the first disciples are His instructions to you and I. Wait for the power to do God’s work in God’s way.
My Story
Activation: Receive the Power of the Holy Spirit for Service.
Over 600 million Christians have responded to Jesus’ call to wait for power. They prayed and received what Jesus called the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is the power of God to do the work He has planned for you to do while on this earth. Pray the prayer with me.
Today, I want to take you step-by-step on a journey to be still and “know” God in a deeply personal way. Learn to hear His voice. This changed my life. It will change yours too.
Dutch Sheets, national prayer leader and author writes:
"Spending time with God through prayer, worship, and quiet meditation tunes the soul and awakens the heart, enabling us to hear Him. Life is loud - make it quiet down once in a while. Everything else will scream for your attention, but He will not. Holy Spirit refuses to shout above the clamor and dissonance created by other voices and activities. For those who have grown to love the pleasure of His company enough to make time for Him, for those who truly listen, however, the still small voice of Holy Spirit becomes easily discernible."
Leadings from Holy Spirit are often gentle, like the “still small voice” to Elijah in 1 Kings 19:12. The Message Translation calls it “a gentle and quiet whisper,” and the NASB says “a sound of a gentle blowing.” The point is clear: God’s voice often comes to us gently. Sometimes, it isn’t a voice at all, but just a nudge, a prompting.
Learn to listen, to feel, to sense Him.
GiveHim15.com 6/26/24
As I read this, I heard that still, small voice: “Be Still and Know that I Am God.” Psalm 46:10. I began to meditate on this verse for myself. As I wrote down what came to mind as I mediated on this familiar verse, I realized God was talking to you too. He wanted me to write what He revealed to me so you could benefit from it as well.
(070 My video: DO YOU HAVE A TEACHABLE HEART?) shows that meditating on scriptures is Biblical. See the activation in that video. https://youtu.be/3Ju7_vkbm6U
I am going to share what God showed me as Meditated on this verse. You will get the fruit – the insights of my meditation and also learn the process of Biblical meditation
Meditate - To contemplate. To think about deeply. To reflect
hagah – Hebrew – to mutter,
**One way to meditate is to Read a scripture emphasizing one word each time you read through it. The next time read through it emphasizing the next word.
**As I meditated on this, God revealed new depths of meaning of this verse. Sometimes I heard things, other times something just came to my mind. Most of those thoughts were new, sometimes they surprised me. That’s one of the ways you know it is God and not your rational mind – thoughts that surprise you. God also speaks to us using images or impressions and repetition (i.e. seeing the same verse again and again.
See the vide or the transcript for details about this meditation.
Activation – Be Still and Meet With God Every Morning
Carve out some time every morning to spend time with God through worship, quiet meditation and prayer. Make an appointment and keep it. Let God awaken your heart. Expect to hear Him. He has been waiting for you to come to Him in this way. Come, be still and listen and you will hear Him. He invites you Be still and you will come to really know me.
The condition of our hearts greatly affects how we think, what we say and what we do. Who hasn’t done something you regret because you were angry or hurt?
Jesus gave us a quick way to examine and correct the attitudes of our hearts.
This video will show you how to do a quick 2 minute attitude test. The test is in the activation at the end of the video. Please do it. I believe it will really help you.
0:00 What is the True Condition of Your Heart?
2:41 The 4 Attitudes of the Heart
6:21 Activation - Declaration
7:08 2 Minute Attitude of Your Heart Test
In Psalm 26, David is telling God how he tries to live a blameless life and how much he loves God. Yet, he asks God to examine his heart. “Test me and try me,” he says. “Examine my heart and mind.” David knew that we are often unaware of the true condition of our hearts. See Jeremiah 17:9-10.
The attitude of our hearts greatly affects how we think, what we say and what we do.
Jesus gave us a way to quickly test the attitude of our hearts in a parable.
Your heart is the soil in which God’s Word is planted.
Parable of the Sower and the Seed.
Mark 4:3-9
Jesus is Showing Us The 4 Attitudes of Our Hearts
“The four kinds of soils speak of four kinds of hearts: hard hearts, hollow hearts, half hearts, and whole hearts. With the first soil we see the activity of Satan,
the second, that of the flesh, and the third, that of the world. Bearing fruit is never a problem with what is sown but with the soil it falls upon.” (TPT Footnote)
I review Jesus’ explanation of this parable:
God’s Word never fails. Isaiah 55:11
There is always power in God’s Word. But without faith, we can’t receive from God. Our faith is what activates God’s Word in our lives. (See Hebrews 11)
James 1:6-8 NIV
Guard Your Heart Proverbs 4:23 NIV
Activation – Do a 2 Minute Heart Attitude Check
1st Daily Declaration
2nd A Quick “2 Minute” heart attitude check
A. Ask yourself:
Am I feeling or acting: hard-hearted, hollow-hearted, half-hearted, or whole-hearted toward Jesus and Father God right now?
Hard Hearted* – Am I feeling: hatred, offended, angry, cold or indifferent, or unforgiving.** Am I rebelling against God, intentionally sinning, disobeying God, or resisting what he has told me to do?
Hollow Hearted* – Am I being a casual, passive Christian?** Am I a hearer, but not a doer of God’s Word? Do I walk away from God when trouble or persecution comes because of my faith? Do I have a relationship with Jesus?
Half Hearted* – Am I distracted, pursuing human desires instead of God?**
For example: pride of life (wanting to be my own god, to do whatever I want), sexual lust, greed, envy, strife and division, selfish ambition, drug abuse, or idolatry (making something greater than God in my life)? See Galatians 5:19-21.
Whole Hearted* – Am I loving God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength?** Am I all in! Living for Jesus and receiving His love?
B. Repent and Replace that influence with God.
Mark 12:30 NIV
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And Matthew 6:33
C. Renew Your Mind: Read scripture that promises what you want or need. And let God fill it.
Use this quick test to discover the true condition of your heart. Then Let God fill your deepest desires as you renew your mind.
101 Mickey Cohen, Christian Gangster?
**The link to “Loving God” by Charles Colson as promised: https://amzn.to/3z1ryzd This is an affiliate link.
**“The Basics of Christianity for New Christians” from the Graham organization. Course: https://tinyurl.com/4s2m69bj and PDF: https://tinyurl.com/3nhmftyd
0:00 Mickey Cohen’s Story
4:38 Why can’t I be a “Christian” Gangster?
5:28 Jesus’ Requirement to Go to Heaven: Obedience
6:39 We Love God Because He First Loved Us
8:47 Obedience is the Measure of Our Love for God
10:02 Activation: Make Jesus the Lord of Your Life
Mickey prayed the sinner’s prayer. Then friends sent him to Billy Graham where he and his people explained Christianity to him. Upon returning to L.A. he avoided the man who led him to Christ, Bill Jones and went back to his mob friends. Jones contacted him to see what was wrong.
“Jones,” Mickey replied, “you never told me that I had to give
up my career. You never told me that I had to give up my friends.
There are Christian movie stars, Christian athletes, Christian businessmen. So what’s the matter with being a Christian gangster?
“If I have to give up all that—if that’s Christianity—count me out.” [from Loving God by Charles Colson and Wikipedia.]
It’s an outrageous idea – a Christian Gangster.. Yet, many people have the same thought. They want to be a Christian, but continue to do what they used to do.
Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus said:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Jesus’ requirement for genuine repentance and salvation is clear. Obedience. There is no salvation without obedience to God.
Ephesians 1:5
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
The saving relationship God offers is adoption as sons and daughters. Everyone in heaven will be a son or daughter of God. No one is grandfathered in. No one is there because what they did. No one is a servant. Everyone will be there for one and one one reason - their relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
1 John 4:19 NKJV We love Him because He first loved us.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 NIV
For Christ’s love compels us, …15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Our relationship with God, is measured by our obedience to Him. Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” John 14:15 NLT
Jesus said that the first and greatest of all the commandments is: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 NIV.
The obedience God desires is heartfelt – obedience because we love Him and want to please Him.
If asked their religion, most Americans say they are Christians. Yet, millions know about God, but no real love for him. Jesus makes it clear: obedience is the yardstick which measures our love for God. Without loving relationship, Jesus has no choice but to say: “depart from me. I never knew you.” Without loving relationship, their destiny is not heaven with God, but hell, separated forever from God.
See James 1:22
Activation
Make Jesus the Lord of your life, pray the prayer on the video from Billy Graham. Then read “The Basics of Christianity for New Christians” linked above.
Things are really tough right now. How can you have joy? You can. God created you to live in joy. The joy Holy Spirit gives you isn’t human, it doesn’t depend on circumstances. God’s joy makes even your worst days better. Let God restore His joy in your life. Here’s how.
As promised, here is the link to Demos Shakarian’s book, “The Happiest People on Earth.” https://amzn.to/3X9Y3Ft This is an affiliate link.
0:00 Joy Restored
1:42 Joy is the normal condition of a son or daughter of God.
2:38 Do You Struggle to Live in Joy
Joy No Matter What
6:02Joy comes from the presence of God.
7:21 Joy From Following God’s Path for Your Life
8:38 Joy Comes From Renewing Your Mind with God’s Word
9:33 Joy is contagious
9:50 Activation
Joy Restored
You are born again, a son/daughter of God. But it will take time for God to restore the ravages of sin in your life. Your soul has been wounded.
After David committed adultery, he repented and wrote: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Psalm 51:12
Restore - to bring back to a former, original, or normal condition
Joy is the normal condition of a son or daughter of God.
Psalm 16:11 “in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Adam and Eve were made to be like God – full of joy. So were you.
Christians should be the happiest people on earth. People should be running to us because we are filled with joy.
Do You Struggle to Live in Joy?
Paul wrote: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Philippians 4:4
Rejoice simply means renew your joy. Renew your joy always. Always? In all circumstances? Yes!! Paul was in jail when he wrote these words.
Think of God’s joy as a river that constantly flows through you. It’s true! Joy is always available. You can drink any time you want. It is always there. The choice is yours, but God’s river of joy never dries up. Rejoice!
This is a key that can unlock joy in your life.
Joy No Matter What
I give 2 examples of Christians showing great joy while in prison (Paul and Silas, Acts 13) and persecuted believers in Philippi (Acts 16).
Joy comes from the presence of God.
Psalm 22:3 and Psalm 16:11
Joy From Following God’s Path for Your Life
Psalm 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
In the path God prepared for you, there is fullness of joy – God’s joy. Deep abiding joy. See John 15:10-11
Joy is Restored by Renewing Your Mind with God’s Word
Romans 12:2
Emotions follow thoughts. Have you noticed? Change your thoughts and you change your emotions.
James 1:17 tells us that all good things come from God. Think on these things. Fix your thoughts on the good things and joy will fill your hearts. (see Philippians 4:8)
Joy is contagious. Hang out with people who are filled with God’s joy and you will catch their joy and learn how to carry it. We become like those we spend time with.
Proverbs 13:20
Spend time with the wise and you will become wise,
but the friends of fools will suffer.
The same is true of joy, of peace, of love, etc. We literally become like the people we are with.
0:00 Facing the Impossible
4:20 Hezekiah’s Prayer
5:30 God’s Answer to Hezekiah’s Prayer
7:35 Activation
7:58 1st Don’t respond to the bad news. Be still. Be quiet.
8:26 2nd Take your bad news and lay it before the Lord.
8:45 3rd Don’t begin by praying the problem. Praise and declare who God is. This will
8:59 4th Ask God for His answer!!
There is always an answer:
Faith comes from hearing Jesus. And you can hear Jesus.
Your world is falling apart. You just got bad news, gut wrenching, hand wringing news. What do you do? This video has 4 powerful steps to take when you need God most. Do the step by step activation at the end of this video and invite God into your darkest times.
It was 701 BC. The Assyrians (under King Sennacherib) had just arrived with an army of 185,000 men outside the walls of Jerusalem. King Hezekiah, of Jerusalem, had an army of less than 10,000 soldiers. The Assyrians demanded that Hezekiah surrender the city or be starved by a long siege and destroyed. This story is found in Isaiah 36-37.
Hezekiah prayed that even through it looked like an impossible situation, that God would be glorified. He prayed the whole world would that God did it. God saved them.
After he prayed, he received God’s answer from Isaiah, the prophet.
Isaiah 37:33-5 NIV
God said there isn’t going to be a battle! Not one arrow will fly. No siege ramp. No starvation. God, Himself will defend the city. For his sake. Through this God would be glorified.
God’s Promise Fulfilled
Isaiah 37:36-38
Activation
Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 NIV
When you get a bad report: a “dear John letter”, a foreclosure notice on your house, notice you are being sued, or whatever the bad news, do what Hezekiah did.
1st Don’t respond to the bad news. Be still. Be quiet. Immediately reacting and talking about bad things opens emotions of fear and anger.
Psalm 27:1
Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!
You got the bad news, now wait for God’s reply.
James 1:20
2nd Take your bad news and lay it before the Lord.
Psalm 55:22
Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you
Isiaiah 37:14-16
3rd Don’t begin by praying the problem. Praise and declare who God is. This will bring new perspective to your situation, push back fear and activate your faith.
4th Ask God for His answer!!
Hezekiah asked the prophet, Isaiah to hear God for the people. Today, we hear God. He speaks directly to us through the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Ask “God, what is your provision for me in this.”
There is always an answer:
Isaiah 65:24 NLT
I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!
Jeremiah 33:3 NIV
Faith comes from the experience of hearing Jesus.
Romans 10:17 NKJV
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
“Word” here is “rhema” – which means “the spoken word of God.” Rhema words are the messages Jesus gives us by “quickening” scripture, impressions, pictures, the still small voice we hear at times, and the other ways He speaks to us.
Isaiah received a rhema word from God in answer to Hezekiah’s prayer.
You have been given the gift of hearing Jesus.
John 10:27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Walking in the authority Jesus gave you, releases God’s power over demons and influence with people. Learn to walk in your authority as a believer.
Authority means “power to command” devils. It also means “the ability to influence thought, opinion, and behavior.” (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary) Jesus gave you His authority to have power over devils and influence with people.
0:00 Walking in Jesus’ Authority Releases God’s Power
0:45 The Day Demons Came to Church
3:54 What the Bible Says About Your Authority
5:03 Even The Winds And The Waves Obey You.
6:19 Agatha’s Intercessors and the Typhoon
7:44 Activation
The Day Demons Came to Church
I tell the story about the morning a demon possessed woman came to our small, country church and how through using the authority Jesus gave us, she was delivered and born again. This scene wasn't in Hong Kong or China, where I had several encounters with demons, but in a small, country church in the Northeastern U.S.
Some people will struggle with this story because I openly talk about demons and some Christians really don't believe in them or that we have authority over them. They are real. But we don’t need to run away from them. We have authority over them. The Bible says so.
Matthew 10:1, 7-8 NIV
1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, a drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
Luke 10:19
Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.
And after Jesus rose from the dead, he told his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Matthew 28:18
Then he told them to go in that authority and make disciples of all nations.
Even The Winds And The Waves Obey You.
Jesus was sleeping in a small boat as he and the disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee. A violent storm hit them. The disciples were terrified the boat would sink. They woke Jesus up.
Mark 4:39-40 completes the story. “Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.”
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Jesus expected them to take authority over the storms of life. Us too.
Agatha’s Intercessors and the Typhoon
Dick Eastman tells the story of Agatha Chan, a prayer leader in Hong Kong, whose intercessors took authority over a typhoon which turned away from Hong Kong at the last minute. They were praying to Dick’s prayer conference could be held. I was at that prayer conference.
God’s plan from the very beginning was to give you and I the authority of Jesus, to be used for God’s glory and to destroy the works of the devil. God has never changed His plan. You have Jesus’ authority.
ACTIVATION:
You need to believe that your simple faith brings all the authority of Jesus rushing to help you. When you exercise this authority, you release God's power. Go, walk in the authority Jesus gives you. Be bold. Command the storms in your life to go away. Walk in Jesus’ authority, releasing God’s power into your life and the lives of those you love.
Jesus’s Word, the supernatural Word of God, literally goes into the darkness, finds you, opens your eyes to the truth, lights your way out of the darkness, and fills your life with light so you can see and know God. In this video, we will define the Biblical concept of “abiding” and you will see How Abiding In God’s Word Brings You into the Light and Sets You Free.”
0:00Abiding in Christ
2:41 Abiding in Jesus’ Word, His Love, and His Joy
3:45 Abiding in Jesus’ Love
4:45 Abiding in Jesus’ Joy
6:12 How Abiding in Jesus’s Word Will Set You Free
6:31 *Understanding
7:16 *Wisdom to Make Good Decisions
7:40 *Power to Set You Free
Jesus used grape vines to explain the Biblical concept of “abiding in Christ.”
John 15:5 NKJV
Jesus said: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
This is a beautiful picture of our relationship with Jesus. He draws everything we need from God. Even though we are connected to the vine (to Jesus), it is our heart hunger, our desire that reaches out and receives what we need from Christ.
Abide– to stay, to remain, to wait, to continue in a place, to live in a place
Abiding is drawing from Jesus; it is receiving and trusting Jesus to provide everything we need.
John 15:4 NIV
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
John 15:6 NLT
Abiding in Jesus’ Word, in Jesus’ love, and in Jesus’ Joy
John Piper points out that John 15 specifically mentions three things that we are to abide in as we abide in Christ:
1. Abide In Jesus’s Word
John 15:7 NIV
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
2. Abide in Jesus’ Love
John 15:9-10
“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love;…
Abiding is relational. This isn’t just discipline. It is romance.
3 Abide in Jesus’ Joy
John 15:11
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
Psalm 16:11
Let's focus on:
How Abiding in Jesus’s Word Will Set You Free
1. Satan keeps men in darkness by blinding them to the truth
2 Corinthains 4:4 NIV
2. God’s Word Brings Light of Revelation – Understanding from God
Psalm 119:130 KJV
The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.
1 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV
3. God’s Word is a Light to Guide our Choices and Decisions in Life
Psalm 119:105 NKJV
Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
4. The Word of God Has Power to Save Your Soul
James 1:21 AMP
John 17:17 NIV
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
5. Daily Living God’s Word Sets You Free
Satan’s authority over the earth was stripped from him over 2,000 year ago, but he still deceives us today.
John 8:31-32 AMP
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Abiding – Jesus’ personal promise to you is that as you abide (as you live daily in His Word, reading, memorizing, declaring, obeying, and praying His Word) you shall know the truth.... and the truth will set you free. Satan’s deceptions will be broken and revelation light will flood your life.
Why do you get out of bed in the morning? What makes your life meaningful, rewarding? We all have questions about the meaning and purpose of our lives. Only God has compelling answers. This video reveals a surprisingly simple way to know God’s purposes and His plans for your life.
0:00 God’s Plans for You are Personal and Specific
1:12 How to Know the Specific Works God Has For you
3:16 “Watch to see where God is working and join Him in His work.” Henry Blackaby
6:08 Paul & Silas Example
8:21 In My Life
9:17 Daily Assignments From God
As promised, here is a link to Henry Blackaby’s life-changing book: “Experiencing God.” https://amzn.to/4bmoDiS This is an affiliate link.
God Has Plans for You – Specific, Detailed Plans
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
God’s plans for you are specific and personal to you.
Ephesians 2:10 NIV
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
How Can You Know What These specific Works are?
1st we need to surrender our lives to God so He can give meaning and purpose to our lives. We need to be born again and we need to surrender our daily lives to Him.
2nd The next step is to pray and ask God for direction.
Like many people, I wanted a big vision and detailed plans for what to do and how to do it. God doesn’t give us that. He gives us the next step..
Finding God’s Plan Once You Have a General Direction
Pastor Henry Blackaby’s church felt God called them to establish a student ministry on a local college campus. There were thousands of students on this campus. Yet for almost 2 years they tried and failed to establish a Bible study in the dorms.
He writes, “One Sunday, I pulled our students together and said, “This week I want you to go to the campus and watch to see where God is working. If God shows you where He is working, immediately join Him!” They asked me to explain. God had impressed on my heart two Scriptures: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God” (Rom. 3:10–11) and “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44).
I explained, “According to these passages, people do not seek God on their own initiative. When you see someone seeking God or asking questions about Christianity, you are witnessing God at work.”
3 days later a young woman approached one of the students from Blackaby’s church and asked if she could help them lead a Bible study. From this a vibrant student ministry grew that impacted the lives of hundreds of college students.
From “Experiencing God,”
We see this in the lives of Paul and Silas
In Philippi, they looked to see where God was working.
Acts 16:13-15, Luke writes:
1”3 On the Sabbath we went a little way outside the city to a riverbank, where we thought people would be meeting for prayer, and we sat down to speak with some women who had gathered there.
Paul looked for people who already believed in God, but did not yet believe in Jesus because they didn’t know about him. Lydia became a Christian and helped them launch the church in Philippi.
Look to see What God is Doing.
Wherever you are, look to see what God is doing.
We get our assignments from God daily.
God guides us step by step.
Psalm 37:23, Proverbs 20:24, Jeremiah 10:23
Do the Activation
00:00 We Need God to Guide Us
2:17 God Wants to Guide You
3:19 6 Common Reasons We Don’t Hear God’s Guidance
3:30 #1 We don’t believe God will talk to us
5:09 #2 Sin
6:21 #3 Intentional Disobedience – Doing What we Want to Do
7:44 #4 You Don’t Have Because You Don’t Ask
8:31 #5 Confusion
9:27 # 6 Discouragement And giving up
10:55 Activation
*We Need God to Guide Us
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
Proverbs 16:1, Jeremiah 17:9-10 NIV
Do not lean on your own understanding. Ask God.
God Wants to Guide You
Jeremiah 29:11
God’s plans are specific and personal to you.
Ephesians 2:10 NIV
God's Plan is for You to Walk with Him – guided step by step
Psalm 37:23, Jeremiah 10:23, Proverbs 20:24, Proverbs 16:9
6 Common Reasons We Don’t Hear God’s Guidance
#1 We don’t believe God will talk to us.
I’ve taught courses about hearing God 3 times – online twice, and to a group of university students. There were Christians in each of those classes who said they had never heard from God. By the end of each course, every single person had heard God multiple times.
God is speaking to you.
Isaiah 65:24 NLT, Jeremiah 33:3 NIV,
You can hear God.
Jesus said: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27.
Faith comes from the experience of hearing Jesus.
Romans 10:17 NKJV, Hebrews 11:6 NIV, Romans 8:14
#2 Sin
When we approach God with sin in our lives, we have no confidence. It affects our faith. Our consciences bother us. We need to get rid of our sin to boldly (with great faith) approach God for help.
1 John 3:21-22, James 4:7-10 NIV, Hebrews 4:16 NIV
It is Our faith that gives us victory. 1 John 5:4
#3 Intentional Disobedience – Doing What we Want to Do
James 4:2-3
#4 You Don’t Have Because You Don’t Ask
Psalm 105:4, Jeremiah 29:13
Matthew 7:7-8
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
#5 Confusion
1 Corinthians 14:33 NKJV
For God is not the author of confusion but of peace…
See Philippians 4:7 NIV
Don’t do anything when you are confused. Wait on God and Pray through to peace.
# 6 Discouragement And giving up.
God promised Abraham he would become the father of many nations. Abraham was 75 at the time. 9,125 days later, God fulfilled that promise when Sarah bore him a son. She was 90. Abraham was 100.
Hebrews 10:35 NASB
Hebrews 6:12 NIV
… imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.
There are other reason you may not hear God, but these are 6 common reasons.
Activation:
Use this as a checklist. If you need guidance from God and aren’t hearing him clearly, ask these questions:
1. Do I have faith to believe God will talk to me about this?
2. Father, is there sin in my life?
3. Am I intentionally disobeying God? Am I doing what I want to do, not what God wants me to do?
4. Am my passive or indifferent about this or am I actively pursuing God and his answer in this area?
5. Am I confused here? If so, pray through to peace.
6. Am I waiting with faith and endurance? Biblical patience means that your faith is actually getting stronger as you wait. By faith and endurance you will receive God’s promise.
7. Have I done the last thing that God showed me to do in this area? In my life overall?
8 Finally, father, is something else keeping me from hearing you? Please reveal it to me and remove it. Thank you, father. I surrender to your will, knowi
This video contains a secret to joyous Christian living that I didn’t discover until I had been a Christian for decades. I sincerely want to save you years of struggle and pain. I believe this spiritual truth will empower you to live a victorious Christian life.
00:00 My story – alcoholic to Christ
4:14 The Key to Deep, Lasting Change: Your Desires
5:15 Desire Fulfilled is a Tree of Life
6:56 It’s Your Choice
8:12 Delight in the Lord and He Will Fill Your Desires
8:31 Activation
A. My Story
I met a lot of Christians from all over the world. And I discovered a pattern. Many believers are born again, but not transformed.
God can transform your heart in a fraction of the time and without all the pain that I experienced.
Romans 12:2 NLT says, “Let God transform you into a new person.”
So, How can I Be Born Again, but Not Transformed?
The Key to Deep, Lasting Change is Your Desires
You see, sin is the fruit of us filling our desires by ourselves for ourselves.
God gave you desires that will draw you to Him.
Philippians 2:13 NLT
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
The purpose of these desires is to drive us to God. God made us with desires only He can fill. He made us to be incomplete without Him. If you ever feel empty, incomplete, or inadequate it's because you are - without God. God doesn't want you to feel that way. The desires he placed in you draw you to Him. He fills the deepest desires of our hearts through relationship with Him and with other believers.
Desire Fulfilled is a Tree of Life
Proverbs 13:12 NASB
But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
There were 2 trees in the Garden of Eden. Adam & Eve ate forbidden fruit. They wanted to be like God through their own effort. It was the first sin. And Satan has trapped million of people in the same sin over the thousands of years since. The fruit looks good, but it leads to death not life.
God created us to live for more than our selves.
Our lives are not our own. 1 Corinthians 16:9 NIV says: "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price."
Jesus paid the price for our sin when he died for us. God now offers each of us the choice to live with Him, as a son or a daughter.
It's Your Choice
Others choose to go their own way and live for themselves.
Ephesians 2:3 NIV
When I was an alcoholic, I turned into one of the most selfish people on the planet. When I craved alcohol, I would do almost anything to get it. I didn't care about God, about friends or family or anything but filling the all-consuming desire for alcohol.
The irony is that by pursuing what I wanted, focusing on my own self-centered desires, I was sentencing myself to a life of unfulfilled desire. No alcoholic or drug addict ever has enough of his drug of choice. No one who pursues power, fame, wealth or any of Satan's twisted desires ever has enough. Like a dog, chasing it's tail, Satan keeps people running meaninglessly in circles until we have wasted our lives.
When I turned my heart to God, he healed the desires, the emptiness within me, that drove me to alcohol.
Psalm 37:4 NIV
Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
The one thing that will save you years of frustration and pain is to turn your heart to God and let Him fill the desires of your heart. Once your desires are filled by God, the sin that you continue to struggle with will fade away.
Activation
This video is for everyone who has or will struggle with sin that you just can’t seem to break free from. You and I are no match for sin. But Jesus is. How did Jesus deal with sin? That is the answer you’ve been looking for. That answer is in this video.
Several viewers have written me asking how to deal with repeated sin after they are born again. We try and try to eliminate these areas of failure in our lives using self-discipline, but sometimes we just can’t. Then, we don’t know what else to do.
00:00 A Video for People Struggling With Sin
0:39Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery
2:48 Jesus => A New Way of Dealing With Sin
4:59 Obedience From the Heart
5: 23 Go to the Root of Your Sin - Desires
6:19 It’s Not Enough to Stop Sinning – Pull Out the Root, the Desire
8:58 Activation
For practical help applying this approach to dealing with your sin read: Tony Stoltzfus, “The Invitation: Transforming the Heart through Desire Fulfilled” https://amzn.to/3QHCTuq [This is an affiliate link.]
How Did Jesus Deal With Sin
In John 8, the religious leaders brought Jesus a woman caught in adultery. The law required her to be stoned to death. Jesus's response?
“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” He accusers left, one by one.
Jesus asked, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared.”
Imagine a culture where people were ready to pick up stones and kill someone who broke the law. But that was the culture Jesus lived in.
Jesus came for the purpose of destroying that culture by replacing the old covenant of law with a new covenant of “grace” – undeserved favor and forgiveness from God.
Jesus accepted this woman as she was - in her sin. He loved her (love forgives). She is guilty. Yet she is freed. And forgiven. And loved. Jesus, by his action and his words affirmed her value, her worth as a woman.
Jesus gave her the very desires that drove her to adultery in the first place: desire to be loved, valued, accepted, to belong, to be significant. Jesus filled the desires of her heart.
Then, only after Jesus had met the desires that drove her to sin, did Jesus ask for obedience. In verse 11, He said, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” Jesus asked her for obedience from the heart: obedience because she felt loved. See John 14:15 NASB (Jesus)
JesusHe began with the root – the desire that was driving this woman. What human desire drove her to the point that she would risk her life to fill it?
A desire for sex?
Sex is the outward sin, but what would sex give her? What was the root desire? Love, Acceptance, approval, significance, love…. These are all desires each of us have. These are things that we all need. And if we don’t have them, we will go to extremes to get them.
This woman risked her life to fill the emptiness of her heart – her heart desires.
Go to the Root of Your Sin
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden,
What causes us to do what we do?
The truth is we often don’t know why we do things. As Paul said in Romans 7:15: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
The answer is that desires are what drive us.
Pull Out the Root
When self tries to take God’s place and fill the desires of our hearts, selfishness twists God-given desires into sinful pursuits.
Let Jesus fill your heart's desires.
Do the ACTIVATION
You are much greater than you know. This video reveals your true identity: who God says you are and releases you to walk in your true identity. "Remember who you are. Don’t compromise for anyone, for any reason. You are a child of the Almighty God. Live that truth." - Lysa Terkeurst
00:00 Discover Your Hidden Identity
0:49 Gideon Discovered His Identity
2:42 God Corrects Moses’ Limiting Beliefs
5:18 God Defined Moses and Gideon’s identities by His presence.
6:16 William Carey’s Story
8:47 Your Identity is in Christ
9:12 “The voice you listen to is the voice that defines you.” Jonathan Helser
10:22 Activation
**Gideon Discovered His Hidden Identity
Jesus appeared to Gideon as an angel and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
Gideon told Jesus that God wasn’t with them.
14 The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
God’s answer to Gideon’s identity questions:
16 “I will be with you” and “you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
**God Corrects Moses’ Limiting Beliefs
Exodus 3:1-12 NIV
God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. God sent him to rescue Israel from Pharoah and the Egyptians.
11 But Moses asked God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
God’s answer:
12 “I will surely be with you,” God said.
God Defined Moses and Gideon’s identities by His presence. That is your identity too!
Gideon, said I’m the least of the least.
God responded “I will be with you.” “Go in the strength you have.”
“Who am I to do this,” Moses asked.
God replied: “I will surely be with you.”
**William Carey’s Amazing Story
Willie never had higher education. He was a humble cobbler. He stuttered. And his wife was insane.
Church leaders rejected his idea to take the Gospel to India. Churches in England weren’t sending missionaries in the 1700’s.
Someone said, “Face it, William: you’re unfit.” He stuttered, “B-b-but I c-c-can p-p-plod!”
For 11 years he studied Greek, and Hebrew and other languages on his own. He finally was accepted as a minister. Finally, in 1793 he went to India.
William Carey ministered in India for 7 years before he had a convert. He plodded on. After 20 years, he only had a small number of converts.
By the end of his life he had translated the complete Bible into 6 languages and parts of the Bible into 34 languages. He had established India’s first college, 45 teaching centers, and a school for girls (unheard of at that time.) In India, he is still revered as a man who loved India and helped the people.
Today, we call William Carey the “Father of Modern Missions.” Today, there are over 27 million Christians in India. And his early critics were right: he was totally unqualified. But, like Gideon and Moses, God went with Him.
All God needs is a man or woman willing to let God give us our true identity and to step out in the strength we have, knowing God’s might and power will go with us.
Your Identity is IN CHRIST - John 15:5 NIV, Philippians 4:13
With Jesus – we can do anything.
Without Jesus –We can do nothing of eternal significance!
** “The voice you listen to is the voice that defines you.” Jonathan Helser
Gideon didn’t know who he was until Jesus revealed his identity to him. The same is true of Moses, and the same is true of you.
Colossians 3:3 NIV
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Ephesians 1:11 MSG
It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for
Activation Prayer
You probably know someone who became a Christian and over time, literally became a new person. Their life was transformed. Yet, we all know Christians who have been Christians a long time, yet still aren’t much like Jesus. This video answers the question: “What can you do that will enable God to transform you into a totally new person?”
00:00 It is in God’s Presence We are Changed
1:40 Meet God in His Word
3:50 The Word and The Holy Spirit Work Together to Change us
6:40 Be Transformed by Renewing Your Mind With God’s Word
**Romans 12 Transformation
7:01 Step 1. Surrender every part of your life to God.
7:20 Step 2. Reject ideas of this world. And Renew Your
Mind with What God Says
8:35 Step 3 Then You will know God’s will
9:14 ACTIVATION: Disciplined Reading and Desire Reading of Scripture
2 Corinthians 3:18 NASB
But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
What changes us? Being in God’s presence. As we spend time with God, his glory is reflected in us, we are changed into His image. He changes us to be like Him.
In the Old Testament, Moses spent 40 days on a mountain with God. When he returned to the people, he was noticeably changed. He radiated with the glory of God. Exodus 34:34 NASB
We don’t have to go to a Mountain to Meet With God – Just Open His Book
God has given us a book that literally carries His presence.
Hebrews 4:12 NIV
For the word of God is alive and active.
It’s true. People throughout the world tell of God encounters while reading this book. People hear His voice, feel His presence, or somehow realize that He is real and He loves them.
The Spirit and the Word Working in Our Lives
Hebrews 4:12
Be Transformed by Renewing Your Mind With God’s Word
Romans 12:1-2 describes the process uses to sanctify you.
1. Surrender every part of your life to God. Romans 12:1
2. Reject the philosophies and ideas of this world. And Renew Your Mind with What God Says – His Word and His Presence. Romans 12:2 NIV
Transformation is the inside out change that only God can do.
3. Then we will know God’s will. Romans 12:2 NIV
Activation
Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
Every morning, Jesus is knocking on your door, waiting for you to open the door and let Him into your life that day. You do that by opening your Bible to meet with Jesus.
Action Steps
1. First thing every morning, open your Bible and meet with God. Expect Him to speak to you through his Word. Approach the Bible looking for a deeper relationship with Jesus.
2. Disciplined Reading – Have a Reading Plan (e.g. Psalms & New Testament, etc.) and read every day. If you show up, God will too!
3. Delight Reading – Read scriptures God has given to you as promises or used to solve problems in your life. Read these verses to delight and thank God.
We live in a world full of takers. We honor those who have the most money, fame, power or prestige. God’s kingdom is just the opposite. God rewards givers. Givers receive from God when they give with all their heart.
00:00 Take a Step and God Will Meet You With What You Need
4:07 Give and it Shall Be Given to You, Pressed Down, Shaken Together and Running Over
6:66 Activation: Apply this Spiritual Principle to Your Life
I share a story about being badly hurt by the betrayal of a friend and how I couldn’t forgive that friend until he “gave” an act of forgiveness to the friend.
Luke 6:37-38 says:
37Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
“Give” it says in Luke 6:38. I needed to give something. So, I called my friend. I called and acted as if the betrayal had never happened. We talked about everyday things – just small talk.
As I talked with my friend, the forgiveness I was still struggling to find, suddenly dropped into my heart. I remembered all the years of our friendship, the memories we have together, and I remembered why I love this guy. And then it was easy to forgive.
Forgiveness is not an emotion. It’s a decision followed by an action. Act first, and the emotion will follow. We step out in faith, and God gives us what we need, to do what is right. I gave my friend a second chance and God restored our friendship and gave me peace, forgiveness, and love for my friend.
Before I took a step, I was unable to forgive, even though I was trying. After I acted, taking just one step toward forgiveness, God flooded my heart with forgiveness.
There is a powerful spiritual principle at work in Luke 6:38. We give to God and he gives more to us. Much more. I took one small step toward forgiveness, a phone call reaching out to my friend. God ran to me and filled my heart with memories of a long friendship and filled my heart with the forgiveness I had been trying to get on my own. It was an amazing experience.
Give and it Shall Be Given to You, Pressed Down, Shaken Together and Running Over
This principle is proven true in many contexts in scripture.
In finances, in relationship with God and in relationship with others.
I share several stories of God’s supernatural provision during the 12 years we lived in Hong Kong.
2 Corinthians 9:6 says:
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
Activation: How to Apply this Spiritual Principle to Your Life
Human failure is our reality. God’s forgiveness and restoration is our greater reality!! At the last supper the disciples argued who was the greatest. Jesus told them he would be arrested and they would all abandon him. Peter said, “not me.” Jesus told him he would deny Christ 3 times before dawn. Yet, in the middle of all this, Jesus assured the disciples that their reward in heaven would be great. These verses teach us that God’s grace is infinitely greater than our sin.
00:00 Jesus gives the disciples grace
2:53 Grace is Grater than Human Failure
3:45 Satan wants to sift you like wheat
4:07 All men fail God
4:22 The Blood of Jesus is greater than our failures (Romans 3:22-25)
4:53 Made righteous not by what we do but by what we believe
5:24 Human love is conditional; God’s love is not.
5:52 Angry Christians
6:37 jesus is our Righteousness (Romans 8:1, 2 Corinthians 5:21)
7:16 Saving Faith (Faith working in love, Galatians 5:6)
8:15 Grace that is greater than our sin
8:25 What God sees when he looks at you
9:08 When we return to the Lord, He restores us
9:30 ACTIVATION
Jesus was having a last meal with the disciples he loved, when they began to squabble about who was the greatest among them. At the same meal, Jesus told them they would all abandon him. Peter said, “Not me.” Jesus told Peter he would deny knowing Jesus 3 times before dawn.
In the middle of all this human failure by the disciples, Jesus assured them that their reward in heaven would be great!!
All men fail God. Repeatedly. Every single one of us. In our lives we are sifted by struggles, problems and brokenness. We fail. We run away from God. We sin. We fall short of what God requires. And the blood of Jesus covers and removes our sin, our flaws and our failures.
Romans 3:22-25 NKJV
We are made righteous not by what we do but by what we believe.
Romans 8:1 AMP
2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB
Saving Faith works in love.
Faith that saves and makes us righteous and holy is faith (believing and trusting Jesus and Father God) because we know they love us. And our natural response to receiving their love is to love them back.
Galatians 5:6 NASB
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
The Galatians had fallen into the trap of trying to obey the requirements of the law to sustain their salvation. Paul corrected them. It’s not your performance that makes you righteous, he is saying. It is your faith flowing from your love.
We must come to a point in our lives that we truly believe that grace (the favor we have from God because he loves us and for no other reason) is greater than our sin.
We must come to a place where we accept the amazing truth that when God looks at us he doesn't see our performance (what we think, say or do) and our many failures and flaws. No, God sees every born-again believer as being "in Christ." When God looks at us, He sees Jesus' perfect life of love and sacrifice. We are "In Christ." Our lives are no longer our own. We have accepted Jesus' offer to join, to unite our lives with His.
And just like the disciples, God knows that our flawed humanity will cause us to fail Him. We will sin. We may even turn our back on God for a season. But he reminds us that there are great rewards for us in heaven. And, like Peter, God restores us.
Peter, who had denied Jesus three times, was the apostle who spoke to the crowd on the day of Pentecost and led 3,000 people to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Peter had been restored to his true identity.
In the book of Mark, Jesus was interrupted 35 times. People asked Jesus to come teach, to heal the sick, to cast out demons and raise the dead. He said, “Yes.” Jesus had discovered that God’s frequent interruptions weren’t interruptions at all. They were God’s opportunities. They were God’s plan for his life. The same is true of you and I. We need to learn how to live like Jesus: to live letting God interrupt our lives.
Jesus was interrupted during meals, while teaching crowds, while walking down the road, even when he was trying to just get away from the crowds and spend time with God. People crowded him, grabbed his clothes (Mark 5:27-28) and invaded his personal space. Two Blind men even burst into the house where he was, apparently uninvited (Matthew 9). Jesus healed them. Four men tore up the roof of a house to lower a sick man down so Jesus could heal him. (Mark 2) Imagine the dust and debris falling on Jesus, as they ripped up the roof above his head. That was outrageous. But Jesus didn’t get upset. He healed the man.
Jesus’ didn’t just patiently endure all of this, a fake smile pasted on his face. He genuinely felt the pain of the people. He had compassion on them. He felt God’s love for them and He loved them by serving them.
00:00 Jesus lived an Interruptible Life
1:36 God Used Homeless People to Teach me to Be More Interruptible
5:15 God Wants to Be Part of Our Daily Lives (scriptures)
7:11 Interruption is God’s Invitation
9:14 Activation
*God Highlighted Homeless People to Teach Me to Be More Interruptible
I tell stories of how God taught me to be more interruptible by highlighting homeless people everywhere I went last summer and fall.
These people were assignments for me. Holy Spirit kept pointing them out. I learned to immediately respond.
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*God wants to be a big part of our lives – every day. He has specific plans for us. He has works prepared for us to do – things that were planned long before we were born. Ephesians 2:10 GNT, Psalm 37:23 NKJV, Proverbs 16:1 ESV, Proverbs 19:21 EXB, Proverbs 20:24 NIV, Jeremiah 10:23
The highest life, the most rewarding life we could possibly live is the life God planned and prepared for us. Our role is to live interruptible lives, completing God’s assignments and living the lives God planned for us to live.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in” Life Together”:
“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God."
Interruption is God’s Invitation
to come closer to God, to know his heart for people.
to overcome evil with good. You and I can’t overcome all the evil in the world, but we can stop for the one person in front of us. We can make a difference in their life. We can love and care for them the way Jesus would.
Interruption is God’s invitation for you to be transformed to become like Jesus. –A life lived for Christ is a self-less life. It is a life dedicated to others. God’s interrupts us to transform us into new people. (see Romans 12:2)
It’s an invitation to open your eyes to see as God sees. You will develop fresh awareness of people, problems, and God – his power, his love, and his faithfulness.
to hear God and immediately obey God. Developing a habit of immediate obedience is a powerful thing.
to learn to love – it is through serving that we learn the true meaning of love. Matthew 23:11 NIV: The greatest among you will be your servant.
to learn humility. Living interruptible will empower you to “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,” Philippians 2:3 NIV
an invitation to the Joy of loving and serving others. Such joy!!
Ecclesiastes 9:7 NASB
Activation- Learn to embrace God’s interruptions and to create margin (time, energy, and resources) for God to interrupt you.
You may feel the weight of world on your shoulders right now. You may be overwhelmed by fear, drained and defeated by what has happened to you. Jesus wants to lift you from under your circumstances and seat you far above them with Him. From there, He will teach you how to pray and overcome whatever you are struggling with.
The prayer activation at the end of this video WILL enable you to pray above your circumstances. Do the activation.
The Phone Call In The Night
This video begins with the story of an emergency phone call in the night (a person’s mother’s heart stopped) and how fear and hopelessness try to take control. God has answers to your fear and despair.
Hebrews 4: 16 NLT
16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
You approach God’s throne as a much-loved son or daughter, to receive His compassion, His love, and grace (his favor) to help you when you need it most.
You remember Psalm 100:4: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.”
As you praise and worship God, His peace will come and fill your heart.
Now you’re ready to pray.
Jesus, how are You praying for my Mom? What do you want me to know about this situation?”
You wait. When anxious thoughts again try to come, you just gently praise them away. When Jesus speaks, it may be a picture in your mind, a still small voice, a Scripture or an inner knowing that you recognize as Him. You wait, confident Jesus will answer. You’ve done this before – many times.
You have the faintest impression – a picture of a heart beating. And a wave of peace washes over you. You have Jesus’ answer. Your mother will live. Somehow, in your spirit, you know that now.
You pray with faith, not an ounce of fear.
Romans 10:17 NKJV promises: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” You heard God and your faith cannot be shaken.
What Just Happened?
Our physical life is limited to the earth. But we are spirits. We live in a body and we have a soul, but we are spirits. When we were born again, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus….”
Ephesians 2:6 (NIV)
When we pray, we go to Jesus – boldly approaching His throne of grace and mercy. What is Jesus doing in heaven? He’s interceding for us.
Hebrews 7:25 (NLT)
When He answers, then I know how to pray. I’m not praying to Him; I’m praying to God with Jesus. And I KNOW that prayer will be answered because Jesus has told me how to pray.
Activation
Life’s problems can quickly overwhelm you. You weren’t meant to live crushed under the devil’s feet. John 16:33 NIV
Think of a situation or problem that is weighing you down and stressing you out. Follow these 4 steps.
**1st Step. Accept Jesus’ invitation to “come up here.” Rise above your situation by heartfelt thanksgiving and praise. Psalm 100:4: ““Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.”
**2nd Step. Draw Near to God and Resist the Devil.
James 4:7-8 NIV
*3rd Step. Join Jesus’ prayer meeting. Ask him how to pray.
Sometimes, how we see a person or situation is the problem.
Jesus, show me how you see _________ (a person, situation or problem). Let Jesus show you His perspective.
*How are you praying, Jesus? What is Your provision for me in this?
- Approach Jesus knowing there is always an answer.
Philippians 4:19 (NIV), 2 Peter 1:3 (NLT)
**4th Step. Once you know how to pray, you will be able to pray in faith. And God will answer your prayers. 1 John 5:14-15 (NIV), Matthew 17:20 (NIV)
One of the greatest stories of God’s faithfulness in being with us when we need him most is a story many people don’t know.
It happened 800 years before Jesus came to earth. Israel was split into two Kingdoms, Judah to the South and Israel to the North. Israel was an ungodly nation, let by King Ahab and his wicked wife, Jezebel. Yet, God was faithful to his people in Israel. God gave Israel Elijah and then Elisha as prophets to lead and protect Israel. Aram, a Syrian nation, had attacked Israel in a series of raids.
2 Kings 6:8-23 NIV tells the story:
8 When the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he would confer with his officers and say, “We will mobilize our forces at such and such a place.”
9 But immediately Elisha, the man of God, would warn the king of Israel, “Do not go near that place, for the Arameans are planning to mobilize their troops there.” 10 So the king of Israel would send word to the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he would be on the alert there.
11 The king of Aram became very upset over this. He called his officers together and demanded, “Which of you is the traitor? Who has been informing the king of Israel of my plans?”
12 “It’s not us, my lord the king,” one of the officers replied. “Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel even the words you speak in the privacy of your bedroom!”
13 “Go and find out where he is,” the king commanded, “so I can send troops to seize him.”
And the report came back: “Elisha is at Dothan.” 14 So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city.
15 When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha.
16 “Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!”
17 Then Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes and let him see!” The LORD opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.
18 As the Aramean army advanced toward him, Elisha prayed, “O LORD, please make them blind.” So the LORD struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked.
Elisha led them to Samaria and the king.
21 When the king of Israel saw them, he shouted to Elisha, “My father, should I kill them? Should I kill them?”
22 “Of course not!” Elisha replied. “Do we kill prisoners of war? Give them food and drink and send them home again to their master.”
23 So the king made a great feast for them and then sent them home to their master. After that, the Aramean raiders stayed away from the land of Israel.
The king of Aram wisely decided to leave Israel alone after this. You would leave a nation with a god that powerful alone too!
I Will Never Leave You or Forsake You
Like Elisha’s servant, you may be outnumbered by your enemies, facing an impossible situation right now. But like Elisha, God is on your side. Throughout scripture, God again and again tells his people, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
No matter what you are facing today, here is God’s personal promise to you: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them [your enemies or circumstances], for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 [added for clarity]
This promise is repeated in Joshua 1:5, 1:9 and in Hebrews 13:5.
The same promise is made in different words in Isaiah 41:10 ERV:
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Activation
Do the activation to deal with fear and anxiety in your circumstances. Declar
Rick Warren’s son succumbed to depression and took his own life. Rick was surprised to get letters from people his son had led to Christ. In God’s grace, even broken people bear fruit for God.
00:00 Matthew Warren’s Tortured Life
2:41 We’re all Broken
3:47 Jesus Will Never Reject You
4:17 Your Faith In Jesus makes you holy Before God
5:00 Peter and Paul were Broken People Just Like You and I
8:02 When You are Weak, Then You Are Strong
8:58 Your Greatest Ministry Will Come Out of Your Greatest Pain
9:43 Activation
Jesus will Never Reject You
Matthew 12:20 says of Jesus, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out…” You may be spiritually, physically or morally bruised, your light for God sputtering, smoldering, about to go out, but Jesus will not reject you. He will bless you and bring you to Him.
Your faith in Jesus justifies you (makes you holy, righteous) before God.
Romans 3:20, 28 NIV
Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
Ephesians 3:8-9 NIV
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
Justification is the exchange of our sins for Jesus’ righteousness when we believed in Jesus.
We are all broken people.
Did Jesus reject Peter and throw him on the scrapheap of humanity when Peter denied Christ 3 times in one night? No! In fact, Jesus restored him. And on the day of Pentecost, when power from heaven fell on Christians for service to God, who spoke and won to Christ 3,000 souls that day? Peter!! (See John 18, 21, and Acts 2)
Did Jesus disqualify Paul who had imprisioned and killed Christians as he zealously tried to protect the Jewish religion? No! Jesus went after him. He wanted Paul’s brilliant intellect and his religious zeal to be used to establish Christianity, not destroy it. A murderer and persecutor of the Church established churches throughout Asia. And God gave Paul the privilege of writing 2/3 of the New Testament – the most read, most influential book in the history of the world.
What God did for them, he has done for you. By faith in Jesus, you are made righteous before God.
When I am weak, then I am strong.
God will use your weaknesses to strengthen others. In our weakest times, God reveals His strength. He becomes strong in and through us, even as our strength fails. See 2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV
Your Greatest Ministry Will Come Out of Your Greatest Pain
Rick Warren concludes, “Your greatest ministry will come out of your deepest pain. I say that from experience. There's not a week go by that somebody famous calls me with either a mental illness issue or a suicide issue, and I'm talking about from the highest of the highest people, personalities in politics and in celebrity. And Kay and I did not ask for this ministry of ministering to families with mental illness and ministering to families struggling with suicide of a family member. I didn't want that ministry, but it's one that God gave us, and I'm not going to waste the pain.
You're going to go through pain in life; just don't waste it. If you're going to go through pain, you might as well use it to help somebody else out.”
See Rick Warren's interview with Matt Crouch of TBN where he discusses this in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCUbog65dP4
What voice are you listening to? This video explores how despite negative voices in our lives we can actually possess every spiritual blessing in heaven through Jesus Christ. There is a life-changing activation at the end of this video. Please don’t just watch the video and walk away. Do the activation at the end and let it change your life.
0:00 You’ll Never Make it – False Words from an authority figure in my life
4:13 What voices are you listening to?
4:40 Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm
6:11 In Christ, In Him, In whom scriptures are your true identity.
8:01 Activation
I almost listened to an angry teacher who told me not to waste my time applying to university as I would never make it through. Years later, I went to night school and eventually got a doctorate in law and for years I taught in universities around the world.
What voices are you listening to?
We all have had negative voices in our lives. Maybe an overly stern father, a local bully who terrorized you as a kid, or your own voice relentlessly tearing down your self-esteem. Satan uses those voices to steal our identity and our destiny.
If you listen to the voices of this world you will never become who God already made you to be.
When you were born again, your life was united with Jesus’ life. Your spirit was made holy and forever united with His. Your identity from that point on was not who you are, but who you are IN CHRIST.
Everything Jesus has becomes yours. This is the promise of Ephesians 1:3. NIV
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
Every spiritual blessing in heaven is yours because of the life you now share with Jesus, the union you have with him. God blessed you with every spiritual blessing. God gave you those blessings. No man or devil can take them away.
This happened because your whole life is lived as a branch connected to Jesus, the vine. The life of the vine flows into the branches. Jesus’ life, all the spiritual blessings of heaven, naturally flow into your life. Not in heaven someday, but here, on earth, how. (See John 15)
Bible teacher and author, John Stott, wrote:
The expressions “in Christ,” “in the Lord,” and “in him” occur 164 times in the letters of Paul alone, and are indispensable to an understanding of the New Testament. To be “in Christ” does not mean to be inside Christ, as tools are in a box or our clothes in a closet, but to be organically united to Christ, as a limb is in the body or a branch is in the tree. It is this personal relationship with Christ that is the distinctive mark of his authentic followers.”
In Christ, In Him, In whom scriptures are your true identity.
In Christ you are made holy and set free from guilt and shame.
Romans 8:1 NIV
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…
In Christ you are loved.
Romans 8:39 NIV
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In Christ you are made complete.
2 Corinthians 9:10 NASB
and in Him you have been made complete
In Christ, you have all the promises of God. Every spiritual blessing in heaven is yours in and through Jesus.
2 Corinthians 1:20 NIV
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.
Activation
Do this! Life changing!
The Secret Of True Lasting Joy Is Not To Seek Joy For Yourself But For Others.
00:00 Esther – a joyful servant
2:56 “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”
4:43 Faith that Doesn’t Give up on People
5:52 Activation: Find True, Lasting Joy by Seeking Joy For Others
She was almost 80 when I met her, an ordinary-looking woman, but she had such joy I did a double take. Her name was Esther.
She had been crippled, walking with a walker for over 10 years when God supernaturally healed her as my pastor prayed for her. She came to know him as few of us do.
I came to know Esther well as she, our friend Gladys, Karen (my wife) and I went door to door in our small town and offered to pray for the people who lived in every home. We went every week until we had covered every street in our town. It took months.
Esther as she listened to people with rapt attention. She connected with them. People opened up to Esther. They could tell she really cared.
Esther prayed from intimacy with the Father. She and God approached God as a much-loved daughter would approach her Dad, knowing he wanted to give her what she needed. She just talked to Him. It was so real and so personal. Her prayers made God real to those she prayed for.
Karen and I moved to South Florida shortly after that. The next time we saw Esther, she was in a nursing home. We had talked a few times on the phone. She was always upbeat, but we were concerned about her. We shouldn’t have been.
Upon arriving at the nursing home, Esther had rolled up her sleeves and gotten involved. She helped with social activities. She visited people who never had visitors. And she prayed, oh she prayed for the residents of that home. She prayed for their souls. She prayed for healing. She prayed for whatever people needed.
Esther moved into that nursing home not as just another resident, but as a servant of God sent there to bless the people in that home. And she blessed them as her servant heart. We saw it firsthand. We asked and Esther told us stories of what God was doing in the home. And we praised God together.
Esther had health problems, but she didn’t want to talk about those. They weren't on her radar. She was wrapped up in the lives of her family and her new friends at the home.
I believe some of greatest people in heaven will be some of the most humble people here on earth.
The best definition of humility I've heard is: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” Rick Warren
C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, described true humility:
“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. … you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
Lewis just described Esther' life. Humble, cheerful and enjoying life so easily. Can you imagine going to a nursing home and visiting an old friend, only to find out she had more joy than you did? We didn’t need to worry about Esther. We needed what she had.
Esther had discovered that The Secret Of True Lasting Joy Is Not To Seek Joy For Yourself But For Others.
Matthew 23:11-12 AMP says:
But the greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be raised to honor.
The key to Esther's life, her consummate joy, was a servant heart. She was one of few people I've met who truly didn't live for herself; she found joy in living for others.
00:00 Taking a Risk –Gretchen’s Teeth
3:18 It Takes Courage to Love
5:01 Love Overcomes Fear
6:49 Jesus’ Love Completes Us
9:03 Activation Prayer: Jesus, Resurrect (bring to life) My Courage to Love
Many of us are like I was with Gretchen. People or circumstances have beat us up and we don’t want to let anyone get too close. We’re afraid we will get hurt again. That same fear keeps us from really knowing Jesus or experiencing his love. The love that will heal us.
It takes courage to love.
The whole point of this is that it takes risk to overcome fear. Letting God love us is a risk, loving others is a risk. It’s not just one risk but many, many risks. Faith is a lifestyle of taking risks. Faith works in and through love.
Paul wrote in Galatians 5:6 (NIV):
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Paul is saying that it’s not about the do’s and don’ts anymore. It’s not about the rules or the law. We have a new, relationship covenant with God through Jesus. “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
1 John 4:16 AMP
16 We have come to know [by personal observation and experience], and have believed [with deep, consistent faith] the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides continually in him.
Courage rises in our hearts as we experience the love of Jesus. It takes courage to go against your culture, the beliefs of your family and friends. It takes courage to open your heart to the love of Christ.
Jesus’ death brings resurrection life – resurrection power to us. Jesus resurrects courage in us to hope, to believe, to receive God’s love and to love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 EXB
And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.
Jesus’ Love Completes Us
1 John 4:17-19 (NIV)
17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
As we surrender to the love of Jesus,
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His love is made complete in us (He fills us with His love). And our faith, our confidence in Jesus grows. Faith works in and through love. Faith expresses itself through acts of love. (See Galatians 5:6)
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He makes us like Him (not someday in heaven, but here, now, on earth). “1 John 4:17 “In this world we are like Jesus.”
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Fear is driven out. Jesus’ perfect love replaces fear.
What fear?
*Fear of changing, fear of new ideas
*Fear of punishment because of our sins or our past. When you know you have grace (the undeserved favor of God through relationship with Jesus) you aren’t afraid of your mistakes or sins. You love Jesus. And He loves you. And His love covers your sins and flaws. You are forgiven – past, present, and future as you continue to walk with Jesus.
*Fear of what people think. Jesus’ love draws us to live for his approval and his alone. It becomes the only thing that really matters.
Activation (Pray the Activation Prayer in the Video)
You want to serve Jesus. But your job is hectic, your family is demanding, and there life is just overwhelming. You don’t have time or energy to do much. What can you do?
00:00 George Muller’s Secret
3:04 Seek God First and He Will Give You Everything Else
4:40 True Worship is Us Surrendering Our Lives to God
6:12 Activation
The Story of George Muller’s Secret
Source: Roger Steer, George Müller, Delighted in God. See the video description for links to this book. https://amzn.to/3TRoSvV
The Autobiography Of George Muller https://amzn.to/3ISfPVd
The Life Of Trust - The Classic Autobiography Of George Müller https://amzn.to/3IUA8BC (These links are affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I receive a small commission for sales. It's one of the ways I pay for the podcast. Thanks)
George Mueller lived completely dependent on God for 68 years. He never told anyone of needs, he never asked anyone for anything, he never took a salary, and never went into debt. He established five orphanages and cared for 10,023 orphans during his lifetime. He also sponsored hundreds of missionaries and gave away thousands of Bibles. He kept a daily journal of God’s provision. Over his lifetime, people contributed over $7 million to his work (this was from 1830-1898).
George Mueller’s faith – his absolute trust in God for everything, was anchored in his daily Bible reading and prayer. He was known to begin his day with at least two hours reading scripture and praying. His daily journal records over 5,000 answered prayers. And he read through the Bible over 200 times in his lifetime.
George Mueller’s life is living proof of God’s promise in Matthew 6:31-33
Matthew 6:31-33 NLT
So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Despite an incredibly busy life as a pastor, the founder and director of five orphanages, and other work distributing Bibles, supporting missionaries around the world, and running a Christian school, George Mueller knew that the first and most important thing he had to do every day was spend time with God, reading His Word, and praying.
In fact, if you look at the lives of great men and women of God you will find the same secret to their success. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” and everything else in your life will fall into place.
Martin Luther offered this insight: "I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer."
That’s not typical time management advice. But it is God’s advice.
* When you have the desire to spend more time with God and to do things for God, He will make a way.
God will free you from your limitations, your distractions, and the time/energy/resource stealers in your life. You will grow closer to Jesus and you, like George Mueller, will do great things for God.
True Worship is Us Surrendering Our Lives to God
It’s amazing what God can do with one life surrendered to Him.
Romans 12:1 NIV
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Activation – Surrender/Commitment Prayer
There is tremendous power in choosing to rejoice in God in the most difficult times of your life. Philippians 4:4 is a key that will unlock the door to a supernatural life of God’s presence and His power. You need this!
00:00 Rejoice in the Lord Always
Paul and Silas (beaten and in jail) Choose to Rejoice in God
God Responds to Paul and Silas’ Faith
God Uses Adversity for Your Good
How God Enabled Me to Choose Joy While in Severe Pain
Activate Your Faith – Rejoice!
Philippians 4:4 AMP
Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, take pleasure in Him]; again I will say, rejoice!
Rejoice here simply means to renew your joy in the Lord.
It begins with the decision to choose joy.
You may hear that and reply, “But Dave, you don’t know what I’m going through.“
Maybe you just lost someone you loved and your whole world collapsed.
Or maybe your husband just left you with 3 hungry kids, a stack of bills and he took the only car you have.
Maybe you’re homeless and struggling just to survive another day.
You might be single and lonely, dreading a life spent alone.
Or you might be in great pain physically or emotionally with no hope in sight.
You’re right. I don’t know what you’re going through. But I know that Paul wrote “rejoice in the Lord always” from a Roman prison.
Paul wasn’t writing rhetoric or some pious sentiment. This letter is written to the Philippians. These words would be meaningful to the Philippians. In Philippi, Paul proved we can rejoice in God even in our darkest times.
Paul and Silas in Philippi: Acts 16
It made no sense. Paul and Silas were where God called them to be, when He told them to be there – all confirmed by Paul’s dream. They were preaching the gospel and had cast a demon out of a girl just as Jesus did.
And the result was were mobbed by a crowd, unjustly arrested, severely flogged and thrown into prison. Chained and put in stocks. They couldn’t even scatch the itching welts on their backs.
That may be like you right now. You may be in the right place, at the right time, doing what God wants you to do, but all hell has come against you. It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t fair. And it just isn’t right!
What you do next will determine what God is able to do through you.
God uses our adversity to to do 2 very important things:
-
set people free from sin and death and restore them to God’s family
-
develop our character – to make us more like Jesus.
What is happening to you make not make sense, may not be fair or just, but God will use it to His glory and for your good.
Romans 8:28 NASB
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose
Activation
I don’t know what you’re facing, it may be something truly horrendous, but this I do know: whatever it is, God is greater.
In John 16:33 NIV, Jesus said:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Your faith in Jesus makes His victory your victory:
1 John 5:4 NASB
For whoever has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith.
Today by faith you are going to overcome the world. You’re going to overcome your circumstances and everything that the world, every force of darkness can throw at you. Today, choose joy!!
Worry means: “to seize, especially by the throat, with the teeth and shake or mangle, as one animal does another.”
Worry is Satan, grabbing you with vicious teeth and shaking you back and forth until you are totally disoriented. Then batting you around as you stagger in confusion and try to escape the thoughts that are tormenting you. Satan "worries" us the way a cat "worries" a small mouse.
Satan's teeth are thoughts, the concerns/ the worries that grab on to us and won't let go. Worry also means: “to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts.” Dictionary.com
This video shows you, step by step, God’s way to overcome Worry in your life.
00:00 Pepper’s story
2:34 Activation
3:12 1st Step: Zero Tolerance for Anxious Thoughts or Fears
3:56 2nd Step: Faith Repels Fear
4:26 3rd Step: Pray Specifically and Thank God.
5:20 4th Step: God’s peace will guard your mind and your heart.
6:10 Overcome Worry Through Holy Spirit, God’s Word, Faith and Perseverance
Philippians 4:6-7 gives us God's instructions how to overcome an anxious mind.
ACTIVATION: Break these verses into action steps. Step by step you will overcome worry and live in God's peace.
1st Step – Decide not to accept anxious thoughts or allow them a foothold in our minds and hearts.
Fear is not from God. 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Philippians 4:6 NIV
6 Never worry about anything.
NEVER – not ever, not even once. Have zero tolerance for fear or worry in your thoughts. Immediately overcome them! This is not only possible. This is God’s normal for you. Expect and accept nothing less.
2nd Faith repels fear. The two cannot coexist. Let your faith in God’s goodness, His love for you, and His power give you faith to pray through what you are worrying about. Your faith is based on God’s character – not the specific result you desire.
Philippians 4:6TPT
Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude.
3rd Step Pray Specifically and Thank God.
Philippians 4:6
“Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude.
Tell him every detail of your life,”
Tell God your problem and ask Him to help. Tell him everything. Then thank him in advance
Hebrews 11:1 EASY
“This is what it means to trust God: We will be sure about the things that we hope for. We will be sure in our minds about things that we cannot even see.”
Our faith is in the character of God. Think of all he has done for you and your faith will soar. Faith thanks God for the victory before we see the answer in the physical realm.
4th Step God’s peace will guard your mind and your heart.
Philippians 4:7 then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ.
Peace guards your heart against worry, questions that would undermine your faith, even bad news. God’s peace gives you authority to calm the storms in your life, just as Jesus calmed a storm (See Mark 4:35-41)
Worry is a nagging spirit. It will come back again and again. Worry’s strategy is to wear you down and wear you out until you give up and let worry and fear run rampant in your mind.
Holy Spirit will help you!
1 John 4:4 ICB
Many of God’s promises are achieved only through faith and endurance. Endurance is patient perseverance.
Hebrews 6:11-12
“... follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance.”
0:00 How God Called Gideon into His Identity and Destiny
3:40 God calls us to affirm the value of others
4:04 Activation: how to affirm others
Every person on the planet needs significance, acceptance and approval. You have the power to give it to them. Today!
You and I are surrounded by people who are struggling with feelings of self-doubt, insignificance and rejection. We can change that if we take a few minutes to affirm them with healing words. “The tongue has the power of life…” Proverbs 18:21 NIV
God Calls Us Out of Our Circumstances and Up to Our Identity
How God called Gideon up to his true identity.
God affirmed Abraham’s destiny by changing His name.
God calls you and I to this same ministry of affirming the value of others. People need to hear how God see them.
Ephesians 4:29 (NLT)
Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.
Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Hebrews 10:24 (NLT)
Activation: Choose to Affirm 1 Person Today.
Today, I am going to give someone significance.
I’m going to give someone acceptance.
I’m going to endorse someone, approve of them – validate them.
Words Can Hurt. Words can Heal.
You know how words can hurt. You’ve been cut to the bone by words. Words have bruised and battered you. The power of death is in the tongue. Now, the good news. Your tongue can bring life and healing.
The tongue has the power of life…. Proverbs 18:21
Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing. Proverbs 12:18 (NLT)
What do you see?
Anyone can look at someone and see what’s wrong with them. To affirm people, we need to see beyond what’s wrong with a person, their obvious flaws.. And that’s not always easy.
Christian Life Coach, Tony Stoltzfus, observes that there are three basic types of affirmation:
- what someone did in the past,
- someone’s potential for the future, and
- someone’s identity (now).
Affirming past actions is the least powerful because you are simply talking about actions – what they did, not who they are.
Affirming someone’s future potential can be powerful, but it is in the future.
To greatly impact someone, affirm who you see they are – their identity.
Practical Steps to Affirm Someone
- Find someone who needs the healing, life-giving power of your affirmation. It’s not hard; look around you.
- What do you see that would affirm how awesome they are?
- Better yet, ask Jesus: “Jesus, how do you see (person’s name)? How do you want me to affirm them?” (Get quiet. Listen. You will have an impression, think of a scripture, hear or see something. Jesus will answer that prayer!!)
- Find that person. Open your mouth and give them significance, acceptance, and approval. I’ve done this with groups and individually and it is amazingly powerful. Sometimes people cry. Other times, they stand taller, their sense of worth, significance, acceptance or approval restored.
- Share what you did and how it impacted the person you affirmed in a comment below. (Change names and details to protect their privacy.)
Today, the world just became a better place because YOU were in it. My prayer is that you will make this a lifestyle.
We had a late night encounter with a Buddhist family in a Hong Kong ICU where God overcame paralyzing fear with faith in His love and compassion for them and their father who was fighting for his life. Activate your faith in 4 practical steps at the end of this video. Overcome fear in your life.
0:00 Late Night at the Intensive Care Unit in Hong Kong
2:47 Fear Paralyzes
4:01 But You Have Overcome the World
5:23 You are the Ruling Council of God on the Earth
5:57 Activation – Practical Steps to Overcome Worry and Fear – Philippians 4:6-7
6:23 Step 1 Don’t be anxious.
6:40 Step 2 Ask God to Help You
7:53 Step 3 Come Near to God and He Will Come Near to You
8:18 Step 4. Now peace will come to guard your heart and your mind, in Christ’s power.
Fear Paralyzes
Bad things will happen to you. We live in a fallen world. Fear wants to paralyze you, make you feel you’re helpless, defeated.
You lost your job. Fear moves in and whispers, "You're going to lose your car, they will foreclose on your house., You won't be able to pay your bills. What about food for your family?" All these horrible thoughts swirl through your mind.
Fear wants you, who carry the Holy Spirit (God, Himself) inside you, to think you are a victim, powerless and hopeless.
1 John 4:4 EXB
·God’s Spirit, who is in you, is greater than the devil, who is in the world
You are no more a victim than Samson was a weakling. Samson lost his strength only when he wandered away from God. The same is true for us.
Jesus said: "apart from Me you can do nothing." John 15:5 NKJV.
But Paul reassured us: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 2:13 NKJV
Fear want to keep you from running to God – your proper response when adversity slams into your life. Fear rules the minds and hearts of those separated from God.
But You Have Overcome the World
Jesus told his disciples to not fear what would happen to them. Here's why:
John 16:33 AMP
I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” ...
We live from a place of victory. Jesus won complete authority over Satan and his demons through the cross. Jesus gives that authority to us who believe in Him. We are the ekklesia of God on the earth. Ekklesia is the Greek word for “church” used in the New Testament 114 times. It isn’t a religious word, it’s a government word from Greek ancient culture. The Ekklesia was a group of people summoned and gathered to govern a city. They sat as the ruling council of that city. Interesting way to describe the church, isn’t it?
Activation – Practical Steps to Overcome Worry and Fear
Step 1 Don’t be anxious.
Fear is not from God. Christians should never accept fear in our lives. 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
Step 2 Ask God to Help You
*Come to God in faith, knowing He is good, knowing He loves you, and knowing He will help you. Begin to think of all the things He has already done for you.
Hebrews 11:6 TPT Our faith is based on God’s character and His love for us, not our circumstances.
3.James 4:8 When you stepped closer to God, He came to you. Now, with God at your side, boldly command fear to leave you.
4. Now peace will come to guard your heart and your mind, in Christ’s power. His peace that transcends all understanding.
This video is the story of two young people, on in South Florida, the other in China, and how Jesus spoke to each of them and changed their lives. Jesus wants you to hear His voice. Watch till the end and do the activation to hear Him speaking to you.
00:00 Jan’s Story – the Problem
3:08 Henry’s Story – the dream
5:09 Jan’s Story – Jan take action
5:22 Jan’s Story – Jesus speaks to Jan
6:37 What does it mean?
8:51 Activation – Ask Jesus to Speak to You
A beautiful, actually radiant, Jan rushed at us as we entered the home fellowship the next week. She was holding open her journal for us to see. It was several days before she finally asked, “Jesus, what do you think about me?” But when she did Jesus answered her. It was a still small voice, but she was sure it was him. She read the words that Jesus said to her. Jesus told Jan how precious she was to him. He said he approved of her. And he told her that he loved her.
But the thing that changed Jan the most, was one morning as she was walking past a mirror, she felt she should stop. She looked in the mirror and Jesus said, “Jan, you are beautiful.”
That dark demonic presence that had been harassing Jan was long gone. The lies that had been built up in her life were destroyed in those few words, “Jan, you are beautiful.”
One word from Jesus really does change everything. Jan’s experience of the real, tangible love of God destroyed the lies she had begun to believe. Jan now saw herself as a beautiful, successful, dearly – loved daughter of God.
What happened here?
First, Jan told Gina “I can’t see that.”
2 Corinthians 4:4 NLT”
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
Jan literally was blinded to obvious truths about herself.
Satan creates blind spots in us too.
2nd The first line of defense against lies in our thoughts is God’s Word (the Bible). Matthew 4. In answer to every thing Satan used to tempt Jesus had the same answer. “It is written” and a Bible truth. The truth defeated Satan every time.
3rd Jan knew what the Bible said about her. But she believed the lies. She was struggling to hang on to God’s truth about her. God needed to change that.
Some strongly negative experience or many negative experiences had created the belief Jan had about her identity and appearance.
Strongly held beliefs are rarely changed by information. Jan needed an experience to change what she had come to believe about herself.
Jesus spoke healing words to Jan. Words that restored her.
Romans 10:17 NKJV “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” “Word” in the original Greek is “rhema”. It means the “spoken word.”
When Jan stopped in from of the mirror and Jesus told her she was beautiful, faith rose in her heart. Hearing God changed Jan’s life.
She believed the truth and the truth set her free from the lie. (John 8:32)
That was a rhema from God.
Jan heard Jesus. You do too.
John 10:27-28 NIV
Activation
You are a Christian because you heard Jesus and experienced God’s love. Jesus speaks to us more often than we realize. Most of us just need some practice to tune in to the “still small voice” He often uses when He speaks.
So, like Jan, let’s begin with one simple question: “Jesus, what do you think about me?”
Listen and He will tell you. It’s a personal question, so He won’t give you an “academic” answer.
I’ve had many people ask that question. Some have a first impression of a scripture verse. Keep listening. Jesus is more personal than that.
This video is for you or someone you know who has had Pain roar into their lives – emotional and/or physical pain. Pain is one of the ways Satan steals our lives (our days), kills our dreams, and destroys our destinies. This video reveals the process God gave me to rise above the pain in my life. That process will work for you too!
00:00 My Story
1:04 God’s Promise: Psalm 40:1-3
3:16 God Lifted me above my pain
6:05Activation
I returned after 15 years in China and Hong Kong. I was in a wheel chair. I didn’t know I would have screaming pain in my back, hips and legs for the next ten years. I didn’t know I would have 4 surgeries, multiple injections in my spine, and take opioids for years, yet still live a very limited life – sharp, crippling nerve pain setting boundaries on everything I tried to do.
While in Hong Kong, I led two prayer meetings in a large church there. I had prayed for hundreds of people and seen many miraculous healings. Yet, here I was. Many people prayed for me. I prayed for myself. But the nightmare continued.
Shortly after returning to the America, God gave me this scripture. It was His promise to me!
Psalm 40:1-3 NIV
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
and put their trust in him.
How precious this was to me. God turned to me. He looked at me. He knew. He understood what I was going through. And He cared. This scripture promised He would lift me out of the muck and mire I was stuck in. I knew I couldn’t get out on my own. Then He put a new song in my mouth. Many of the Old Testament songs were stories -what God had done for them. Yes, Lord. Write a new song in my life. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. I felt so loved and so grateful for this timely promise.
The next morning, I woke up in pain, as usual. This pain wasn’t just discomfort. It was volcano-level pain, pain that left me in a fog where I couldn’t think or do anything but hurt.
I opened my Journal and read God’s promise to me in Psalm 40:1-3. But as I read and declared this scripture over myself, my faith grew. I began to praise God while in the pit of my pain and despair. I put on anointed praise and worship music. After a while I found myself singing along – and meaning it.
Then God did something truly amazing. He lifted me above the pain!
The pain was still there, but my mind was at peace and, although limited physically, I was able to enjoy life that day. Every morning I woke up in pain, often exhausted from a fitful sleep. Fogged in, I grabbed a cup of coffee and went into my study to be with God. I literally had to fight for each day.
As I met with God every morning to put this pain under my feet, He did. He set my feet on the firm foundation of His love and the truth of His Word. I spent 1-2 hours praising, worshiping and letting God speak to me through His Word. These turned into precious times. And morning after morning Jesus lifted me out of the mud and mire of pain and thoughts of discouragement and despair. He brought me to Him, where joy, peace, and love awaited.
What God did for me he will do for you. My prayer is that my story will increase your faith to reach out and take hold of his hand. He will lift you out of the pit of despair and pain you’ve fallen into. This could be emotional pain as well as physical pain. Take His hand and be healed, in Jesus name!
Your lost loved ones cannot overcome the strongholds of darkness in their minds and hearts. They don’t even know they’re in darkness. But you can! You can pray to lift the veils of deception and blindness that Satan has over them so they can see the truth about Jesus and the Gospel. Here’s how to do that.
00:00 Irrigation Circles
2:12 What Can You Do For The Lost That They Can’t Do For Themselves?
3:51 You Have Authority in Prayer for Those You Love
4:37 How to Pray to Save Those You Love
6:12 1. Logismos – human philosophies, reasoning, mindsets
7:28 2. Hupsoma – all pride that rises up
8:05 3. Noema – thoughts, plans, schemes of the devil
8:49 Activation: Specific Prayers For Your Lost Loved Ones
The explanation of the Greek words in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 is from Dutch Sheets’ book How to Pray for Lost Loved Ones, which I highly recommend.
https://amzn.to/3TicPaX (This is an affiliate link. You pay the same price, but I receive a small commission if you buy. Thanks.)
What Can You Do For Lost Family & Friends That They Can’t Do For Themselves?
Romans 10:14 NLT
Your family and friends need to know about Jesus. But it’s not that simple – as you well know.
2 Cor 4:4 NLT
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ...
Satan and our self-centered focus have twisted human thinking to the point that people hear or read God’s truth, but see it as gibberish - childish nonsense not worthy of their time or consideration 1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV
Your prayers can open their eyes to the truth.
**You Have Authority In Prayer For Those You Love 2 Peter 3:9 NASB,
1 John 5:14-15 NASB
**How to Pray to Save Those You Love
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (EXB)
4 We fight with weapons that are ·different from those the world uses [not merely human weapons; Lnot of the flesh]. Our weapons have power from God that can destroy ·the enemy’s strong places [Lstrongholds; fortresses]. We destroy ·people’s arguments [human reasoning; sophistries] 5 and every ·proud thing [pretension; exalted opinion; Lhigh thing] that raises itself against the knowledge of God. We capture every thought and make it obey Christ.
3 strongholds that need to be torn down in lost loved ones:
1. Logismos – human philosophies, reasoning, mindsets
We destroy ·people’s arguments [human reasoning; sophistries] 2 Corinthians 10:4
Logismos inclue philosophies such as: religions, materialism, humanism, roots of rejection, addictions, racism or anything that causes a person to think a certain way.
Without realizing it, everything we hear or see is filtered through our belief system, our mindset, also called our worldview. The truth we hear can be limited or distorted by our belief system.
2. Hupsoma – all pride that rises up
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 EXB
We destroy ·… every ·proud thing [pretension; exalted opinion; Lhigh thing] that raises itself against the knowledge of God.
This was the first sin. It was Adam and Eve’s desire to be on the same level as God. Many people live as their own god – doing what they want.
3. Noema – thoughts, plans, schemes of the devil
2 Corinthians 10: 5 (EXB)
We capture every thought and make it obey Christ.
We can and should pray that God will protect those we love from Satan’s thoughts, temptations and schemes.
Jesus’ mandate to Paul is our mandate to the ones we love: Acts 26:18 NIV
What distinguishes you and every Christian from all the other people of the earth? This was Moses' question to God and it's our question today.
00:00 Moses’ Question to God
3:36 Moses’ Question is Our Question Today.
4:18 Beginning tomorrow, I will do daily videos called 2 Minute transformations. They are daily devotionals
4:44 Activation: As You Look at Jesus, Holy Spirit With Make You Like Him
6:05 3 steps to launch you on a journey of transformation each morning
6:07 1. Decide to give your time, your energy, and your heart to passionately pursue God throughout this day.
6:37 2. Renew Your Mind
7:31 3. Do What God Reveals. Daily Applying God’s Word Prepares Us For the Hard Times
After the Golden Calf
We begin with Moses’ response to God’s rejection of Israel after the people made and worshipped a golden calf idol. Moses interceded until God agreed to go with them. Why was this so important to Moses?
Exodus 33:14-17 NLT
14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
Moses’ Question is Our Question Today.
“What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
What distinguishes you, a Christian, from all the other people and all the other belief systems of the world? Only God’s presence in you and on you.
Beginning tomorrow, I will do daily videos called 2 Minute transformations. They are daily devotionals - sparks to light the fire of your passionate pursuit of God every morning. My goal is that you will meet God through these scriptures and stories and be filled with His presence, His power, and His purpose for your day. It is in meeting Jesus we are changed to become more like Him. And it is through His presence and power on us that others recognize Christ in Us.
Activation: As You Look at Jesus, Holy Spirit Will Make You Like Him (See the Activation!!)
2 Corinthians 3:18
Jesus is the glory we gaze upon.
Hebrews 1:3 NIV
Holy Spirit is the one who changes us, who transforms us, to become like Jesus. (See 1 Corinthians 6:11, Romans 15:16)
Take These 3 steps to launch you on a journey of transformation each morning:
1. Decide to Give your time, your energy, and your heart to passionately pursue God throughout this day.Romans 12:1 EASY
2. Renew Your Mind
Romans12:2 NLT
3. Do What God Reveals. Daily Applying God’s Word Prepares Us For the Hard Times
Matthew 7:24-27 (Parable of house built on rock (applying God’s word) and sand (listening but not doing it).
Doing what God says strengthens us and prepares us for the storms of life. We become someone who not only survives our own storms, but can help others being tossed around mercilessly by life’s many difficulties.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to get so filled with the presence, the love, and the power of the Holy Spirit every day that you splash everyone around you and leave a trail of Holy Spirit wherever you go.
071 How to Take Off the Old You and Put on Christ Romans 13:14
This video will give you practical steps to “take off” old ungodly thoughts, attitudes, desires, and sins and put on Christ - His character, His authority, and His victory over sin, self, and Satan. It’s as easy as taking off your old dirty clothes and putting on new, clean clothes – once you know how.
00:0 Surrounded
1:51 Desperate for Answers
2:41 God replaces our ungodly thoughts, attitudes, and desires with Himself
3:21 Desires Drive Us to Do What We Do
4:34 God made us with desires that only He can fill.
5:16 ACTIVATION: Take Off the Old You and Put On Christ
5:53 Step 1. Take off your filthy old rags.
6:53 Step 2. Wash in the Water of the Word of God.
7:46 Step 3. Put on Christ.
God’s ways of changing our thoughts, our attitudes, and our desires is to replace them – with Himself.
Desires Drive Us to Do What We Do
Romans 13:14 ESV
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Desires are what drive us. All conscious human behavior is driven by desires. God made each of us with the same basic human desires. Everyone wants Approval, belonging, freedom, joy, justice, love, significance, recognition, justice, security, peace, etc.
Philippians 2:13 NLT, Psalm 37:4 ESV, See Romans 8:32 and Philippians 4:19 NIV
God made us with desires that only he can fill. When we try to fill these desires ourselves, we get away from God and quickly get in trouble.
ACTIVATION: Take Off the Old You and Put On Christ
Ephesians 4:21-24 NLT
21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, 22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.
Taking off and putting on is a pattern taught throughout the New Testament. How do we do that?
Step 1. Take off your filthy old rags.
*Your filthy rags are the ungodly thoughts, attitudes, desires and sin you have allowed into your life. You have a new nature and are a new creation in Christ, but the past still calls out to you. It tries to lure you back into your old ways of thinking and doing things. See Isaiah 64:6 NIV
*Ask Holy Spirit to show you the filthy rags you are wearing. (See John 14:17 and John 16:13)
*Repent. Ask God’s forgiveness if you have sinned and ask God to help you remove those thoughts, attitudes, & desires that keep coming into your mind.
Step 2. Wash in the Water of the Word of God.
The Word of God is more powerful than we can grasp or even imagine. It cleanses us. It makes us Holy. John 15:3 NIV, Ephesians 5:25-27 NIV
Find scripture that deal with the ungodly thoughts, attitudes, desires and sin that you are struggling with. Read these several times. Meditate on them. Let them wash over you. Let them cleanse you.
Step 3. Put on Christ.
Put on the character and power of Jesus by putting on His thoughts, His attitudes, His desires, and His actions.
*Declare scripture (God’s answer to your problem) out loud.
*Write it down and Memorize it so you will have it when the thoughts, attitudes or desires to sin attack. God’s Word will be your defense and your victory.
James 1:21, NLT So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
Take action steps to activate the Word in your everyday life. James 1:22, NLT*
The greatest thing you will ever do with your life is to co-labor with God to save others. This is the story of Ah Tong, a Triad gang leader, who came to Christ and the life lessons God reveals for us to use with those we love the most - our family and friends.
00:00 The Kowloon Walled City
1:43 Ah Tong’s Story
4:23 How God Saved Ah Tong – A Biblical Pattern
5:23 PRAYER, CARE, SHARE TO SAVE THOSE YOU LOVE
6:59 Activation – Care to Save Those You Love
This video begins with the story of a triad boss and heroin addict in the Kowloon Walled City in the 1960’s. It’s the story of God reaching out to those in one of the darkest places on earth. The story is from “Chasing the Dragon”, by Jackie Pullinger
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Look at How God Saved Ah Tong. There is a Biblical pattern here:
1st. God got Jackie Pullinger’s attention when Ah Tong, evil as he was, saved Ah Sor, the young man Jackie cared about deeply. She now cared about Ah Tong. She prayed for him to live and he had a miraculous recovery from what could have been a fatal knife wound.
2nd. Ah Tong knew that he almost died. And he believed Jackie’s prayers had saved his life. He sent people to thank her. He didn’t thank her himself because in Chinese culture bad people don’t directly approach good people. But he was grateful that she and her God cared. And he was grateful she prayed.
3rd. Jackie didn’t have a chance to share the Gospel with Ah Tong until he came to her for help with his out-of-control heroin addiction. Then, she didn’t preach him a sermon. She took him to people he knew who God had set free from heroin addiction and one of Ah Tong’s friends shared his testimony with Ah Tong. God often shares with others using the stories of our lives and what He has done for us. Ah Tong now had faith to be saved.
Care, Prayer, and Share. That is the Biblical pattern for reaching others with the Gospel in a way that compels them to receive salvation and live for God.
The people you love need 3 things before they will give their lives for God:
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CARE. They need to know God’s love. Love is what draws all men to Christ and to repentance. God often loves others through us – we are his hand and feet in this world. (See Romans 2:4 NLT, Jeremiah 31:3)
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PRAYER. And they need prayer. Satan blinds unbelievers so they literally can’t see the truth. (See 2 Corinthians 4:4) Prayer removes spiritual blindness and prepares hearts to receive and believe God’s word and bring it to life.
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SHARE. They need to hear the Gospel of Jesus which will save and transform them into sons and daughters of God.
Romans 10:14 NLT
But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?
John 8:32 NIV
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
This is the first in a series of videos that will show you how to apply care, prayer, and sharing the gospel to set your friends and family free.
***Activation – Care to Save Those You Love
Think of someone you love who you really want to see believe in and follow Jesus.
Ask God how you can express His care and love for them. Think of small practical things you can do today! Do whatever comes to mind. Pursue them with God’s love and no agenda. Just love and serve them as God directs.
This video reveals 3 Reasons it’s important to have A Teachable Heart:
1st every spiritual truth must be revealed to us by God.
2nd not everyone is given the same ability to understand God’s Word.
3rd the measure of your desire for God, pursuit of God, and obedience to God will determine how much God reveals Spiritual Truth to you.
00:00 Philip’s Story
1:49 3 Reasons It’s Important for you to Have a Teachable Heart
2:12 Why Jesus Taught in Parables
3:10 The Human Mind Cannot Understand Spiritual Things.
3:54 God Gives Us The Ability To Understand When We Are Willing To Do What He Says.
4:49 The Measure Of Your Desire For God, Pursuit Of God, And Obedience To God Will Determine How Much God Reveals Spiritual Truth To You.
6:26 Use it or Lose It
7:51 Activation
Why Jesus Taught in Parables
Luke 8:10 NKJV
10 And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.’
What? Jesus didn’t want them to understand?
The Human Mind Cannot Understand Spiritual Things. See 1 Corinthians 2:14 NASB
No one understand the Bible with his mind. Holy Sprit is given to us and lives in us to lead and guide us into spiritual truth. That is the only way a man can understand God or the Bible – when Holy Spirit reveals it to us. See John 16:13.
God Gives Us The Ability To Understand When We Are Willing To Do What He Says.
Bill Johnson explains Jesus’ reason for using parables (Luke 8:10 above):
[Jesus] hides truth in parables so those who are not ready to obey will understand. Because if He increases the knowledge of those who are not ready to obey he just increased their accountability. It’s the mercy of God for Him to conceal truth and then make it to where only the hungry can find it.
Jesus revealed the parables to his disciples because they were ready to understand and obey. They were teachable. Those in the crowds who were seeking truth and ready to obey would understand.
That’s true for us. Holy Spirit reveals things to us only when we are ready to change or to do them. Otherwise, we would be in sin – not doing what we knew we should – James 4:17.
The Measure Of Your Desire For , Pursuit Of , And Obedience To God Will Determine How Much Spiritual Truth God Reveals To You. See Mark 4:24 AMP
Use it or Lose It
Have you ever been in church and heard a teaching that literally rocked your world? You thought, that is life changing. Wow! So good. You left church uplifted and believed you were changed.
Two weeks later, a friend asks you what the sermon was because she was out of town and couldn’t attend church. You think for a while, but can’t remember.
What happened? You were given a spiritual truth God meant to change your life, you felt that when you heard it. But you did nothing with it. You didn’t take notes. You didn’t pursue more understanding through scripture and prayer. And you didn’t take an action step to apply that life-changing truth to your life. The result: you lost it. See Mark 4:25AMP
Having a teachable heart means you desire, you yearn for more of God – more relationship, more truth – just more. And you open your Bible to meet God and to learn and be transformed into a new person. And what you learn, you treasure. You journal it. And you take action to make it part of your life.
If you do that, God will give you a greater ability to hear Him, to know Him, and to understand and live out spiritual truths that will transform your life and your nation.
This video reveals a simple, but powerful tool to reveal veils of deception in your life and the source of the deception. You can do this in a few minutes each day.
Satan deceives us, but we deceive ourselves without any help from him.
Jeremiah 17:9 NIV
2 Corinthians 3:14 describes Satan’s ability to blind man as a veil.
Only faith in Jesus removes the veil of deception over all of us.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT)
So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
The ONE THING Needed to Root Out and Destroy Veils of Deception in Your Life
Things that are veiled are things that we cannot see. Holy Spirit will reveal them, but only when we are ready to change.
Luke 8:10 TPT
The one thing is your willingness to change. If you are willing, Holy Spirit will reveal veils of deception and show you how to break free from them.
The 4 Influences On Your Heart
Mark 4:3-9 TPT FN
“The four kinds of soils speak of four kinds of hearts: hard hearts, hollow hearts, half hearts, and whole hearts. With the first soil we see the activity of Satan, the second, that of the flesh, and the third, that of the world. Bearing fruit is never a problem with what is sown but with the soil it falls upon.”
*ACTIVATION: Copy this and use it daily. You’ll be surprised how sensitive you become to ungodly influences on your heart. This is a great compass to keep you on course with God and for Holy Spirit to unveil deception in your life.
Step 1 Ask Holy Spirit to reveal to you the true condition of your heart. Pray: Psalm 139:23-24 NLT
Step 2 Examine Which of the 4 Influences are Affecting Your Heart Now
1. Are you “hard hearted?”
Hard-hearted means you are being influenced by Satan.
Sources of hard-heartedness: sin, offense, anger, unforgiveness, ingratitude, defeat, failure and pain in life – anything that separates you from God and makes your heart hard, cold, indifferent or unloving toward God or people.
2. Are you “Hollow Hearted?”
Are you influenced by self-ish desires?
Do you have Sexual lust, greed (for money, power, possessions, achievements and awards, fame or reputation, legacy, etc); jealousy, the desire for what others have, the need to compare yourself to others, to compete and best them? These make you “hollow hearted” because they never satisfy. They are hollow, empty things that you can waste your life on. They have no significance in eternity – none.
3. Are you “Half hearted?”
Half-hearted people are distracted by the things of the world. These can even be good things, like sports, games, entertainment, even good works God didn’t tell you to do. But if they interfere with your passionate pursuit of God and His plans and purposes for your life, you must remove them and refocus your attention, time and effort on God.
Hebrews 12:1 ERV
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith”
4. Are You Whole Hearted?
Mark 12:28-29
28 “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Note that even for those who are wholehearted there is a difference in yield from the truth God plants in us. We can yield 30, 60, 100 times what was planted.
Satan causes us to be deceived and to deceive ourselves. This video will show you how the Holy Spirit is God’s answer to Satan’s ability to deceive mankind, and this video will launch you on your way to removing veils of deception in your life.
0:00 My Story
3:00 Satan Can Blind Us to Truth and Reality
5:01 God Knows Your Heart
5:43Transformation Begins When Veils of Deception are Removed
6:12 How Holy Spirit Changes Us
7:56 Practical Steps to Be Transformed
9:42 Activation
Satan Can Blind Us So We Can’t See Truth or Reality
2 Corinthians 4:4 (NLT)
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ...
I was a believer. But I couldn’t see my character flaws. I couldn’t see the darkness that was still in my heart and had not yet been removed by God.
2 Corinthians 3:14 describes Satan’s ability to blind man as a veil.
But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.
***I told a story about 2 friends who tell 2 totally different stories about an argument they had.
Jeremiah 17:9 NLT
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”
Only God knows the depths of the human heart. And only God can unravel our twisted thoughts and emotions.
Psalm 139:2-4
Luke 16:13-15,
Transformation begins when the veil of deception is removed.
Only faith in Jesus removes the veil of deception over all of us. When the veil is removed, we can see.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT)
So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
How Does Holy Spirit Change Us?
Jesus showed me Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV)
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
What does that look like?
Romans 12:2 (NLT), Philippians 2:13 (AMP)
Practical Steps to Let Holy Spirit Transform You Into a New Person
Step 1 Holy Spirit reveals false beliefs, emotional wounds, and character flaws Satan, sin, and self have created in us.
Step 2 Our false beliefs, emotional wounds, and character flaws often are sources of great pain in our lives. God identifies the source of our pain. And asks us to surrender the source of our pain.
Step 3 As we surrender and do what Holy Spirit shows us to do, we will be healed and restored in that area of our lives. Accepting the truth about yourself can be painful and hard, but it will set you free. See John 8:32
Activation
Pray with me the prayer David prayed:
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-34
John 16:13:
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
John 14:17 “The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
Holy Spirit, reveal and remove every veil of deception in my life. Lead me into all the truth and create Jesus’ character in me.
In Jesus name, amen.
How can you forgive yourself and leave the pain of your past behind?
This video will show you a proven process to change the way you feel about yourself and silence your thoughts that condemn you. This forgiveness process is in the Bible. But you may not realize it is there.
It will work for anyone. But it’s not a pill or a quick fix, it is a Biblical process that requires your active involvement, some grit, and some perseverance. But God will help you.
Watch the whole video and do the step-by-step activation at the end. Just listening to this is not enough. Nothing in your life will change until you change something you do.
Index
0:00 How can you forgive yourself and leave the pain of your past behind?
1:30 A Battle is Raging inside You.
2:16 Satan’s weapon is deception.
4:12 Dr. Gary Chapman’s Breakthrough Solution to Forgiving Yourself
8:08 Activation to Empower You to Forgive Yourself and others
Dr. Gary Chapman, author of "The 5 Love Languages" had a revelation about love that will enable you to forgive yourself.
In Matthew 5:43-44, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”
Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages, had a difficult marriage counseling session with Ann, whose husband (Glenn) was abusive and cruel to her. She had long ago lost any love or respect for him. But she was a Christian and refused to get a divorce. She asked Dr. Chapman how she could love her husband – she just didn’t have any love for him.
in Matthew 5:43-44, Jesus said to love your enemies. Dr. Chapman suggested Ann try doing acts of love to Glenn and see what happened next. Jesus said to love your enemies and Glenn had become an enemy.
Over the next six months, Ann made daily decisions to love Glenn and did loving acts toward him. It wasn’t easy, especially at first. But she persevered. And she began to love Glenn again. Over time, Glenn changed how he treated Ann and he began to love her too.
Dr. Chapman had just received an important revelation of God’s love: love is not primarily an emotion. Love is a decision, followed by an action, which results in a feeling.
God commands us to love others, knowing that if we make the decision and act on it, the feeling of love will follow.
Dr. Chapman has used that approach again in again in his counseling practice and shared it in books and teachings. It works in all relationships – parents, children, friends, etc.
Would That Process Work for Forgiving Yourself or Others?
Forgiving is hard. Painful memories can be overwhelming. And your feelings of grief, shame, and guilt can be very strong.
But what does God say?
1 Corinthians 13:5 NIV
“love keeps no record of wrongs”
In other words, Love forgives. Forgiving is an act of love. Yes, this process works for forgiveness. This is your breakthrough! This is the answer you’ve been looking for. This is how you can finally forgive yourself and others.
Forgiveness is a Decision, followed by an Action, which results in a Feeling
Activation: Go to my community and see the complete activation written out for you to use daily. https://www.youtube.com/@10MinuteTransformation/community
When I was 32, I quit my job as an attorney in Tallahassee, Florida, and left my townhouse-on-a-golf-course life and went to China to share Jesus.
I wanted deeper relationship with Jesus. I studied the Bible. I taught Bible studies. People began to come to me to help them understand the Bible and Christian life.
Fast forward to over a decade later, I was in in Hong Kong, and I was floundering. When I thought about myself all I could see was my weaknesses and failures. I was insecure and defensive.
And when I looked at others what I noticed first was their flaws and mistakes. I struggled with relationships and was ashamed of my behavior. This wasn’t what Christianity was supposed to be. Where was my love? Why was I so negative? Why couldn’t I just enjoy people? Why couldn’t I enjoy my own life?
I was eating from the wrong tree.
God Placed Two Trees in the Garden of Eden
Genesis 2:8-9 (NLT) There were many trees in the garden, but only two are named: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Did you notice that they were both in the center of the garden? hese two trees represent the two the two basic paradigms for looking at and living life. Our choice will determine how we see, understand, feel, think and act.
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
Genesis 3:1-8
Adam and Eve died that day – spiritually. And they discovered that: Life doesn’t come from knowledge. Life comes only from a relationship with God.
The Tree of Life
John 17:3 (TPT), Isaiah 59:2 (EXB), Ephesians 2:1 (NLT)
Our tree of life is the Cross of Jesus. Through the cross we enter into life-giving relationship with God through Jesus, the way to God, the only way. John 14:6 (NIV)
Acts 5:30 (NKJV), Galatians 3:13 (NLT)
Back to My Story
Remember, I was in Hong Kong and floundering. Where was my love? Why was I so judgmental? Why couldn’t I just enjoy people? Why couldn’t I enjoy my own life?
In my zeal, I had made knowledge of the Bible my paradigm.
I was a born-again Christian. But I had chosen the tree of knowledge as my worldview. I saw Christianity first and foremost as a search for truth.
Everyone and everything was evaluated through this lens. I evaluated every sermon. Was it right or wrong? I judged people. And myself. I was constantly looking to find what was wrong with myself, with family, friends, my church, etc.
Finally, I Learned about grace.
Jesus initiates relationship with us by forgiving us. By Grace. The cross, the tree of life, made that possible.
I finally understood. God’s grace is greater than any failure, any weakness, any sin I or anyone else will ever commit. Grace is Jesus saying, “you’re weak, here take my My strength. You sinned. Here is my blood to wash away your sin.”
James 2:13 But mercy triumphs over justice.
Truth is important, but love is more important.
Grace is undeserved, unmerited favor. Grace is forgiveness – again and again. Grace is loving people in their brokenness and in their sin. Grace is loving people who don’t deserve love and won’t love you in return.
Activation: practice giving grace to the difficult people in your life.
It’s important for you to grow spiritually.
Spiritual Growth is God’s process to restore to you everything Satan, sin, and self have stolen from you.
2nd. God has amazing plans for your life! You don’t want to miss the adventures He has planned for you.
And 3rd. This life is preparation for heaven. Jesus will reward you for what you do for God after you are born again.
When I was born again, I wanted to run after God. But I didn’t know what to do. And I kept tripping over things from my alcoholic past that hurt me. I finally realized that God has priorities. When I did the most important things first, everything else began to fall in place.
These are the 7 keys to spiritual growth I found most helpful in my Christian journey and while helping others with their journey as a homegroup leader, intercessor, teacher, Christian life coach, and friend. I pray these 7 keys will accelerate your spiritual growth.
1st Key. Passion - It is our daily desire and pursuit of God that empowers our spiritual growth.
2nd Key. Perspective – VISION - You need vision to see and think like Jesus. Jesus' vision came from knowing His Identity and His Purpose. Yours will too.
3rd Key. Process – The Biblical name for Spiritual Growth is Transformation. You aren’t transformed by trying harder. It is a supernatural process. Holy Spirit forms Jesus’ supernatural character in you as you renew your mind with God’s word and obey God. Romans 12:2
4th Key. Produce – Spiritual fruit. If we are truly growing spiritually, there must be outward evidence of change. As God changes who we are, our behavior naturally reflects that change. Matthew 7:17, 20 NLT
Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.
5th Key. Pain to Overcome – Recognize that your old self was broken. And unless healed, much of that brokenness can come into your new life. We must deal with old sin habits, ungodly beliefs, and emotional and psychological wounds that keep us from connecting our hearts to people and to God.
6th Key. People – We have brokenness. People at church have brokenness. It would be easy to leave church and go your own way. God warns you not to. (Hebrews 10:25) There are people at church that have what you need (Ephesians 4:16). And God says in learning to love others His love for us is made complete in us. (1 John 4:12) We need other Christians and they need us.
7th Key. Plan -Do you have goals for spiritual growth? Most Christians don’t. What is your spiritual condition right now? How can you measure that? Where are you going? And what is the next step?
I will be creating videos dealing with each of the 7 keys.
1st Key to Spiritual Growth: Passion
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV
Passionate Love and Obedience is our proper response to God’s love.
1 John 4:10-12 NIV, 1 John 4:19 KJV,
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 NLT
Christ... died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
Your Life Belongs to God
You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
Lay Down Your Life for Your Friends
John 15:12-13 NIV
God asks us to do that. He asks us to lay down our lives for our families, our friends, our neighbors...
Unlike Jesus, our sacrifice is not giving up our lives all at once. Our sacrifice is to live for God one moment at a time. God calls us to be “living sacrifices.” Romans 12:1 ERV
Do the Activation:
Jesus’ message to the church at Ephesus was to repent, return to their first love, and do the works they did at the beginning. But weren’t the Ephesians heroes of the faith – a church facing daily opposition and persecution? How could they lose their first love? And what are the works of first love Jesus requires us to do?
See Revelation 2:2-6 NIV
This is an extraordinary passage of scripture.
Jesus said saw their deeds, their hard work.
The Church at Ephesus had persevered.
They clung to correct doctrine and rejected false teachers and leaders.
They hated wickedness and wouldn’t tolerate it in the church.
They endured hardship for Jesus’s name. They didn’t get worn out and quit.
Many Christians today would consider a Biblically sound church that carefully guarded scripture, persevered through persecution and hardship, and had good leadership a good church.
But truth is not enough. Right doctrine (right believing) is not enough. Righteousness (Right living) is not enough.
Jesus next words to us are a wake up call:
Revelation 2:4-6 NIV
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
1 Corinthians 13 is the core of Jesus' message to the righteous Ephesians. Without love, even truth, even righteousness is not enough.
God has always required us to pursue truth and love. “But the greatest of these is love.”
Without love, Jesus would return to this church and remove its lampstand – it’s light, it’s influence to the dark, demon worshiping city of Ephesus. Love and truth make us the light of the world. Without love, we lose our light. Without love we cannot represent Jesus well.
Come Back to Your First Love
Do you remember the love you had for Jesus and for God when you were first born again. I do! The first six weeks I was a Christian were like a honeymoon. I heard God so clearly and I felt so loved. I felt so free after I repented of my sins.
What is First love?
1 John 4:10 NIV
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:19 NIV
We love, because He first loved us.
First love, is experiencing, feeling the love God has for you. First love is God’s love for you that will manifest in your lives as love for yourself and others.
“Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” Revelation 2:5.
Activation: Return to The Works You Did at First
When I was first born again, I felt closest to God when helping others. I volunteered at a homeless shelter and just loved people there any way I could. God poured His love through me.
Then I joined a prison ministry at the county jail. I had been a criminal defense lawyer for several years and felt comfortable talking to people in jail. I experienced God's love for them in a new, indescribable way as I tried to love and help those behind bars.
Scripture tells us that in loving others the love of God will be made complete in us.
1 John 4:12 NIV
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
What were the works of your first love? What did you do that most connected your heart to God when you experienced the “first love” of God. Now, go do some of those things today and every day. It really is in loving others that God's love is made complete in us.
Some thoughts have been planted in us that confuse us, disorient us, poison our relationships, and make us spiritually dizzy. Today, we’re going to take practical steps to help you remove and replace those thoughts.
The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. 26 When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.
27 “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’
28 “‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.
“‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.
29 “‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’”
Matthew 13:24-29 NLT
Jesus explained the parable: the soil is the world, the good seeds are God’s people and the tares are evil men.
But this parable also explains the condition of the heart of a Christian.
The seed planted by the enemy in this parable is "poison darnel", also called "false wheat." It has an amazing resemblance to wheat until the grains are ripe. Then it can easily be distinguished from true wheat.
If eaten, poison darnel causes confusion or disorientation as a person becomes dizzy with symptoms of being drunk. It causes violent vomiting and can even cause death
God’s Word is Our Food
From the time we were born, God has planted seeds of life in us, waiting for them to come to harvest not just in our salvation but in our destiny. We were created for a purpose. God has plans for us to accomplish specific things in our lives, powerful things to establish the kingdom of God here on earth.
From our birth, Satan has fed us clever lies that look a lot like the truth.
Many of these lies are deeply planted in us as core beliefs that define who we are and how we see others and the world around us.
If we continue to feed on these false beliefs we will become more and more disoriented from the truth: dizzy, even drunk. Feeding on these false beliefs will make us sick, weak, and keep us from becoming the people God called us to be. The dreams that God had for our lives, His dreams and plans for us, will die if we continue to eat the grains of the "false wheat".
Carefully preparing our hearts to be good ground for the Word of God is important to become who God has called you to be. But this parable warns that we need to carefully sort out the false things that have been growing in our lives for years.
God is The Lord of the harvest. Let Him remove the poison wheat so that you can be like Him. From a transformed heart you will naturally do the works of God. As naturally as an apple tree producing apples.
Matthew 12:34-35
A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.
Poisonous Thoughts that Must Be Removed
Holy Spirit will reveal the thoughts that must be removed.
God Gives You the Power to Remove and Replace Your Poisonous Thoughts
2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Activation - Let righteousness, peace and joy Guard Your Thoughts and Heart (See Today’s activation - a powerful tool you will use daily!)
Overcoming Adversity to Make God’s Dream for You Come True
When adversity strikes, we cry out, “God, save me. God, take this away.” All we see is the pain, the adversity. God sees more than your pain and your problems. Like Joseph, God may use your pain, your struggle for a purpose greater than yourself.
Joseph’s story is a love story. It is how God was faithful and was with Joseph, even in prison. It is a story of Joseph learning to love through one hardship after another in his life. It is Joseph learning to forgive and to love even his brothers who had sold him into slavery. Joseph became a great man because his character grew greater than his circumstances. You can too.
We begin with the story of a spoiled, arrogant 17-year-old, the favorite son of his father. Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers.
After eleven years of faithful service, Joseph was wrongly imprisoned for rape. At that point in his life, it would have been easy for Joseph to believe God didn’t care about him at all. It seemed that no matter what he did, life just kept getting worse for him.
You may think that is your life right now. Wait! Joseph’s story isn’t over. Neither is yours.
Joseph was in prison for over two years. I’m sure Joseph had some hard days in that prison.
But Genesis 39:20-21 says: “But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.” Joseph became the head of all the prisoners.
After God gives us a dream for our lives, we can expect opposition. And we can expect God to be there with us, in the prison of our adversity. No matter what you are going through right now, God is with you. By your side. He will show you kindness and give you favor.
Pharaoh had a dream no one could interpret. He was told about Joseph. Joseph explained Pharaoh’s dream then gave Pharaoh a plan to prepare for the famine. Pharaoh made Joseph second in command of all of Egypt.
During the famine, Joseph’s older brothers came to Egypt to buy grain. Finally, Joseph’s family joined him in Egypt – over twenty-three years after his brothers betrayed him and sold him into slavery.
Joseph’s dreams came true, but only after his character grew.
Psalm 105:19 (NLT)
Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the LORD tested Joseph’s character.
Psalm 105:19 (AMP)
Until the time that his word [of prophecy regarding his brothers] came true, the word of the Lord tested and refined him.
Joseph was God’s provision for Israel. Joseph would save his people. But Joseph, the spoiled, favorite son of an overindulgent father wasn’t much use to God. He didn’t have the character yet to become the man God needed him to be.
God was teaching Joseph hard lessons of love:
“Love is patient....” 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NLT).
Twenty-three years after Joseph’s dreams of his family bowing to him, they did. And he saved them from starvation.
Love Forgives
1 Corinthians 13:5 (NLT)
“…[love] keeps no record of being wronged.”
Before God could use Joseph to save his family, Joseph had to love them enough to forgive them. The most stunning accomplishment of Joseph’s extraordinary life was when he forgave his brothers.
Love Never Gives Up
1 Corinthians 13:7 (NLT).
“Love never gives up, never loses faith, is
always hopeful, and endures through every
circumstance.”
Joseph never gave up, he never lost hope. He never stopped loving God. God’s love compelled Joseph to never give up, never lose faith, always be hopeful, and endure every circumstance.
Joseph overcame by outgrowing his circumstances.
Do the Activation
David, the former hero of his nation, now the leader of a rag-tag group of rebels, enemies of the very nation God had anointed him to rule, was choking with grief for his family which had been abducted and greatly upset by the threats of his own men to kill him because they had lost their families too.. He was in an impossible situation. “But David found strength in the Lord His God.”
1 Samuel 30:6 says:
David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.
But David turned to the one greater than his circumstances: God.
David didn’t just sit there. His first action was to ask God what to do. God told him. Then David did what God said to do.
That is when everything changed for David – when he strengthened himself in the Lord. Not only did David and his soldiers get their families back, but Saul died fighting the Philistines and shortly thereafter, when David was 30 years old, he became King of Israel.
Activation
You may be enduring a dark night of the soul when your life seems to be falling apart. Jesus warned us that we would have times like this. “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NIV
1. “Put your hope in God.”
In our worst times, our emotions can go all over the place: angry, afraid, grieving, depressed, offended, numb or disconnected, etc. Hope is our anchor. If we pull up the anchor, the storm may crash us on the rocks of desperation, discouragement and depression. We need to strengthen ourselves by anchoring ourselves to hope in God.
Psalm 42:11 NASB
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42:11 NLT
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God!
David rejected discouragement, sadness, and other negative emotions. He determined to put his hope in God. We can too.
Renew Your Mind With God’s Promise of Hope
In the middle of a serious problem, we can focus on the problem, talking about it, obsessing over it so it grows bigger in our minds and hearts than God. Renew your mind with scripture about the greatness of God. And watch your problem shrink.
Romans 15:13 NKJV
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Our hope, or lack of it, is the direct result of what we believe.
When our circumstances become greater in our mind than our God, we lose hope. We fall into fear, discouragement.
Sow these scriptures; reap hope and faith in God:
Psalm 126:5
For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.
Lamentations 3:22-23 NIV
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
2 Corinthians 4:17
For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Isaiah 40:31
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Loving people with God’s love is the third step to let God restore the wasted years of your life. Our brokenness is healed as we serve others – loving them with the love God gives us. Serving others gets our minds off ourselves (and the pain of our past). It keeps our minds in the present and. Serving others gives us the attitude of Jesus who came to serve all mankind. God restores meaning and purpose in our lives as we receive His assignments to love others. We will find the things we lost - the love, friendships, joy, and peaceful satisfaction of a life lived for God as we “show love.”
This video begins with a story (an allegory) about what happens in the spirit realm to bring a lost person (Gina) into God’s Kingdom. Someone has to pray, to share the gospel with her, and to love her with God’s love which will bring her to repentance. God need you and I to rescue people from Satan’s prison.
The 3rd Step to Let God Restore the Wasted Years of Your life is “Show Love.”
This is the 4th video in the series: “Let God Restore the Wasted years of Your Life”
See the Watchlist to see all the videos in this series.
The 3 steps to let God restore the wasted years of your life are practical steps you can take every day:
**1st Step Know God/ Know Love
Key: Your Daily Desire and Pursuit of God is what Empowers Your Restoration.
God wants you to passionately seek and find Him every day. He wants you to experience His love day after day.
Jeremiah 29:13–14 NKJV
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord…
**2nd Step Grow like God/Grow Love
We grow love (Grow like Christ) by being loved by God’s people and letting them help us remove our grave clothes (the things from the past that still have us bound, like Lazarus’ grave clothes). See John 11.
And we grow love by letting God transform us through the Romans 12 process in the Bible. As we renew our minds with God’s Word, he changes us into new people by changing the way we think.
Romans 12:2 NLT
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.
**3rd Step Show God/Show Love
Jesus paid the price to free every person from Satan’s prison of sin, self, and death. But there is a human price for every person set free.
First, Captives must be freed by prayer to remove the chains of Satanic deception, self-ishness, and sin that are holding them captive.
2 Corinthians 4:4 NLT
The thoughts that keep people from seeing the truth are strongholds in their minds. They are lies that have become our core beliefs. They strongly hold on to these lies because they believe they are true. If we pray, God will tear down these strongholds.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NLT
2nd Someone has to share the gospel truth which will set them free.
Romans 10:14 CEV, John 8:32 NIV
*And 3rd someone has to love that person with God’s love to soften their hard hearts so they can receive the seeds of the Gospel which will set them free.
1 John 4:19 NKJV
We love Him because He first loved us.
My prayer is that you will have the joy of living a life of service and adventure with Jesus. And, when your time on earth is over, may you hear the words, “Well done Good and faithful servant,” as Jesus wraps his arms around you. You have been restored.
Do the Activation at the end.
Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after 4 days. But Lazarus was not yet free. He was tightly wrapped in grave clothes. Jesus told Lazarus family, friends, and neighbors: "Loose him, and let him go.” We, like Lazarus, need help getting free from the effects of a lifetime of sin and selfishness.
Getting free by Growing Love is the 2nd step to restoration.
When We Are Born Again, We are Like Lazarus
Christians are made alive with Christ’s love and forgiveness when “born again”, but we need help to break free from the grave clothes wrapped around us again and again by a lifetime of selfishness and sin.
Many Christians accept Jesus as Savior, but never get rid of their grave clothes. They are hobbled by their grave clothes all their lives.
Instead of the sweet fragrance of Jesus, these people have the stench of death on them. They are bound hand and foot by old attitudes, old wounds, old relationships, old ideas and beliefs from their past. They never break free from the influences of their sin even though their sin has been removed and forgiven.
In "Let God Restore the Wasted Years of Your Life", I explained how Christians can become captive to Satan in different ways. We can be born again and waste our potential – waste our opportunities to grow and to do great things for God.
**God heals, restores, and completes us.
When we are born again, our spirits are immediately and completely sanctified (made holy and set apart for God’s purposes). But our souls (or mind, wills, and emotions) are NOT. Our souls are sanctified (made holy and set apart for God’s purposes) through a life-long process. Romans 12:1-2 explains the process
We are transformed (completely and radically changed) from the inside out by Holy Spirit as we renew our minds with the Word of God., He makes us like Jesus.
**Restoration is Not a Journey We Can Make Alone
God knew we would never be able to remove a lifetime of sin and selfishness by ourselves. He gave us Holy Spirit living inside us to help us.
And God made us part of His body here on earth – His congregation of believers. God uses other people in this process of healing and restoring all that has been stolen from you by Satan, your selfishness, and your sin. See Ephesians 4:16 TPT
Love here is agape (the Greek word used to describe the unconditional, never fading, never failing, only from God love we are called to receive and to give God and others in the New Testament. E.g. Matthew 22:36-40). Agape is love that loves you no matter what you do.
Human love which is transactional. It’s “I’ll love you if are nice to me. But if you hurt me I’ll stop loving you. I may even hurt you back.” That’s human. And that’s self-ish – that’s “all about me love.”
Agape love isn’t human love with more effort. It is love grown from a different seed – a Divine seed. Agape love is the fruit which the Holy Spirit creates in us. We have to get this seed from God. That’s step 1. Get the seed. Know Love. Experience God’s love.
Step 2 Grow Love
God’s love is constant. It has always been there. He continues to touch us with His love. We receive God’s love as we desire it and as we spend time with Him. Love grows as we work the soil of our hearts. (Read Matthew 13, the parable of the sower and the seed.) God’s Word is the seed. We are the soil. Holy Spirit is the farmer.
There’s a life-changing principle here. EVERYTHING WE RECEIVE FROM GOD COMES IN SEED FORM. It grows through relationship with God and others.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT) tells us Holy Spirit is the one who produces love in us:
Through the transformation process Holy Spirit plants and makes God’s love grow in us.
After wasting 10 years of my life as an alcoholic, God promised me he would restore the wasted years (Joel 2:24). That promise is for you too, see “Let God Restore the Wasted Years of Your Life.”
Is that what you want? To be restored? Yes. Me too!
So, Now what do you do?
That decision was a new beginning for you. But restoration is a process. The decision launches the process, but It is our daily desire and pursuit of God that empowers our restoration. God does it, but in response to our daily desire and pursuit of Him.
There are 3 steps to God’s process to restore the years of our life we have wasted. Today, is the first step.
The 1st Step is to “Know Love”
God’s greatest priority for your life is intimacy with Him!
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3
God is Love. 1 John 4:8
Relationship with God begins when we know (we experience) Him as love.
*God created each of us with a need for Him. God wants us to seek Him.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 AMP
He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]—yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end.
Paul spoke about the “unknown god” of the Athenians. He told them about how God created the earth and man and concluded:
He has done this so that every person would long for God, feel their way to him, and find him—for he is the God who is easy to discover!
Acts 17:24-27 TPT
*Jesus said no one comes to Christ unless God puts the desire in his or her heart.
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him [giving him the desire to come to Me]; …
John 6:44 AMP
All these scriptures reveal that God creates desires whose sole purpose is for us to seek Him and find Him.
So if God gives us the desire to know Him more, He will give us the ability to know Him to really know Him. To know God is to know Love, for that is God’s nature, that’s His character. God is love.
When my 5 nieces and nephews were small, we played hide and seek during our weekly family gatherings in Hong Kong. They loved having me hide so all of them could look for me. I always hid where I could be found, but not too easily. Their joy was in searching for me and then finding me! I can still hear their exclamations of joy when they finally found me.
God wants us to know Him. But he doesn’t crash into our lives with bright lights or loud thunder. He could, you know? We would be terrified. And would tremble in fear. That’s not the response God wants.
No. He wants us to feel loved and to respond. He wants us to come to Him because we desire Him.
God touches our lives with His love and waits for our response. For a love relationship to be real it must be mutual. God reveals enough for us to know He loves us, then waits for us to seek Him with all our hearts.
What joy when we seek Him and find Him!
Jeremiah 29:13–14 NKJV
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord…
This is the daily process God desires. Morning after morning of seeking and finding God! God wants you to “know Love” – real, unconditional, never fading, never failing love. The kind of love no man ever created. The kind of love that comes only from God. The kind of love Holy Spirit will create in you through this process.
THE answer to many of the problems you face – big problems, nagging issues and pain points you’ve had for years, is passionate pursuit of the Living God.
"When we are pursuing God with all our hearts Our soul and all our strength, then in the process we are changed. Change is intentional. You can accidentally become worse. But you don’t accidentally become better in regards to character.
It is a known fact that when people really begin to love someone greater than themself that you will see that person transformed. I’ve had friends who fell in love and became different people. Better people."
John Maxwell
The history of the World is the story of a loving Father relentlessly pursuing his wayward human Children and drawing them back home to heaven and to Him. God is pursuing you.
God’s love for us is the story of the Old Testament and the New.
1 John 4:10-12 NIV
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:19 KJV
We love him, because he first loved us.
Do You Know Him?
John 17:3 TPT
Eternal life means to know and experience you as the only true God, and to know and experience Jesus Christ, as the Son whom you have sent.
.
Love is Personal
Love isn’t having correct information. Love is not theology – right believing. Theology is important, but love is the greatest thing – Jesus said that in Matthew 22:38.
Love is one personality connecting to another personality. It is a tender, affectionate relationship. Love is a heart connection.
And Love is an awesome experience; It is way past knowledge.
David loved God. He knew Him. David passionately pursued God.
A.W. Tozer writes that the Psalms are David pursuing and finding God.
If you are looking for relationship with God, the Psalms are a great place to start. I share how I pursued God and found Him through the Psalms in my video “Delight in Me and I Will Give You the Desires of Your Heart,” Jesus. (use thumbnail)
[The video includes stories of David and Moses pursuing God.]
Activation – It is in pursuit of God that We are Changed
Agape love (the unconditional, only from God love) must be experienced to be understood. Agape (God’s love) isn’t just human love with more effort. No, it supernatural, something only God can give us.
2 Corinthians 3:18 EXB explains the process:
And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.
We become like those we spend time with. As we spend time with God, He transforms us to be like Him.
And a lot of the problems we have, the insecurity and emotional wounds we’ve had since we were young will suddenly be healed,
our fears will fade as the fire of God’s love in and through us grows hotter.
Secret sins will fade into our past, eclipsed by the splendor of being loved, really loved by God.
Distractions and busyness will no longer appeal to you.
Ungodly thoughts and twisted beliefs will somehow no longer find space in our minds. God’s love renews our minds. Being loved and learning to love transforms us into new creatures by changing the way we think. (See Romans 12:2)
Action Step: Passionately Pursue God as the “One Thing” You Desire Most.
Do the activation in the video!! It’s the most important part. Nothing changes until you and I do something different!
I’ve just read hundred of comments of people struggling with real-life situations. Your comments have touched my heart. This video is to help you take up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and fight with God’s promises and Biblical truth.
In the last 3 videos, I’ve talked about:
• How To Let God Restore the Wasted Years of Your Life!
• How God can transform your pain into something beautiful – (like Jesus’ character)
• And How Knowing the truth can set you free from guilt or shame
IN your comments: Some of you have said “pray for me.” And I want to assure you, my wife and I have prayed over you and your situations. Some of you said “It’s too late for me.” I assure you, it isn’t. Some of you have replied in anger. I understand, you are in pain – emotionally and maybe physically too. I had severe pain in my spine for over 10 years. I really do have some idea of what you may be going through.
The 3 videos above each describe battles you can win. But Satan doesn’t give up ground easily. God is on your side. But you need to fight. For yourself. For your family. And for other people.
You have been attacked. Physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. God gives us armor and the shield of faith to protect us. (Ephesians 6:10-18) But you have to put it on.
Ephesians 6:10-18 TPT
Today, We Fight
The armor of God has one offensive Weapon: the Word of God. Pick it up. Don’t ever put it down. Your Bible is the Sword of God. It is the Sword of the Holy Spirit.
The Power of God’s Word
Isaiah 55:10-11 NIV
When God opens his mouth He sends forth words to accomplish what He desires, to fulfill His purposes. God's word completes God’s work. In the beginning, God spoke everything into existence. He still does.
Jesus Spoke God’s Word to Defeat Satan – You Can Too!
Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert. Satan came into the desert to tempt Jesus who was weak from 40 days of fasting.
Satan twisted scripture into lies to deceive and tempt Jesus. Jesus had the same answer to every temptation: “It is written” and a Bible verse. Bible truth defeated Satan every time. (John 4:1-11)
Jesus frequently spoke to problems, commanding them to submit to God’s will. He cast out demons with words. He commanded sickness to leave.
He spoke “Peace, be still.” to the wind and waves during a terrifying storm while on a small boat in the Sea of Galilee. (see Mark 4:39)
Jesus told us if we speak to the mountain (whatever it is in our lives that we want removed) and believed, God would remove it for us. See Mark 11:23.
When we declare scripture we are speaking to the mountain (the problem) that needs to be removed from our lives. And God does it!
Jesus was Given All Authority. He gave His Authority to You.
See Matthew 28:18-20 NIV
A King’s Decree
When a king decrees a thing, all the might, power, and resources of His kingdom are behind those words. His servants, his soldiers, his resources, and all the king’s power are used to make sure what the King said will happen. If the King's words are opposed, the King's army goes forth to fight for those words and make them happen.
God's words - His promises, His principles, and His decrees may be opposed. They may even be delayed, but if we fight alongside Heaven, God's Words will come to pass.
Watch the Activation for practical steps to put God's promises to work for you.
2 Scriptures to help you stand firm in your battle:
Joshua 23:14 NIV
Hebrews 6:11-13 NET
I pray that each of you will through faith and perseverance cling to the hope God’s Word (His decrees) give and receive the fulfillment of the promise of God’s Word in your lives. In Jesus name. Amen.
What is the truth about guilt and shame for believers in Jesus?
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31-32
Romans 8:1 (TPT)
So now the case is closed. There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One.
Guilt and Shame are Satan’s Strategy to Separate You From God
Everyone Hears The Voice of Condemnation
Even mature Christians who live wholeheartedly for Jesus hear that voice. Satan is the accuser. It’s his voice you are hearing. Ignore Him. He is a liar.
Father God never talks to His children like that. Never!!
Jesus paid a terrible price to set you free from the crippling wounds of condemnation, guilt, and shame. Don’t go back into Satan’s pit!
Romans 8:1-2 (NLT)
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV)
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
When God Looks at You, What Does He See?
God sees you through Jesus’ performance, not yours.
Hebrews 10:12, 14 (NLT)
But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. … For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.
When God looks at you, he sees you through Jesus’ sacrifice. Jesus’ blood “forever made perfect those who are being made holy.”
Galatians 3:27 says, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
By faith you have “put on Christ.” When God looks at you, he sees Jesus’ performance, not yours. Christ’s blood covering you, making you holy, making you perfect.
Your daily performance has nothing to do with that. Jesus’ sacrifice was once for all time. His forgiveness is continuous, never-ending.
You need to know that so you won’t let condemnation keep you from running to God when you fail, when you need Him most.
Activation
Galatians 5:1 (NLT)
So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free….
1 John 3:20-22 (NLT)
Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.
Pray and Declare This with me:
Father, I accept your invitation to boldly approach Your throne of grace as a much-loved son or Daughter.
Sin has no hold on me. My faith in Jesus set me free.
I am free from guilt and shame and every aspect of the law and legalism.
I live in Jesus’ gift of forgiveness and grace.
I will not live by feelings. I will not listen to voices of condemnation – including my own.
I will not go back into captivity.
I will live in Your love and acceptance.
Jesus’ love for me is steadier than my heartbeat; it never changes, no matter what I do. I am free from condemnation, guilt, and shame! Forever!
In Jesus’ precious name. Amen
Think about something in your life, in your character, beliefs, thoughts or emotions that causes you pain. Fear? Anger? Pride? Rejection? Low self esteem/ insecurity? Discouragement or depression? A secret sin that you just can’t seem to break free from? God wants to remove that pain.
We Avoid Pain,
We try to avoid pain, but God makes pain work for our Good.
Pain is the great motivator of our lives. Things that we can’t or won’t change for any other reason we will change if it hurts enough.
Holy Spirit comes to us in the place of our greatest pain and encourages and enables us to do something about it.
Romans 12:2 tells us that God will transform us as we renew our minds with God’s thoughts – His word. This transformation is the process through which Holy Spirit forms Christ’s character in us.
Pearl Diving With Jesus
God speaks to us in many ways. He sometimes speaks to me through pictures (often like short movies). They often only last for a short time. But they are filled with meaning. .
One morning, while spending time with God, I saw a picture, it was like a movie. I was on a small boat on the ocean and I was diving off the boat. I was diving for pearls. We were going deep because these pearls aren’t found on the surface or in the shallows. Somehow, I knew all of those things.
I dived down toward the ocean floor where the pearls were. I looked over, and there was Jesus. I was pearl diving with Jesus.
I waited to hear what he would say or do. Jesus said to me, “You'll never find them on your own.” That’s all he said. And the picture vanished. Then, in my spirit, I knew that pearls were truths, the deep truths, the important truths of God.
Jesus told me: “You’ll never find them on your own.”
1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
The great truths of the Bible must be revealed to us by Holy Spirt. We’ll never find them on our own.
Holy Spirit Lives in Us and He gives us the mind of Christ.
Holy Spirit reveals to us the thoughts and purposes of Jesus. (See 1 Corinthians 2:16) When we were born again, Holy Spirit came to live in us. He opens God’s Word to us. He leads and guides us into all truth and empowers us to live our lives as God desires. (See John 16:13)
With Holy Spirit’s help we will find the deep things of God in God’s Word.
How are Pearls Formed?
Pearls are caused by irritation. Sand or food particles get stuck for example in an oyster.
To protect itself the oyster will create layers and layers of protective materials called (aragonite ("ah-RAG-uh-nite") and conchiolin ( "KON-kee-uh-lin"). They are folded over and wrapped around the irritation not one time but many times. Thin, very delicate layers are wrapped around the irritation again and again. Over time they harden, have this beautiful luster, and become a pearl which has great value.
Holy Spirit will turn the place of your pain into a pearl.
God wants to protect you from the pain in your life. Satan created wounds, flaws, and strongholds in your life.
The price that we pay for each of the great truths in scripture is abiding. It is through reading, studying, declaring, meditating, believing, and praying God’s promises that we experience those promises.
John 8:31-32
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Activation: Use this to turn your pain into Christlike character.
Maybe you wasted years of your life. I did. Or maybe it wasn’t your fault. Maybe those years were stolen from you by someone else, an accident, sickness, or a circumstance beyond your control.
No matter the reason, God will restore to you the years that you have lost, the wasted years, even the wicked years.
What Holds Christians Captive?
Prisoners of Sin, Self, and Satan
Prisoners to PassivityMore than a few Christians are passive Christians, saved, but not growing in the things of God, not serving God or loving others. In Battlefield of the Mind, Joyce Meyer identifies passivity as a demonic stronghold. Love is not passive. Love is passionate.
Prisoners of Loss, Grief, Failure, or Defeat
Some people are prisoners to grief (e.g. death of a child), loss (business failure), infirmity, or something in life that just defeats them. They have lost their hope, their resolve, even their courage to go on and live a meaningful life despite the hardship they have experienced.
Prisoners of Religion, Legalism or Judgmental Spirits
In John 13:35 Jesus said: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
We feel loved and God’s love compels us to love others. We work from relationship. Religion makes people work to receive love and approval. Religious people work for (in order to qualify for or earn) approval and relationship from God and others.
Prisoners of Regret
After we break free from these prisons, Satan often tries to make us live in regret. I believe regret is a demonic stronghold Satan uses to keep people in the past, even after they’ve been set free!!
God Restores Our Wasted Years. Paul’s Example
Paul’s life was almost over. He was going to be martyred for Christ and he knew it. He wrote:
As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.
2 Corinthians 4:6-8 NLT
For the first 30 years of his 61 years on earth, Saul worked extremely hard to make himself a Pharisee. In His zeal, he became an enemy of Christ and Christians.
Yet he was able to say at the end of his life, that he had run his race. He had completed the course God laid out for him. Even though he had wasted 30 years of his life. Even though he had violently chased, captured, imprisoned and most likely murdered Christians, Paul became one of the greatest Christians in history. Paul traveled extensively spreading the Gospel. He became a spiritual father to many churches. And he wrote 2/3 of the New Testament. Paul was executed in Rome in 66 AD. He was 61 years old.
Restoring the Wasted Years
I love 2 Corinthians 4:6-8 because I wasted the first 31 years of my life!
When I first became a Christian, I lived in regret. I mourned and grieved that I had been so wicked. I had been an alcoholic for 10 years and did many, many things that I was ashamed of.
How could I possibly complete God’s plan for my life?
God answered my prayer. He gave me a scripture. It was a promise.
Joel 2:25
“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust…”
God made that promise to me. And God has no favorites. This promise is for you too!
Do the activation!!
The shepherds didn’t just see a baby in a manger when they found Jesus. They saw a baby treated the same way some lambs were treated at birth.
But why was Jesus treated as a lamb?
The Story of Jesus Birth
Joseph and Mary journeyed from Nazareth to Bethlehem, over 70 miles of rough roads through hilly country, because Joseph had to register for the census at his birth place. Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Bethlehem is 5 miles south of Jerusalem, in the hill country on the edge of a desert. It was here that Samuel anointed David to be king over 1,000 years before this.
This night, shepherds still watched sheep in these fields.
It was dark now, the time of danger. The shepherds on watch became even more alert, their eyes constantly moving over the sheep and the area around them. Every shadow, every movement, every sound could mean a wolf, a jackal, or worse, a bear or a lion.
“Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared in radiant splendor before them, lighting up the field with the blazing glory of God, and the shepherds were terrified! But the angel reassured them, saying, “Don’t be afraid, for I have come to bring you good news, the most joyous news the world has ever heard! And it is for everyone everywhere! For today in Bethlehem a rescuer was born for you. He is the Lord Yahweh, the Messiah. You will recognize him by this miraculous sign: You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in the feeding trough!”
Then all at once in the night sky, a vast number of glorious angels appeared, the very armies of heaven! And they all praised God, singing:
“Glory to God in the highest realms of heaven!
For there is peace and a good hope given to the sons of men.”
Luke 2:9-14 TPT
Then the angels were gone.
On the outskirts of Bethlehem was Migdal Eder (“the watchtower of the flock.”) where the flocks that produced the Passover lambs are kept. One lamb was needed for each family for Passover, the annual celebration of God delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt.
These lambs had to be perfect, without blemish (a blemish symbolized sin).
The Passion Translation explains in a note to Luke 2:12.
The shepherds that night were possibly near Bethlehem at Migdal Eder, “the [watch] tower of the flock.” …. It was at the lower floor of the watchtower (Migdal Eder) that the birthing of the Passover lambs would take place. Selected ewes that were about to give birth would be brought there. After the birth of the lambs, the priestly shepherds would wrap the lambs in cloth and lay them in a manger lined with soft hay to prevent them from hurting themselves, for Passover lambs must be unblemished with no bruise or broken bone.”
It is possible the shepherds who prepared the lambs for Passover (at Migdal Edar) were the ones to whom the angel revealed that Jesus, the Savior, had been born. But even other local shepherds would know about the process the sacrificial lambs went through when they were born.
Baby Jesus was wrapped in cloths and placed in a manger (a feeding trough). That’s exactly how newborn sacrificial lambs for Passover were treated.
But who among them could guess that, 33 years later, on the eve of Passover, Jesus would be crucified. Jesus died at 3 pm, the exact time when the Passover lambs were being sacrificed, fulfilling the scriptures.
Isiaiah prophesied about the Messiah:
He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
Isaiah 53:7 NLT
Later John the Baptist when he first saw Jesus said “Look the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” John 1:29.
Jesus was unblemished (sin free). He freely gave his life as a sacrifice, the once for all time sacrifice to pay for the sins of the world, past, present, and future. Jesus is called the “Lamb of God” 33 times in scripture.
Our lives are fulfilled as we love others. God made you to be incomplete without Him and people in your life. You are wired to love and to be loved. And God has specific works – acts of love and righteousness prepared and waiting for you to do.
As we delight in God, He shares with us His deepest desires and we have the privilege of pursuing His desires as part of His family working to save people from Satan, sin, and death and establish God’s Kingdom “on earth as in heaven.”
God Places Desires in You so You Will Go to Him to be Fulfilled
Philippians 2:13 (NLT)
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
God will create the desire and the ability to do His will.
Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
As you receive God’s love, you will enjoy just being with Him. And He, being the good Father that He is, will give you what you desire most. And you will be fulfilled.
Proverbs 13:12 (NASB)
…desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Activation: Make a Delight/Desire Journal
The key to meeting Jesus in scripture is responding to the Bible with your heart, not just your mind. This should take ten to fifteen minutes at most.
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Write these headings on a page or in a writing app:
Today’s Date:
Delight:
Desire:
About 12 years ago the Lord showed me this format for meeting Him in scripture – connecting with my heart, not just my mind. I use this format for my Delight/Desire time with God every morning. -
Read Psalm 23 in a translation you usually don’t read. I’ve found reading different translations is a great way to have scripture become fresh and new. (I recommend The Passion Translation or the New Living Translation. You will find them on Bible.com.)
Read slowly thinking about what you are reading.
Read until you see something that makes your heart jump – a strong, positive, emotional response to a word, phrase or verse.
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Write down what you “delight” about that word, phrase or verse. Just write what you feel and what that means to you.
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What desire does that word, phrase or verse trigger in you? Think about it. Write it down. Follow it. What about that do you want in your life?
Scripture makes us hungry for more of Jesus. Respond with your heart – your desires. All actions begin with desires. All change begins with a change of heart. This is how Jesus reaches us. This is how He changes us. We change what we do when we change what we want.
Matthew 6:21 TPT
For your heart will always pursue what you value as your treasure.
My Response
Delight:
Yahweh is my best friend and my shepherd.
I always have more than enough.
Psalm 23:1 Passion Translation
“Best friend” jumped out at me. What an amazing thought. I loved that! But where did that come from? I read the translator’s note. The Hebrew word for Shepherd is from the root word ra’ah, which is also the Hebrew word for “best friend.”
Desire: As I read that, a deep desire to really live with Jesus as my “best friend” welled up within me. Can you imagine what that would be like?
I’ve always wanted to be like John, who wasn’t just one of the twelve with Jesus. John was the one laying his head on Jesus’ chest. Peter, James, and John were Jesus’ inner circle. I want to be that close.
Then I realized. That’s what He wants too.
John 15:15 CEB
I don’t call you servants any longer, because servants don’t know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Okay, your turn. Do the Activation. Please share your experiences in the comments to this video. THANKS!!
We are in the light business. Our assignment is to carry the light of Jesus to the people covered in deep darkness. How do we do that? Watch the Hong Kong Funeral example.
Isaiah 60:1-3 NIV:
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Jesus is the light Isaiah wrote about. Over 700 years after Isaiah wrote the prophecy God had given him,
•Jesus was born. A star appeared in the heavens that moved until it stopped directly over Jesus. Wise men followed that star. A new light had come into the world. (see Matthew 2)
•During his ministry, Jesus became radiant with light when He had a supernatural encounter with Elijah and Moses while on a mountaintop with Peter, James and John. (See Luke 9)
•Jesus came to destroy the works of darkness and death with light and life. He healed the sick, he cast out demons, and raised the dead. (See Matthew 9:35, Luke 8:49–56)
•And greatest of all, Jesus words released light that removed the spiritual blindness Satan had created over the people.
John 8:12 NIV
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
The Light of His Word set those held captive free from darkness, sin, and death.
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8: 34, 31-32
• And when Jesus was dying on the cross, the earth grew dark for the last three hours of his life. Satan actually thought He had snuffed out the Light of God. He should have known God better than that. (See Luke 23)
**Jesus Gave You His Light to Light Up Your Part of The World
Jesus’ light didn’t die with Him on the cross. It multiplied when He rose from the dead. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus saved you and made you a lantern of His light.
Matthew 5:14-16 AMP
“You are the light of [Christ to] the world. … Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good deeds and moral excellence, and [recognize and honor and] glorify your Father who is in heaven.
The light is Christ's. You are the lantern.
He is the light. His light shines through you. And like Jesus, darkness cannot overcome your light.
The Word [Jesus] gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.
John 1:4-5 NLT
We are responsible for lighting the darkness where we are.
Releasing the Light in a Hong Kong Funeral Home (see the video)
Activation
Recognize this deep truth.
All who have made Jesus their Savior and Lord by believing in Him and obeying Him carry His light. You are the Light of Christ.
Our assignment is to light up our world. Our area of responsibility is our homes, our neighborhoods, where we work, go to school, go to have fun, eat out, etc.
We let our lights shine the same way Jesus did: signs, wonders, miracles, prayers, and sharing the Word that brings light and pushes back darkness.
Darkness will flee when you release the light.
Decide 1 thing you will do today to release the light of Christ to someone.
Do it and see what happens.
Jesus truly was the light of the world while He was here. But now, you are! He has risen over you. Jesus’ glory rests on you and shines through your life. Be especially radiant this Christmas! And expect to influence people. “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”
Isaiah 60:3 NIV
Around the world Christmas lights are shining. We light our homes, trees, and neighborhoods in celebration of the true light who came to the world. Many have lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas, but wise men still follow the light.
God Told Isaiah: A great light is coming.
Over 2,700 years ago, a prophet named Isaiah wrote a prophecy about a great light that was coming into the world to save mankind. God told Isaiah:
The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light;
Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them.
Isaiah 9:2 NASB
And that light will rise upon you.
Isaiah 6:1-3 NIV:
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
A great light in the heavens announced Jesus’ arrival.
Before Jesus was born, a great star appeared in the heavens, declaring that he was coming. Isaiah’s 700-year-old prophecy came to pass. The Light of the World had come into the world as a human baby. (Matthew 2:1-2, 9-11 NIV)
John the Baptist testified that the light was coming.
He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. John 1:7 NIV
Jesus came as light which pushes back the darkness.
The Word [Jesus] gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.
John 1:4-5 NLT
Jesus’ radiant glory was revealed.
Luke 9:29-31 TPT
And when he was crucified, the world went dark. The Light of the World was dying.
At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
… Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit.
See Matthew 27:4546, 50-54 NLT
All who believe in Jesus are saved and they become the light of the world.
Instead of one light, Jesus radiates through each of us who have faith in the Son of God.
Talking to believers, Jesus said: “You are the light of [Christ to] the world. … Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good deeds and moral excellence, and [recognize and honor and] glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-16 AMP
Activation:
Every time you see a Christmas light, think of the true Light of the world. And carry His Light to others this Christmas. Be the Light of the World to your family, friends and coworkers.
Show others the goodness of God. Demonstrate godliness in all you say and do. Do good deeds that will bring Glory and honor to Jesus this Christmas.
Have an awesome Christmas!
At the Bema Seat Judgment, Christians will stand before Jesus to give account for their lives. There will be no condemnation.. Each of us will be rewarded for what we have done as Christians. But what works will qualify for rewards?
2 Corinthians 5:10 AMP
For we [believers will be called to account and] must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be repaid for what has been done in the body, whether good or bad [that is, each will be held responsible for his actions, purposes, goals, motives—the use or misuse of his time, opportunities and abilities].
Paul Explains the possibilities of this judgment to determine our rewards in heaven. He uses a “building” metaphor.
9 You are God’s building.
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ.
12 Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. 13 But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. 14 If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. 15 But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.
1 Corinthians 3:9, 11-15 NLT
Jesus will test our behavior and our works. His holy fire will consume all
that is not of God. And we will be rewarded for what survives the fire.
3 Questions to Test Your Work for God
Dr. Bruce Wilkinson, in his book, “A Life God Rewards,” explains that not just any works we do qualify for heavenly rewards.
You will receive rewards for God’s work done in God’s way. The 3 questions are: what you do, why you do it, and how you do it. The framework is his, but these thoughts are mine.
1. WHAT:Was this a work God told you to do? Did you do it in relationship with Jesus or on your own?
Jesus Himself said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
Unless we are in relationship with Jesus, we can do nothing of eternal significance. NOT ONE THING! With Him, we can do amazing things!!
Some people are very busy doing good works, but God never told them to do those things.
2. WHY: Good works must be done because of right motives.
Did you do the work to bring glory, praise, honor, and admiration to God? Or did you have another motive?
People do good things for all kinds of reasons: out of obligation, to feel good about yourself, to gain prestige, people pleasing, for applause, to achieve power or control, etc.
All of these works will be consumed by God’s testing fire.
We want people to know that the good things we do come from God, not us. We want people to know and love God. That is the true motive for doing good works.
Jesus said: “When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.” John 15:8 NLT, See 1 Peter 2:12 NIV
3. HOW: Good works must be done in love.
Did you do the work because you loved Jesus, because you loved the people, or both?
You can teach a Bible study and not love anyone in the room except yourself. You can feed the homeless because it makes you feel good, yet show no interest and have no compassion for the people you are feeding.
Some are motivated by anger at evil, but sustained anger leads only to bitterness. And, our Anger at a situation quickly becomes anger at people we believe caused the situation. God tells us to love even our enemies. (see Matthew 5:43-45 TPT)
Anything that is done without love is not a work that God will reward.
See the ACTIVATION to make this real in your life.
The teachings of Jesus reveal the two keys that determine your eternal destiny. Discover how your beliefs and behavior can unlock the doors to eternal life and the rewards that await you.
- Faith unlocks the door to eternal life with God. And 2. Your behavior unlocks the door to your rewards in eternity.
(from Bruce Wilkerson, A Life God rewards: Why Everything You Do Today Matters Forever)
How God Rewards You for Your Beliefs and Behavior
At the end of your life you will be judged by Jesus. There are 2 judgment events revealed in scripture.
The great white throne judgment separates those who refused to believe in Jesus from those who do believe in Him. Those whose names do not appear in the Book of Life, the nonbelievers, will be separated from God forever and sent to hell where they will be punished for their sins. (see Revelation 20:11-15, Matthew 25:46)
The second judgment is an awards ceremony for believers. It is called the Bema Seat judgment. Only believers will be in this line. Here, Christ will look at each person’s life and reward him/her for the works they have done. (see John 5:22, 2 Corinthians 5:10)
So, to make this crystal clear:
You are saved by faith, not works. You can’t work your way to salvation. Scripture does not support this idea. Yet, many people believe this. It simply isn’t true.
Ephesians 2:8 AMP
For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God;
You aren’t saved through your effort – your works. The simple act of believing in Jesus and giving him your life saves you. Salvation is a gift from God to all who by faith believe in Jesus.
Your behavior as a Christian on earth determines the position, authority, and honor you will receive in heaven. God’s rewards for living for God are not a gift. They must be earned.
JESUS, in LUKE 6:22-23
What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in heaven.
When people hate you and persecute you because you live for Jesus and are doing God’s work, you should rejoice because the work you are doing on earth earned you a “great reward” in heaven.
JESUS, IN MATTHEW 16:27 says:
“For the Son of Man will come in the
glory of His Father with His angels,
and then He will reward each
according to his works.”
I was always taught that we all get the same reward. But it’s not true. We don’t all get the same reward in heaven. What we do on earth determines our reward.
God has a plan for your life. A specific plan.
Ephesians 2:10 EXB
God has made us what we are… In Christ Jesus, God ·made [created] us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.
You will be rewarded for your faithfulness in loving God, loving others, and completing the specific works God has planned and prepared for you to do.
It isn’t Just Big Things. God Rewards Us for Simple, Daily Things We Do.
Every little thing you do for God in love and obedience will be rewarded in heaven.
Mark 9:41 ERV
I can assure you that anyone who helps you by giving you a drink of water because you belong to the Messiah will definitely get a reward.
Every kind deed. Every act of forgiveness. Every prayer. Every instance of you loving others is recorded in your book in heaven.
In Matthew 6:6, Jesus said, “your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
Activation: listen to the podcast. The activation is the best part!
Being "Christlike" isn't some unreachable ideal. It is what God expects and commands. Many people are struggling with character issues. God has proven processes to help you be like Jesus.
Most of this video is a step by step process you can do today to empower Holy Spirit to make you more like Jesus. It's not an automatic process.
We don’t become like Christ by trying to act like Him.
Human Character is fatally flawed. We all know Human love fails us. God’s love NEVER FAILS (1 Corinthians 13) Just as God regenerated our spirits when we were born again, Christlike character comes only from God. We receive it from Him.
Today’s activation gives you practical steps you can take today to receive Jesus’ amazing character.
Put On Christ
We need to replace our flawed “fallen human” character with Christ’s supernatural character. We “put on” Christ’s character.
Romans 13:14 NIRV
Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ as if he were your clothing. Don’t think about how to satisfy sinful desires.
Colossians 3:12 (NIV)
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Daily, when You choose to put on Jesus’ character, Holy Spirit forms Jesus’ character in you. He enables you to live like Jesus no matter what is happening around you or to you.
****Activation – Romans 12 Transformation
Romans 12:1-2 explains to us how God transforms us into a new creation. That new creation is a completely different person.
Transformation is the sanctification of your soul (your desires, your emotions, your thoughts, beliefs and your will). Sanctification means 2 things in scripture: 1) to be made holy and 2) to be set apart for God’s purposes.
You put on Christ, you become like Jesus, as you:
1. Daily desire to be like Jesus.
Psalm 37:4 NASB promises:
Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
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Rejecting the thoughts, beliefs and ways of the world.
God’s character is unfailing love, unfailing peace, etc. Human character falls far short. We need to reject the inferior and embrace the superior – we need to put on Christ’s character. -
Daily renew Your mind with God’s Word – the Bible.
Romans 12:2 NASB
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
**What fruit of the Holy Spirit do you most need in your life?
Daily read scriptures about that character trait. Read stories of Jesus’ life where he demonstrates those traits. (A quick internet search: “Scripture about X” will help you find those verses/stories)
Ask Holy Spirit to help you Develop those traits.
Holy Spirit will answer that prayer. Scripture empowers us. But character must be tested to be developed. You may quickly have circumstances that test that character trait. And you may fail. It’s okay. You’re in Christ’s school of character. Get up. Dust yourself off, learn from your failures, and overcome the next time with Christ’s character empowering you.
- Then, You will know God’s plans and purposes for your life.
Romans 12:2 EASY
Do not become like the people who belong to this world. But let God completely change the way that you think, so that you live differently. Then you will understand what God wants you to do. You will know what is good. You will know what pleases God. You will know what is completely right.
- Immediately obey what God tells you. This is how we show our love for God .
What is holding many of us back from the greater assignments God has for us is our character. You need His character to carry the weight and the glory of the work He has prepared for you to do.
Go, put on Christ’s character, and transform your world!
What spiritual blessings will you pass on to your descendants? Listen to the fate of the descendants of atheist Max Jukes and man of God Jonathan Edwards. The lives of their descendants reaped the seeds these men sowed.
“For the promise is for you, and to your children.”
Act 2:39 NIV
The promise Peter referred to is the promise of salvation through Jesus. It’s not just for you. It’s for your descendants. It’s for the future generations of all mankind.
God lives outside of time. He created time for us here on earth. But my point is that God’s thinking isn’t trapped in time as ours is. He knows the future. His plans include all the future generations of mankind.
When God thinks about you: the relationship He wants with you, who He wants you to become, and what He wants you to do; He is thinking about a much bigger story than the story of your life.
God is thinking about the generational story He is writing. You are a link in the chain of blessings, power, and purpose He wants to release through your ancestors, you, and your descendants. If you don’t have children, remember that you will have spiritual children. There will be lives influenced by yours. Everyone is part of the stories God is writing.
God is a generational thinker. How does he identify Himself in the Old Testament? He said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God identified Himself as a generational God 42 times!!
God passes His blessings from one generation to the next.
Deuteronomy 7:9 ESV
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
Following the way of the cross makes you a blessing to your family, friends - even people who don't know you personally. And it gives you a spiritual legacy. Your children, their children, and on through your family line will be blessed by the life you are living today.
Life is not about what you can get for yourself today. Life is about you creating blessings for all the lives you influence today, and on down through the generations to come.
Dutch Continues: “God’s plan is always for the present generation to build on the strengths and accomplishments of the previous. This is the synergy of the ages - multiplied power and fruitfulness through generational agreement and honor.”
Dutch Sheets shared this powerful example:
In Al Sander’s book, Crisis in Morality!, he compares the descendants of an atheist, Max Jukes, to the offspring of a well-known preacher of that same era, Jonathan Edwards:
“Max Jukes...married an ungodly girl and among their descendants were 310 who died as paupers, 150 as criminals, 7 as murderers, 100 as drunkards and more than half of the women were prostitutes.
“Jonathan Edwards...lived at the same time and married a godly girl [Sarah Pierpont]. An investigation was made of 1,394 known descendants of theirs. Of these descendants, 13 became college presidents, 65 college professors, 3 United States senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 army and navy officers, 100 preachers and missionaries, 60 authors of prominence, one a vice-president of the United States, 80 became public officials...and 295 college graduates, among whom were governors of states and ministers to foreign countries.”
Sheets concludes: "Could any testimony more powerfully make my point? Success, favor, and blessing can multiply down through the generations. But due to our ignorance in this area, we sometimes unknowingly break the generational storyline God is writing."
This is one of the most powerful truths God has ever shown me. How did it impact you? Please leave me a voicemail at 10minutetransformation.com
Is Anyone Crying for Help God is Listening Ready to Rescue You |Psalm 34:17
Are you facing a difficult, an impossible situation right now? Are you stressed? Overwhelmed? Just not knowing what to do? What I’m going to show you today has helped me on some of my darkest days. I believe it will help you too.
At different times, we all face crises, emergencies, and circumstances that overwhelm us. Satan wants to steal our hope and snuff out our life. But your Father is greater than any problem, any emergency, and any devil you will ever face. He wants you to have rock-solid confidence that He will be there when you need Him.
Take a few minutes to read these different translations of Psalm 34:17.
When the righteous cry out, the Lord listens; he delivers them from all their troubles. Psalm 34:17 CEB
When his people pray for help, he listens and rescues them from their troubles.
Psalm 34:17 CEV
Pray to the Lord, and he will hear you. He will save you from all your troubles.
Psalm 34:17 ERV
The Lord hears good people when they [LThey] cry out to him, and he saves them from all their ·troubles [distress].
Psalm 34:17 EXB
Is anyone crying for help? God is listening, ready to rescue you.
Psalm 34:17 MSG
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles.
Psalm 34:17 NKJV
Why different translations?
Words can be poor carriers for meaning. Over time, the meanings of words change, cultures change, and the way we see the world is certainly different from the farmers, fishermen, kings, priests, etc. who wrote the Bible. Different translations can help us grasp God’s revelation – the fullness of His message to us and His heart for us.
Read each translation of this verse out loud, thinking about the meaning of each word, each phrase. Let God “open” His Word to you, let God connect you to His heart, let Him deepen your understanding – your revelation of Him, and let Him build your faith.
When we read one scripture again and again, wanting to know God more, wanting to be closer to Him and to more deeply understand His words to us, that is Biblical meditation.
Joshua 1:8 commands us to meditate on God’s Word:
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
As you meditate on God's Word you will be transformed into a new person as God changes the way you think. (Romans 12:1-2)
Meditating on Scripture builds your faith (faith comes by hearing God (Romans 10:17). We meditate on the meaning of scriptures until faith rises in our hearts.
And meditating on Scripture brings us closer to God as we take time to deeply understand Him and His message to us.
Activation (The activation today is the best part of this podcast. Don't miss it!!!
Today’s activation is to overcome fear of “meditation” and begin to use it to draw near to God and have Him open the deeper meanings of His Word to us.
The Fake: Eastern meditation is for the purpose of emptying one’s mind allegedly to “connect with Nature/the universe.” Eastern meditation empties you and opens you to evil spirits. Don’t do it.
The Real: Biblical meditation is filling your mind with God’s Word for the purpose of connecting with God. Biblical meditation involves none of the breathing techniques, specific postures while meditating, advice from gurus, etc of Eastern meditation.
Do you have an area of your life you need to change: A bad habit? Ungodly thoughts? A sin you just can’t get rid of? Poor attitudes?
Have you tried and tried, but self-discipline and self-effort fail? Be encouraged! God has a process that works!!
The Power of Process
How we see this process is important. If all we see is building ourselves up we will try to build on the rubble of our old lives. And we will try to build up human character.
I recently read that the steel used to build the Titanic was flawed steel. It was very high in sulphur content, which made it fracture in cold temperatures. No wonder it crumpled like cardboard when it hit that iceburg. A ship which they claimed was unsinkable sank like a rock because it was made of flawed materials.
That’s a good analogy for trying to build up human character. Fallen man is irrevocably flawed.
Repairing a ship using weak, flawed steel will NEVER make a ship strong. Trying to become like Jesus using human building materials (willpower, habits, positive thinking, affirmations, etc) will never make a man like Christ.
God literally transforms you into a new person as you renew your mind with God’s Word. (Romans 12:1-2) His building materials are the Word of God and the character of Christ which the Holy Spirit creates in you (Galatians 5:22-23).
God isn’t repairing the old you. He is building the new you. You are being transformed into a new person, one scripture at a time. (See Romans 12:2 NLT)
The World’s Way vs. God’s Way of Building You Up
The wisdom of the world today is to build with the mind, the will, and through repeating outward actions until new habits are formed and we call that person changed.
The wisdom of God is to clear away the rubble of your old life (your soul wounds, sin habits, ungodly thoughts and beliefs, and twisted desires) and rebuild you from the heart outward. You will change what you do, but only after your heart has been deeply changed.
Your new behavior is not the result of striving and willpower which may fail when you no longer have the energy or strength to sustain it. Your outward behavior is the natural expression of who you have become.
You aren’t just trying to be "patient, peaceful, loving, kind, etc." That is who you are – the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in you.
Then, having the character of Christ is as natural and as effortless to you as breathing. Your words and actions come from who you have become IN CHRIST.
The Heart Journey to Transformation
1. It Begins with Surrender to God Every Day (Romans 12:1)
Quiet time with God first thing in the morning. What we surrender to God begins to die. As we let go the Holy Spirit replaces our character with His.
2. Holy Spirit Begins to Replace Your Character With Christ’sHoly Spirit is the one who sanctifies you. He makes you Holy and dedicated to doing God’s purposes. (see Romans 15:16, Galatians 5:22-23) He uses the Word of God. (see John 15:3, John 17:17, and James 1:21). As we renew our minds with God’s Word, Holy Spirit and the Word transform us into Jesus’ character.
3. You are Transformed into a New Person as Holy Spirit Changes the Way You Think (Romans 12:2)You will live a life far above your old self-life. The change is real, lasting, and unmistakable. It is true inside-out, heart transformation.
Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from… God….
2 Corinthians 5:17-18 MSG
Activation: Do the Activation to make this real in your life.
You may not feel like light. You may be immature. You may have many flaws, but the light of Jesus burns in you the moment you express your faith to God and give God your life. I was deeply flawed (a recovering alcoholic), but God used me to bring Jesus to others. He will use you too.
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Isaiah 60:1-3 NIV
Jesus is the light Isaiah prophesied.
Faith in Jesus comes only one way – hearing the word of God, the message about Jesus. (Romans 10:17)
Through faith in His name, you now have the light of God burning in you.
When you were born again, your spirit was regenerated.
Your spirit was made Holy. And set apart for God’s purposes.
Now, you carry God’s glory – his radiance, His presence, His anointing.
People look at you and see the light of Jesus in you.
Nations will come to your light!
Kings (important people) will be drawn to you.
“You are the light of the world.”
Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)
Jesus said:
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Jesus walked the earth as the light of the world. Then Jesus’ time on earth ended. God multiplied Jesus’ light. He gave Jesus’ light to everyone who believes in Him. You and I carry the light of Jesus with us everywhere we go.
You were put in your house to give light to everyone in the house. You are the light of God to your family, your friends.
You were put in your neighborhood, your place of work or school, to let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
When I arrived in China, in 1989, I was surprised by how many people said to me: “You are different. Even from other foreigners. Why are you so different?’
I was a recovering alcoholic. I’d only been a Christian for a little over a year when, out of fear of going back into my alcoholic lifestyle, I asked God if I could work for Him full time. I believed that if I could, I would really get to know Him and that I would never walk away from Him once I knew Him. He answered that prayer.
But I was still a mess. I hadn’t developed much Christian character. I was painfully aware of how broken I was after 10 years of addiction to alcohol.
God made me, a deeply flawed, young Christian to be light to people who lived in the deep darkness Isaiah described. Many people drawn to the light had never even met a Christian before and knew nothing about Jesus. But faith comes by hearing the Word of God, the message of Jesus.
God will make you a light to everyone around you. It is His plan for your life. No matter if you’re a new Christian or if you think you’re not very mature. You are the light of your world! Go burn brightly for Jesus!!
You were born for this.
Activation
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:16 NKJV
Ask God this one question.
Father, what good work can I do today that will bring you great glory in the hearts and minds of people?
Now. Do what God showed you.
It all began with a compromise. I watched a movie I shouldn’t have. And I found myself feeling filthy and deeply shaken by the horrific things I saw. I repented and opened the Bible. As I read scripture, God washed me with the water of His Word. The Word of God closed the door to evil thoughts and emotions I had opened and restored peace to my heart. What God showed me will work for you too.
I love well-written movies. The writing in some movies is amazing. I heard a lot about a particular movie. It's plot was intricate. The dialog was amazing. I wanted to watch it to learn. Because that's how you get better at writing - read or watch great stories. One problem. It was R-rated and I don't watch R-rated movies.
But I really wanted to watch this story. If I compromise and endure the profanity and look away during the sex scenes, I reasoned, I can watch this film. How bad could it be?
Nothing could have prepared me for the savage brutality of this movie. Every other sentence was profane, the characters were depraved, totally without virtue and they were brutally, graphically violent.
I felt these things like hammer blows to my spirit. Reeling in shock and disgust, I smacked the TV off. I felt like I needed a bath. I felt filthy. My spirit was shocked by the violence, immorality, and profanity.
Visibly shaken, I asked God to forgive me and protect me from this assault on my spirit and soul. I opened my Bible. As I read, I literally felt the Word of God washing over me, cleansing me. It was like layer after layer of filth had to be removed as I read through scripture. I was actually jittery - I had lost the peace that protects my heart. Eventually, as I read the words that can save our souls and quietly prayed, peace returned.
I was shocked that I could do so much damage to my soul in a few minutes, just sitting in a chair, watching something on television.
What happened?
Psalm 101:3 NKJV
I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not cling to me.
"It shall not cling to me." The evil we watch or listen to clings to us.
Psalm 101:3 TPT
I refuse to gaze on that which is vulgar. I despise works of evil people and anything that moves my heart away from you. I will not let evil hold me in its grip.
Every sin begins with a thought. And I needed to root out the thought that caused this sin. Repenting of the sin is good and necessary. But I need to get to the root of the sin. If I don’t, the sin will pop up again, in a different place.
―Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
The ungodly thought is the root of the sin which follows.
My sin began with the thought that I could watch what most people in our culture watch (an R-Rated movie).
I couldn’t. The evil in the movie got ahold of me, it was clinging to me.
I had compromised with culture and was paying the price. It felt horrible.
How did I break free?
I renewed my mind with God’s Word –
Romans 12:2 NKJV
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
As I Read the Bible God Cleaned Me Up
Ephesians 5:25-26
Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word…
John 15:3 NIV (Jesus to his disciples)
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
The Word of God cleans us up. It renews our minds to God’s thoughts and ways. And it sanctifies us. To sanctify means “to make holy.” It also means “to set apart for God’s purposes.”
Activation: this activation is important! Please listen & do!
God’s Word, his message, literally goes into the darkness, finds you, opens your eyes to the truth, lights your way out of the darkness, and fills your life with light so you can see and know God. The power and presence of God is found in His Supernatural Book – the Bible. Today, we’re going to explore how Bible truth will set you free and keep you free.
1. Satan keeps men in darkness by blinding them to the truth
2 Corinthians 4:4 NIV
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2. God’s Word Brings Light of Revelation – Understanding from God
Psalm 119:130 KJV
The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.
3. The Bible (God’s Word) is a Light to Guide our Choices and Decisions
Psalm 119:105 NKJV
Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
We make so many decisions every day. Some of them could open doors to Satan and big trouble. Holy Spirit and God’s Word lead us to make right decisions, good decisions.
Sometimes, we really don’t know what to do. The possibilities each look good. But to choose anything except the right choice could have serious, long-term negative results.
I had been in China for two years, when a missionary I liked and respected told me that God had told her I was to marry her. At the same time, I had a huge crush on a local young woman who was a Christian. And there was a third person, a friend I also had feelings for. I was so confused.
I prayed. But I didn’t hear any answer. My emotions were clouding my thinking. I finally asked a much older missionary who visited China frequently, a man I greatly respected. He quoted scripture: “For God is not the author of confusion.” 1 Corinthians 14:33. And he said don’t do anything until the confusion lifts and you have peace. Then you will know.
I knew that if I chose the wrong person to marry, it could shipwreck God’s plans for my life. I waited. I chose the third option. There was no doubt. And the other two had long faded into my past. I’m still glad I chose Karen, my wife of 28 years. As I look back now, I can’t imagine how I ever struggled. It seems so obvious now.
But it wasn’t then. Life can get pretty confusing and we can make some big mistakes. We need God’s Word and Holy Spirit to help us.
4. Daily Living God’s Word Sets You Free
Satan holds us captive by thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and experiences from our past.
Satan’s authority over the earth was stripped from him over 2,000 year ago, but such is his ability to deceive mankind that billions of people alive today don’t know that.
But Jesus provided a path for us to know the truth and live in the light of that truth.
John 8:31 AMP
So Jesus was saying to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word [continually obeying My teachings and living in accordance with them, then] you are truly My disciples.
John 8:32 NIV
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
This scripture is for those who believe in Jesus.
6. Abiding is the Key – Jesus’ personal promise to you is that as you abide (as you live daily in His Word, reading, memorizing, declaring, obeying, and praying His Word) you shall know the truth.... and the truth will set you free. Satan’s deceptions will be broken and revelation light will flood your life.
Every time you open your Bible, demons shudder. You are receiving the truth and the power to defeat their schemes against you as you read and live from God’s word. Holy Spirit guides us as we read God’s Word. He leads us into all truth (see John 16:13) and gives us the ability to live it.
What will “considering others better than yourself” do for you?
1. It renews your mind to think like Jesus. It reminds you how God values others.
2. It teaches you how to love, even when you really don’t feel it.
3. And it will genuinely change the way you see others and how you feel about them.
- Considering Others Better that Yourself Renews Your Minds to Think Like Jesus
Philippians 2:3-5 CEB
Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others. Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus…
Philippians 2 tells us to imitate Christ. Christ came to give us his life for ours. He considered our lives as more precious that His own. He looked out for our interests, not His own. He put us first.
Putting others first makes us like Christ.
- Learn to Love
But I don’t like him! I won’t be a hypocrite. I don’t love him! He’s not a good guy.
Jesus said the 2nd greatest command was to “love others as you love yourself.” It’s not a request, it’s a command.
In John 13:34-35 (NIV), Jesus said, “
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The measure of your performance as a disciple is your love for everyone.
Jesus also said, “43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. 48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5:43-48 NLT
Jesus message was:
Love your enemies. Even those who hurt you or make your life difficult.
God gives his love even to evil people, so must you.
*The thing that will make you different from everyone else is your love for those who don’t deserve it.
THIS IS NOT HUMAN LOVE, JESUS IS TALKING ABOUT!
ONLY GOD LOVES LIKE THIS!
JESUS WANTS US TO BE IDENTIFIED AS SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD.
SO HE COMMANDS US TO RECEIVE GOD’S LOVE FOR OTHERS AND LOVE THEM.
But Dave, How can I do that?
Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages, said
“Love is an attitude with behavior following. God loves us. He wants what’s best for us. That’s what love is. Love is wanting what is best for someone else. It’s caring about them. You begin with an attitude of love, then acts with love, and then the feeling of love will come.”
This is so good! Here is God’s key to unlock love for others, including those who offend us, and even our enemies.
Step 1 attitude of love (change your attitude), Love is a choice. Love is a decision. Purpose your heart to love someone. Ignore your feelings
Step 2 then do acts of love, and
Step 3 then, finally the feeling will come.
We learn to love by making the choice to love, doing acts of love, and then, finally the emotion will come. We learn to love like Jesus by ignoring our emotions and doing what Jesus told us to, knowing what He commands, He enables.
****Activation – Consider Others Better Than Yourself
Put others first today. (see the activation in the podcast
Discover the Secret to Grow in Christian Character" isn't just a catchy title. It is a truth many Christians badly need.
Many Christians try and try to get rid of ungodly thoughts, bad habits, runaway emotions like sudden anger, and attitudes that they know aren’t right. Many struggle for years, trying to change their bad thoughts and bad behavior. Some give up.
***God has an answer.
***And God has a process to deeply, permanently change you and I to be like Jesus.
Index:
0:00 The Secret of Growing Christian Character
0:38 Revelation: You Don’t develop Christlike Character. You Receive It.
0:57 We receive salvation from God. Holy Spirit Transplants Christ’s
Character in Us. But the Process is Different.
1:31 When we are born again our spirits are sanctified.
1:51 We are made up of 3 parts. Each is sanctified by a different process and at a different time.
2:40 Holy Spirit sanctifies our souls
3:26 What is the Secret of Growing Christian Character?
3:50 Christ’s character isn’t achieved by being good or doing good works.
Holy Spirit forms Christ’s character in us as we renew our minds with God’s Word.
4:48 ***God’s Process: You surrender. I replace.
5:31 ***Takeaways: Concise Summary of Your Role and God’s Role in Growing Christlike Character in You
6:54***Activation: Applying God’s Process to Your Life
Revelation: You Don’t develop Christlike Character. You Receive It.
On the cross, Jesus was showing us the divine exchange – His for ours.
His righteousness exchanged for our sin.
2 Corinthians 5:21 NLT
For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
In the Same Way, Holy Spirit Transplants Christ’s Character in Us. But the Process is Different.
Ezekiel 36:26 NKJV
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart
When we were born again, God gave us a new heart and put a new spirit in us.
*When we are born again our spirits are sanctified.
Sanctified means “made holy.” It also means “set apart for God’s purposes.” Our spirits are made holy, made perfect. Nothing we do makes our spirits more holy. Our spirits’ sanctification is complete upon being born again.
But we, like God, are made up of 3 parts. Each of these 3 parts is sanctified by a different process and at a different time.
We are spirits, who live in a body. And we have a soul (our mind, will, and emotions.)
After you were born again, you quickly discovered that you could still have ungodly thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and you could still sin. Your spirit was sanctified, but your soul was not.
God wants us to love Him the way he loves us. So, he left us a process to “work out” the sanctification of our souls (See Philippians 2:12). We love God by pursuing holiness and becoming like Christ.
Holy Spirit sanctifies our souls day by day. But the process is not automatic. We must be actively engaged in loving God, renewing our minds with God’s Word, and doing what God shows us to do. (This is the transformation process in Romans 12:1-2.)
What is the Secret of Growing Christian Character?
Christ’s character isn’t achieved by being good or doing good works. Like salvation, it is God's gift to us. Self effort (doing good works) will never create Jesus’ supernatural character in you.
Holy Spirit creates Christlikeness in us as we renew our minds with God’s Word. The process requires us to want to be like Jesus, to renew our minds by reading God’s word, and to do what God shows us to do.
Each of us is a dream. A God dream.
And the greatest thing that we can do with our lives is to make God’s dream about us come true. Destiny comes from Identity. Today, we explore what God says about you. And do a powerful activation.
0:00 You are God's Dream
0:22 The Bible Says You Are Wonderful
1:58 There's a Book About You in Heaven
2:18 God is Thinking About You
3:12 God's Plans for You Are Beyond Your Wildest Dreams
3:49 God Prepared a Life of Meaning and Purpose for You
5:04 Activation: Resolve never to Criticize or Downgrade Yourself
The Bible says “you are wonderful.” Realize that God is thinking about you. And know that God has specific plans for you – wonderful plans. The Activation is to make a firm decision to: “Resolve never to criticize or downgrade yourself, but instead rejoice that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Elizabeth George
God had a Dream and Wrapped Your Body Around It.
~Lou Engle
**You need to know that the Bible says YOU ARE WONDERFUL.
Psalm 139:13-15 TPT
As I write this there are 8,011,340,099 people on planet earth. Every one of them is totally unique, custom made. No one even comes close to having the same combination of genes you do – over 20,000 of them! You are an astounding blend of personality, intelligence, abilities, quirks, and potential. There is no one like you!
God did that! God dreamed and planned and crafted you to be you – a creation of His love, made after many dreams and plans for you.
Ephesians 1:4 (MSG)
**God is Thinking About You
Psalm 139:17-18 TPT
Isaiah 49:15-16 (NLT)
**God’s plans for your life are extensive, specific and beyond your imagination.
Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)
Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NLT)
**God Created You to Live a Life of meaning and Purpose
You were born to do powerful acts of kindness, to right injustice, to cure diseases, to finance, create, solve, invent, and lead others to improve the world.
1 Peter 4:10
Your family and friends are incomplete without you. They need the specific gift God has given you. People in your circle of influence won’t get the touch from God they need if you don’t live out your destiny.
2 Corinthians 3:3 (NIV)
Activation: Embrace Who You are and Be Grateful
“Resolve never to criticize or downgrade yourself, but instead rejoice that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Elizabeth George, Bestselling Christian Author
Celebrate who you are, knowing your painful wounds will heal others once you are healed. And Jesus WILL heal you!!
Reject anything from others or yourself that says you aren’t “wonderfully made”
Gratitude Activation: See the Podcast, Thank God for who He made you to be.
https://uppbeat.io/t/ilya-kuznetsov/c...
License code: 2CMRTZCORWIBPYUD
The purpose of your life begins not with some big plan or goal, but with God’s daily to-do list for you. You get the privilege of nudging people around you with the love of God. Each nudge pushes them closer to God. And helps you hear His voice and learn to quickly obey. Over time, your assignments will grow bigger and God will lead you into your destiny.
God has a Race for you to complete.
Hebrews 12:1 EXB
Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of ·people whose lives tell us what faith means [L witnesses], let us run the race that is before us ·and never give up [with endurance/perseverance]. ·We should [Let us] ·remove from our lives [get rid of; cast aside] anything that ·would get in the way... and the sin that so easily ·holds us back.
Never give up.
Get rid of anything that would get in the way
And get rid of all sin, which will trip us up..
Run with purpose and discipline
Paul, toward the end of his life, wrote: “I have finished my course.” 2 Timothy 4:7 KJV
God has amazing plans for your life.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
You need to find out what God’s plans are. Ask Him!
And God has very specific works that He sets out for you to do as you go about your daily life.
Ephesians 2:10b TPT
Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!
Ministry of Nudges
God sometimes highlights a person to us. We don’t know why, not yet. If we are willing to take a step toward that person, Holy Spirit tells us why. He gives us an assignment.
Example:
For several weeks, it seemed like every day I would encounter some homeless person. Waiting at a traffic light with a sign: Homeless and Hungry. Or in the Walmart parking lot. Some were just standing or sitting there. Others approached me. I gave to them all.
These people were assignments for me. Holy Spirit kept pointing them out.
One hot, South Florida night, about 8 o’clock, outside a Dollar General, a middle-aged woman nervously approached me. She said, “I’m sorry. But I have 4 hungry children at home and no food to give them. Can you help me? You can come in and see what I buy.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I replied.
I pulled out my wallet and gave her enough to buy food for herself and her 4 children. Then I blessed her. She thanked me, choked with emotion.
That was a Divine appointment. I was out walking the trail that goes along Cypress Creek, near my home. I almost didn’t walk that night. I wasn’t feeling well, but I decided to walk outside even though it was a hot.. It was a beautiful Florida night. While walking, I felt I should leave the trail and walk toward the Dollar General nearby. I didn't want anything at the Dollar General. I never even went in. I was just going to walk by.
The “specific work” that God had prepared for me to do that night, was to be in the right place, at the right time, and to give His love to a woman and her 4 children. God loved them by making sure they didn’t go hungry that night.
I had the privilege of delivering His help and His love to them.
As I finished my walk, I prayed for that woman and her 4 children. And I thanked God for bringing me to the right place at the right time. It feels so good to work for God!!
You Have a Ministry of nudges.
God put you in your family, your neighborhood, your school or job, and surrounded you with people who you are uniquely qualified to touch with God's love. Some of these people you won't ever know. But you touch them as you go to the right place, at the right time, and do what God wants you to do.
God loves people who don’t know Him through people who do. God has a “to-do” list with your name on it.
Sharp, stabbing pain grabbed my chest again. I fumbled for a nitroglycerin pill and clumsily placed it under my tongue. My chest spasmed. I squirmed in agony. It was the worst pain I’d ever experienced.
Hospital, Beijing. China, January 1992.
16th day. They thought I had a heart attack, but weren’t sure.
Doctors didn’t know what to do, but cultural concept of “face” made them refuse to admit it.
I was stuck. I had been teaching in China for 2 ½ years and sharing my faith in Jesus. Every year I was given round trip airfare and a small monthly stipend by the Chinese university that hired me.
But a friend’s mother had a ruptured brain aneurysm and had to make an emergency trip back to see her mother while she lived. She didn’t have airfare. I gave her mine.
I prayed. Of course, I prayed. But not in fear. I had such peace in the hospital. I thought I was facing death, but Jesus was so real to me, I wasn’t afraid to die. I wanted to live, but going to see Jesus would have been awesome too.
After 16 days , Friends – intervention. I didn’t’ want to leave. I loved my students and the Chinese friends I had in Beijing. But I was getting weaker and weaker and my pain was worse, not better.
Christians friends in HK met me and got me to a hospital.
Christian Cardiologist refused to take payment and had me out of the hospital in 24 hours.
I had a bleeding ulcer. It caused acid reflux which was causing the painful spasms in my chest.
I stayed with a family while in Hong Kong, former missionaries. They tenderly loved and cared for me. I was very weak from my long hospital stay in Beijing.
The wife told a Bible study of lawyers she led about my situation. They gave me thousands of dollars. Enough for the airfare and money for my long recovery once I got back to the U.S.
Every step of the way, God was there. He provided not only money, medical services, transportation, but love, hope, understanding and support.
God cared for every one of my needs: physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual. He will care for you. As I look back on this over 30 years later, I am still amazed at the peace and joy I experienced while in such excruciating pain.
Psalm 16:5 NLT
You, Lord, are all I have, and you give me all I need; my future is in your hands.
2 Peter 1:3 NLT
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.
John 15:9 TPT
[Jesus said] “I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must continually let my love nourish your hearts.
I know some of you who hear this are facing difficult, maybe impossible situations. What God did for me he longs to do for you.
DECLARE THIS over yourself. Say it out loud:
God, You are my provider.
It doesn’t matter if the economy is up or down. You are my provider.
*When science and medicine fail, You are my healer.
*When I face problems that are greater than me, You know the answers.
*When my heart is broken and no one understands, you do. You know me as no one else does. And your love fills my heart desires.
*You give me everything I need for life and to be like You.
*There are over 8,000 promises in the Bible.
2 Corinthians 1:20 (Voice) says, “In Jesus we hear a resounding “yes” to all of God’s many promises.”
Through Jesus, everything I need has already been provided.
When I have a need, I will come to You and I will pray in Jesus’ name. And you give me what I need. You are my provider.
Activation – Give Thanks Today for God’s Provision for You (SEE THE ACTIVATION IN THE VIDEO)
Jesus warned us that we will have trouble in this world. But He also said, “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” In John 6:33.
God will help you overcome whatever you are facing today. He does that in 3 ways. At the end of this video I will show you how to apply those 3 strategies to overcome whatever you are facing.
We have an enemy, the Devil, who wants to steal from you, kill you, or destroy you. (John 10:10, Luke 22:31, 1 Peter 5:8)
But we have Jesus who overcame Satan!
Our lives have been forever joined to His. That’s what happened when we were born again and Holy Spirit came to live in us. Our problems are Jesus’ problems, because we are doing life “united to”, “joined to”, “in union” with Jesus!!
1 Corinthians 6:17 NIV
But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
Ephesians 1:11
Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.
God enables us to overcome all our troubles:
1. by faith. Our faith brings God's power to change whatever comes against us.
For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
1 John 5:4 (NIV)
2. by character: God empowers us to outgrow (to grow stronger in character than) the adversity we face,
Galatians 5:22 NLT
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Romans 8:28 NLV
We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are chosen to be a part of His plan.
Character is born in adversity. God usually doesn’t cause the problems we face, but he uses them to grow His love, peace, patience, and joy in us. Sometimes, like the Thorn Satan gave Paul, God doesn’t remove what irritates us because it makes us stronger in Christlike character. Paul said his thorn was for the purpose of keeping him humble. (2 Corinthians 12:7)
3. or God rescues us.
"Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
Isaiah 46:4 (NIV)
God rescues us from dangers we aren’t even aware of.
*If you are facing a tough situation right now, how does this help you?
1. Each of us has been given a measure of faith. (Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 12:3) Your faith is your weapon against all the enemy’s attacks. Your faith is in God’s goodness, God’s mercies, and His Word – the promises he made to men in the Bible. Pray in faith. Pray for the people who oppose you and pray against the problem and the spiritual forces behind it.
2. Cooperate with God as he develops your character. Some problems, like Paul’s thorn, don’t go away. But you outgrow the problem – you become stronger than the problem.
3. God rescues you.
God will use people to do most of his rescues. Don’t be too proud to accept help when you are standing in faith against a problem and you’ve done all you can. Accept help as a gift from God and an answer to prayer.
God’s rescue isn’t always a gift, sometimes it’s a path that you must climb to get to the other side.
Pray with Me:
Father, thank you that you work even bad things for my good.
I thank you that You make me an overcomer by building up my faith, by the character you build in me, or You rescue me.
Thank You for Your love protecting me throughout my life.
Satan loves to make people feel useless – too old or too young to do anything significant for God. These 5 stories prove that is not true. God can use you, no matter how old or young you are!
A Sack Lunch
Have you ever heard of the little boy who fed a crowd of thousands of people? A little boy, we don’t know his name, brought his lunch – 5 small loaves of bread and 2 small fish, when he went to see the great teacher. A huge crowd was there.
A man asked the little boy if he would give his lunch to feed the crowd. The boy gave the man his lunch, not knowing what would happen next. Jesus broke the boy’s lunch into pieces and it multiplied. After feeding 5,000 men (plus all the women and children who were there), 12 baskets of food were left over.
Can you imagine how that little boy felt. Jesus did the miracle. But without his lunch there would have been no miracle. The little boy’s willingness to give up his lunch made the miracle possible. The little boy did something selfless and Jesus made it something supernatural. All his life, that boy lived with the satisfaction of knowing that God can use simple people, like him, if we are willing to give what we have (our lunch, our time, our talents) to God. See John 6.
My niece led her grandfather to Christ.
My niece was 6 years old and talking to her grandfather. She loved grandpa. She frowned as she had a thought. She said, “If you don’t become a Christian, I won’t be able to see you in heaven.”
It was true. Grandpa wasn’t a Christian. These words from his precious little granddaughter pierced his heart as nothing else could. He began to look for a church in Hong Kong. He found friends who were Christians. They took him to church. Grandpa gave His life to Jesus and lived for Him. My niece, now a grown woman, will see her grandpa in heaven.
Isaiah 11:6 KJV
…a little child shall lead them.
God uses the pure in heart of all ages.
Abraham was 100 years old when God supernaturally made him a father. (Genesis 21) God made him the “Father” of our faith. Genesis 17:1, 24:1
Caleb was 85 when he entered the promised land. When Joshua divided the land and gave it to each tribe of Israel, Caleb said:
“So here I am today, eighty-five years old! …Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”
Joshua 14:10,12 NIV
The Anakites were the greatest giants who lived in the area. Caleb asked for the land where the giants were. “The Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as He said.” And Caleb did drive out the giants. Caleb took the mountain for God!! At age 85!!
William Wilberforce (1759-1833, Great Britain)
William Wilbeforce was a British lawyer who served for many years in parliament. He became a Christian in 1785 and was greatly transformed. He spent 39 years of his life fighting against slavery and poverty in the British Empire. Finally, his health destroyed, Wilberforce was assured that the Parliament would pass the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. He died 3 days later. His destiny fulfilled.
Declare this with me:
I’m not too young!
I am not too old!
“The Lord helping me” I will complete God’s plan for my life.
I will do everything He has planned for me.
It’s good to know God can still use me no matter how young or old I am!
Thank You, God!
Activation: Give thanks for “all God’s wonderful deeds”. (listen for the full activation)
Day #10 10 Days to Grow a Grateful Heart
A study of 5,000 Christians, revealed the difference between those who were consistently more like Christ and average Christians. What caused the greatest difference?
Prayer? No.
Bible reading? No.
Fasting? No.
Praise and Worship? No.
Some other spiritual discipline? No.
Prolific Christian author, Professor Michael Zigarelli, who conducted the study, was surprised by the discovery, “Of all the possible explanations for why some Christians look more like Jesus than others, one explanation–one characteristic–clearly stood out above the rest: gratitude.”
Today, I going to reveal some things about the power of gratitude to deeply change you that you probably don’t know. And I am launching a 10 Days to Thanksgiving Countdown: 10 Days to Grow a Grateful Heart. Toward the end of the video I will share a powerful activation about how to grow a Grateful heart
(Youtube: @10MinuteTransformation )
Back to the study of 5,000 Christians. Professor Zigarelli concluded that the influence of gratitude was much greater than any of the spiritual disciplines to explain why some Christians are more like Jesus (consistently displaying the “fruit of the Spirit” virtues (Galatians 5:22-23) than others.
Let me clarify, it’s not that prayer, reading the Bible, praise and worship, and the other disciplines didn’t have an impact. Of course, they did. But Professor Zigarelli was surprised to find that gratitude had a much greater impact.
Why?
~ Cicero, the Roman philosopher, said:
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
Cicero stumbled on a Biblical truth. There’s a reason the Bible says to “give thanks” 62 times.
Gratitude reframes our entire outlook on life. It “reframes” the way we see things. God’s many commands and encouragement to “give thanks” are an onramp to renewing our mind, leading us into a process where, as Romans 12:2 in the NLT says, we “Let God transform us into a new person by changing the way we think.” Romans 12:2
Modern Psychology Studies confirm the benefits of growing a grateful heart:
Studies show Gratitute is positively related to: a long list of physical and phychological benefits. They’re listed on the video.
Activation
Psalm 9:1 NIV
I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
Activation: Give thanks for “all God’s wonderful deeds”.
(listen to hear the activation)
Please Join the 10 Day Thanksgiving Countdown to Grow a Grateful Heart, subscribe
I read articles about research that showed doing this for even a few days can change you. And the impact can be deep and long lasting.
If you simply can’t think of anything you are grateful for, I have have posted list of prompts that will help you remember what you have to be grateful for on my website. (create card: https://www.10minutetransformation.com/p/i-am-grateful-for/)
Satan loves to make you feel like God can’t use you because what what you've done in the past or your brokenness because of what happened to you before. That's not how God looks at you. God used leaders who had done horrible things! You need to hear this
Moses, the man who set Israel free after 700 years of being enslaved by the Egyptians, murdered an Egyptian, then fled for his life and lived on the backside of a desert as a nomad shepherd for 40 years. Yet, God chose him. He is one of a handful of people in history who scripture says was a “friend” of God.
David was an adulterer who killed his lover’s husband after she became pregnant from his adultery. (2 Samuel 11: 1-27) David repented. God forgave David. Despite David’s sin, David is listed as a hero of our faith in Hebrews 12. God said David was “a man after God’s own heart.”
Paul was a religious maniac. He traveled to other countries to find and arrest believers, put them in jail, and he held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen to death. (Acts 8:3, 9:1-2) But Jesus recruited Paul. Think about that for a moment. Jesus recruited one of His greatest enemies and turned him into probably the most effective missionary ever. And God used Paul to write 2/3 of the New Testament.
God truly doesn’t see people the way we do. And He doesn’t see us the way we see ourselves. God has an amazing ability to love us at our worst moments and see through the horrible things we are doing to see who we could be.
1 John 1:9 NKJV
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Psalm 34:5 NLT
Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
Activation
1. Declare this with me: (Say it out loud and mean it. It’s true!)
God uses broken people.
God heals, forgives, and restores us.
If God could use Moses, David and Paul, He can use me!
I am forgiven.
I have no guilt.
I have no shame.
Jesus washed away every bad thing I ever did.
God will use me.
I will complete God’s plan for my life.
Thank You God! I’m so grateful that I am forgiven
and that You have great plans for me.
2. Silence Accusing Voices with Scripture.
When you hear voices of accusation (your own, Satan, or others’) silence them.
Use scripture. Jesus defeated Satan with 3 words: “It is written…” You will too.
Romans 8:1-2 TPT
So now the case is closed. There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One.
Isaiah 43:25 TPT
I, yes I, am the one and only who completely erases your sins and will not remember them again. I do this freely because of who I am.
There is now no condemnation for you because your life is in Christ.
You have been set free from the law of sin and death. You are under Jesus’ grace and your sin is forever covered by the blood. When God looks at you, He doesn’t see the sin of your past. He sees you with the righteousness of Jesus. He sees the perfect life of Jesus.
You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus:
2 Corinthians 5:21 TPT:
For God made the only one who did not know sin to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God through our union with him.
When you became a Christian, your life was forever joined with Jesus’ life. Jesus paid the full price for your sin on the cross. Jesus’ blood erased your sordid past. Now, You have a hope and a future.
3. Now, knowing how God sees you, ask Him to use you to do great things for Him.
What is the purpose, the meaning of my life?
To become like Jesus, become a son/daughter of God engaged in the family business of saving souls and establishing the kingdom of God on the earth.
Your life is a message from Jesus to the people in your world. His message is written on your heart.
Ezekiel 36:26
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.
2 Corinthians 3:3 (MSG)
Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it – not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit: MSG
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. NIV
You are God’s message, written on a human heart. You are surrounded with people who need to hear what your life communicates. Who you are and what you do is your life message.
1 Peter 2:12 NLT
Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.
Light of the World
Matthew 5:14-16
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Your Life Speaks long after you are gone
Hebrews 11:4 NLT
It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did. Abel’s offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man, and God showed his approval of his gifts. Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith.
I delight in the fact that my life can speak to people about Jesus, long after I have gone to heaven. My life can speak to future generations.
That’s true for you too!
We are the message of God to our world – the people we will meet and lives we will touch.
Corrie Ten Boom - life message - forgiveness.
Heidi Baker - life message - power of love to change a nation - Mozambique - stop for the one. Orphanages, medical clinics, over 5,000 churches Mozambique and surrounding countries. It all began with going to the city dump to help orphans scrounging there for anything to keep them alive.
Martin Luther King – love can prevail over hatred and injustice, peace is greater than violence. His life still testifies long after his death.
A friend's mother – the overcoming power of God’s joy - handicapped, abused, abandoned by husband - prayed my parents into Kingdom of God
Mabel - love overcomes fear - imprisoned for decades, coordinating Bible smuggling network. Fearless. What can they do to me?
Each of us has a life message.
Activation
At the end of your life, your family and friends will gather around and talk about you and what your life meant to them. What do you want them to say? What do you want your life message to be.
What changes would you have to make to become that life message?
Pray and ask God to help you live your life message. Don’t be surprised if His life message for you is greater than what you are thinking now. As you pursue living your life with purpose, God will show you His plans and purposes for you.
You want to serve Jesus. But your job is hectic, your family demanding, and there are too many distractions. You don’t have time or energy to do much. What can you do?
*The Bible shows us the power of making a firm decision and living by it.
*You will save a lot of time, energy, and pain by making a firm commitment to make Christ your first priority.
* When you have the desire, God will make a way.
God will free you from your limitations, your distractions, and the time/energy stealers in your life. You will grow closer to Jesus and do great things for God.
Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve
During the exodus from Egypt, Joshua confronted the Israelites who were being affected by the culture (Egypt). He demanded they settle this matter once and for all. He asked them to make a firm decision and live by it.
..choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve ... But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15 NIV
Nothing will change your life more than this one decision.
Psalm 5:3 TPT calls us to turn our problems, our pain, and our lives over to God. To lay it all before Him and let His fire consume all that is not from Him.
At each and every sunrise you will hear my voice
as I prepare my sacrifice of prayer to you.
Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar
and wait for your fire to fall upon my heart.
True Worship is Us Surrendering Our Lives to God
Romans 12:1 NIV
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Our Love Empowers Our Daily Sacrifice – our daily commitment to live first and foremost for God.
John 14:15 TPT
Loving me empowers you to obey my commands.
When our love for Jesus burns in our hearts, we will not be able to deny Him anything. We love Jesus because we know He loves us and has a great life waiting for us on the other side of obedience.
2 Corinthians 5:14
"Christ's love compels us."
Knowing His love compels us – it draws us, urges us forward, His love calls us to Him.
Activation
Take every part of your life. Your relationships, your problems, your health, your work, your finances, everything. Put them on the altar. Wait a minute. Your time and your energy, put them on the altar too.
Now crawl up on the altar yourself. Give yourself - every part of you, to Jesus.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 AMP:
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]? 20 You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own]. So then, honor and glorify God with your body.
Pray This Prayer of Surrender and Commitment Out Loud.
Hear my voice, Jesus.
I surrender my life to You completely.
I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar.
I am a living sacrifice. I will live for You today.
I wait for Your fire (Holy Spirit empowering) to fall on my heart.
Create in me greater desire for You and the things of God.
My time and my energy are my life. I give them to You today.
I will go where you send me and do what you tell me.
Use me, God, for Your glory.
Use me for a purpose greater than myself.
To You be all glory.
In Jesus name, Amen.
As you choose to serve Jesus every morning, you will be transformed – changed into a new person. And God will use you to do great things.
We look for flaws in people. It's how we think. We form first impressions of people in seconds. Our first impressions can be wildly wrong.
Today, we’re going to reveal how to see people the way Jesus sees them.
Then, you will be able to love them the way He does.
We need Christ’s Character to Do God’s Work
Earnest Christians ask God to show them His will and purpose for their lives. While we wait for God to give us assignments, God often waits for us to develop the Christlike character to carry out those assignments.
Everything God Does is In and Through the Supernatural Power of His Love
Until we learn to see others through God’s eyes of love and grace, we won’t be able to love people with God’s love.
The primary purpose of our lives is to become like Jesus, who loved us with the greatest love a man can have – a sacrificial love. He loved us so much that he died so we could live and return to God’s family.
2nd command, Jesus said, is to love our neighbor as ourselves.
But We Have a Problem
We look for flaws in people. It's how we think - fallen man thinking.
We form opinions of people in seconds. We look at their appearance, their facial expression, the way they talk, some little thing they do (that reminds me of cousin Fred who was the worst liar!).
Our opinions are often wrong.
Good people can behave badly. Karen, my wife, often says, "She must be in a lot of pain." when someone does something really outrageous. And she is right. Often, that is what is happening.
Finally, God loves evil people as much as He loves his sons and daughters. God sees the possibilities of redemption in each of our lives.
God looks for potential. He knows the plans He has for us. Good plans. Amazing things we can’t even imagine.
God comes alongside flawed, broken people and calls out their potential.
He calls us up to who we could be.
God may need to call us out - to tell us something we’re doing that isn't right, but He won't leave us there, smarting from a mental spanking.
God isn't the accuser. Satan is.
God convicts our hearts - he shows us what is wrong and calls and encourages us that that isn't who we are. He calls us to our higher identity, in Christ.
Today’s Activation: Consider Others Better Than Yourself
Activation – the process of making active, energizing
Doing this activation activates these scriptures – you live them out and they become a deeper part of you.
Philippians 2:3-4 NLT
Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
Romans 12:16 EXB
Live in ·peace [harmony] with each other. Do not be ·proud [arrogant; haughty], but ·make friends with those who seem unimportant [associate with the humble/those of low social status; or be willing to do lowly tasks]. Do not think how ·smart [wise; superior] you are.
Have you ever practiced considering others better than yourself?
I didn’t think so. If you have, wow! I’m impressed.
Action Steps:
*Reread these scriptures several times today.
**Choose 2-3 people in your life. Choose people you don’t have a high opinion of, or even people you really don’t like.
**Ask Jesus, “Jesus, what do you like about ________”
Listen. Write down what He said.
**Ask, “Jesus, show me who they could be.”
*Pray for each person.
“Jesus, forgive me for thinking so badly about ______________. Continue to show me your heart for him/her. Show me how to pray for them.” Now, pray what Jesus showed you.
And watch your heart change as you consider who those people are and the potential of their li
The Bible says that godliness with contentment has great value.
But how can you be content when bad things happen to you?
Today, we will show you Paul’s secret of contentment.*
*And how you can make His secret yours.
*If you live content with your circumstances, you will stand out from the crowd. People will notice and will want what you have. You will draw people to Christ.
Paul wrote:
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:11-13 NIV
Paul wrote this while in jail in Rome, waiting for trial. The Romans made him pay for his own food, clothing, etc. He refers to a time when no one sent him any money, but assures the Philippians that he was content – even hungry and needing clothes.
What is the secret of Paul’s contentment?
Paul discovered that no matter what his circumstance, Jesus was there with him. Paul wasn’t some superman, able to be content when his whole life fell apart. He was a man who had a close relationship with Jesus. Jesus supernaturally gave Paul the power to endure many things while keeping his heart at peace.
These aren’t Just Words. Paul’s Life confirms Had Learned to Be Content in Every Situation
In Acts 16:16-34 (NLT), Luke told what happened when Paul cast a demon out of a fortune telling girl and her masters got upset because she could no longer make money telling fortunes. A mob formed. Accusations were made. Paul and Silas were arrested:
22 … the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. 23 They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. …
25 Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26 Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off! 27 The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself. 28 But Paul shouted to him, “Stop! Don’t kill yourself! We are all here!”
29 The jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.”
Paul and Silas responded to being put in prison and being savagely beaten by singing and praying!
Paul didn’t hate the jailer. He didn’t walk out of the open jail door while the jailer was getting up. He even told the jailer they were all there so he wouldn’t kill himself.
Being content in disastrous circumstances comes from an inner peace that only God can give.
Jesus gave that peace to Paul. He gave it to you too.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:27 NIV
Paul wants us to know the secret of his contentment wasn’t himself.
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:10 ESV
Paul was okay with his own weakness, because He knew that when he needed Him most, God would be there giving him strength.
God will do the same for you.
Do the Activation to develop a heart of contentment.
Once your joy is lost, how do you recover it?
Today, through scripture we’re going to discover God’s secret to get our joy back. I’ve tried it. It works!
Dave told 2 stories – one about conflict that drained him of joy and sapped his energy, the second about a good time at a home fellowship where there was great joy and everyone was energized.
The Bible tells us in God’s presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). We were created to be creatures of joy. We are wired for joy. Holy Spirit creates joy in us – the God kind of joy. (Galatians 5:22)
Joy is medicine, a tonic for the soul:
Proverbs 17:22 TPT
A joyful, cheerful heart brings healing to both body and soul. But the one whose heart is crushed struggles with sickness and depression.
We live in a world filled with stress, conflict, trials and problems that wear us out and drag us down. It is easy to let our thoughts wander into darkness as we think about the difficult and painful things we are going through.
Supernatural joy is the answer to much of the mental and physical pain we experience from living in a fallen world.
God’s Joy is Not Weak Like the Joy of Man
Human joy is fleeting at best, elusive in the worst times. Human joy comes and goes based on circumstances - what is happening around us and to us and to those we care about.
The fruit the Holy Spirit produces in us isn't fickle, fleeting, even elusive. No human being has this joy - only those who received it from God.
This joy laughs at circumstances. It lifts you above whatever life has thrown at you.
What is God’s Secret to Restoring Your Joy?
Activation. As You Learn God’s process to restore Your joy, do it.
1 THESS 5:16–18 NIV
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
GIVE THANKS
Giving thanks renews our thoughts. Giving thanks takes our minds off of our problems and pain and focuses our thoughts on all the good things in our lives – all the good that God is doing and has done for us because He loves us.
PRAY
Praying. You and I are not wired or equipped to carry heavy problems, fears, stress, anger or any negative emotion. Dark thoughts hurt us. So what can we do?
Pray 1 Peter 5: 7 (NLT):
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
Invite God into your problems and pain. Turn it over to Him. He cares about you. He will help you through whatever you face.
And peace will come.
Philippians 4:6-8 NIV
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
NOW, REJOICE
You have given thanks. You have cast your cares on God and He has replaced worry and pain with peace. Now rejoice. Renew your joy. Tell God specific things that you rejoice for.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:16–18 NIV
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
The simple truth is that joy is a choice.
WE think: “But, I have a right to be upset.” Or “Of course, I’m worried. I should be.” Those thoughts are lies from hell. They will take you to dark places. Get off those trains of thought!!
Renew your mind by giving thanks and praying through problems, and rejoicing.
That is How God restores joy to us no matter what our circumstances.
If this podcast helped you regain your joy, please leave me a text or voicemail on 10minutetransformation.com. I’d love to hear your stories.
Have you been praying and waiting on God to tell you your purpose in life – His plan for you? Yet God is silent. Here are Practical steps you can take today to find out God's plans and purpose for your life.
Many Christians have the same experience.
God doesn’t give us maps of where we are to go and what we are to do. He doesn’t want us to go off on our own. He wants to go with us. Holy Spirit will tell you the next step WHEN YOU START MOVING.
I’ve heard this answer from the great Christians I’ve met in my life. None of them had “Lightning bolt” experiences where God shows them His plan for them. All were given one step – two at most at a time. And all had to be doing something before they got specific instructions. This has also been my experience.
To discover God’s specific purpose for your life, begin with what you already know.
As you begin to walk in what you already know, you’ll find that Holy Spirit will give you specific assignments.
Scripture Reveals That first and Greatest Purpose of Your Life is Love
Mark 12:29-31 NCV
“The most important command is… Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second command is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’”
The 3 buckets
There are 3 simple things you can do today that will start you on God’s path for your life. As you walk this path, Holy Spirit will reveal specific works God planned for you to do long before you were born. And you will discover the purpose of your life.
God is Love. 1 John 4:8
The 3 Buckets to be filled every day are Know – Grow – Show.
Bucket 1 Know Love – we must “be loved” before we can love.
Ephesians 3:19 (NLT)
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Our ability to love depends upon having been loved. We can’t give God’s supernatural love (agape) unless we have first received it.
This bucket MUST be filled every morning. This is the bucket you drink from all day, every day, for the rest of your life. Without this bucket, nothing else matters.
To know love is to let God love you and to grow your relationship with Him by loving Him in return.
Knowing God as Love comes from meeting with Him every morning. Praise and Worship, Thanksgiving, reading the Bible and Prayer.
Bucket 2. Grow Love - We need God’s character to complete God’s plans for our lives.
Growing love is developing the character of Christ. This is the work of the Holy Spirit as we renew our minds with God’s Word (See Romans 12:2). Both the Spirit and the Word make us holy and set us apart for God’s purposes. (See Romans 15:16 and John 17:17)
Holy Spirit produces Christ’s character in us because we can’t produce it in ourselves. We don’t have godliness to give to ourselves. We must receive it.
God gives us specific assignments only when we are mature enough to handle them. Maturity is measured by our ability to love.
Bucket 3. Show Love -
Love others as God has loved us.
We love people by giving to them, expressing our love in a million ways. Every day, receive from God and give Time. Attention. Compassion. Understanding. Listening. Hugs. Touches. Gifts.
The 3 Buckets will help you focus Your Christian life on what really matters. Fill the Know Love-Grow Love-Show Love buckets every day. And at the end of your life:
You will have become the person God created you to be.
You will have discovered the meaning and purpose of your life.
And You will have done what God planned and prepared for you to do.
Do the Activation!
Who or what determines your worth, your significance, your value?
· Your value is not determined by the approval, belonging, or recognition of others.
· Your value is not determined by your thoughts about yourself.
· Your value is determined by God’s thoughts about you!
Identity – You are precious because God treasures you! Your identity, your worth, your significance is from God. Who you are in God’s eyes is your true identity.
Luke 12:6-7 TPT
“What is the value of your soul to God? Could your worth be defined by any amount of money? God doesn’t abandon or forget even the small sparrow he has made. How then could he forget or abandon you? What about the seemingly minor issues of your life? Do they matter to God? Of course they do! So you never need to worry, for you are more valuable to God than anything else in this world."
FN 12:6–7 This translation has chosen to make explicit the figures of speech and metaphors of these verses. The literal Greek text reads “Do not five sparrows sell for two copper coins? Not one is overlooked before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are numbered. Stop fearing—you are more valuable than many sparrows.”
God places great value on each of us. He cares about even the little things in our lives.
This truth changed the world.
John Locke, a political philosopher and a Christian, rejected the “divine right of rule” which nations in Europe (assisted by the Catholic Church) used to justify dictatorship as a form of government.
Locke rejected the Catholic Church’s argument that kings were chosen by God to rule over the common people and the right passed down to the king’s son or daughter.
Locke argued that the worth of each individual was established by God. God set us free. And God made us equal. The life of each person is valuable in God’s eyes. Each person has a right to live free and pursue who God created them to be. Locke’s powerful ideas were released in these famous lines of the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Our constitution establishes the rights of every person in America. The least and the greatest have the same rights. Our government is limited by our rights and freedoms given through the constitution.
America’s God-given government soon spread to much of the world. Dictatorships toppled and people were set free in nation and after nation.
For if you embrace the truth, it will release true freedom into your lives.”
John 8:32 TPT
Your God-given identity will set you free:
· from your past, your sins, man's traditions, and the opinions of others, even yourself.
But truth must be embraced and worked out for it to have full effect in our lives.
Today’s Activation.
Declare this out loud with me.
Luke 12:6-7
“What is the value of my soul to God? Could my worth be defined by any amount of money? God doesn’t abandon or forget even the small sparrow he has made. How then could he forget or abandon me? What about the seemingly minor issues of my life? Do they matter to God? Of course they do! So I never need to worry, for I am more valuable to God than anything else in this world.
Declare it when you are feeling down or feeling bad about yourself. And here is what will happen:
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31-32 NIV
What is the most practical way to get rid of false or negative thoughts?
Science now confirms what the Bible has said for thousands of years. Reroute your thoughts and be transformed.
You look down as the your car dives over the lip of the gorge. The road is steep as you plunge toward the New River Gorge in West Virginia. You are 1600 feet from the bottom where the New River churns and foams over piles of rocks. You are over 100 stories from the bottom – taller than any building in the U.S.
Hairpin turns and switchbacks force you one way then another as you creep down into the Gorge. 7.5 miles later you emerge on the other side of the gorge. It is a beautiful, but dangerous drive. Impossible when the road is covered with ice and snow.
That used to be the only way to cross the New River for miles. But today, you can bypass this dangerous, curvy road by driving over a 3,000 foot (a little over ½ mile) suspension bridge while zooming down I-77 at 70 miles an hour. What used to take 20-25 minutes now takes 29 seconds.
What happened? The road was rerouted. A safer, bigger, faster highway was made and few travelers take the old dangerous road today.
This is what happens in our brains as we renew our minds. Old, twisted, harmful thoughts which used to be the dangerous road we followed are replaced with straight highways which will keep us safe and get us where we need to go faster and with much less effort.
We know from advances in neuroscience that our brains physically change as we change our thoughts and actions. It’s call plasticity.
Studies have revealed that the shape of the brain actually changes as we change our thoughts and actions. So we are literally rerouting the pathways of our thoughts as we renew our minds with God’s Word.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12:2 NIV
Every action begins with a thought. So changing the way we think changes who we are and what we do.
“For as he thinks within himself, so he is.” Proverbs 23:7 NASB.
Our brains aren’t capable of doing many things at the same time. Remember, your brain is keeping every part of your body working while sensing and responding to everything that is happening around you and dealing with your active mind at the same time. That requires a lot of “processing power.” So our brains create habits – default reactions to similar situations. When faced with a situation, our brains look for the established neural pathway that we have used in the past and plugs in that automatic response.
For example, when faced with stress or anxiety our brain would look for our most frequently used path when we are stressed out or anxious. If that pathway is grumbling or complaining to release our feelings of stress and frustration, then that is the path we will follow.
We don’t consciously make a decision. We think we do. But often, our brains follow the established pathway and give our default response.
In this podcast, we are rewiring our brains. For example, choosing to “give thanks” day after day. Each time we do, we add another layer to the neural pathway of that choice. Our goal is that the pathway of “thanksgiving” will become greater than our pathway of “grumbling, accusing and gossip.”
The problem is that neural pathways in our brain never go away. Grumbling will always be an option. But if you choose thanksgiving again and again, it will become the default pathway. It will become the highway which replaces the old, twisted path you used to follow.
In other words, your default response to stress, frustration, even anger, will become THANKSGIVING.
Do the Activation. It's the best part of the podcast!!
“Take the Manna Test.”
Today’s podcast is adapted from my book, Jesus Calls, Walk With Me.
My Journa,l August 12, 2017:
I needed to be reassured of Jesus’ love for me. I was in physical pain and it was blinding me – all I could see was the pain. So I asked, “Jesus, how are you loving me right now in ways I can't see?”
He said, "You've been drinking from the wrong pool. You've been drinking from the pool of dark thoughts, the pools of discouragement and despair. You think you are in a desert. You think there is a dark cloud over you. Look up. It is a rain cloud!!"
Jesus laughed. "Drink only the water I give. Sweet water of life. Not the bitter waters of human life, but the water from the heavens. Open your mouth and I will fill it. As the ravens fed Elijah, I will feed you. Spiritual drink, spiritual food. I will sustain you. "
"Now get up, dust yourself off and get going. You're walking with me."
“Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.”
Psalm 81:10 (NIV)
Since then, Jesus has reminded me of this wonderful promise again and again. Every morning I come to Him, open to be filled with what He has for me that day. He always comes. He gives me things I don’t know I need until much later.
Manna from Heaven
The Israelites were finally freed from slavery in Egypt. God had done amazing miracles to get them this far. But now they were in a desert. There was no food, no water. The people complained.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions."
...and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.
Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”
…
Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.”
However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.
Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away.
The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey.
Exodus 16:4, 13-21, 31 (NIV)
Manna had to be painstakingly picked off the desert floor – little flakes lying in the sand. If you were late, it was gone, melted by the sun. You couldn’t hoard it. Overnight, it rotted and became full of maggots. Either you developed a daily routine of gathering your manna or you starved.
God wasn’t’ just testing their obedience; He was testing their hearts. The manna test is a heart test. And it was to make the people rely on Him every day.
It is the same with us today. God has bread from heaven for us. We need to gather it first thing every morning. Yesterday’s bread won’t be good today. We need fresh bread.
If I don’t meet with Jesus first thing in the morning, the day has a way of taking over. Appointments, work, phone calls, and distractions fill my heart and my mind. I am no longer available mentally or emotionally even if I can grab a few minutes to “be with Jesus.”
“I will be Your Daily Bread.”
Paul sinned after he became a Christian. You do too? But why?
In fact, I don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't do what I know is right. I do the things I hate.
Romans 7:15 CEV
God’s Plan – God could have made us perfect so we wouldn’t ever sin. Why didn’t he?
God's Plan for you:
I. Rescue & Restore you – Rescue = salvation
Many Christians don’t understand God’s process of restoring us. As a result, they are confused, sometimes angry or frustrated with God.
*THE 3 SANCTIFICATIONS– God’s process for restoring you to be sons and daughters of God requires us “to be made holy and set apart for God’s purpose” Sanctification.
**3 Parts of us are sanctified in different ways at different times
(1) Our spirits – immediate and complete when we are born again, our spirits are made holy, made perfect. Regenerated.
Born again – spirits regenerated, New nature. Our sin is removed.
(2) Our souls (minds, wills, and emotions) – Our souls are sanctified over time. This is the battle we fight daily. It is our souls that fight against our spirits .
Daily you must choose: who will you love – self, Satan, or Jesus?
(3) Our bodies- God sanctifies our bodies when we get to heaven by giving us new bodies.
II. The battle to make our souls (minds, wills, and emotions) fully God’s is how we learn to love and overcome self, satan, and sin.
oThrough desire for God – love is a choice (e.g. chose my wife, choose her again and again) Choose to love God more than myself, evil, and things of the word
oObedience to God – learning to trust God with everything – even things I don’t understand.
oFaith battles. Fight for people we love – addictions, poverty, sin, sickness and death, injustice, etc. Fight to do right in our own lives too.
oIn this process, Holy Spirit replaces your character with Christs (Holy Spirit & the Word of God sanctify you – make you holy and set you apart for God’s service
III. Complete God’s Plan for Your Life – to join the family business of destroying the works of the devil, setting people free, and establishing the kingdom of God – His love and righteousness on the earth.
Satan’s Strategy
•Separate you from God. Tempt you to sin. Sin separates you from God. Spiritually and emotionally (guilt, shame) (Isaiah 59:2)
•Separate you from others. [offense, disagreement, strife, envy, etc.] (Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8. Lions isolate their prey. They don’t attack entire herds; they attack those who get separated from the herd.
•Don’t allow yourself to be separated from God’s family.
o God said of Adam in the garden, “It is not good for man to be alone” Then God created Eve.
o We need others. To encourage, support and help us love well.
Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
Hebrews 10:24-25
•Satan wants to Take you out of the battle – the war rages all around us, good and evil. God has specific works planned for you and He needs you in the battle for the lives of men.
ACTIVATION
Now you know what God is trying to do and Satan’s strategy too.
Defeat Satan’s strategy by forgiving yourself – do NOT let yourself be separated from God.
And forgive others too. Do not let Satan separate you from God’s people.
Love is God’s greatest weapon. Learn to love through the tests and trials of life.
Stay “in Christ” – keep loving Jesus and keep obeying Him to the best of your ability– He is both your Savior and Lord.
Pray the Prayer that is today's activation.
Jesus is the rare older brother who also wants to be your best friend. What is that like, to be Jesus’ friend? Let’s explore.
Jesus initiated our relationship. He is our loving big brother who intervened when we were sentenced to die.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
One of the greatest revelations in life is that God and Jesus are chasing us!! Loving us. Wanting closer relationship with us.
1 John 4:19 NKJV
“We love Him because He first loved us.”
God intitiates. We respond. We wouldn’t even know God existed if He didn’t touch us with His love.
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalms 37:4 NASB
I've had wild experiences with my brother Jesus.. I heard him calling me out of my alcoholic darkness. He rescued me, then invited me to hang out with Him.
When I struggled to know Him, I prayed a radical prayer and He invited me to go with Him to Beijing, China.
We spent many wonderful evenings together there - just the two of us. I made a fool out of myself asking every Missionary I knew, "Do you hear God? How do you hear God?" They even warned Karen, now my wife, about me: "He's strange, he wants to hear God." But I began to hear God.
I was baptized in the Holy Spirit in Beijing, alone in my small apartment. I read the scripture. Then I asked and Holy Spirit came on me in such power that it is hard to describe. I was there for a long time, unable to speak or do anything. I felt God's presence and I felt loved as never before. Jesus had sent me Holy Spirit, just like he promised he would. (John 14:16-17)
I don't have time to tell of the many experiences I've had with Jesus and Father God.
I've prayed and felt God's power touch the lives of people hundreds of times. I've seen people supernaturally healed. I've been there, colaboring with Jesus, as He chased demons from homes in China; from people too!
When we accept Jesus' invitation to be His friend, four big things happen. (The insights below are from Bill Johnson’s book "Dreaming With God" which I highly recommend. Find the book at https://amzn.to/3FtX2xV . (#affiliateLink - You pay the same amount, but I get paid a small amount. It helps pay for the podcast.))
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What we know changes as we gain access to the heart of the father.
Servants don't know what their master is doing. They know their assigned tasks. But Jesus tells His friends his secrets. (Good friends do that.) He tells us what Father tells Him. We get to know Father's heart. -
Our experience changes.
Encounters with God as an intimate are quite different from those of a servant. These supernatural experiences transform us. -
Our function in life radically changes.
Instead of working for God we work with him. We work not for God’s favor but from his favor. In this position he entrusts us with more of his power, and we are changed naturally into his likeness more and more. -
Our identity is radically transformed.
Our identity is the filter through which we see and live life. Christians who live as friends and sons/daughters have clarity and focus.
Activation:
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalms 37:4 NASB
God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit are chasing you. They want more of your heart, more of your attention, and time. Why? They love you. They want you to experience their love. It is through being loved by God that we are made whole – complete, lacking nothing.
Ephesians 3:19 NLT promises:
“May you experience the love of Christ… Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Check Out Today’s Activation in the video!
Are You Hard Hearted, Hollow Hearted, Half Hearted, or Whole Hearted for Jesus? On Today’s podcast: How to Test the Attitude of Your Heart in a Minute or Less.
Psalm 139:23-24 NLT
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
The greatest factor in your Christian growth and life is the condition of your heart.
Your heart is the soil in which God’s Word is planted. God’s Word never fails; it always produces what God desires. But the attitude of your heart will determine what God’s Word will produce in your life.
We need to become aware of what’s going on in our hearts.
Mark 4:3-9 is a very familiar parable - the sower and the seed. But I believe the application will be new to you. And powerful for you.
The 4 Attitudes of Your Heart
Brian Simmons, former New Tribes missionary, and Bible Translator, deftly creates a picture we can remember. He says,
“The four kinds of soils speak of four kinds of hearts: hard hearts, hollow hearts, half hearts, and whole hearts. With the first soil we see the activity of Satan, the second, that of the flesh, and the third, that of the world. Bearing fruit is never a problem with what is sown but with the soil it falls upon.”
The condition of our hearts indicates what is influencing us:
1.Hard heart – influence of activity of Satan; thinking, doing or being subject to evil hardens us, makes us less responsive to God and love
2.Hollow hearts – influence desires of the flesh, hollow, empty things., self indulgence.)
3.half hearts - influence of the world. Distractions – (e.g. sports, or hobbies that take all our time and energy)
4.whole hearts - influence of God – 30, 60, 100 fold
Proverbs 4:23 NIV
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
I explain how to do that in my recent podcast: “Are Toxic Thoughts Killing you? Set a Guard Over Your Heart.” https://youtu.be/gogt4wREIVI?si=iRkDb_2YYLMNDl8G
ACTIVATION
1. Let’s Declare it as a promise and commitment to God and ourselves:
Today, I choose to live wholeheartedly for You.
I will not let my heart be hard (offended, angry, cold or indifferent)
I will not pursue empty, hollow things my flesh desires - the lusts of my flesh.
Today, I won’t be distracted by the shiny things of the world or allow concern and worry to pull me away from You. I will not be double minded.
Fill me with your presence and Your love. My heart is wholly yours.
- Now. Decide how you will do that. What specific small things will you do to keep yourself wholeheartedly focused on and enjoying God today?
John C. Maxwell
“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
I suggest you Do a 60 second heart attitude check several times each day. Mornings, evenings, and before/after meal times or whenever you decide. But set a time. Then do it.
Ask yourself:
**Am I feeling or acting: hard hearted, hollow hearted, half hearted, or whole hearted toward Jesus right now?
**Why? What is influencing me. (THIS IS THE KEY. BECOME AWARE OF WHAT IS INFLUENCING YOU!!)
Hard hearted – Satan
Hollow Hearted – self-ish desires
Half Hearted – worldly distractions
Whole Hearted – Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit
Then pray David’s prayer – asking God to show you the condition of your heart and what to do about it. Psalm 139:23-24 NLT
He will answer that prayer.
Correct what you need to and stay on course to live an amazing life walking side by side with Jesus.
Don't get frustrated when you don't understand something in the Bible. You were never meant to - not by yourself. Today, we're talking about how God's Word is revealed to us as we seek to understand.
In a homegroup, a dear friend was deeply troubled after the Bible teaching that day. She said it was exactly what she needed. But, in tears, she said she so wanted to do what scripture said she could, but she didn’t know how. She had tried and failed again and again. She asked, “Practically, how can I do that?”
Several well-meaning friends gave advice or shared wisdom. Most of it was good general advice. Some was, well, contradictory. My friend continued to cry.
And then I heard Holy Spirit tell me that none of that was what she needed. Holy Spirit encouraged her and told her to rest in Him. He was telling her that He would help her do it. I told her what God had said. You could feel the shift in the atmosphere in the room. Others confirmed what God was saying to her.
God’s Word told her what to do. Holy Spirit showed her how to do it. We need Holy Spirit to help us do what God desires.
British Bible Teacher Derek Prince Explains: The Word must work with the Spirit.
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Psalm 33:6 kjv
The Hebrew word for “breath” is ruach, which is also the word for “spirit.” Thus, all of creation came about through two agents: the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Everything that exists, has existed, or will exist owes its origin to these two forces working together. The Word must work with the Spirit.
You cannot speak without breathing.
This is a picture of how God speaks, too. Every time He speaks a word, it is carried by His breath—His Spirit. The Word and the Spirit of God always go together. The Word and the Spirit of God brought the universe into being, and they continue working together to sustain it.
Derek Prince, Prayers & Proclamations . loc 133-174
You can find this book at: https://amzn.to/3rZsJMs
The Spirit and the Word
It is the Spirit and the Word working together. The Bible contains the great truths of God; the Holy Spirit works in us the ability to understand it and to live it.
God never intended for us to go out on our own and try to live as the Bible reveals we should.
Jesus warned us: “without Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
We need to accept the absolute truth of this statement. By ourselves, you and I can do nothing in the spiritual realm.
It wasn’t enough for Jesus to take away our sin and restore us to our position as sons and daughters of God. We can’t see or understand the spiritual realm.
1 Corinthians 2:14 NASB
But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
We couldn’t be left alone spiritually. We would be blind, deaf, and helpless against Satan.
Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever.” John 14:16 ESV
God gave us the Holy Spirit, to lead us into all truth. To reveal the spiritual realm to us and tell us what is going to happen in the future. See John 16:13.
Activation: Approach the Bible as a living Book. Just as the crowds often did not understand Jesus’ parables, so we often don’t fully grasp the meaning of scripture. The activation is 2 powerful questions to ask when you don't understand scripture. Check it out!
**Some links are affiliate links. I am compensated if you purchase from that link. It does not affect the price you pay.
Today we explore simple steps you can take to serve Jesus today and to develop a servant heart.
The early church fathers, those directly discipled by the Apostles, measured the growth of believers by the level of relationship they had with God. The five levels of maturity, from lowest to highest, are, 1. Believer, 2. Disciple, 3. Servant, 4. Friend, and 5. Son or Daughter of God.
I explained these five levels in: “Finally, a Way to Measure Your Relationship With Jesus” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okqJb3qPuCo&t=1s
Key Scripture: Luke 22:24-27 TPT
The disciples bickered over which one of them would be considered the greatest in the kingdom. Jesus interrupted their argument, saying, “The kings and men of authority in this world rule oppressively over their subjects, claiming that they do it for the good of the people. They are obsessed with how others see them.
But this is not your calling. You will lead by a different model. The greatest one among you will live as one called to serve others without honor. The greatest honor and authority is reserved for the one who has a servant heart.
JESUS WAS INTERRUPTIBLE.
This is the true test of a “servant heart.” Jesus had places he wanted to go and things he wanted to do, but he dropped everything when Holy Spirit interrupted Him with an opportunity to love someone. There are 2 examples in the podcast.
As Our Love for God Grows so Will our Love for People
1 John 4:7-8 NLT
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Matthew 25:40 EXB
‘I tell you the truth, anything you did for even the least of my ·people here [L brothers (and sisters)], you also did for me.’
A servant will be so full of God’s love that He will see the needs of others as more important than his own agenda or needs.
Philippians 2:3 NLV
Nothing should be done because of pride or thinking about yourself. Think of other people as more important than yourself.
This is where self dies. Serving others. Putting them first. Thinking of their needs and desires as more important than yourself.
Character flaws are revealed here.
*Soul Wounds that keep us from trusting and truly loving others come to light.
Yet, through it all, Holy Spirit works in us the desire to serve, then He empowers our service.
Philippians 2:13 NLT
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
ACTIVATION
1. Ask God to give you a servant heart, a heart to serve people as Jesus did.
2. Practical Steps:
Daily Pray “Father, make me a blessing to someone today.”
As you go about your day, look for people who need help. Stop and help them.
WAYS TO SERVE
meet a need – open a door, carry something for someone,
give love – notice people – waiter, homeless, store clerk,
old man in the park, your neighbor
acknowledge them
show interest – greet them,
ask a question and mean it – wait for the answer
Listen – really listen to them
Begin with simple acts of lovingkindness
Thank people
*Smile at them
Pray – intercede for someone who is in trouble, needs help
Give: time, understanding, forgiveness, money, effort
As you begin to pay attention to people, looking for ways to serve them, Holy Spirit will give you specific things to do – just as He did Jesus.
PRACTICE BEING INTERRUPTIBLE
Make it a lifestyle. As you faithfully do small assignments, Holy Spirit will give you greater things to do. Your “servant heart” adventure has begun. The world will be a better place tomorrow because you are in it.
Some Scars Don’t Heal. Rejection is one of those. You think it is healed. But when you are touched in the same place, the wound opens up again.
You need God to heal your wounds from being rejected.
*You were born to belong. Belonging is one of the deep desires of our hearts. Because we live in a fallen world, all of us have been rejected, left out, chosen last, or laughed at. Think school. And many of us have scars, deep scars of rejection.
*The deep desires of our hearts were placed there by God. They are not to be disciplined, denied or ignored. Heart desires cannot be filled by people or things. They are God-sized holes in our hearts that only He can fill.
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
Philippians 2:13 (NLT)
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12 (NASB)
**Rejection Comes When We Try to Get People to Fill Our Need to Belong.
We offered ourselves to be a friend, to be loved by someone, or just to be part of a team or some group. They said, “No!” I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t love you. You aren’t good enough to be on the team. Etc.
Through experiences like these our minds form beliefs, scripts that run around in our minds warning us not to offer friendship, love or to try be part of a group or team. These beliefs bring with them strong memories of the pain of failed friendships, broken hearts and not making the cut for the team. These emotional memories drive our beliefs and create fear of rejection. They rob us of rich, full lives in relationship with others.
Activation – Look for the Lie. Replace it with Truth!
1. Think of a time you were rejected. Most of us have plenty of these. Go to the one that hurt the most. It still hurts, doesn’t it?
Be clear. Why did that “rejection” hurt so much?
What would that possibility of acceptance have given to you?
And why did you need that (at that time in your life).
Got it? Good.
2. Look for the lie.
In most cases, the lie was your belief that you needed to get that benefit from that person or group. The lie is that God wouldn’t give it to you or that you didn’t already have it!
If you can’t readily identify the lie, ask Jesus, “What was the lie I believed here?”
Got it. I knew you would.
3. God wants to replace your experiences of rejection with the ultimate acceptance and belonging – HIS!!
Renew Your Mind according to Romans 12:2
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.
Romans 12:2 NLT
Read these words aloud. Then Read them again, slowly. Let them sink into your heart.
Take them as you would medicine for pain. When you are hurting, take some more. There are no side effects. Life and healing are in God’s words.
**You Belong to God.
But you belong to God
1 John 4:4
I have called you by name; you are mine.
Isaiah 43:1 (NLT)
4 But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. 5 Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them.
1 Corinthians 7:23 (NLT) [The context is over people claiming to be prophets, but are not.]
You will always have a place with Jesus!
There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. John 14:2-3 (NLT)
And all of this is a gif
Would you let some obnoxious stranger push his way into your home, sit in your favorite chair, change your TV channel, and raid the fridge? Then why let toxic, harmful thoughts remain in your heart? Kick them out!!! God has given you that power!
*My Head is Killing Me
“My head is killing me.” People say that when they have a headache. But it is true if you let just any little thought that pops into your mind move into your heart, push you out of your favorite chair, prop up its feet, eat your snacks, change the channel of your thought TV, and totally make itself at home.
“You’re a loser.” The thought just popped into your mind.
“Huh?” Where did that come from, you wonder.
“Oh. Uh, I don’t have time to deal with you right now,” you think. You just let him in.
Mr. Toxic Thought invades. No, not just him. When you open the door, he brings his relatives and his equally toxic friends – fear, anger, hurt, rejection, confusion, and insecurity.
*Set a guard Over Your Heart.
Be careful what you think [L Above all that you guard, protect your heart], because ·your thoughts run your life [L life flows from it].
Proverbs 4:23 EXB
Thoughts come into our minds. They may be our thoughts or the toxic words of others. But we don’t have to let them stay!
*Your heart is the living room of your spirit. Your life is in your heart. You can’t just let anything into your heart.
*God has given you the power to tear down every every lie and thought that opposes God and His truth!
In 2 Corinthians 10:5, TPT, Paul writes:
We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.
We replace deceptive, ungodly thoughts and ideas with goodness and truth:
Philippians 4:8 (NLT)
**Activation - Let righteousness, peace and joy be the guardians of your heart.
God has given us 3 guardians to keep our hearts healthy and pure.
For the kingdom of God is … righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Romans 4:17 (NIV)
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 (NIV)
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In all of your thoughts, your words and in everything you do ask:
“Is this right? Does it feel right?”
“Do I have peace in this?”
“Is there joy in this?”
Romans 4:7 is a powerful tool to find the toxic thoughts that creep into our minds and try to move into our hearts. -
With our hearts connected to Jesus, we have righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who leads us into all truth (John 16:3 (NIV)) He reveals to us the things of God. Listen. You will hear Him. ( “Holy Spirit Helps You See Lies and Replace Them With Truth.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YeCobuiB3U )
-
If something is not right we have a “check” in our spirit. It doesn’t feel right. We lose our joy. And we have no peace about it. That is Holy Spirit leading you to reject that thought.
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Look for the Lie. When you sense something isn’t right, go back and look for the lie. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you. “What did I believe that led me to think, say or do something that resulted in losing the inner knowing of being right, having joy or losing my peace?”
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Reject the Lie. Embrace the Truth.
When you have found the lie, look for the truth. Then realign your thoughts, your words, and your actions to the truth.
Action Step. Listen to your “self-talk” this week: the stream of thoughts inside you. Look for the toxic thoughts and replace them with the truth.
You are going to have a great week. That’s the truth.
Believers become disciples when they love Jesus enough to lay down their own plans and pursuits. He gives them much more than what they gave up!
Jesus chose you:
You did not choose me. I chose you. And I gave you this work: to go and produce fruit—fruit that will last.
John 15:16 ERV
Jesus chose the disciples to learn from Him. He chose you too.
He chose you to become like Him and to establish the kingdom of God (God’s righteousness and love) on the earth.
Being a disciple begins as a wonderful time of discovery and exploration. As we read and study the Bible, we begin to hear God. He speaks most often from His Word. Disciples are focused on Jesus and are learning to be like Him.
There's so much to learn that we can be overwhelmed.
What should I do first?
Jesus told us our #1 priority as disciples :
Mark 12:29-31 NCV
“The most important command is… Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second command is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’”
As we understand Jesus’ call to live a life of love, we will take the next step and become servants. Love requires that we become “doers”, not just “hearers” of God’s Word. (James 1:22).
But if we stay at this discipleship level we risk becoming a Pharisee. Pharisees in Jesus' time were so busy studying and following the rules, arguing about the meaning of scripture, and pointing fingers at others who didn’t agree with them, that they didn't recognize Jesus as the Son of God when he walked into the room.
Modern day Pharisees are much the same. Religion can replace relationship in your life if you aren’t focused on relationship.
Disciples love Jesus enough to lay down their own plans and pursuits.
Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. Our cross is our own plans and pursuits.
Discipleship requires discipline, but “self-discipline” won’t sustain you.
When I was young I obeyed my mother because she was bigger and more powerful than me. I learned obedience through Her disciple. At times she cried, as she explained why she was disciplining me.
Later, when I was bigger and stronger, I obeyed her because I loved her and I knew she loved me.
This must be our progression with Father God.
We begin to obey out of discipline. Quickly, we realize God is wise and He loves us. What He requires is in our best interest. Then, eventually, we love Him and that is what motivates us to listen for His every whisper and immediately obey.
Dave shared how he reached a point where he didn't want to let go of something. God wouldn't let him move on until he did. When he did let go, God gave him the thing he wanted and more!! Much more!!
Activation:
Is there anything holding you back from complete surrender to Jesus? I am asking you to surrender everything to Jesus. Let God’s plan come alive in your life. It will be a wild and wonderful adventure! Beyond your imagination.
Surrender. Now. And let God’s love be the prize you pursue. Be His disciple.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please like, comment, and subscribe.
Thank you for listening.
And thank you for doing the activation to “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” Romans 12:2 NLT.
See you tomorrow.
Today’s podcast begins with the amazing story of God asking Corrie ten Boom to forgive the man who betrayed her turned her in to the Nazi’s for rescuing Jews during World War 2.
God’s grace is both undeserved favor and the empowerment to do what scripture tells us to.
*God hates evil with a vehemence we can’t imagine. We see flashes of God’s anger toward evil in the Old Testament. At the same time, God’s nature is love. In love, God destroys evil to protect His children. God’s desire is for not one of His human children to be lost. His goal is always to separate you from evil, then to destroy that evil.
Romans 11:22 TPT
So fix your gaze on the simultaneous kindness and strict justice of God. How severely he treated those who fell into unbelief! Yet how tender and kind is his relationship with you. …
God is both holy (completely righteous with no compromise) and God is love.
Like God, we must learn to love people, while hating and fighting against the evil that is in their lives.
Ephesians 6:12 NLT makes this clear:
For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12 NLT
The podcast ends with an example in Dave’s life of God giving grace to someone in a church in China while disciplining her.
Activation
- Most of us have someone in our lives who did wrong to us. Who is that for you? I’m asking you to go to God to receive His love for that person so you can forgive them.
Struggling to forgive? Take Romans 5:5. Read it. Pray it. Declare it over your heart until you have forgiveness and love in your heart.
Romans 5:5
“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
This may take a few days, but keep renewing your mind with Romans 5:5 until God heals your heart and replaces your pain of what that person did with His love.
- Then, as Holy Spirit leads, send them a letter, text or email telling them you forgive them.
That note can’t have a whiff of criticism, condemnation, or anger in it. It must be God’s love flowing in and through you.
You have set yourself free from this offense. And now, you set them free.
- Use wisdom about what you do next. If this person is untrustworthy, protect yourself. But give them grace, just as Jesus gave you grace.
Be blessed, my friend.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please like, comment and subscribe.
Thank you for listening.
And thank you for doing the activation to “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” Romans 12:2 NLT.
See you tomorrow.
WAIT! This isn't about trying harder, working longer, or striving to please God.
Just the opposite! Being the Best Believer in Jesus Christ You Can Be is resting in the life-changing knowledge and experience of being loved by God.
We Believe by experiencing God’s Love in 2 ways:
1. Experiences with God and
2 Hearing God.
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Romans 10:17 NKJV
"Word", in Greek, the original language it was written in, is “rhema.” This is not “graphe” which is the word typically used to mean “scripture” or “logos” (which our Bibles also translate as “word.”)
Rhema means the “spoken word.”
Faith comes from what God speaks to us. It really is true that “one word from God changes everything.”
Have you ever had a problem, opened your Bible and there’s a verse that has God’s answer to your problem. Most believers have. That’s a “rhema.” God frequently speaks to us through the Bible.
Sometimes, I’m reading my Bible and it’s like a verse “jumps” out at me. It gets my attention.
Other times, I read the Bible and just know a verse/passage is from God. God speaks to us in an inner knowing, a still small voice. That’s a “rhema.”
Faith comes from being loved.
God, in His love gives us answers to our questions and problems – rhema words.
Other times, God gives us experiences with Him. I have been supernaturally healed by God’s love. He has rescued me from danger by His love. He has provided for me in amazing ways. He has comforted me at times of loss and celebrated with me in times of joy. Each time I feel loved, and my faith and confidence in Him continues to grow.
Believers believe because we experience God’s love.
ACTIVATION
To be the best believer in Jesus Christ you can be today, let God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit love you!!
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Renew Your Mind to God’s love for you.
Google: “What does the Bible say about God’s love for us?”
OpenBible.info will appear. There are 100 scriptures on this page.
I will put the link in the podcast notes: https://www.openbible.info/topics/gods_love_for_us
Read through the scriptures until one or two resonate in your heart. Write those scriptures down. Take them with you today. Say them aloud throughout the day. You are renewing your mind to the faith-building truth that you are dearly loved by God.
Experience God’s love through those scriptures. -
Ask Jesus, “What do you love about me today?”
Wait. He will answer. Write down His answer. Enjoy being loved by Jesus today.
I’d love to hear what Jesus said to you. Leave me a voicemail. Go to 10MinuteTransformation.com and click on the speaker. It will record a voicemail for me.
Thank you. And thank you for listening.
The early church fathers measured the maturity of believers by the relationship they had with God: 1 believer, 2 disciple, 3 servant, 4 friend, and 5 son or daughter.
“This progression to maturity in Christ was taught in the first century and by “The Early Church Fathers,” who were the direct disciples of the first apostles. It is taught throughout the New Testament…” Rick Joyner, The Greatest Christian Life, https://publications.morningstarministries.org/word-for-the-week/overview-greatest-christian-life-part-6
The Bible says we have all of these when we are born again, but the question is: "What levels are you living at?"
Each of the levels is briefly explained with scripture. Then the problem of staying at the lower levels is revealed.
This is a new paradigm. It's not just based on what we believe or our behavior (e.g. spiritual disciplines). It's based on our actual love relationship with Jesus and the Father.
Activation
“Which of these words best describes your current relationship with God? 1. Believer, 2. Disciple, 3. Servant, 4. Friend, 5. Son or Daughter?
What relationship do you want to have with God? With Jesus?
Tell them. What do you want to be able to do in that relationship? Ask them to help you get there.
The 5 levels of relationship can reframe your thinking about your life as a Christian. If relationship is God’s priority, then how can you make relationship with Him your priority?
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
Proverbs 23:7 NKJV
Thoughts about our who we are determine the direction of our lives.
At a difficult time in my life, I had an opportunity to apply for a position as an assistant professor teaching law to undergraduates at a university.
It was my dream job. But I was stuggling with health issues and a business that had just failed.
I remember looking at the ad in the newspaper and shaking my head. “I wasn’t qualified. They wouldn’t want me” my inner voice said.
If my future wife, Karen, hadn’t called from Hong Kong and encouraged me when I shared about the job, I never would have applied.
That is a perfect example of a Christian, losing sight of his true identity. My failures and limitations had become my identity in my own mind.
I was going to disqualified myself.
The crazy part was, I had already taught law and business courses at 4 colleges and universities in China for over 2 ½ years.
Our Thoughts can steal our future.
Almost everything we say and do begins with a thought.
Just one thought. As we rehearse a thought and have some experiences, we form beliefs.
Those beliefs can keep us from seeing who we really are and God’s plans and purposes for our lives.
Beliefs are powerful forces in our lives.
If we are going to change what we believe, we need to understand how beliefs are formed.
How Beliefs form:
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We have Experiences
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That we give meaning to.
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Then we live from that meaning.
Strong beliefs are formed by strong emotions.
E.g At a party a guy is telling a really funny joke about a mysterious person wearing red pants. Just as he gets to the punch line, you walk in the door wearing red pants. He gives the punch line and everyone doubles over in laughter. It’s so funny that all night people take one look at you and laugh.
How would you feel?
How long would you stay at that party?
Most of us would leave feeling, ”There is something wrong with me. Or "those people just don’t like me.” We would be hurt and confused.
What happened?
*You had a very strongly emotional experience.
*To which you gave meaning. (The meaning we give to events or our understanding of events can be wildly wrong.)
*Then, you formed a belief about that experience and the meaning you gave to it.
We often form beliefs to protect ourselves. From that experience, you might create beliefs that would keep you from getting close to people. “If I don’t get close, I won’t be hurt.”
Much of the pain we experience in our lives comes from our beliefs. Our beliefs can be wrong. But we are reluctant to change them.
We Must Find Our Identity in Christ, Not in Our Own Thoughts or Beliefs
It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.
Ephesians 1:11 MSG
For you died [to this world], and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3 EXB
Activation –
Renew Your Mind with Ephesians 1:11 MSG and Colossians 3:3 EXB. Read the scripture aloud. Personalize it. Say “I” for “you” or “we” in each verse.
Ask Jesus: “Who do You say I am?” Listen. And write down His answer. Live from that.
Fear.
We constantly face circumstances, forces, events, and people who are stronger than we are. At times, life can hit us hard, tossing us around like a rag doll in a Doberman’s jaws.
In “Everyday Answers”, Joyce Meyer writes:
“Fear is a tool the devil uses against us to make us miserable and destroy our lives. It begins as a thought and then creates emotions that can rule us.”
https://tinyurl.com/y86k6csx
Why do we so easily fall prey to fear?
Fear comes from believing you are powerless. Fear comes from believing you face danger, pain, or loss (real or imagined) alone.
Fear comes from seeing the danger, pain, or loss we face (real or imagined) as greater than God.
If our hearts are connected to Jesus' heart, we live from a different reality.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. … I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
John 15:9, 11 NIV
Jesus reassures us of His love in John 9-11. Why?
So we will be filled with His joy.
You and I are filled with Jesus’ joy when we know we are loved. We know we are not alone.
And we are not powerless. “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10 NIV
We will never be alone. He will always be there, with us and for us.
You and I are anointed to live joyously. Joy does not bow its knee to circumstances, fear, or discouragement. The joy of God is greater than all of these.
Joy is a powerful weapon in our battles against fear.
Activation:
Praise and worship bring God's presence and His joy. Then fear flees.
It’s Not Easy Some Days (written November 11, 2015)
As I was writing this, I got the news that someone very dear to me has cancer. It was like someone hit me in the stomach – hard! Fear and anxiety smothered me. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was sing.
But I’ve been here before. I already had playlists of anointed praise and worship songs on Youtube. I chose an anointed playlist.
At first, I couldn’t sing along. I was too numb. I was hurting and I was crying.
A few minutes later, the words of hope and faith in a song ripped open the pain that enveloped me. I was riding the anointing of the worship leader and that anointing began to break the yokes of fear and hopelessness off me.
I mumbled a few words of a song. Then I began to worship God with all my heart. My study filled with God’s presence and fear and hopeless were gone. The King was here.”
As we begin to sing and praise, we refocus our minds on the greatness and the goodness of God. We release our pain and our fear and declare His truths. He replaces what we were thinking and feeling with gratitude, praise, and worship.
Psalm 28:7, NIV The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.
Burdens, stress, and fear cannot enter into the presence of God. We enter the gates of the kingdom of God with thanksgiving. We boldly approach His courts, the very throne room of God, with praise. (Psalm 100:4)
And there we are, with God. In the fullness of joy.
Stress, worry and fear are repelled by God’s joy! They can’t live in the presence of joy.
True praise and worship changes us.
We are never the same after we’ve experienced the presence of God and have tasted his goodness. God’s invitation is to taste and see that the Lord is good. He knows once we taste we will keep coming back for more.
Follow the simple steps in the activation to praise God now!
And watch fear run away as Joy laughs. He who is in you is greater than fear.
Holy Spirit Helps You See Lies You Believe and Replace Them With Truth
Lies can be very persuasive.
Toxic thoughts pop into our heads about ourselves, about God, and about others. If we let them linger in our minds and hearts, we poison our own well of thoughts.
Repeated thoughts become beliefs and then we are truly deceived.
LOOK FOR THE LIE
Satan is a liar. It’s his best weapon. And people are ridiculously gullible – yeah, me too.
God knew that. That’s why not only did God send His Son to pay for human sin and folly, but He sent Holy Spirit to move into us Christians, to “guide us into all truth.” (John 16:13)
We have a built-in lie detector. Holy Spirit. He reveals lies to us.
But lies don’t self-destruct once revealed. They cling to us, like the smell of smoke when we’ve been through a fire.
REPLACE lies WITH TRUTH
The first line of defense against lies in our thoughts is God’s Word. (the Bible). In Matthew 4. Satan came into the desert to tempt Jesus who was weak from 40 days of fasting. In answer to every temptation (Satan twisted scripture into lies), Jesus had the same answer. “It is written” and a Bible truth. The truth defeated Satan every time.
“It is written” and a scripture, needs to be our answer to every lie that opens the door of our minds and hearts and tries to move in.
Activation: RENEW YOUR MINDS BY DECLARING BIBLE TRUTH
Lies are like snake bites. It’s not enough to chase away the snake. The poison is in us. We need an antidote. God’s Word is the antidote. We take it by putting God’s Word in our mouth.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9
Declaring God’s Word builds our faith. Faith in God destroys the faith we had in the lies.
Jesus showed us how to answer Satan’s lies in Matthew 4:3-4:
“Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ But He answered and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”’
We live by God’s words. That is our daily bread. Our spiritual food.
Jesus Spoke to Problems; You Should Too
Jesus frequently spoke to problems, commanding them to submit to God’s will. He cast out demons with words. He commanded sickness to leave.
He spoke “Peace, be still.” to the wind and waves during a terrifying storm while on a small boat in the Sea of Galilee. (Mark 4:39)
Jesus told us if we speak to the mountain (whatever it is in our lives that we want removed) and believed, God would remove it for us. Mark 11:23.
When we declare scripture we are speaking to the mountain (the lie) that needs to be removed from our lives. As we declare God’s Word, He does it! He establishes the truth and replaces the lie.
3 Simple Steps to Create Your Own Powerful Declarations
1. Look for the lie.
You may immediately think of something. Good. Use that.
If not, Quietly pray. Father, what lie am I believing that you want to set me free from? And listen.
Once you have a specific thought/belief firmly in mind, take step 2.
2. Replace the Lie with God’s Bible Truth
Look up scripture that tells the truth. You can do this quickly by searching for “What does the Bible say about XXX (your topic)” OpenBible.info has hundreds of topics.
Find a scripture resonates in your heart. This is God’s answer – his truth that will replace the lie.
Write the scripture somewhere you can take with you throughout the day.
- Now personalize the scripture, but “I” or “Your Name” as the person that verse applies to. Declare it dail
What could possibly cause a beautiful, godly young woman, to see herself as "ugly" both physically and spiritually?
Toxic thinking is rampant in the world today. If we are going to help people break from these destructive thoughts and beliefs, we need to understand what causes us to form beliefs and how we change what we believe.
This is the story of a young woman who literally couldn't see the beautiful person she was - inside and out and how God changed her belief through experiences with Him.
In the same way, God wants to break you free from your toxic thoughts through experiences with Him.
Our identity is made up of our memories, our beliefs, our wounds, our strongholds and our values. Identity is the filter through which we see and understand things.
Much of the pain we experience in life comes from our beliefs. Beliefs are formed when we have strong emotional experiences, give a meaning to those experiences, and live from the belief we just formed.
Our beliefs may be wrong - wildly incorrect. But, we are reluctant to change a belief once it is established. We form beliefs to make meaning of life and to protect ourselves.
New information rarely is enough to change an established belief. Beliefs can be changed by experiences - strong emotional experiences that contradict our previous belief.
Hearing God enables Him to give us experiences that can correct ungodly beliefs.
The activation is to hear and experience God in a specific way.
God has a very specific process for changing us to be like Jesus. And it’s not what most people think.
*Why be transformed?
1st. Transformation is God’s process to restore to you everything Satan, sin, and self stole from you.
2nd. God has amazing plans for your life! You don’t want to miss the adventures He planned for you.
Finally, be transformed because transformed people transform cities.
**How?
In our culture we try to change who we are by changing what we do.
Change your habits, change your life. Change your diet, lose weight. Etc.
But You Can’t Change Yourself Spiritually.
You don't have godliness to give to yourself.
The character of Jesus is developed in us by the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 2:22) as we renew our minds with God’s Word (Romans 12:1-2)
God changes us by changing our hearts.
As we renew our minds with God's Word, Holy Spirit changes who we are. Then, from our new character, we think, speak, and act differently
Romans 12 Has a Blueprint for Us
It is a process where you get help from the Holy Spirit to change ungodly things in your life that you can’t change no matter how hard you try.
*The 4 Steps of Christian Transformation
1 Surrender Completely to Jesus
2. Don’t Conform to the Thinking and Pressures to Conform of this World
3. Renew Your Mind with God’s Word instead
4. Holy Spirit will Reveal God’s Plans for You
**Activation – a self assessment of where you are in this process.
We live in a world filled with transactional love: Love me and I’ll love you back. But if you stop loving me, I stop loving you.
To freely give love first, especially to someone who doesn't "deserve" it, is a rare thing. To love someone who hurt you is even more rare.
The "God kind of love" is without hooks or strings. Today and tomorrow, we're going to practice giving love to someone who we really don't like. Yes, you read that right.
John 6:38 in the AMP translation says, "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over [with no space left for more]. For with the standard of measurement you use [when you do good to others], it will be measured to you in return.”
Many people think that verse is about money. It isn't. It is about giving love and doing good to those who don't deserve it.
The activation in this podcast could be life-changing. Well worth a few minutes of your time.
How can I love someone with the Love of God, when I really don't like that person?
Yesterday and today we answered this question.
John 6:38 in the AMP translation says, "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over [with no space left for more]. For with the standard of measurement you use [when you do good to others], it will be measured to you in return.”
Many people think that verse is about money. It isn't. It is about giving love and doing good to those who don't deserve it.
Is there someone in your life who is really hard to love? In fact, if you're honest you'd have to admit that you really don't have any love for that person.
Perfect!!
Today's "activation" to actually do what God tells us to in scripture, is to do an act of love toward that person. Something small. We give you suggestions and real life examples.
The activation in this podcast could be life-changing. You'll find that as you approach someone you have no love to give to, if you'll ask God, He'll meet you as you act, and God will give you His love to give to that person.
Love is a choice that results in action. Act first. The emotion will follow. More important, God will meet you with His power and compassion as you take a step toward love.
Remember, the whole nation of Israel crossed the raging, flood-level Jordan river to get to the land God promised them. God dried up the river, but only after the priests carrying Israel's greatest treasure (the ark of the covenant where the presence of God was) stepped into the raging river.
Tomorrow, we will show you why human change rarely lasts and the 4 steps of Romans 12:1-2, in our podcast entitled "How to Let God Transform You Into A New Person." Get the free minibook which reveals this in greater depth at 10MinuteTransformation.com.
Why are so many Christians Born Again, but Not "Transformed" (deeply changed in character and personality)?
Many people question this. Some believers and unbelievers walk away from God because of it. Paul even shared his frustration. In Romans 7:15, he said:
"I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate."
Today, we'll answer that question and share God's process for changing us that really works.
As a long-time alcoholic, when I became a Christian I was a mess. Today, I share my struggle and the process I learned from others, over a long time, and through much pain.
God can transform your heart in a fraction of the time and without all the pain that I experienced. And that's why we're here.
•God wants to heal the soul wounds that so many of us still have in our lives. We have Pain because of what others did to us that still has power over our lives. We limp through life because of that pain.
•God wants to replace our twisted, ungodly beliefs and thinking with His peace, joy, love and truth.
•He wants to restore to you everything Satan, sin and self, have stolen from you.
•And He wants you, the person He dreamed you could be – the transformed you, to walk into your family, your workplace, your grocery store, your city, your nation and transform your world.
•God made you to be a person of significance and influence.
I promised you a link to Bob Yandian's excellent book "Theology Simplified." It's short, and written in language anyone can understand. I highly recommend it.
https://amzn.to/3LEGUNK
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This video reveals how metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly is a model of Christian transformation.
The Greek word we translate "transformation" in Romans 12:2, is metamorphoo - from which we get the English word "metamorphosis."
From Stage 1 self-centered, desire driven, and destructive, to Stage 2 Surrender, to Stage 3 the subject of metamorphosis can do nothing to transform himself, Stage 4 the breakdown (the hidden mess is revealed), then Stage 5 something beautiful, beyond imagination emerges from the process.
The key to the whole process (which neither man nor caterpillar can do himself) is SURRENDER.
Holy Spirit takes what we surrender and transforms it - creating the character of Jesus in us.
The process is important. We need to know our role and Holy Spirit's role.
A caterpillar only goes through this process once. People go through it many, many times - it is, for us, a lifelong process.
Welcome to the 10 Minute Transformation, a daily podcast, (Monday-Friday). I’m Dave Milford and I’m glad you’re here. I invite you to:
“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” Romans 12:2 New Living Translation
Why a daily podcast about transformation?
1st. Transformation is God’s process to restore to you everything Satan, sin, and self stole from you. Interested yet?
2nd. God has amazing plans for your life! You don’t want to miss the adventures He planned for you.
HOW
For over 30 years I’ve served as a home group leader, Heart Transformation Coach, teacher, intercessor, and author in Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and in the US. I met a lot of Christians from all over the world.
Many believers are born again, but not transformed.
I know that pain.
With help of others, I found God’s path of heart transformation. It took me many years. You can do it in fraction of that time and with much less pain.
A Framework for Your Transformation
I Perspective - Vision = Identity & Purpose
II Process - Practically How Can I do That? (Holy Spirit makes us like Christ, not by changing our behavior, but by creating the character of Christ in us. Gal 5:22 - the fruit Holy Spirit creates in us as we renew our minds with God's Word. It's the Holy Spirit and the Word.)
III Pain Points - What is holding you back - tripping you up? Pain caused by Wounds from the Past.
IV A Plan - Transformation is a lifelong process. We need a plan to keep us moving and going the right direction.
What
Daily 5 MinutePodcast (audio & Youtube video)
Daily 5 Minute Activations
Each podcast has an "activation" step which should take 5 minutes. Truth acted upon becomes a part of your life. Truth neglected is forgotten.
Call to Action
1. Subscribe now! 10minutetransformation.com
And Get free copy of the mini-book: "How to Let God Transform You into a new Person” and in depth information every week.
2. Choose how you want to receive the podcast: Youtube (video), Podcast or both.
3. Listen daily, do the activations, and let God's love heal and restore EVERYTHING Satan, sin, and self have stolen from you.
See you Monday, October 2nd, 2023, when we launch!
Nothing I have ever done has impacted my life more than taking delight in scripture and acting on it. Delight becomes desire and desire becomes pursuit. Pursuing Jesus is fun because He wants to be found. It’s like when I played hide and seek with my nieces and nephews when they were small. I hid, but in obvious places. I wanted them to find me. Jesus wants us to pursue Him and find Him.
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.Psalm 37:4
Come, experience how "delight" in God's Word will create "desires" within you that God wants to fulfill. Do the activation and see for yourself!