Living As a New Creation - Who do You say that I am (Wk. 2) (3)
February 17, 2015 · Living as a New Creation
Scripture referenced 8 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Ephesians 3:20 God can do more than you could think or ask or imagine by his power at work within us
20 Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
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Keep this verse
James 1:23-25
hearer of the word versus effectual doer, looking at natural face in mirror
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror;
24 for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
25 But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.
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Acts 3:19
repent and turn to God so sins may be wiped out and times of refreshing may come from the Lord
19 “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,
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Romans 8:5
those who live according to the flesh have minds set on flesh, those in the spirit on what the spirit desires
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
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1 Corinthians 2:14
people who aren't spiritual can't receive truths from God's Spirit, only those who are spiritual can understand
14 Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
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Proverbs 20:12
ears to hear and eyes to see are both gifts from the Lord
12 The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, Yahweh has made even both of them.
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1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
prayer that whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless, God who calls you is faithful to make it happen
23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 He who calls you is faithful, who will also do it.
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Isaiah 60:1
spoken as a blessing over the women: arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you
1 “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and Yahweh’s glory has risen on you.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This was the second week of a series called "Living as a New Creation," taught at First Baptist Jackson. The session picked up from the previous week's foundation on who God says we are in Christ, and turned toward the practical question of how we actually walk that out. The heart of it was the relationship between our body, soul, and spirit, and what it looks like to let the spirit lead.
What was said
The recap from week one set the ground. What we believe about ourselves will determine how we behave. We are not born again to become a better version of our old selves, because that old nature has been spiritually circumcised off. God does not define us by what we are struggling with. He speaks our destiny over us before there is any sign of it, and He is not intimidated by failure in the process, because He believes in the power of His Spirit at work within us.
From that foundation, the message moved into the "how." The first how is reading, studying, and meditating on the Word, not as a duty but as an enjoyable journey. There is a difference between hearing about a scripture and meeting it yourself, the same way there is a difference between hearing about someone and actually sitting across from them.
The second how is taking what you are learning and actually owning it, stepping into it, becoming one with it rather than just nodding at it. James 1:23-25 was brought in here: the person who hears the word and walks away unchanged is like someone who glances in a mirror and immediately forgets what they look like. John the Baptist was the example of the other path, someone who went through years of preparation and came out saying, "I am a voice crying in the wilderness," fully owning the identity God had spoken over him.
Owning that identity also means stopping the excuses. Saying "that's just my personality" or "that's just how I was raised" can be true as a description but still function as a way of staying put. Our personality has positive and negative attributes. The negative ones need to be renewed by the Holy Spirit into Godly ones. The example given was that what looks like stubbornness can become steadfastness, shyness can become gentleness with courage, and impatience can be a sign that someone is actually a forerunner who hasn't yet stepped into the front. The positive attributes are not off the hook either. They still need to come under the Holy Spirit's refinement, because even good traits can be turned up too loud.
The body, soul, and spirit section was the theological core of the session. The body is our exterior shell, the tent Paul describes. The soul is the breath of life that animates it, the seat of our emotions, desires, affections, and will. The soul is also eternal, which came as a surprise. The spirit is the part of us that is receptive to the Spirit of God, the part that was made new at the new birth, the part that can actually understand what God's Spirit is saying. The problem comes when decisions, reactions, and choices are driven by body and soul instead of spirit. The image offered was that the body is a toddler, the soul is a teenager, and the spirit is the adult. The question is who is driving the car.
Walking by the spirit is not a compartmentalized practice for mornings or Sundays. It is an all-encompassing lifestyle, and the session was honest that it starts as a gradual process before it becomes a constant communion. Practical anchors were named: daily time with the Lord, daily time in the Word, and regular honest time with the body of Christ. Isolation was named plainly as one of the enemy's most effective tools, a point made more personal when someone in the room shared that six days alone at home without speaking to another person showed her how quickly that becomes dangerous.
The session closed with 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, a prayer that our whole spirit, soul, and body would be kept blameless until the Lord comes, followed immediately by the reminder that this is possible because God who calls us is faithful to make it happen. He is, as the message put it, singing over us until we believe.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- The sermon opened with the idea that what you believe you have within you will determine what you reproduce around you. Where have you seen that play out in your own life, for better or worse?
- Christine talked about the difference between condemnation and conviction, saying condemnation ties your identity to your behavior while conviction calls you back to who God says you really are. Can you think of a time when you felt the difference between those two things?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 12,807 words
0:00
Okay. Here we go. Okay. So this is week two. Living as a new creation.
0:08
Who do you say that I am? I wanna recap a little bit from last week's. Last week, we were laying foundation, really, and just really just putting up I mean, a foundation is what you build on. So you want it to be firm. You want it to be deep enough.
0:24
You want it to be strong enough. And so I just really felt like it was really important that we get a firm foundation underneath this last week. Just some some a very short list, really, in comparison to what I gave you today, but a list of scripture of who we are, who God says we are in Christ. And that's the that's the amazing thing is that we have received this identity and this inheritance because we are in Christ. And so a few things from last week.
0:58
The first thing I mentioned was that the kingdom you believe you have within you will be the kingdom you reproduced around you. Therefore what you believe about yourself will determine how you behave. So what you believe you have in you will affect what you do and what you will reproduce around you. If you see yourself still as a sinful person that's very much gonna affect the way you think, the way you talk, the way you act, the way other people perceive you even though you may not even realize it. You're gonna be putting off a certain atmosphere, certain attitude and it will affect what you reproduce around you.
1:46
What you believe about yourself determines how you behave. So it's really important to know what we believe and what we're standing on, what our foundation is. Another thing that I said last week is we are not born again to become a better version of our old selves. Everything is new. When we are born again, we are our old sinful nature is circumcised off.
2:15
It's a spiritual circumcision, and we are a new creation. So we're not trying to dress up or fix even our old nature. It has been circumcised off. What we're doing now, which we'll talk about today, is renewing our soul to line up with our spirit. Okay.
2:36
Because it's it's a new creation. Another thing is God does not define you
2:44
It's hard to put my neck. I'm gonna have this
2:46
Christmas. Okay. God does not define you by what you're struggling with. He defines you by the greatness He already sees in you. We talked about that last week.
3:02
God is present future tense, not present past. He's not looking at our past. We're not supposed to be looking over our shoulder, always thinking about what we messed up and what we were and what we did before. We God is always out here speaking truth and life over us, pulling us to who he says we already are, whether it's in our character or whether it's in our calling. It might be something that he's calling us to do.
3:30
Last week, somebody told me about how a while about a year ago or something, she had gotten somebody spoke over her prophetically that she had a teaching, thought she had a teaching anointing. Yeah. And she was like, and then but recently, the Holy Spirit has been confirming that in her, and and she feels like she's starting to get things to teach, and she can see where maybe some of the things in her life have been preparing her for that. So God is out there saying, okay, I'm not here. Come, let me show you who you are.
4:06
Let me show you all the exciting things that I want you to walk out and the character that I have that I want to bring out in you because I'm in you and I wanna bring the son's life out of you and demonstrate Christ through you. So that was the next thing I wrote is God speaks your destiny over you even before there is any sign of it. We talked about Moses last week, but there are some other examples that we didn't get to. Abraham and Peter and David and Matthew, there's so many examples. God speaking destiny over you before there's any sign of it, even before you believe it, even when He knows you will fail many times before it becomes a reality.
4:56
He sees the failure in the process. He's not intimidated by our failures at all. He knows that's part of the process. But he believes in the power of His Spirit at work within you. I love Ephesians three twenty.
5:12
It's like branded on my on my heart. It's that he can do he will do more than you could think or ask or imagine or dream possible by his power at work within us. And so God knows, he believes in the power of his spirit that's working in us and working out Christ's life in us. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention from last week was the the number that I got, 757. And Elizabeth, since you weren't here, sometimes the Lord a lot of times, the Lord speaks to me in numbers.
5:58
And then it's kind of like a little journey, a little riddle to find out, okay, Lord, what does this number mean? And a couple years ago, I was just getting seven fifty seven multiple times a day after day after day. And so, finally one morning, I'm like, what does it mean? And he said, you're standing in grace, which is five. So seven fifty seven.
6:20
You're standing in grace between two finished events. Sevens are fit means completion, a finished event. He said, you're standing between the finished event of Christ's death and resurrection and the finished event of the Holy Spirit's work in your life and rechanging you and renewing you and bringing you into the image of Christ. And so you're standing between these two things. We couldn't ever get to this place of our finished work, the Holy Spirit's finished work in us, if it wasn't for Christ's finished work on the cross.
6:54
That's what makes it all possible. But if we stay in that grace, in that empowerment, in that fullness of who God is in us, if we just rest in him and trust what he's saying and just walk it one step at a time, then he will walk us to our future. So so that those are some of the the foundational things from last week and and then just the scriptures on the real foundational scriptures of who he says, you know, that we are a new creation and that we have a new nature and our sin nature has been cut off. Have any of you guys heard of Nikki Gumball? Mhmm.
7:41
Yeah? Some of you? He's a vicar from London. Mhmm. And he has a course that's really famous called the Alpha Course.
7:47
And we taught it years ago. And I used to teach the Alpha Course. And it still comes up even though it was like fifteen years ago because one of his lines, he has an accent, you know. And and he says, you know, this is what, you know, God wants us how God wants us to live. And then he goes, but how?
8:10
He just has this now. And so my voice doesn't do very good justice to it today. But but so every once in a while, Matt and I will be talking about something that we should accomplish in our lives and then we look at each other and go, but how? And so after last week's foundation of of just knowing that God does speak amazing things over us. Mhmm.
8:36
That he has positioned us in Christ in this amazing place. And we one of the last things I shared with you last week is it's not easy to walk out. You know, I mean, we have all of these truths in front of us, but it's still very much a process of him a lot of times choosing one and just taking it deeper and working it into our lives. And sometimes for months, sometimes for years, you know, taking us deeper and deeper into his grace or taking us deeper and deeper into certain attributes or setting us free of certain mindsets, you know, like I mentioned last week about fear. He's been working on that steadily for years and years with me, just different taking it deeper with me.
9:24
But but today, I wanna give you some of the how to walk it out. Last week was one of them. The first how is reading and studying and meditating on the word. I mean, it is so key. These verses that I gave you today are really just kind of a tip of the iceberg.
9:49
I mean, you it's to me, it's still so exciting to find the scriptures that I hear other people talking about or are teaching about to go and find them myself and read them for myself and know this is really what it says. Mhmm. There's just something totally different. It's kind of like when you've heard about somebody, you know, your your son's friends, how great they are. But when you get to meet them yourself, you're like, oh, it's a totally different experience.
10:21
And when you read the word yourself and you connect the word in the spirit yourself, it's a totally different depth to it than when you hear somebody speak about it. So and it's something that is enjoyable. Was one thing I just really want to emphasize about it. It should be enjoyable. I mean, this is really it is a it's an amazing journey.
10:48
I think sometimes we forget. We're children of God, the creator of the universe. I mean, the one who spoke in these mountains came up. You know? I mean, he calls forth the children from our wombs, you know, that were born to us.
11:09
He is I mean, he he is not intimidated at all by what's going on around the world right now, but he has lots of wisdom that he'd love to share with us of what to do and how to walk it out and Lots of love that He would like to first love us with so that we're full of it and so that we can love each other and love the world around us and walk it out. Know? So to me, it is still just one of those amazing things that is so good to every once in a while. Just ask the Lord just to, Lord, just blow me away again by who you are today. Mhmm.
11:55
You know? I mean, I am very much a huge you know, I love It's no. Oh, no. I I
12:06
thought it's I guess, I'm gonna shut this off.
12:08
Okay. I know. I I am very much one who is constantly talking about the intimacy and the friendship with God. I love the daily walk. I love the daily communion where there's no there's no absence from him.
12:26
It's just a daily whatever, wherever we are. It's a daily communion. But I also love it when he just blows me over in the fear of the Lord and just takes my breath away and reminds me, I am the all powerful one. I am the almighty one. And I could in a moment, what I breathe into existence could be gone just as fast.
12:51
But I won't because I love it. You know, I love he loves, you know, the people that are here and he's but it's to me, there's just those both those intense attributes of God, those intense realities of who is it who he is. I think it's good for us to constantly be in that place of enjoying the journey of him revealing himself to us and revealing our relationship to him, who we are to
13:23
him. Mhmm.
13:24
That because we are, he says we're in his inheritance. He is our inheritance but we are also his inheritance. Mhmm. So it's amazing for him to unfold what he sees about us that is so important that he wanted us as his inheritance. Mhmm.
13:44
So so it's a it's it's something that's just a day today, enjoy the journey. It really is. I think it's important to take one or two, maybe three attributes at a time and just sit on them for a while. You know? Sometimes, God will take one thing.
14:07
I think we talked about this just a minute ago, but and he'll just for months and months, he'll just have you just meditate on it and just really and all of a sudden, you'll find a lot of times, every time you turn on the radio, there's a song about it. Or go to church and the preacher's preaching on it. Or you read a book, and there it is again. And God's just piling on. God loves to pile on us.
14:32
He's not in a hurry. He's really not. He really wants us to get it. Mhmm. He's much more about the roots of the matter than he is about, you know, just the show on the outside.
14:45
He really wants the roots to go very deep. So so that's the first one. It's just the reading and and the meditating and being in the word and walking it out with him. The second thing of how is taking taking it it seems like it may seem like this is redundant, but taking what you're reading and what you're learning and what the Lord's teaching you and the spirit's saying to you and you're hearing from different places and actually taking ownership of it and embracing it Uh-huh. And becoming one with it.
15:25
Not just hearing about it. Not just you know, there's the scripture that says I have it here further in my notes, but there, If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. For once, he has looked at himself and gone away and has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. That's James one verses 23 through 25.
16:17
So there is a there is another step to besides reading the word and studying it, there is where you actually embrace it and bring it into your life. And one of the examples that came to mind immediately of this was John the Baptist. You know, I mean, it was prophesied over him before he was born who he was gonna be, that he was gonna be a voice in the wilderness crying out. And then he spent all that time in preparation. He comes out of the wilderness and what does he say?
16:52
I am a voice. I am let me see here where I wrote my note. I am a voice crying in the wilderness. Make way. I mean, he he took ownership of the identity that God gave him.
17:05
He walked it out. There was all of the preparation. We don't know what all those years of preparation look like. It'd be fascinating to know. But there was a lot of refining, a lot of God convincing him, I'm sure, that he was who God says he was because that's usually a lot of it is with me.
17:26
I know the last year and a half where God has really had me on this. A lot of the time God is working on convincing me that I'm really who he says I am. And that's sad to me, but it's part of our shell. It's part of our that he's working through. You know.
17:44
And like I said, he's not in a hurry. He's not intimidated by that. He's very persistent. He's very long suffering impatient. But there is something very powerful when we take ownership and say, I am this person and step into it and believe it.
18:04
Do you ever just ask you a question. Do you ever hear the spirit leading you to do something? Or maybe somebody came up and asked you if you want to do something, and there's a part of you that is your soul that gets scared and overwhelmed and is like, no way. But then there's a part of you which is your spirit that is like, I really wanna do that. I don't know how to do it.
18:29
I've never done that. I really wanna do it. But then your soul is like, are you crazy? You know? So there's that tug war kind of between your soul and your spirit.
18:40
Right. But I think it's it's it's so important to recognize those two entities. And and we're gonna go into the body, soul, and spirit here in just a minute further. But just recognize that when when the spirit speaks our identity over us, Sometimes, you know, sometimes there can be such a shell of hurt or rejection or, you know, just fears or different things that when he speaks it over us, it really, I mean, it really doesn't even penetrate to the excitement part yet. It really is like, there's absolutely no way.
19:26
You know, there's no way I would do that. I could do that or that's not at all who I am. But he's he's very persistent and he keeps coming back around. I love the way he handled Gideon. Because he's like, you hero.
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You know, and Gideon starts up. Oh, no. Oh, no. And he just ignores what Gideon says. No, you're gonna do this.
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And Gideon's like, but no, I'm the least. So what? You're gonna deliver my people, you know. And God just keeps on until he starts to break through that shell. It may not be at the very first moment that there's an excitement for some things, but eventually there will be, and sometimes it is right away where there's just this because God knows who he made us to be.
20:11
He he is not flippant flippant flippant or just what is the other word that's like flippant? He's not casual. He's not it's just he is very purposeful with every single person that has been ever been created, everyone that will come from this point. Every baby that is born today, guard God already has been speaking their destiny over them in the womb. I mean, it's just like there is nobody that isn't very purposefully fit together and knit together with a very specific purpose and destiny and calling and just even the personality.
21:00
We're gonna talk about personalities today, but there are I mean, God just has knit each one of us so perfectly. And so whenever he is begins to speak over us and call us out of our corners and call us out of our opinions of ourselves, out of these things, these lies that we've believed about ourselves, If if you if you start to revert back to your fear or back to your, you know, doubt or whatever, a good foundation to stand on is God is good. That's a foundation I come back to all the time. It's like, Lord, you would not call me to do something that would be harmful to me. Mhmm.
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He would he he might call me to lay my life down and die for him. My physical body may die, but it will not be harmful to me. Amen. It will give me the greatest joy. And he may call me to do things that are dangerous.
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He may call me just to do things that are everyday and mundane and boring. We think. But when he's in the middle of it, it takes all the boring out of it. He totally puts a whole different perspective on it when it's God's calling on your life, and he's he's walking you into that. So found another foundational part of embracing our identity and owning it, and this is kind of a hard word, but as we have to stop making excuses.
22:51
We have to stop making excuses. We have to stop saying, but that's just the way I was grown I had grown up. That's just the way I was raised. That's just my personality. That's just that's just who I am.
23:10
That's all I know. I mean, we just really even our physical disabilities are not an obstacle to do that. And we're so so to are not we are really, it goes back to what we believe about God, not even so much about what we believe about ourselves. We believe that he's not capable of living through us. And I talked about that last week a little bit about how I, you know, God, you can you can do it through everybody else, but I I've got my issues.
24:13
You know? And but God is so I know I keep using this word, but he's so persistent in wanting us to live and who he knows us to be because he knows what joy it will bring us. He also knows that it will fulfill the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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How is his kingdom gonna come to earth? It started and was initiated through Christ. When Christ was raised from the dead, the kingdom began. The king of kings was on his throne. But now we're part of that, and he brings his kingdom to Earth by living through us, by by us obeying him and bringing it to the earth.
25:15
So so anyway, one of the ways that we stop making excuses is we agree with the conviction of the Holy Spirit instead of the condemnation. Remember we talked about that last week? Condemnation says, you lied, therefore you're a liar. You got drunk, so you're an alcoholic. Your identity is all in your behavior.
25:44
That's condemnation. It just keeps you in this cycle of I can't get out of anything. There's no hope. Mhmm. And but conviction is when you mess up and the Holy Spirit says, you are so much better than this.
26:00
You are awesome. Stop doing that over here and get back over here to who you really are. Come back over here to who I created you to be. It doesn't it does not diminish us in any way. It actually lifts us up to who God says we are.
26:19
I used to think repentance was kind of a heavy, not very fun topic until I read the scripture in Romans, I think it is, that says, repent and you shall what is it? You shall be refreshed. What is that verse? Oh, I shouldn't shouldn't say it out until I know what I guess. But it talks about the refreshing that comes when you repent.
26:51
Mhmm. It's absolutely amazing. It is like this doorway. It is such a gift to be able to repent because it just puts us right back in the presence of the Lord, and it he washes over us, washes all that condemnation off, washes the guilt off, washes the heaviness off. So if one of you guys finds it, just holler out.
27:15
I think it's in Romans. So Okay. Another thing that the spirit said to me, a year and a half ago when I started this was that you must reject all mediocrity and all passivity. What is mediocrity? Where mediocrity is kinda like lukewarm water.
27:42
When you're mediocre
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Bare minimum.
27:44
Yeah. You don't care one way or the other, really. You're just kind of mediocre. It's just sort of half done. Do just enough to get by.
27:54
But not the opposite of that is to have passion and excellence and obedience. That's the opposite of being passive and mediocre. If God would have been mediocre about us, you know, he probably would have stopped without him and Ephesians. I mean, seriously. Cause look what came next.
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And then You got Cain and Abel and Yeah. And then everybody with Noah and then every I mean, seriously. If he would've been mediocre, he would've stopped. Mhmm. And said, you know what?
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Good enough.
28:36
Just yeah. Didn't work. Maybe we'll do something else. Mhmm. You know?
28:40
Yeah. Go ahead. Acts three nineteen. Oh, is it Acts? Awesome.
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Acts three nineteen. Do you wanna read it? Sure. Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. That's the NIV.
28:57
Okay. And then the New American Standard also has the word refreshing in the King James. Okay. So it is. It's you you repent, and he washes you, and you're refreshed.
29:09
In the amplified, I didn't bring my amplified together today with this, but, yeah, I do you is anybody have an amplified?
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She's looking at a hot sweat.
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Three minutes?
29:21
Amanda's looking there for you. And they don't have bags and look at that. I think
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it mentions, like, spring rain or something. It's such an amazing picture of just the refreshing that does come.
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So repent. Change your mind and purpose. Turn around and return to God that your sins may be erased, blotted out, wiped clean. That times of refreshing, of recovering from the effects of heat, of reviving with fresh air may come from the presence of the Lord. Yeah.
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And then and I'll piggyback
29:55
that that returning is returning
29:56
to who God said Exactly.
29:59
Through the scripture and and and what he what he says about us is being set apart, is being holy is.
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Mhmm.
30:07
So it's that behavior of not agreeing with the identity that he's spoken as my chosen, my people
30:13
Uh-huh.
30:14
And returning to, turning back to
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who we are. Exactly.
30:18
Mike did a sermon on repent and he explained that repenting is not to you know, you're going in direction. It's not to start slightly turning to the left. He said repenting is make a complete one eighty away from what you're doing and go in the other direction, which of course is God's will. Yeah. And he said, it's not it's not a course correction.
30:39
It's a complete reversal walking away from that entirely. It is. And I thought that was a really good the full I think about the one eighty a lot. Like, Lawrence, don't do a, you know, 10 degree modification.
30:50
Right. Yeah.
30:51
That's that because I tend to do that. You know, you're you're doing something, you realize it's not the best, you're gonna adjust the course. No. It's not like I can, you know, eat chocolate a little bit. If I want to not eat chocolate, it's don't eat
31:04
chocolate. Yeah. And it's a changing of your mind Yeah. Along with your actions.
31:08
Right. And what's awesome is that so that returning to who he has spoken anyway that we are brings the refreshing Mhmm. Brings the reviving, brings the life, brings the joy, brings the strength, brings the brings everything.
31:22
Yeah. It does.
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If we but would actually return to
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Mhmm. What he has spoken. Yeah. Because he is life. Mhmm.
31:30
Amen. And if we're walking away from him, we're walking away from him.
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Think the hurdle is to return to something, you have to have a basic awareness that there is something that was truth before. And think a lot of us gets
31:43
That's good.
31:44
Stuck in not understanding who we are in
31:47
his
31:48
eyes and in his word. Mhmm. And so to return to to return to what? I don't really know who I am. It's easier to say I'm gonna walk away from something bad because that's concrete.
31:58
Right. But we need more Yes. Awareness and and learning and convincing of what it is that we're returning to. Amen? That's
32:07
good. Yes. Very good. If we if you got from a standpoint of fear, then we're gonna return to fear. We need to renew our minds as he says with what he actually says about us.
32:17
Mhmm. Exactly. Which I think of in Egypt, think of
32:21
the Exodus. I think of the slaves Mhmm. This identity being underneath the sparrow, the suppressor. Mhmm. You know?
32:29
And then coming out through the deliverance Mhmm. Faith in the blood of the lamb coming out. And that now the identity is you are my chosen. You're my my treasured ones.
32:39
Mhmm.
32:39
Through you, the light. Through you, revelation. And it's just kind of a that's who we are.
32:47
Mhmm. And when they didn't change Yeah. What they thought, though Right. What did they wanna do? They wanna turn back and go to Egypt?
32:55
Right. Yeah. Right. And and God wouldn't allow that.
32:59
Right.
33:00
So he kept them there, but he knew they aren't gonna change their minds. So he waited till the next generation for those who would have that mindset and know who they were. So it's huge. I wanna talk a minute about personality because that's another thing that is I mean, it really is. I mean, it's just it's a logical argument.
33:26
It really is. It's not it's not some crazy far fetched thing to say, well, this is just who I am, my personality. You know? You made me that. I
33:36
use that all the time.
33:39
But it can be an excuse. And I'm gonna kind of explain how. Our personality, just looking at the definition of what our personality is, is the total of qualities and traits, character and behavior peculiar to a specific person. So it's our qualities, traits, character, and behavior that each one of us has. It's a combination of soul, emotion, and intellect.
34:12
And it's shaped by our upbringing, by our environment, by our training, by modeling. It's kind of what makes each person unique. The thing is, is we have positive aspects to our personality and we have negative aspects. Some examples of positive aspects are we can be honest, we are brave, optimistic, someone who's a risk taker, someone who has values, who's open and trusting, someone that can be challenged and someone that's teachable. Those are all positive aspects of a personality.
34:53
The picture that I got when I was typing this and looking over it last night and just rereading it is all and it struck me when I got to the word open and trusting, is I just saw this person that was just like this, with their shoulders back and like their chest open. They were not they were just open to what was in front of them. Okay? They were honest, they were brave, they're optimistic, trusting, teachable. They just are open.
35:19
Some negative attributes on the other hand are fear and insecurity, negativity, anger, jealousy, suspicion, and all of those made me think of somebody that's kind of like this. I've been in those places. I've had those traits and this is how you are. Mhmm. You start to close-up.
35:39
You start to isolate. You start to protect yourself. You know? These negative attributes make us prone to deception. It's really true.
35:53
I've been there. Have been deceived. Why is deception? Where you it's a lie. Mhmm.
36:00
A lie. Whether it's a lie somebody tells you or the enemy, you know, the spirit, you know, demonic spirit puts in your thoughts, but it's a it's a lie. For instance, just one, if you are insecure and have jealousy and suspicion, a really common lie is, you know, that man over there sure looks a lot more interesting than my husband. That one over the that you know, if I if I was married to him, I wouldn't have to deal with all these issues. I could you know, it would be totally different because we laugh and we have fun at home.
36:52
We're so serious all the time. You know? And it's one of those deceptions that the enemy puts in there. It's kind of like I think I shared this picture with you once before. Lou Giglio shared this one time when I heard him speak that when they went on their honeymoon, he was it was a while ago when you still went to travel agents and he goes in there and there's the wall full of all the brochures and he finds one.
37:20
He didn't have much money but his wife to be wanted to go to the beach. So he found a brochure of this beautiful beach with this crescent moon, you know, beautiful scenery and it was in his price range so he booked the flight and the package. So they got married. They get there and they get in the hotel and he first thing she does is go into the bathroom to see if there's two sinks. She's happy.
37:45
First thing he does is go to the window and open the curtains and looks out and there's that beautiful Crescent Moon Beach and he's just like, ah. And then he looks over to the side and there is a boat graveyard literally right there. I mean, just right next, And what he said is that's the though that is the picture that Satan will give us. Is it a focusing on
38:26
a good watch is what you want to see?
38:28
He will he will never give us the full picture. Right.
38:31
You make you believe it's all
38:33
present beach. He'll let you see what, you know, whatever it is that, you know, he'll let you see how it'll satisfy something. It'll be fun. It'll be satisfying for a moment. He doesn't show you all the pain.
38:49
Mhmm. Think Jeff
38:51
a great joke. He used to say, the grass always looks greener in a neighbor's yard until you jump the fence and you find out it's Turf.
39:00
Yeah. Yeah. Or thorns or something. But so if we have these negative parts of our personality, it makes us prone to believing those lies because we there's a part of us that isn't lined up with truth. It's not secure in him.
39:20
Okay? We're not seeing ourselves the way God sees us. So it's like a it's like an open space. Mhmm. You know?
39:27
It's like there's a hole in our armor kind of. And there's an open space where we're liable to get deceived.
39:34
Do you think that's the area where people get caught up in drugs, alcohol, thermography? They get seduced by a lie?
39:43
A lot of times. Mhmm. Absolutely. Mhmm. Absolutely.
39:46
You know? But the lie is about themselves. Sometimes. Sometimes a lie is about the drug itself, what it's gonna do, or the lifestyle that they want to be a part of or yeah. You know, there's I mean, there's there's is there's no you know, everybody's different and unique.
40:09
Absolutely. It's when we have those places in us, those insecure places in us that don't line up with what God says about us, it is a it is a inroad for us to be hurt.
40:20
Just the word that healing comes to mind. Mhmm. It's like, is that not then the healing? Like, that restoration, that healing to return Absolutely. Yeah.
40:30
You know, to that which is true. Mhmm. Because if we're believing those lies in our identity, is there not yet been healing?
40:40
There that's what he wants
40:41
to bring in. Align with what is actually true.
40:45
Absolutely. He does want to bring a wholeness. I love the word wholeness Yeah. Because it covers all the bases. And in my mind You know, Jesus, a lot of times, he said, you wanna be made whole.
40:55
Right. Body, soul, spirit Yeah. The package. You wanna be whole. Right.
41:00
Know? Soul, spirit.
41:01
Yeah. So that not just healing. I know. I'm thinking,
41:04
like, yeah, healing, of course,
41:05
to break away from a bondage of alcohol or whatever
41:08
it could be, but also healing to break away from the bondage that's keeping your mind believing a lie Mhmm. Rather than being set free by the truth Yeah. Of what God speaks. Exactly.
41:20
Healing. I don't know if that's just the word I would I don't know.
41:22
I don't know. Just just No. It's very much a part of what are more shopping. Yeah. This
41:28
is where I get up and burn some energy. Because this is where I really
41:31
kinda start.
41:32
You're you're on a roll, Christine.
41:34
I'm sorry. Sorry.
41:35
I'm I'm sorry. Sorry. Was it was Last week, I shared about my picture that I that the Lord gave me about my fear, the prison of fear. Swimming. It was the story of swimming but my fear was really of the embarrassment and that was the root fear that I had.
41:54
But the the the picture that he gave me was that I was in a prison cell, something like you see in biblical times or like in the midi's today. It was like a cave underground and there was a iron gate, but I was underground. And that was my prison of fear. And when I when I was sitting there, all of sudden, I noticed the gate is wide open. And the Lord says, you know, you've been you've I set you free of that when you came to me and gave your life to me.
42:33
But you've been sitting there. You haven't embraced it. You haven't believed it. You haven't walked it out. You.
42:40
And so, literally, if he was like, get up, walk out, walk Now, I didn't just walk out into the sunlight. I walked I did he goes, walk down the hall, up the stairs, outside into the sunlight. And we were talking some of us were talking about that afterwards last week and it really is a process. You know? I mean, it's he is so patient and kind and he walks us step by step by step out of our prisons that we think we're in, but we're really not.
43:12
The door is open.
43:13
I had a conversation with a friend about that and we made the two analogies. One of them is if you bring a puppy home from an abuse situation or shelter and they're in their crate and you open the door, they won't come out of the crate. They won't know that what's outside the crate is safe because they just don't know. And the other commentary we had, we were talking about oftentimes children in abusive relationships, I mean, families will actually choose to be home with their abusive parents. Mhmm.
43:42
Because that is what they believe is reality. And if if what we know is so is harmful, harmful, but we believe that these people love us and this world loves us, then we disbelieve that what's out there can love us more. It's like, well, you know, if the people I love treat me like this, then the people out there must treat me worse. And so that's one of Satan's lie to teach us that what's out there is actually worse than what's in here. Mhmm.
44:10
You know? And so the door is open. The puppy can get out. The children can make, you know, voice some opinions, but we stay in that security of our fear. Yeah.
44:20
That's a very good picture. It is. All of this getting free, all of this process of agreement, it involves daily three three things that I really that came I mean, I'm sure there's more, but there were three things that really for me involved daily communion with the Lord Mhmm. With Holy Spirit. Daily communion in the Word.
44:49
And really communion daily, maybe maybe not daily, but every other day. I mean, regular communion with body of Christ. We need each other. We really need each other. One of the biggest lies one of the biggest deceptions is I can work this out on my own and get it taken care of, and then I'll get back with everybody.
45:12
I don't wanna bother them. I don't wanna bring everybody into my problems. But I'll tell you, there is God knew what he was doing when he put us together as a body. Mhmm. And I just need each other.
45:24
The devil's pigmented on his isolation.
45:26
It is.
45:26
And and I'll share a little personal note. But before I started coming to this class fairly recently, I had to make a very conscious decision. I went through some difficult times. And my husband was out of town. My mother's out of town.
45:39
My kid was out of college. The other kid was with his dad's. I was by myself. And I literally spent six days in my house without speaking to another human being. Not a phone call, not a visit, and that's when I realized, you know what?
45:52
The devil is having a picnic. And this isolation is going to get me. And I forced myself to call, find out when this was meeting to just go to different things. That's good. Because Because isolation is the devil's playground.
46:04
If he can isolate us, then he can lie to us all the other. About ourselves, about the people, about the open door. Mhmm. And and it's so important to, as you say, to connect with the body of Christ because he wants to disconnect us, and he wants to isolate us because then he can lie to us
46:23
Yeah. Like there's no tomorrow. Mhmm. Yeah. When you're
46:25
not talking to somebody else, your mind
46:27
is all you've got. Yes.
46:28
And and and especially for women, we go to the worst case Absolutely. More so than men do. Yeah.
46:36
We do. I mean, so it really I mean, there's there's things that you can I'm gonna give you some tips later. There's things that you do while you're by on your own, but there are some things that you just cannot do on your own. I mean, there's just some things that we
46:50
need Mhmm.
46:51
We need each other for. Another thing is, we really need and and this comes this next thing comes from being in the word, spending time with the Lord, just communing in the Holy Spirit, just spending time letting him speak to us and teach us, being in the body of Christ and having people that we're being real with and vulnerable with and honest with. This next thing comes. It says, we need to get God's perspective on our personality. We need to ask him to show us.
47:22
Okay? Lord, let's let's just okay. You show me what you see about my personality. Mhmm. The good and the bad.
47:33
I mean, God is gonna show you what just shines and what's great. But then there's also some things he may say, you know what? You think you're shy, but I wanna form you so that you're gentle and gracious but courageous. Mhmm. Okay?
47:50
There's a difference. There's a huge difference. He may you know, we may think we're stubborn, you know, and we may be stubborn. But he says, I wanna I wanna turn that around and I wanna shape it so that you're determined and steadfast. Steadfastness is an amazing trait.
48:08
It's amazing fruit. We may think we're you know, we may be frustrated persons. We just find ourselves frustrated all the time. He's like Patient. Yeah.
48:19
Yeah. Impatient and frustrate. And he says, I want to turn that around and show you that really, you're a forerunner. You're a pioneer. You're supposed to be on the front end of things.
48:31
You're not supposed to be back here following. You're a leader. The reason you're frustrated is because you're hiding behind insecurities or you're you're you're back here thinking, I'm not really able to do that. And so you're frustrated. And he's like, no.
48:45
I want you on the front. I want you on the front. Go look. Tally ho. Can you explain, was that all the revelation that you got for those three personalities, shy, stubborn, and impatient?
49:00
Or was that something in the Bible? Like, how did you, like That just be the positive I don't know. That just came when I was writing them out. Mhmm. I know that those other traits are traits.
49:13
I mean, those are fruits of the spirit. Yeah. Those are traits of who Christ is, you know? And and the other ones are they're just again, they're excuses we make for ourselves. Really, honestly.
49:28
Now, there's some things like fear that God wants to just totally take out and just absolutely turn it around and just make you the courageous person. Know, just show you, I am courage inside of you. Yeah. Let me be courage through you. I mean, all of the things that we say that we're not, we have to remember Christ is them in fullness in us now.
50:03
So all of those things that we're not, they're in there. We just have to let him work them out in us. I think that's key. We have to allow We have to allow it. Through that.
50:17
Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. I think that's actually that's in here somewhere. That word out.
50:25
We do. We have to we have to allow him because he's gonna be I mean, like we talked about last week, his thoughts towards each one of us, it says are greater than the sands on the seashore. He's constantly I mean, if we had a satellite and could really catch it all, I mean, it would take every computer system, every there it'd be like it'd be like what it says that all the books ever written can never hold all the stories of Jesus in it. Mhmm. All of the computers ever built, everything book ever could never record everything that What you said was last
51:03
found for me, it's something I left with that really was impressive is that his thoughts about me Mhmm. Are as numerous as degree in a sense on
51:13
the beach.
51:13
And I'm like, I understand his thoughts are quite busy.
51:16
There's a
51:16
lot of people on earth. But that his thoughts about me Mhmm. He has that many thoughts about me Right. Insignificant, unimportant, confused me.
51:24
Who are you talking about? That's not who you are. That's the part that's gonna change. And
51:33
that's how I feel sometimes. Yeah. Yeah.
51:36
More than you think. Mhmm. Well, that's that those are very common thoughts. Mhmm. Things are common.
51:45
Probably we've all felt them, really, honestly. Some today, you know. I mean, you know, those are common thoughts. But that's why God is so intent and so purposefully trying to get us to know who we truly are and who he is in us, who He sees us to be, who He wants to be through us. Our negative attributes need to be renewed by the Holy Spirit into Godly attributes.
52:12
So we were talking about the there's in our personality, there's positive and negative. The negative just need to be renewed and changed into Godly attributes. And our positive attributes probably still need to be refined and come under obedience to the Holy Spirit. Mhmm. Because we can have some great, great attributes, but sometimes we turn the volume up too loud and drive everybody crazy with our great attitude.
52:44
Seriously? We don't need to have the answer for everything? You know? And you know, I mean, there's just times. There's times to be Mhmm.
52:52
Quiet and there's times to speak. There's there's times you know what mean? There's there's positive attributes that still need to come under his refinement and his obedience is leading. Can we have this class every morning?
53:06
It's gonna get better after I listen to you.
53:09
Well, I wanna get through a little bit more here because I really wanna get this is the next how. We've learned all this now, but how is by walking in the spirit, not the flesh. Romans eight:five says, Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires, But those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mind set on what the spirit desires. So the how of walking this out, and I'm gonna give some, at the end this, I'm gonna give some real practical stuff day to day, but is really we're gonna study the difference between the body, the soul, the spirit And how we can walk by the spirit and bring our soul along and bring our body along, but the spirit is the one that's leading. As I was typing this out, the thought just came, is this an all encompassing lifestyle?
54:28
Absolutely. If you don't go in it with both feet, it will be such a battle and you will get so worn out and so frustrated. I mean, it really the best way to do it is just to say, okay, Lord, I'm in. And it's still gonna be a process, processed, and it's still day by day, step by step. I love this.
54:52
He never asks more of you than the next step. One step. Mhmm. That's it. He does not ask you to somehow get from here to that door.
55:05
Like that. He just says, okay. Stand up and take a step. When you get there, he'll give you the grace to take another step and another one. But it is it is a all encompassing lifestyle.
55:17
It's not something we just do in the mornings. It's not just something we just do on Sunday. It's not just something we do when we get together. It's it may start out that way. It may start out with, okay, today is making me think of this.
55:34
And because I'm thinking about today, I'll think about it some more this afternoon. And tomorrow, I'm gonna get up and go back over my notes and then I forget about it because I'm busy with the day. But then all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, wait a minute. My day didn't go quite as good as I thought it was gonna do and I started falling back into stuff. So let me go back over my notes and some of the things you said about me.
55:55
And so it's kind of a process of getting used to. But before long, I mean, it really becomes where everywhere you look, you're seeing him speaking Mhmm. And moving, drawing you in, and reminding you of his truth, reminding you of his word, connecting you with people that you had no idea you were gonna get connected with either to give or to receive. So it turns into just this all encompassing and and communion with him. It really is an all encompassing lifestyle.
56:28
You know, another good way to kind of get those reminders is if you take his word and, you know, tape it up on little note papers or whatever and just stick them up on mirrors and Mhmm. In your car and Mhmm. On your refrigerator. So that throughout the day, you're just being reminded of what he thinks about you.
56:49
It's very, very good. I've got them everywhere. Yeah. It's so good.
56:53
Especially on the mirrors.
56:57
Yeah. When you're looking at yourself, wait a minute. Who am I gonna choose today? Okay. Our bod body, soul, spirit.
57:07
Our body. I just looked really I just looked in the Strong's Concordance under in the Greek and the Hebrew just to see what the body, soul, spirit meant in the word. The body is a living body or a corpse. It's basically our shell. Mhmm.
57:26
Paul called it a tent. It's the exterior shell. Okay? That's our body. Our body is what moves and gets us places.
57:41
It's very purposeful. It's very useful. Mhmm. It is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I mean, God chose the body to be His temple.
57:52
So it's not a horrible thing at all. It's a beautiful thing. He created us beautifully. But that's it's our exterior. Our soul, there's quite a few things into this and I really enjoyed this.
58:05
The soul from Genesis, when gen when God breathed into Adam, his first breath, he became a living soul. So a soul is that breath of life in us. It is the vital force with which animates the body and shows itself in breathing. Okay? So, if a body is breathing, if a human body is breathing, it has a soul.
58:32
It's so profound.
58:36
It is also your seat of appetites, emotions, passions. It's the seat of feelings, desires, affections, and aversions. So, it's that part of you that has emotion and feeling. Okay? Desires, passions.
59:05
I love this part that they put in there. And it's written like a lawyer would write a sentence. It's written really kind of you have to listen and I'll try to read it slow so it's easy to understand and then I'll just say it in regular English. It says, The human soul, insofar as it is constituted by the right use of the aids offered it by God, it can attain its highest end and secure eternal blessedness. So God made the soul in such a way that if we take the aids that God has given us, His spirit, His word, the body, all these different things, and we make use of what He has given us, our soul can attain let's see.
59:57
Let me see this. To its highest end and secure eternal blessedness. Our soul is eternal. I didn't even know that. I thought our spirit was.
1:00:08
I didn't realize our soul is eternal. What is eternal? Our soul. Our soul. Yeah.
1:00:13
Eternal means Forever.
1:00:16
Forever?
1:00:16
Yeah. Outside of time. Okay. It's like we're on a timeline right now, but Mhmm. When we get to the end of time, it's eternal.
1:00:26
The soul is regarded as the moral being designed for everlasting life. This is and this is what differentiates the soul from the body. Again, it says the soul as an essence differs from the body and is not dissolved by death. The body is dissolved by death. After death, we go back to dust.
1:00:54
But the soul is not. And then the third one, there's the body, the soul, and the spirit. And the spirit was very interesting because if you look in the Strong's Concordance, the same word is used for Spirit, capital s, of God as Spirit, small s, for our spirit. And I was just like, okay. So where's the line?
1:01:28
Where what's the definition? And I found this. It says, the spirit is the higher part of man receptive to the spirit of God. It is the part of us that joins and aligns and links to him as a heavenly being. It's the it's it's that part that, you know, like when we are reborn, we are born into a spiritual rebirth.
1:01:53
So it's that part that aligns and it's just that's the new creation. It's so and it's a different type of communion with our spirit, with the spirit of God. Here's one verse. First Corinthians, first Corinthians two fourteen. Just again to kinda give a distinguishing between the soul and the let's see here.
1:02:38
The soul and the spirit. First Corinthians two fourteen. But people who aren't spiritual can't receive these truths from God's spirit. It all sounds foolish to them, and they can't understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves must be evaluated by others.
1:03:05
But basically, it's the spirit within us that can understand the spirit of God. Okay? God will renew our mind and our soul, but it is initially our spirit that starts to understand and see God for who he truly is.
1:03:24
I've often thought of it as a language. I have several people. I I was raised by atheists, so the other one family. And I often realize that I speak a different language. They they just don't understand.
1:03:37
It's it's foreign to
1:03:38
them. Yeah.
1:03:39
I I can try to speak and the words make no sense Yeah. In
1:03:49
in Proverbs 20 verse 12, I believe it is, it says that God is the one. Ears to hear and eyes to see both are gifts from the Lord. What did it say again? Ears to hear Mhmm. And eyes to see Mhmm.
1:04:07
Are both gifts from the Lord. So I've mentioned that before. That's a huge prayer for me. I mean, you think about when Jesus walked the earth. How many people saw but did not see?
1:04:21
They heard but did not hear. I mean, they saw people raised from the dead. They saw, you know, blind men. They saw all that stuff, but they did not see it for what it was. They saw it with their soul, didn't understand it, walked away.
1:04:36
Mhmm. You have to see it with your spirit. So you have to have an open spirit to be able to see that. And so those, you know, I mean, just pray for the people around you. God, give them eyes to see.
1:04:47
Give them ears to hear. And God knows the perfect timing on that. You know? Sometimes things are hidden for a reason until a certain season, but it's such a good prayer to pray. The problem comes when you live according to your body and soul instead of your spirit.
1:05:09
This means decisions that you make, reactions that you have, responses that you have, choices that you make. When you make those because of your body or your soul instead of your spirit, then suddenly you are realigning yourself again with your sinful nature and with the world.
1:05:35
Where does your mind come in with your spirit?
1:05:38
Your mind is part of your soul. It's your emotions and your and your feelings. It's like the seat of your emotions and your feelings and your See, it's my opinions.
1:05:49
There's a constant battle with with all that. Mhmm.
1:05:53
Absolutely. Do mean into life to buy when it's mine?
1:05:56
Do you
1:05:56
mean into life? Like your thoughts. Your your thought process. Process.
1:05:59
Mhmm. Of
1:06:00
letting thoughts come in when you know they shouldn't be there. You know? Whether it's being negative or fear, whatever. You know? Sometimes you've got the knowledge, but exercising that knowledge becomes a battle.
1:06:14
Does
1:06:15
That that makes make sense? Sense? Mhmm. Mhmm. Oh, absolutely.
1:06:17
It is a battle. There is a huge battle, and a lot of it is right here. Right. Right. It starts right there.
1:06:23
Mhmm. You know? I mean, really does.
1:06:26
What I I visualize putting on, you know, when it describes Ephesians putting on the whole armor of God. Mhmm. And I visualize myself walking around with this huge helmet on Mhmm. To to guard my thoughts and to, you know, not let me be fearful of something or to to stay positive, but the mind mind and the spirit and the soul, it's all
1:06:47
So what is in in the armor, what is? It's the helmet of
1:06:51
Salvation. Salvation.
1:06:52
Okay. So in our salvation, all of this is encompassed in our salvation. Mhmm. Right. Who we are, the truth, the identity of who God is, who he is in us, who we are in him, that's what's gonna protect our mind, our salvation.
1:07:12
It's our helmet of salvation.
1:07:13
Protected, all the other can work for the good.
1:07:17
Mhmm. Mhmm. It's true. It really I mean, this is huge. If this is messed up, the rest of you is gonna be kinda all over the place.
1:07:26
Where's my sword?
1:07:30
It often feels like this is a battle for our heart. Mhmm. But really, it's it's it's a battle for our thoughts. You know, we are I often feel like, oh, my heart needs to be here or here, but it's a battle for
1:07:43
our thoughts.
1:07:44
Like, what we think you know, if I can think good thoughts about myself and who I am and him, then I have this armor. I have this protection and everything is clear and decisions are so easy.
1:07:55
You know what I you know what I feel about that? I've I think that the bottom line is it's a battle for our heart. That's what God wants. He wants our he wants us the essence of who we are. He wants all of us.
1:08:12
He wants our desires, our emotions, our will, everything. This is where it the battle starts. Mhmm. To go and get in. And so this is where we've got to battle and take care of so that we can give him.
1:08:28
Does that make sense? I mean, it really it it's so much go ahead. It's a matter of choice Mhmm.
1:08:35
I think sometimes. I guess, will is part of the soul.
1:08:37
Absolutely. And
1:08:40
we can choose to go one way or the other. And that's the I think
1:08:57
Yeah. That's It is. Front line. The more the more that we are girded in truth, that the easier it's gonna be to fight that battle. Because we're gonna be like, are you kidding me?
1:09:11
I'm gonna believe that. I ain't believing that again. You know? I mean, the more you start to excuse me. The more you start to see lies for what they are, the more you're just like, give me a break.
1:09:25
I ain't doing that. I mean, when I pray for my sons, I pray for them to see what the enemy is doing almost as much as I pray for them to see what God is doing. Because I want them to recognize the lies that have been I want the light to shine on those lies. I want the light to shine on the traps that stumbled them and pulled them under. I want them to know that's what caused me to get in this place.
1:09:51
I ain't going there again. You know? So absolutely, our our choices but and girding in the truth is gonna help us make those choices. We're gonna get our strength up to make the right ones more each time our strength's gonna be stronger. I wanna have a prayer where the saint comes from, learn by your mistake.
1:10:10
Mhmm. Yep. Yep.
1:10:13
I think Joyce Meyers wrote a helpful book on that called Battlefield of the Mind. Mhmm. So that might be a book worth reading. Mhmm.
1:10:22
It is. A friend of mine gave this picture and it's just one of I don't know if any of you were up at Heart six, I shared it up there. It's just one of those little images, kind of cartoon image that helps us remember this. She said, The body is a toddler, the soul is the teenager, and the spirit is the adult. Okay?
1:10:50
Who's driving the car? Okay? So you've got the adult in the front. Uh-huh. You got the adult in in the front, the teenager sitting there going, but I need I need to get something to eat.
1:11:04
I wanna go to mall. This is no fun. This is it's just boring, you know? Mhmm. And then the toddlers in the back whining and crying, I'm hot.
1:11:14
I'm cold, you know? Whatever. But but there there are things that we are going to have to overcome in our body and in our soul. And the way to overcome them is decide that your spirit is gonna be the man who's driving the car. Okay?
1:11:32
And the way that your spirit drives the car is by agreeing with God's word and what he says and saying, when all a sudden my emotions start coming up and getting flared, here's a good example. Matt and I, my husband and I have got this little trick that we do every so often called the reset button. Mhmm. And it's if we get off to a wrong start on something and we get in our emotions, we back off and go, can we reset? And we have the choice.
1:12:04
Mhmm. And I must say, a lot of times my soul says, no. I like being angry right now. I don't wanna just play this out for a minute. Mhmm.
1:12:14
But but last night, you know, he came home and I had been sick in bed all day and and he was frustrated because one of the guys at work didn't do something the way he wanted and kind of voiced that as he was coming in the door and he was gonna pick me up some tea that I asked him to get the grocery store and he got the wrong kind and so I voiced that and and he just took a deep breath and went back into the garage. He's so precious and he got the armload of firewood, and he comes up, opens the door like he had never walked in. He goes, honey, I'm home. He goes, can we reset the button? I said, absolutely.
1:12:54
And it was done. And there's those moments where you have to choose my spirit is gonna is gonna drive this car, you know, because my emotions are gonna get us in the ditch. We're gonna be drunk driving down the road somewhere, texting on our phones. You know?
1:13:13
My daughter's a really good driver.
1:13:17
But but it's just one of those pictures to remind us. It's a choice of of choosing. I have got some more stuff, but I feel like I've given you so much today. Yes. Laura and Christine, actually, last week after we were done, asked if I would do this for another week or two just so we don't because there's really last week, I skipped a page of notes, and this week, I've got two more pages.
1:13:49
And so I think I'm gonna if you guys are good with it, I think we're just gonna so we don't pile on too much. But I wanna give you these last two verses because I wanna give you this this vision of what God sees. Okay? This is this verse is such an awesome verse. It is God's plan, okay, in Christ Jesus.
1:14:11
It's first Thessalonians five verses twenty three and twenty four. And this is a is a prayer, basically, or he's speaking it over the people that he's writing the letter to. But he says, now, may the God of peace make you holy in every way. May your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. And that seems impossible.
1:14:45
Mhmm. May your whole body and soul and spirit be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus comes again. But the next verse now lets us know that it's possible. Verse 24 says, and God will make this happen for he who calls you is faithful. He's faithful to pursue us.
1:15:05
He's faithful to patiently unfold it to us. He's faithful to walk us through and help us get back up when we make mistakes and continue to speak over us who we really are until we're convinced. There's this song that somebody I don't know. I've never asked her. Wendy is just this precious friend of mine, and she does worship.
1:15:27
And she does a lot of spontaneous worship and just worships in the spirit. And we were in the prison in Boca Chella last year doing some worship, and she was leading. And and she started singing this line that says, sing over me until I believe. And she was singing it about the Holy Spirit. Sing over me until I believe.
1:15:46
And I went home and wrote that on my marker board. And I don't know if that's the words to a song or if that was the words to her song of her heart that day. Yeah. But it's like that's what that's what God is doing over each one of us. He's singing over us until we believe, believe until we believe.
1:16:02
I so my, you know, my son's been very sick and father Rudolph did a prayer on him and a healing. And I asked my son how it was, and he said, he put his hands on my head, and he kept singing Jesus. Mhmm. And I said, well, you know and he says, mom, it was the most relaxing thing I've ever experienced in my life.
1:16:25
That's right. And it
1:16:26
was just singing. All he did was singing. That's all I I mean, he probably prayed, but all the boy heard was singing Jesus.
1:16:33
You know? And there's power power power in that name. Mhmm. Every knee will power that name. Isn't it holy?
1:16:40
Every every Jesus
1:16:42
Yeah. They did. But this was a private thing that
1:16:44
Yeah. That Mhmm. But I'm I you know, we're not gonna I mean, I told you I would get to the practical things like two weeks in a row. I haven't gotten to the practical list yet. But here's a practical list.
1:16:57
I gave you lots to do on that. But I'll tell you that. Every knee must bow to the name of Jesus. And I'm telling if you've got fears, if you've got
1:17:09
Say that again?
1:17:09
Every knee must bow to the name of Jesus. That was one of the rewards that Christ received when he resurrected after his obedience to the cross. Mhmm. He was raised up, seated in heavenly places, knee will bow. Mhmm.
1:17:27
And eventually, we will see it across this earth. But right now, we have the authority to speak that and to use that name in a most honorable and respectful way, but bringing down the enemies of our soul in agreement with God's design for us. So if we have fear, if we have anger, if we have rejection, if we have all these insecurities, you know, there's last night with this cold and this head cold, I laid down and I'm laying there in bed and I'm telling you all of sudden it was just like somebody threw a black blanket over my head. And I sat up and I was just like, oh, I can't breathe. I can't breathe.
1:18:06
And Matt's like, you okay? And I said, I just need to get up for a minute. Mhmm. And I just began to just pray and just speak the name of Jesus and just worship and lift up his name. Pretty soon that black blanket went back to wherever it came from, and it was gone.
1:18:21
But there is power. Everything must bow to his name.
1:18:25
Mhmm. So doing a sermon sermon at
1:18:27
our church
1:18:28
on lifting God
1:18:30
higher. Mhmm.
1:18:32
Higher than any problem you have. Higher than your cold. Than my doubt. Higher than anything. Mhmm.
1:18:37
His name is higher. Mhmm. And and and Mike said something wonderful. He said, I don't know about you, but I read the end of the book. And I know whose foot is on top of
1:18:47
who. Yes.
1:18:48
And I was just I thought that was so good. Like, I read the end of the book, and I know who wins. Mhmm. And and to remember that, to put that in our presence that we are
1:18:57
a winning team. We are. Mhmm. And I mean and I don't know if it's in that two sheets that I gave you. It probably is in there somewhere, but I mean, we're the head and not the tail.
1:19:06
Mhmm. We're above and not below. Mhmm. In Christ Jesus, we are above, not below. We are above.
1:19:13
We're above. I just want you to you can put your stuff down and just close your eyes, and I wanna I read this. I spoke this over you last week, and I just felt like the spirit said just pull it out and speak it over you again. Thank you, father. Thank you.
1:19:41
Beautiful, fearless daughter, this year, you will conquer your enemy, and you will take new ground. My favor and goodness follow you with each step. Each step, my favor and goodness are following you. You delight me with your joy. You delight me with your joy.
1:20:11
My peace has found its home in you. It's not visiting. My peace has found its home in you. Father, thank you. Thank you.
1:20:52
Thank you. Thank you for such an extravagant love, such a passionate love, Lord. Such an enduring love. Thank you for not being mediocre. Mhmm.
1:21:08
I never thought of that picture until today when we were talking about it, but, Lord, thank you for not being mediocre. You are passionate. You are faithful. You are steadfast. You are you are persistent, and yet you're so patient at the same time.
1:21:31
You're persistent but patient. You. Holy God, I pray that that you do just blow our socks off today. And that's gonna look different for each one of us, and that just blows my socks off. That just amazes me.
1:22:03
You are not a cookie cutter God in any stretch of the imagination. You are so personal and individual and intimate. Father, thank you for what you have had planned from before time began for all of eternity for this afternoon, for tonight, for in our dreams tonight. Lord, I pray you'd speak to us in our dreams. Speak to us in our waking hours.
1:22:34
Lord, I pray Holy Spirit, I pray you would just sear these truths on our soul. Lord, the seeds that have been planted today, I pray that I just pray for just like an like, kinda like a incubator terrarium. That's the word I'm looking for. Most little glass terrariums that you used to put plants in and it and you water and it's like its own little rain forest in there and it's all protected. I pray that for the seeds that were planted today.
1:23:12
Yes. Mhmm.
1:23:13
For each one of these lives, each one of these women, that these seeds would be protected, and there would be just the perfect amount of moisture, Lord, and sunlight, and they would just grow, grow, grow, grow deep roots. Father, if there has been anything said that would be out of line with your word or misunderstood in the way it was communicated, I pray that you would take us each onto your word and correct that and bring it in line with your truth. We want truth. We want truth. We wanna be aligned with heaven.
1:23:58
Father, thank you. Father, thank you that as we focus on you and and just lean into you and and give you our full attention, Lord, all of those things around in our lives, our children relationships, and people we know that are hurting and people that need prayer and things in our own lives that need prayer. None of those things have been out of your sight or out of your care. This whole time that we have been focusing on you, you have been moving on our behalf in all of those areas, Lord, without us even knowing how to pray or even taking the moment to ask you because you are that kind of a God. You just are.
1:24:53
You just are, God. You say you work on behalf of those who love you. Lord, thank you. Praise you, father. Praise you.
1:25:30
Father, help us to grasp the reality that we give you the most glory when we carry your glory. When your going able to really does. You know what you're doing. Going You really do. Thank you, Lord.
1:26:06
Thank you, Father. Lord, I just speak over these women today, the first that you spoke over to me all those years ago and has spoken countless times down through the centuries, Lord. Arise. Shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Arise and shine today.
1:26:37
Rise and shine. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you. Oh, Lord, I just pray these things in agreement with you, your word, and your prayers over us, Lord. In your I mean
Topics
Body Soul SpiritBreaking Free From FearHearing GodIdentity In ChristRenewing Your MindSelf-Image
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