Transformed | Part 1 | Jon Colyer | Gateway Christian Centre

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Gateway's Weekly Service. We are so glad that you are here. We pray that this message inspires you, it encourages you, and that God speaks to you in new ways. Now, on with the message.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

So, why would I worry? Why would I have fear when my God is champion? Why would I be downhearted? Why would I be dismayed when the joy of my Lord is my strength? So when my heart is overwhelmed and the storms come against me, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence cometh my help. My help comes for the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Come on, let's just rejoice a moment more. Jesus, you are faithful, you are champion, you are the conquering king, you're my savior, you're my God, and you're my friend. Lord, I'm so glad that you're with me. You know the Bible says he'll never leave you, he'll never forsake you. What great news is that! Amen. You came to praise. Me too. I came to praise. Alright, go ahead and take your seats if you would for a few moments. Worship team, thank you. You're on fire today, and I'm very, very grateful. We didn't have a practice this week because Angela and I were on annual leave. But I tell you what, you are all over it. Thank you, everybody. Okay, we're starting a new series today called Transformed. Thank you for your enthusiasm over there. Everybody else, I'm gonna give you another crack of the whip. Starting a new series today called Transformed. I had a feeling you'd be excited a second time around with much prodding. Wasn't wasn't uh pushed at all. Thank you very much, sir. We're talking about the renewing of the mind, and and this is massive. And it it ties in. I love what God has been doing. I feel like he's been doing anyway in our church this year, and just really bringing us through on a journey from the January fast, talking about kindling the flame to where we are today. We've gone through praise, we've gone through other things which I've forgotten, but I know they were good at the time. Oh, prayer, the Holy Spirit, and then praise series. Man, that's that's a life mess, that's a life series, that's a life lesson. And I would say praise is a game changer in my life. So much I can attribute to what the Lord has done. And not just in my circumstances, but like Martin was sharing, didn't have a great week, but yet he said in the testimony to me, I was standing on the side of the road praising, never felt so free in all my life. There's options when we have difficult times, there's choices we have to make when we go through hardship. Sorrow lasts for a night, but if you'll let it, joy will come in the morning. If you'll let it. And it's nice when that joy comes because then your strength comes back. You get the oomph back in your umpha. And so, but that was last week's message. I want to talk today about well, it does tie in the war for your mind. There is a battle. Joyce Meyer described it. In fact, I think the book that kind of put her ministry on the map 30, 40 years ago was an incredible book called The Battlefield of the Mind. If you haven't read it, you need to. It's it's incredibly good, but here's the reality: there are battles in your life that can't be seen. You can see the obvious ones: the car breaking down, the kidney stones, the the flood in the in the kitchen. We we can see those ones, but the real battle isn't flesh and blood, it's not physical, it's going on the inside because the car will get fixed, the flood will get fixed, the kidney stones will pass. But what's going on on the inside, man, that can keep going and going and going. In fact, that can be a lifelong cycle. And if we're not careful, we keep repeating the same circumstances of life with a slight tweak over and over and over again. And I don't believe that's what God wants for us. I don't believe that's what He has for us, and certainly not what Jesus did. There are battles in our life that can't be seen. They don't make the headlines, they don't show up on social media. In fact, some of the victories we have, no one applauds when you win, but they that they determine everything. Because before anything changes around you, something must change inside you. You've probably heard me say many times if you've been at Gateway at all, God always changes the man in the circumstance before he changes the circumstance the man is in. That's why when it comes to fasting, things change after the fast, not during it, because during the fast, stuff's going on in you. After the fast, you realize what he's done in you because you're not the same person. And this is where many believers miss it. We're praying for breakthrough, we're praying for change, we're asking God to move in our circumstances, but all the while our thinking remains the same. In effect, we remain the same. But the apostle Paul admonishes us to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And the truth is this, my friend, it's quite sobering, but I've thought this through and I stand behind it. Your life is not moving in the direction of your prayers, your life is moving in the direction of your dominant thoughts. I was quiet. I still stand behind it. You can genuinely love God, you can be committed, you can be faithful, you can be sincere, you can serve, you can give, you can worship, you can honor Him, and still live a life that feels limited, restrained, inconsistent, and not growing. Please do not put your hands up. But there are many people in this room, in this church, who love God, are committed, faithful, sincere, serve, give, worship, and honor the Lord, yet everything stays the same. I say it again: your life isn't moving in the direction of your prayers, it's moving in the direction of your dominant thought, which is why the Bible says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. And it's not because God has withheld anything from you, and it's not because you haven't prayed about it. You prayed plenty, but because something in your thinking has not yet aligned with what God has already said. Transformation, my friend, is not automatic, it's intentional. It's intentional, and the primary battlefield where that happens is your mind. It's in your mind. Um, last year, Angela and I went to a prayer conference in Nice, France. Uh, we enjoyed a go. She's been five or six times. I've been, I think, three or four times. And the speaker last year was a lady named Nancy Dufresne. And I knew of her more because I knew her husband. Not personally, but I knew of his ministry. Her husband was a prophet named Ed Dufresne, and a genuine prophet. Most prophets can't tell a prophet from Malos. This guy is a genuine prophet. And Anza said, in fact, the most um frightening service that she's ever been in was one of his services in Tulsa. Stop chuckling up. I wasn't trying to be rude, but it's true about the prophets. Um her husband sadly died in an airplane wreck about 15 years ago. And she was pastoring a church in California. He died uh unexpectedly in an airplane crash, and she was being interviewed a number of years later, and the interviewer was asking her about in fact, the question was this what's the greatest crisis you've ever faced in your life? And it wasn't like it wasn't a gotcha interview, it was a good interview with a Christian interviewing another Christian. She was just setting her up to talk about what had happened with her husband and how God had worked in her life and ministry. And it's actually amazing to see what God is doing through her. And but she answered this, and man, I learned so much. She was telling us about this in Nice, France last year. She said, When the interviewer asked me, What's the greatest crisis you've ever faced in my life? I said this. I said, the greatest tragedy I've ever faced is the unexpected death of my husband. That was the greatest tragedy. She said, but the greatest crises I've faced in my life are facing situations with an unrenewed mind. And she went on to explain. She said, There are situations that I faced in my life in my ministry that knocked me for years. It took me years to get through those things and build myself back up and get healthy and get strong and get, you know, ready to commit to the Lord, commit to people, commit to, you know. It took me years. She said that some of those same situations come my way. If I was drinking my cup of coffee in the morning and scrolling through Facebook, I wouldn't even put my coffee cup down. They don't even phase me. She said, the greatest crisis has not been the tragedy of the death of my husband, it was facing situations with an unrenewed mind. You know, there are many prayers that we pray, but we're praying them with an unrenewed mind. There are many songs we sing, but we're singing them with a still unrenewed mind. And Angela and I were talking the other day, we both heard her say this a year or so ago, and we were in the car, and Angela brought something up about a situation. She said, Because you know that, you know, I just, you know, that what that would do to me, how that would affect me. This was Angela talking about herself. And as she's talking, I said, hang on a minute, Angel, that no, that would not affect you anymore. There was a situation we faced many, many years ago that it did. It it took Angela several years to get through that, and me a while. It wasn't so directly against me, it was against us, but it was painful, it was difficult. It took us a number of years. I I know my wife, I'm telling you, that same situation coming her way now, she wouldn't even barely, she wouldn't stop brushing her hair. She would just walk through it. What's changed? The mind. The mind. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Can you look with me, please, in Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2? Everyone say this room as you turn it. Say, Lord, change my mind. Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2 says, I beseech you therefore, bright brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Let me read this to you from the New Living Translation. The two versions I read most of my life are the New King James and the New Living Translation. I enjoy them both tremendously. Romans chapter 12, verse 2, and the New Living Translation says, Do not copy the behavior and customs of this world. But let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Have you ever got around someone and you spend a little time in conversation with them and you realize they do not think like I think? I don't mean in a weird way. I mean you're thinking, man, I the way they face situations, the way they process things, the way they approach stuff, it's just it's different to the way I approach. You read the same Bible, you realize it's it's in there, it's coming from the same book, but there's no doubt they are processing it differently to the way that you're processing it. See, when you gave your life to Christ, something miraculous happened in a moment. Your spirit was made brand new. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things are made new. You were forgiven immediately, you were made righteous immediately. You were brought into relationship with God that moment, but your mind did not automatically catch up with that transformation. Your spirit was renewed instantly, but your mind must be renewed intentionally. That's why the Bible uses language like taking thoughts captive, bringing things into subjection to the obedience of Christ. Your mind must be trained to truth. And notice the Bible says this it's when you know the truth that the truth sets you free. Truth being true doesn't make you free. Truth makes you free when you know it, when you understand it. And if your mind is not renewed, it will default back to what it already knows. It will default to your past experiences, your upbringing, it will default to words that were spoken over you, and to the patterns you have lived with for years. So now you have a new nature trying to express itself through an old mindset. And that gap between who you are in Christ and how you think is where the frustration shows up in your life and in your Christian walk. This is why many of them, but why didn't they? Why hasn't that? How come they didn't receive? Why didn't I receive? But I thought I was. This is where the gap is. Hey, what are you doing for the next four weeks? Come in here? All right. We're gonna grow. Get ready, steady, grow. Number one, three points I want to make today. It's very, very simple message, but we're gonna build each week. Number one, your thoughts shape your reality. Can you put the verse on the screen for me, please? We've quoted it several times. Proverbs 23, verse 7. For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. So you don't become what God said alone. You become what you believe about what God said. Smith Wigglesworth famously used to say, God says it, I believe it, that settles it. And some people, well-meaning, thought, and no, there's a better way to say that. They would say, God said it, that settles it. But actually, Smith Wigglesworth was right. God said it, I believe it, that settled it. Because the Bible speaks of a people that says the word preached did them no good because it wasn't mixed with faith. You remember the spies in Numbers chapter 13 and 14? We're not gonna look at this in great detail, but you remember when Abraham, no, Moses was going into the promised land and wanted to possess the land, and he sent out 12 spies, and 10 of them brought back a good report and said, evil report, excuse me, and said, We can't go into this land. And two of them brought back a good report and said, We're well able to take the land. Let me ask you a question. Who was right? Who says the two? Who says the ten? Who said both? Because the ten who said they could and didn't, and the two, Joshua and Caleb, who said they could. What was the difference? God had already spoken to all 12 of them and said, I've given you the land. The promise was settled. But when the spies went in, ten came back and said, We're like grasshoppers in their sight. No, excuse me, like grasshoppers in our own sight. They said this, they said, We're not able. We can't, Moses. We can't do this. Now notice this the problem was not the land, the problem was their perception of themselves. Again, do you ever get around someone facing the same situation with a completely different mindset? And here's a big revelation point. They didn't say God is small, they said we are small. We are small. Their problem wasn't their God, their problem was their image of themselves. But the Bible says that God has created us not just in his likeness, but in his image. In other words, we are to imagine like he imagines, or think like he thinks. That's why Paul said, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And so that thinking, that we are small, we're not able, we're grasshoppers in this site. It overrode the promise, it produced fear, and it prevented of the very thing God has said, I've already given to you. Don't raise your hands on this one, but boy, does that sound like us or like you or like me many times overriding the promise, producing fear, and prevented from possession. And these people died in the wilderness, not because God failed, but because their thinking contradicted what God had said. And God had to wait for a generation to die out till a new generation would rise up that would take him at his word. And many of us think that we're in faith and our thinking is okay because we fully acknowledge that God is enough. I know God can if he wants to. I know God's sovereign. I know he can do what he wants to do. But that wasn't the problem with the ten spies. They believe what God said about his ability, but not about their ability. They knew someone else could do it, they knew God could do it if he wants to. But I believe that God is a healer, our belief, but not through me. That's our thinking. So my belief says God is a healer, my thinking is, but he can't do it through me. My belief says God is a provider. But my thinking is, but he doesn't provide for me. I'm gonna struggle. I'm gonna have a hard time this month, I'll never get ahead, I'll never be able to buy my own home, or certainly not be able to have a home mortgage-free. And many times the block to our prayer life and our faith walk is an unrenewed mind. Do you see what I'm saying? We believe the right things, but it's trying to push its way through dodgy thinking or stinking thinking. Your life will never rise above the lies that you refuse to confront. Amen. I'll say it myself. I'll be the preacher and the cheerleader today. Number two, your excuse me, strongholds are thought systems. They are thought systems. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 3 through 5, the Bible says this for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or natural, but they're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Paraphrasing it says this casting down arguments and bringing every thought into captivity. See, strongholds are not random thoughts, they are established patterns that feel like truth. And this is why many times when you get around someone that thinks differently to you, it annoys you. But sometimes God will offend your head to reveal your heart. God doesn't mind your nose being put out of joint, you pop it back in. Step on your toes, praise the Lord. You got nine more. God doesn't mind doing these things because strongholds are not random thoughts. That's a random thought, just pops by. It comes, it goes, it means nothing to you. I'm talking about the established patterns that feel like truth to you. In your mind, it can only be this way because it's a strong hold or has a strong hold of your thought system. And someone else walks over and says, No, but it'll it'll be fine. My God will supply all my needs. You're like, Yeah, but you just gotta be real. Yeah, it's all very well to say that, but you just gotta be real. When you get old, you just got you just gotta understand. You wait till you get old, John. Well, I'm getting older, and I'm gonna keep waiting. Thank you very much. Because as far as I'm concerned, by his stripes, I am healed, and the joy of the Lord is my strength. And my God, I said to Angela the other day, I said, I can't promise you exactly every detail about our retirement, but I can promise you this my God will supply all our need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. I don't know how he's gonna do it, I just know that he's gonna do it. So come back in 30 years and see how I'm doing, and I'll tell you how I'm doing. I will have a fully supplied life in his name, and I will still be a giver, and I'm not gonna stop being generous just because the years tick by. And I didn't wait till I was a grown man to become generous. I was always paying for people's meals at Bible school. I started paying it for it before it was the thing. Paying for other people's petrol in the line behind me. Do you get what I'm saying? Why? Because there were certain things that my mind is free, other things I'm as bound as you. But I'm not talking about them right now because I've got the microphone, I'm sharing the good stories. When Moses was at the burning bush, you find this in Exodus 3 and 4, God said to him, I'll send you to Pharaoh. What does Moses say? Who am I? What if they don't believe me? But I'm slow of speech. So what's going on here? We have a disempowering internal narrative with which we can probably all identify insecurity, inadequacy, and self-doubt. God says this, but I feel like this. God says you're gonna do that, but all I can see is this. God calls me the head, as far as I'm concerned, I've only ever been the tail. God says I'm above, I'm only beneath. I hit rock bottom and found out there was a basement. But what God says, I believe what he says, but all I think, all I see, all I imagine is disaster. And God was revealing identity, and Moses was rehearsing limitation. Let me say it again. God was revealing identity. Moses was rehearsing limitation. In other words, he had a stronghold of limitation. Or you could say limitation had a stronghold on him. Heard someone say years ago, and it's very true, that getting someone out of a wheelchair is easier than getting the wheelchair out of them. Getting someone out of poverty is easier than getting poverty out of them. But if we don't get poverty out of us, no matter how much money we're given, we will go back to it. Do you know that I believe the statistic is it's over 90% of people that win the lottery? And I mean, if you win the lottery, we're talking, it can be tens of millions, hundreds of millions. I mean the big lottery winners. 90% of people that win the lottery are back to broke within three years. Say, well, I wouldn't be. Well, hopefully you and I will be in that 10%. And if you win it, we've got a tithing offering envelope for you. Look for the stewards. Just throwing that out there. But we like to think we'd be in the in the 90%, but can I tell you, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Another scenario, which is a little more sobering or slightly more delicate, but you see governments doing this all the time, they will look at an area within a city or a community that is really, really struggling, and where there's a lot of uh poverty and crime and brokenness and the and the accommodation in which people live is not really fit for purpose. And with great intention, they will build a beautiful new area to live. Put in parks and schools and houses and and then move those same people to that new beautiful area, and within one year, it looks just like the last place looked. Why? Because we changed, but nothing changed. We win the lottery, we get a new house. This is why one of the things I've been talking about with our Ans and I have been discussing a lot as we get ready to move into our new building. I don't want us to move into the new building with the old mindset, doing everything like we did it, or else we'll just have a bigger room with a few more people in it, but we'll be the same us. I want to grow, I want to move forward. See, Moses had more faith in his weakness than he did in God's word. And many believers do the same. God says, You are able, but your mind says, I'm not enough. That is a stronghold. That what you see lets you know what a stronghold. Where your imagination goes, let you some of you cannot picture a life where you are blessed enough to be a blessing. You cannot picture a retirement with anything other than a struggle. You cannot picture a life without pain or relationships without pain or a healthy relationship with your family. All you can see is what's being. You cannot see what God says, which is as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. Gideon was another example of this in Judges 6. The angel says, The Lord is with you, mighty man of valor. Gideon replies, but my clan is the weakest. I am the least. And here's the truth, my friend, he was called mighty by God, but his thinking saw himself as nothing but inferior. You can be called correctly, but still think incorrectly. And point number three: an unrenewed thinking limits a redeemed life. You and I are fully redeemed, but many of us are still fully bound. And the issue is the thinking. See, it's very possible to be positioned for breakthrough, surrounded by opportunity, and called into purpose, and still sabotage it with wrong thinking. How many of us have taken a few steps forward and then wham, we're right back where we were? And we get a new job, and boom, we're right back in the stress and the frustration and the needing, needing sick days and time off that we had before, or worse, we get a new spouse, and we discover that they got the same old husband. You hear me say all the time, we emigrate. What's the problem with emigrating? You go with yourself. The grass is greener on the other side, but it's the same old cow eating it. And now you've moved and you've remarried and you've changed all these things. You're like, well, I'm exactly where I was before. That's depressing. I imagine. That's depressing. Let me give you an example. If Elon Musk gave me Tesla, not a Tesla, I have a Tesla, gave me Tesla, if he gave it to me, it would be bankrupt in three years. Let's be honest. It would be bankrupt in three years. But if Elon Musk took over your small business and didn't bring any of his money with him, just brought his thinking, you'd be turning over millions within a year or two. If Stephen Furtick gave me his church, it would be this size in five years. Unless I adopted some of the things that they do. If he took over this church, it would be multiple thousands in five years. Why? As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. We are limited by our thinking. And this is why a parasite wants what you've earned. But a protege wants what you've learned. A parasite wants what's in your hand, can have some money. A protege wants what's in your heart. We need to learn not to be parasites. Well, if someone would just give me a hundred pounds, if I could just get a if you just help me a little bit, if you could just, and there's times when we have need and we need to help. That's another message for another day. I'm talking to you right now, and I'm saying, stop looking for a handout and find out what the person that has the potential to lift you up has been doing for the last 10 years. Walk with the wise, the Bible says you'll grow wise. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Israel in the wilderness, God delivered them from Egypt in a moment, in a day, but Egypt stayed in their thinking. They kept saying, Let's go back. We had it better before. They were physically free but mentally bound. You can come out of bondage, but still carry bondage in your mind. And this is why you have strange phenomena like the four-minute mile thing. Remember that four-minute mile? It's been a while now. There was a guy last week that broke the two-hour marathon. That's insane. He's running 26 point something miles faster than I can run from here to the end of the. He would beat me just going to the end of the building, and he'd do it 26 more miles. Did you watch that? But a long time ago, there was a guy, Roger something, I think was his name. Roger Banner. Wasn't that the Incredible Hulk? Isn't that whoever? Not the Incredible Hulk, the other guy. And he broke the four-minute mile. No one had ever broken the four-minute mile. Ran for a mile in less than four minutes. And I don't know, probably like three minutes and 58 seconds. I don't know. It was close, but he did it. No one had ever done it recorded in the history of all humanity. That same year, how many people broke it? Like lots more. Why? Because a mindset shifted. All of a sudden we realized it can be done. It can be done. There's other people that have done this. It's possible. And that's the only thing that shifted. I doubt they would suddenly supercharge their training. No, they were doing the same thing they'd be doing for the last 10 years, but now a whole bunch of them broke the four-minute mile. Watch what happens to this two-hour Olympic record. It'll be broken again and again and again. It'll creep down, it'll creep down. There'll be people doing it in 55 minutes before you know it. I won't be one of them. So the contrast, of course, as we've talked about, is Caleb and Joshua, the 10 spies. We don't know all their names, maybe it's in the Bible, but I don't know the names. But Caleb and Joshua, same land, same giants, same moment, but different thinking. They said, We are well able. And guess what? They were. In fact, when they actually did it, they were 40 years older. So when they said, Let's go on and possess the land, they were 40. When they actually did it, they were 80. Surely it would be harder to bring down giants and walls and carry, you know, huge great watermelons. But Caleb said, That's my mountain. Give me my mountain. He's 80 and he wants it. Why? They knew who they were, they had a different thinking and a different mindset. We have to line up our thinking with what God says, otherwise, his promises will remain in the promised realm until we get to heaven and we get a renewed thinking. I want to change that now. I want to walk in what God has for me now. I want to experience the blessings of God in my life and through my life. Now I want to be a living epistle known and read of all men that people look and think, oh, I can break the four-minute mile too. Oh, I can break, oh, I can believe for that. Oh, I can pastor a church in Samuel, but yet still be blessed. Oh, I can do this. I can move from one place to another, but yet see the blessings of the Lord. Why is that? Why can that be done? It's a thinking that we have to embrace. And in some areas, my thinking is very Christ-like. In others, it's a shocker. I'm just saying, it's a shocker. I'm talking about the good stuff. Again, I've got the mic, it's my church. If you want to talk about the bad things, go start your own church. You can tell them what you like. But in my church, we celebrate the good things. Amen. Hallelujah. Say up. Same giant. Oh, think about David. Everybody thought that Goliath was the problem. The fact is, a cursory glance at that story, you would say the biggest problem in their life was Goliath. Until David showed up. And he demonstrated Goliath was never the problem. Because he killed him in what a minute or two. Goliath was never the problem. The problem was that there was no one that knew how to kill him. And the minute a giant killer stepped onto the field, the giant stopped being a problem. There are things that we think my problem is this. My problem is that. My problem is my lack of this, or what fill in the blank, my age, my gender, my race, my upbringing, my my education, my opportunities, my car, my house, my spouse, my my children, my parents, my brothers and sisters. My problem. No, my friend, that you're giving too many people too much credit. Just look in the mirror and you will find, staring back at you, your problem. People ask me frequently these days, what's the biggest challenge in leadership? I always say leading myself. Can I be honest with you? You are lovely. Like genuinely, this is a lovely church. Leading gateway is quite easy. Leading me, oh my days. The problems I give myself. I wake up with myself every morning. I hang out with myself all day. I go to bed with myself at night. In the middle of the night, when I wake up, there I am. Leading myself is a shocker. You're lovely. But you know it's true. I mean, not about me now. That's my issue. I'm talking about if I gave you the mic, you'd be able to say the same things. But Joshua and Caleb said, We can do this. We are well able. David said, I'll kill him. What's gonna happen to the one that kills him? Say, you get the king's daughter, get no taxes for you or your family and a few other nice things. He said, I'll do it. I know exactly how to kill him. God gave me a lion, God gave me a bear. This guy's too big to miss. What could possibly go wrong? But we do the opposite. We think what could possibly go right? How could this ever work out? This is me we're talking about. Everything I do goes wrong. I never get the job, I never get the opportunity, I never get the promotion. And besides, even if I'd have gotten all right, if I'd have done my GCSEs and A levels, if I'd have gone to university like I was supposed to, if I'd gotten that apprenticeship I was supposed to get, or if I'd have worked harder back when I was supposed, if I wasn't smoking so much and drinking so much back in the day, but I've blown it now. But my friend, the Bible says God redeems the time, He redeems time. In fact, Samson teaches us you can do more damage to your enemy in the last breath of your life than in the entire life put together, even though you messed up over and over and over again. And like the song says, one day we'll know why Samson loved Delilah. We don't know to this day any more than we know why we love the things we love. Why do we keep falling in the same trap over and over? Why do we keep making the same mistakes? It's a stronghold of the mind, but thank God when we pull on those pillars and the anointing comes back, we can do more in the last moments of our life than we've done in the previous, however long put together. So stop looking back. You're designed to go forward, you're designed to go forward. Paul said, forgetting the things that are behind. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. This one thing I do, he said, I forget what's behind. I'm looking forward. You need to do some forgetting. Fact, there are a number of things in my life. This is an expression I use often. I distinctly remember forgetting that. There's a number of things that I distinctly remember forgetting. There are hurts that I distinctly remember forgetting. There are things that fail that I distinctly. If I hadn't distinctly remembered forgetting that time, I've told the story where we rented a six, seven, eight hundred-seat auditorium in Peterborough a number of years ago, and like eight people came to the morning service, and I brought seven of them. I was one of them. Angela was another one. My mother was another one. Her friend was the we were seven of the eight, and the eight, the only one that actually came left halfway through. Now there's 693 empty seats, and me feeling like a right sausage up there with all my display products and my CDs and my worship albums and hundreds of them. It's not like we're gonna buy a hundred each. I mean, what am I gonna do with these things? I felt so small, I felt so small and so inadequate, and so the feelings of failure were overwhelming. So after the service, everyone else went out for lunch. I didn't want to go out for lunch. So I went back to my room, and you know what I did? I pulled out my Bible and I pulled out my vision book and I looked at the promises that said, My glory will cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. Behold, you'll call a nation that you don't know, and the nations you don't know will call you. The Gentiles are come running to the glory of God. I looked at the pictures I have in my vision book of arenas and venues and stadiums, and I encouraged myself in the Lord. And our crowd grew that night by about 400%. A legitimate crowd. There were four more people there that evening. That's remarkable growth. I challenge you to get 400% growth from the lunch time to the don't tell me it doesn't work, my friend. It's like that joke, everyone got saved, and she got healed too. It's I mean, that's how it was in that day. That night, there was, I think there were 11 people there that night. I felt only slightly less inadequate than I had felt that morning. Only slightly less. It was a very humbling experience. It was, I felt very small, I felt very I remember the event, but can I be honest with you? I have completely forgotten the emotions. I am describing to you something I don't feel. I could go back to that same venue, that same place where the trauma, and I know it's a minor trauma, but where that it felt it at the time happened up, and I distinctly remember forgetting how I felt because I encouraged myself in the Lord. When David lost everything and they were out at war and they came back, and their families have been taken, all their animals have been taken, their means of income, all their money have been taken, and then his mighty men began to turn on him. The Bible says, and David encouraged himself in the Lord. Sometimes you got to encourage yourself in the Lord, and God said, Go get it back. He could not have done that with a mindset of defeat, a mindset of failure. He'd have just sat there licking his wounds, and he would have stayed without everything, even though God's instruction was to get it back. David, you can have those things back. David, you can have it again. David, I'll give it back to you, but you gotta get up and go get it. My friend, the Bible says a righteous man falls seven times, but he gets back up again. It's not the falling that makes you righteous, it's the fact that you can get back up again. Jesus makes it possible, but you have to make it available to you. Do you get what I'm saying? So, number one, identify the lie. Where in your life are you thinking this will never change? This is just who I am, and God won't do it for me. You've got to identify the lie. Number two, you've got to locate its origin. As did this come from experience? Is this what I saw in my family, in my parents, and the people around me? Is it from something that was spoken over me or from a disappointment that I had, like me in that meeting in Peterborough? Because many strongholds are learned, not inherited. And there are absolutely some things that we got from our family and our parents, but can I tell you that? Not everything. So let's give them a break. Let's give them a break. Let's release them from that and say, okay, Lord, I'm a new creation in Christ Jesus. You are my father now. I am your child. I want to know what you say. What does your word say? I will think like you tell me to think. I am not going to be limited by disempowering misbeliefs. And number three, replace truth, replace with truth intentionally. This will be a firm decision that you make. For example, the lie is I will always struggle. I just always have, always will. Nice for you, John. Must be lovely, but as for me, I'll just struggle. And you replace it with the truth, which is Philippians chapter 4, verse 19. But my God shall supply all my need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. So that thought, when it comes, you grab it, you wrestle like a Greco-Roman wrestler. You pin that thing to the floor, you hold it down, you say, But my God, you you capture it, you you you put it back under what Jesus says, and you put God's word as over your thought. You will find yourself going down your normal path of imagination. The minute you catch yourself, say, no, no, no, no. But my God, and you bring it back to the promises of God, make sure you end up in his promises. Because you don't reinforce, excuse me, you don't do this once. You got to reinforce it daily, constantly, until it becomes a new way of thinking for you, until you become renewed in the spirit of your mind. You don't change your mind once, you train it. You train it over time. And so I'm I want to ask you this week, identify one belief that has limited your life. One specific belief. I've got one in my life I'm working on right now. As I was preparing this, I know what it is. I know what that I know what the disempowering misbelief is that holds me limited, that's limited gateway and some things, and I'm working on it. So get ready, gateway. Get ready. But you got your own ones. Remember, I'm I'm struggling to lead me, you struggle to lead you. So number one, identify it. Number two, ask yourself what has this misbelief, what does it cost me? What am I not experiencing? What am I not walking in because I've allowed that lie to remain unchecked in my life? Where am I compared to where I should be? So, what does this cost me? Because until you see the cost of wrong thinking, you won't confront it seriously. We've got to realize I am where I am because I have allowed that thing to go unchecked in my life all my life, and I'm checking it now. I'm stopping it now, I'm replacing that with truth intentionally. Because let me say this over you some of you are standing at the edge of promise. You are standing at the edge of promise. But the only thing holding you back is not the size of the challenge, it's the size of the belief that you have accepted about yourself. And today that breaks. We are breaking that over ourselves this month. Stand up with me if you will please. I want us to declare something over our lives. Alta teen, go ahead and come as we're doing this. We're not done, so don't start the ending service shuffle yet. Don't start your shuffle. I want you to say this with me, and trust me, it's a good thing to say. Say this with me. Say, I reject every lie that has limited my life. I am not who my past says I am. I am who God says I am. My mind is being renewed. My life will reflect my thinking, and my thinking is aligning with truth. Do you have a Bible or are you maybe got it on your phone? If you got it, let's wave it a minute. John Osteen used to do this for decades. I think his son still does it, and we're gonna do it today. John Osteen used to say, wave your Bible and frighten the devil. Come on, if it's on your phone, that's fine. Electric electronic forms, fine. Wave your Bible around. Say, this is my Bible. I am what God says I am. I have what God says I have. I can do what God says I can do. This Bible is the word of God spoken to me. It's a sword, a shield, a fire, and a hammer. I'm not afraid of it, I'm not afraid to use it. I line up my thinking with God's word. So, Satan, start running because I'm chasing in Jesus' name. Amen. Now come on, let's thank the Lord for his word. Praise him like it's already changed you. The war for your life is the war for your mind, and when your thinking changes, everything changes. Lord, I'm asking you by the power of your word and the anointing of your spirit, change our minds. Lord, this month, the next four weeks, as we submit to this teaching, Lord, let our thinking begin to radically transform that we will experience in our lives what you have provided for us through your cross. And we give you thanks for this in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's message at Gateway. We were so glad to be able to share it with you. If you would like to find out more about what is going on at Gateway or when our weekly services are, you can visit our website at www.igateway.org.uk. Thank you so much for joining us.