Monday, February 15, 2016

KILLING THE GIANT OF EMOTIONAL REASONING

You take your emotions as evidence for the truth. Your logic: “I feel like a failure, therefore I am a failure.”

But this kind of reasoning is misleading because your feelings reflect your thoughts and beliefs. If your thoughts and beliefs are distorted—which is quite often the case—then your emotions have no validity. You think, therefore you feel as you think. Examples of emotional reasoning could be, “I feel overwhelmed and hopeless therefore my problems must be impossible to solve; I feel inadequate, therefore I must be a worthless person.  I’m not in the mood to do anything; therefore I might as well just lie in bed.”

Emotional reasoning plays a role in nearly all depressions. Because things “FEEL” so negative to you, you assume they truly are—that how you feel is reality when in actuality it is not! It doesn’t occur to you to challenge the validity of the perceptions that create your feelings. But that is exactly what we are doing and will do in this message!

One usual side effect of emotional reasoning is procrastination. You avoid cleaning up your garage because you tell yourself, “I FEEL so lousy when I think about that messy garage that needs to be cleaned up. Getting it clean will be impossible.” But a few weeks later you finally give yourself a little push and do it. It turns out to be a good thing and not so tough after all. You were fooling yourself all along because you are in the habit of letting your negative feelings guide the way that you act! Call it having a passive mind.

So then the question is this: how do we overcome being imprisoned by our feelings? How do we kill the giant of emotional reasoning?

II Corinthians 5:7 says, “For we walk by faith and not by sight.”

We could say it this way: We live by faith in God and in His Word and not by how we feel.

As Romans 1:17 declares, “the just (the righteous; those who have been born again and belong to God) shall live by faith.”

For example, the Word of God teaches us to forgive all those who have wronged us. It doesn’t say, forgive others if you FEEL like it. I can tell you, by experience, that 99.9% of the time you don’t FEEL forgiveness toward someone when they have really hurt or wronged you!
You forgive them by faith because you know that this is what the Word of God tells you to do. This is God’s heart for you and them. Therefore you obey God’s Word not because you FEEL like it but because you love and trust God and His Word. You know that it is the right thing to do and that in the long run you will reap the benefits of acting on God’s Word.

Allow me to use an event in Abraham’s life to illustrate what it means to act in faith and not on how you may feel at the moment. When God told Abraham to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham acted in faith on what God told him to do and not on how he surely must have felt as a loving father to Isaac!

Hebrews 11 is the faith chapter in the Bible. It is a list of those who acted not on how they may have felt, but in faith on what God said.

That’s one reason why I think that what David did in killing Goliath is so important. While others were paralyzed with fear because of how big and bad Goliath was—they felt that facing him would mean certain death—David was not controlled by fear or by how he may have felt. Instead, he faced the giant with faith in God, and he killed him!

So too must we challenge our thoughts and feelings of emotional reasoning by our faith in God and in His Word, the Bible.

If you will MOVE in faith and trust God and His Word, you will discover that the giant of emotional reasoning will most definitely go down! Replace emotional reasoning with faith in what God has said.  God’s Word is truth. It is inerrant and infallible. Trust it completely!

Believe God’s Word—the Divine reality which is greater than what we can see or not see—and not your feelings which can change with the wind!

Dear ones, if you would experience the fullness of God’s Jubilee year of 5776, then you must make the choice to stop living by how you feel. “Freedom from what binds and restoration of what is mine” will become a reality when we make the choice to stop allowing our feelings to control us!

Pick up a stone and put it into the sling and hurl it at the giant of emotional reasoning by making the determination to walk in faith in the Word of God regardless of how you feel. If you will walk in faith in God’s Word, your feelings will eventually follow.

Make the choice to renew your mind by and with the Word of God!

Saturday, February 13, 2016

KILLING THE GIANT OF JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS


This person jumps to a negative conclusion that is not justified by the facts of the situation. Two examples of this wrong kind of thinking are “mind reading” and “the fortune teller error.”

1. Mind Reading:  This is where a person interprets events in a negative way—without really knowing what is truly going on. For example, a man walks in where two friends are talking and laughing. He automatically assumes that they are making fun of him—when actually they are planning a surprise birthday party for him!

The problem with this kind of negative “mind reading” is that it can cause you to either withdraw or counterattack. It can hurt relationships with others when it shouldn’t.

2. Fortune Teller Error:  It is as if you had a crystal ball that foretold only misery for you! You imagine something bad is about to happen, and you take this prediction as fact even though it is unrealistic. For example, a high school librarian repeatedly told herself during anxiety attacks, “I’m going to pass out or go crazy.” But these predictions were unrealistic because she had never once passed out or gone crazy in her entire life.

Can you relate to this kind of wrong thinking? Perhaps you have had thoughts like this or know someone who does.

This kind of wrong thinking can put you into a place of fear and bondage. It can make living life very difficult and uncomfortable to say the least. But the good news is that you can be free from this “giant of jumping to conclusions!” Let me tell you how.

1. First of all, learn to be secure in who you are in Christ.

     (1). II Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come.”

     Declaration of faith: I AM A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST. I AM SECURE IN HIM! As you grow in knowing that you are secure in Christ, you will be much less likely to always jumping to negative conclusions in certain situations.

     (2). II Corinthians 5:21 “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.”

     Declaration of faith: “I am the righteousness of God in Christ.” When you know by revelation who you really are in Christ, the temptation of mind reading and fortune telling will become a thing of the past! You will become that secure in who you are in Christ!


2. Secondly, learn to walk in love because walking in love will keep your mind and emotions free.

     (1). I Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.”

As we grow in the love of God, there will be no place for “mind reading” and “fortune telling.” The love of God will keep us from the temptation of jumping to conclusions!

Walking in the love of God will never fail to kill the giant of jumping to conclusions!

Let me illustrate.  Let’s say that I walk into a situation that looks really suspicious. I can either begin to jump to conclusions or I can do the following: I can say by faith, “God’s love in me is patient; it does not envy; it does not boast; it is not proud; it is not rude; it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs; love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. IT ALWAYS PROTECTS; ALWAYS TRUSTS, ALWAYS HOPES AND ALWAYS PERSEVERSES. LOVE NEVER FAILS!

Now someone may say, yeah, but what if some friends really are making fun of me? What if someone is doing something that they shouldn’t be doing?

What if they are? First of all you don’t know all of the facts. Secondly, this doesn’t change the fact that jumping to conclusions will not solve anything, and it will put you in bondage! So the best thing to do is not jump to conclusions (mind reading and fortune telling), but rather walk in the love of God. And know this, if someone is doing something wrong, God is big enough and God-enough to take care of it and them! So the way to kill the wrong thinking of the “giant of jumping to conclusions,” is to learn to find your security in who you are in Christ and to walk by faith in the love of God.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

KILLING THE GIANT OF A NEGATIVE MENTAL FILTER

You pick out a negative event or detail in any situation and dwell on it EXCLUSIVELY, thus perceiving that the whole situation is negative. This one negative event or detail takes over your thoughts to where it’s all you think about! It literally begins to control you to where you become anxious and/or depressed.  Because you become fixated on this one negative situation, your whole world becomes negative. You become trapped with a negative mind-set or outlook. You refuse to let in anything that is positive.
This kind of negative mental filter can and will color your whole world with negativity IF YOU LET IT.  I know what I am talking about because it happened to me. I allowed a negative situation to take over my thoughts until it almost consumed me! How did it happen? It happened because I did not lift up the shield of faith and take up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.  I allowed this giant or “Goliath” to intimidate me every day, keeping me in fear, anxiety and depression.
But that day ended when the Lord empowered me to rise up and face this giant as David did Goliath!
1 Sam 17:45-51
45 David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands." 48 As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. 50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. 51 David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.

When you are dealing with this giant of negativity, in order to defeat it, you must be aggressive as David was with Goliath. Face this giant and speak to it in the Name of the Lord God Almighty!
This is no time to wish or hope that the giant would just go away. Rather it is time for faith in God and time to kill this giant which has been intimidating you and keeping you in bondage and keeping you from the blessed life that God died to give you.
How do you do that?
1. First, lift up the shield of faith and do not allow what this Goliath of negativity says to keep you in anxiety, fear and depression or defeat!
It was when Goliath said to David in v.44 “Come here,” he said, “and I will feed your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field,” that David spoke back to the giant in the name of the Lord.
When the giant of negativity says to you, You’ll never be free of anxiety and depression, you might as well give up; this will always be your lot in life,” rise up with faith in God—as David did—and talk back to this giant!
In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and declare victory over Goliath! Declare and decree in the strong Name of Jesus Christ that you are victorious over anxiety, fear, depression and addiction or whatever may be coming against you.
And proclaim that you will be victorious because the Lord God Almighty is with you! And greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world!
Once you have defeated this giant of addiction, anxiety, depression and fear, give glory to God by testifying of His greatness, power and glory in making you victorious! (Psalm 40:1-3)
Now let’s take up the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and take off this giant’s head as the sign and seal of the victory.
1. Mark 11:22-25   "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. 23 "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
Dear friends, our Heavenly Father is telling us to be aggressive in dealing with this giant that has come against us. Take authority in the Name of Jesus—the God-man—over every addictive, anxious and depressive thought! Command these thoughts to be uprooted out of your life and cast into the sea!
And remember, the victory over this giant is not with carnal weapons—weapons from the earth—but by the Name of the great Shepherd of the Church—even the Lord Jesus Christ!
Zechariah 4:6 says, “Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.”
Our part, like David, is to have and to walk with faith in God.
Beloved, it is time to ACT in the Name of the Lord; aggressively confront the giant of negativity—addiction, anxiety, fear, and/or depression—in the Name of the supernatural God—Jesus Christ. And believe that His power at work in you and through you will give you the victory!
In faith, speak back to this giant in the Name of the Lord and let it know that it is going down and you will kill it and cut off its’ head!
Dear friends, let us follow the faith of Abraham who is the father of all who have faith. Romans 4:17 says “As it is written: I have made you a father of many nations. He is our father in the sight of God in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls those things that are not as though they were.”
So let us, in the authority of Jesus’ Name, call those things that are not as though they were!
Proclaim and decree this with me: In the Name of Jesus, by faith I declare, I am free from the giant of negativity; I am free from anxiety, depression, fear and addiction!
I ask now that the Holy Spirit of God would rise up in you and give you the tenaciousness of Heaven. And in that anointing you will defeat this giant just as David did Goliath!