- Home
- New Here?
-
Trinity's Ministries
- What's Happening?
- Faith Builders
-
Pastor's Messages of Hope
-
Gotta' Have Faith
>
- Faith, Belief, Assurance
- Demons and Proof
- First Example
- Parched
- Pleasing God, the Rewarder
- Happy, Happy
- When do We Get It?
- Walk by Faith, not by Sight
- Abel and Good Works
- Enoch and Noah
- Condemnation and Conviction
- Abraham's Move
- God's Plan
- Command and Context
- Insight
- Isaac & Jacob
- Joseph
- Moses' Parents
-
Losing My Mind!
>
- Introduction
- Spiritually Discerned
- Mind Bypass?
- What is the Mind of Christ?
- Destiny and Conscious
- God Thinking
- Guard Your Heart
- Corinthians and Gandhi
- Consumer Oriented
- Carnal Christians?
- Puffed Up
- My "Mind Makeover"
- More Symptoms 1
- More Symptoms 2
- A Better Way
- Those Pharisees
- For Us All
- The Solution
- Body and Soul
- We are what we Think
- Examples
- Philippians 4:8-9
- Our Thoughts
- It is a God Thing
- 4 Key Points; 1 Main Point
- 3 Targets
- The Enemy
- Key to Victory #1
- Key to Victory #2
- Key to Victory #3
-
Living Your Life of Destiny
>
- Calling and Gifting
- What are Gifts?
- Michael Jordan's Gift
- What are "Spiritual Gifts?"
- For the Body of Christ
- Spiritual Gifts "Lists"
- Donald Trump's Brother
- Paul's Destiny Introduced
- Our Redeemed Purpose
- Michael Jordan's Redeemed Purpose
- Summary...So Far
- Barnabas
- His Name
- Unfolding Purpose
- Our "Position" in Christ
- Why Doesn't God Make It Clear?
- Why Attend Church?
- Utilizing Our Gifts
- Molded through the Church
- What We DO in Christ
- Church Checkup
- Sin Cycle
- Gideon's Calling
- Questioning God and Self
- Humble, Weak, or Strong?
- Test 1
- Test 2
- Two Truths
- The 300 and the Fleece
- Final Test
- Is Destiny Big Thing?
- Do Little Things Impact?
- God's Ultimate Plan
- My Personal Example
-
It's God
>
- Introduction - It's God
- "Wisdom" of Mankind
- Science and Christianity
- Faith is the Problem
- Worth It All
- Creator over Creation
- The Big Bang Theory
- Expanding Universe
- Jesus - in the beginning
- The Role of Jesus in Creation
- Was Jesus God or Man?
- The Younger Years of Jesus
- Why Did God Create the World?
- Why is it Important to Believe in Creation?
- What happened to creation?
- What did God do about it?
- The Unknown God?
- Created "Imago Dei" (Image of God)
- Created for Relationships
- Created for Dominion
- Created to "Tend the Garden"
- The "Stained" Image of God
- Jesus is the "Difference Maker"
- Grace First
- Predestination?
- The Ultimate Issue
- Who is in Control?
- The Dilemma
- The Story Again
- The Origin of Suffering and Evil
- Does God Intervene?
- Jesus intervenes
- Humankind's Choices
- Solving the Puzzle
- Sharing in Christ's Suffering
- We Know...
- All Things
- Two Simple Examples
- "It's God" Series Companion Videos
-
The Beauty of the Lord
>
- Intro
- Just Him
- Intrinsic within God
- Legal vs. Relational
- in People
- God's Beauty in Living Creatures
- The Dragonfly
- A Spider and Conversion
- God's Beauty in Nature
- Too Busy?
- Why It Never Gets Old
- Romans 1:19-20
- What's in it for Me?
- Pleasure and Boredom
- In God and Balance
- How much do you Value God?
- How to Glorify God
- All Means All
-
Gotta' Have Faith
>
"It's a God Thing"
IT IS A GOD THING
This must be a supernatural, “God thing.” In other words, attempting to gain control over our minds without the involvement of the transforming power of God is impossible. Oh sure, we may be able to break a bad habit or two without God…maybe (but extremely difficult). We may be able to slightly modify a few patterns of behavior without the mind of Christ…maybe.
Now get this! The reason it is impossible to completely change our thought processes, emotions, decision-making, and lifestyle is that we are trying to change something by using the same broken mechanism (our hearts/minds/souls) that got us into this predicament in the first place. LOL. We are attempting to fix something that is broken with the same broken instrument. It is a ridiculous assumption to actually suppose that I myself can get me out of this mess when I myself am the one who got me into this mess in the first place!
ONLY GOD can change our basic, fundamental identity or being. Only God can change us on the soul/heart/mind level. It must be a “God thing.” Do not come to me for help unless you want God to be a part of the solution. Because I know…you know…others have discovered, it simply does not work without an outside, powerful Force.
AA
All of us recognize the name AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. It has been around for decades. I did know that part of their recovery program was a dependence on a “Higher Power” – God. The successful alcohol/drug addiction recovery program, as many of you know, has twelve steps. It is amazing though how all twelve steps coincide with God’s call in Scriptures to surrender control and allow Christ to guide our hearts and minds. Here are the twelve steps (AA.org):
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Folks, this is what we, as Christians, are called to do every day of our lives in all areas, just as Step Twelve indicates.
CONCLUSION
We are all “alcoholics” in a sense. By that I mean we are all addicted to something (money, power, pleasure, greed, lust, success, etc.), usually several things, until, that is, our minds and hearts become captivated by the one, true, loving God…until we are delivered from our selfish, self-destructive state of being…until we surrender to the love of God…until we seek God daily and renew our minds in Christ.
Within various multi-step recoveries of our true identity, there are two primary stages: 1. Involves surrendering our own way of seeing, thinking, talking, deciding, and acting, and 2. Involves a welcoming, a seeking of God’s way of seeing, thinking, talking, deciding, and acting.
This must be a supernatural, “God thing.” In other words, attempting to gain control over our minds without the involvement of the transforming power of God is impossible. Oh sure, we may be able to break a bad habit or two without God…maybe (but extremely difficult). We may be able to slightly modify a few patterns of behavior without the mind of Christ…maybe.
Now get this! The reason it is impossible to completely change our thought processes, emotions, decision-making, and lifestyle is that we are trying to change something by using the same broken mechanism (our hearts/minds/souls) that got us into this predicament in the first place. LOL. We are attempting to fix something that is broken with the same broken instrument. It is a ridiculous assumption to actually suppose that I myself can get me out of this mess when I myself am the one who got me into this mess in the first place!
ONLY GOD can change our basic, fundamental identity or being. Only God can change us on the soul/heart/mind level. It must be a “God thing.” Do not come to me for help unless you want God to be a part of the solution. Because I know…you know…others have discovered, it simply does not work without an outside, powerful Force.
AA
All of us recognize the name AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. It has been around for decades. I did know that part of their recovery program was a dependence on a “Higher Power” – God. The successful alcohol/drug addiction recovery program, as many of you know, has twelve steps. It is amazing though how all twelve steps coincide with God’s call in Scriptures to surrender control and allow Christ to guide our hearts and minds. Here are the twelve steps (AA.org):
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Folks, this is what we, as Christians, are called to do every day of our lives in all areas, just as Step Twelve indicates.
CONCLUSION
We are all “alcoholics” in a sense. By that I mean we are all addicted to something (money, power, pleasure, greed, lust, success, etc.), usually several things, until, that is, our minds and hearts become captivated by the one, true, loving God…until we are delivered from our selfish, self-destructive state of being…until we surrender to the love of God…until we seek God daily and renew our minds in Christ.
Within various multi-step recoveries of our true identity, there are two primary stages: 1. Involves surrendering our own way of seeing, thinking, talking, deciding, and acting, and 2. Involves a welcoming, a seeking of God’s way of seeing, thinking, talking, deciding, and acting.
