Mind Games “Overcoming Lack” by: Pastor James (video & notes)
Mind games – “Overcoming Lack”
by: Pastor James
Today, we’ll be talking about Overcoming Lack.
Lack definition – the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable (unreachable)
- You see, just in the very definition of the word “lack” there is a mind game being played. Let’s look at these two words that define “lack”.
- Absent: Perhaps it is absent from you right now in physical form. So, it’s a true statement, but it’s not a truth statement.
- True here, but not truth from heaven.
- Unavailable: Perhaps this is where the mind game starts. It seems unavailable at the present time. Unreachable(I can’t reach it).
- Example:Amazon.com – “this item is unavailable at the present time.”
- It’s unavailable on Amazon, but it’s not “unavailable.”
- Then, I go to Google, and I find that it’s available. It just wasn’t available the place that I looked first.
- Sometimes we’re looking in the wrong place for availability. So, our “lack” persists.
- We get very caught up in our present lack which keeps us in it.
- It might not be in front of you, but that doesn’t mean it’s unavailable.
- Example:Amazon.com – “this item is unavailable at the present time.”
- A believer is connected to a higher source. If the believer doesn’t see it this way, they aren’t living to their full potential and lack will have its way.
- Perspective Matters
- My perspective needs to be…”but truth says I can.”
- The Mind Game of true, or truth
- Sometimes we’re required to look past “true” and look unto “truth”.
- Philippians 4:19 NKJV – And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in gloryby Christ Jesus.
- We (believers) will have need…but God will supply.
- Easy to say “Amen” in church, but what happens when things don’t change Monday morning?
- We need to control our lives with the Word of God.
- Example of friend in Troy with STD
- Took God at his Word. Declaring the Word. Got some folks around him to believe with him. Didn’t change overnight, but it did change.
- There’s no lack in God’s glory.
- Sometimes we need to grab hold of truth, until it becomes true.
- I’m not going to let go until truth takes over fact.
- Example of friend in Troy with STD
- We need to keep truth in front of us, instead of just what’s currently true.
- 3 things important
- Know the Word
- Go to a church that believes this way
- Connect with people that believe this way (Dream Teams and Small Groups)
- Our Growth Track will get you started
Focus on things ahead instead of things directly in front
- Storm directly in front
- Mark 4:35 NKJV – Jesus says, ”Let us cross over to the other side”
- This was a future statement to hold onto. They were in the middle of the sea, so the statement wasn’t in fulfillment yet.
- It may have seemed small and insignificant, but its what got them there.
- Matt 8:23-27 NKJV- the men were thinking about the storm instead of the miracle that was in the bottom of the boat. Thinking about the difficulty instead of the answer…over thinking always produces thoughts of human lack. Faith produces answers.
- Examples:
- My bills aren’t getting paid this month.
- He or she is never going to change.
- Arguments start in our homes, because we’re frustrated with lack.
- There’s no way I’m going to find a job.
- Unreachable and absent (lack) Mind Game
- Is your promise (truth) in the bottom of the boat? We need to bring it out from the bottom and put it out in front.
- Testimony (leasing house): talked to a couple that attends here frequently. Trying to sell house up north. The renter stole from them, and wasn’t doing his end of the agreement but he wouldn’t leave. Big issue. Time to complain or time to press toward the truth?
- Some testimonies take time to take place. But they sound like they happened overnight. It’s persistence in truth that wins.
- Testimony (leasing house): talked to a couple that attends here frequently. Trying to sell house up north. The renter stole from them, and wasn’t doing his end of the agreement but he wouldn’t leave. Big issue. Time to complain or time to press toward the truth?
- Examples:
- Positive mind game (12-year hemorrhage):
- Matthew 9:21 NASB – for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch His garment, I will get well.”
- Fringe (hem) of garment – said to herself if I can only touch it
- Even if I can’t get His attention or touch Him, if I can just touch the hem of His garment…truth will prevail.
- She put something different than her issue in front of her. She put truth.
- She spoke the answer all the way to her healing!
- What we put in front of us is what we end up getting.
- Some of us need to start speaking those things all the way out of lack.
Sometimes what holds us back is our past. We all think smaller about ourselves than God does.
- God created you human, and He’s excited about working with you.
- Philippians 3:13 NKJV- …forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
- What God thinks about you is more important than what you think about you.
- In order to do this, we need to take the Word seriously. We need to get to know how God feels about us.
- There is too much out there that will tell you differently.
- First timer, start with the book of John
- Old timer, get back into the Word frequently
- There is too much out there that will tell you differently.
3 things believers have that will get them through:
- Believers have the Word of Truth:
- The greatest resource in the world
- Example: Pastor Sarah with computer – she’s got one, but can’t use it
- How to use:
- Start with a 5 minute devotional every morning
- Or even just Philippians 4:19every morning. Memorize, repeat it.
- Convince yourself
- Or even just Philippians 4:19every morning. Memorize, repeat it.
- Start with a 5 minute devotional every morning
- Philippians 4:19 NKJV – And my God shall supply all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
- The greatest resource in the world
- Pray that God would enlighten your mind to His thoughts
- Believers have each other
- But we stay quiet, because we don’t want to be exposed…but, we’re hurting ourselves
- Connect to a Dream Team or Small Group
- When you start to get to know people, you’ll start to get comfortable with walking out your faith together.
- You’re going to need other believers, it’s just a fact.
- The guy in Michigan would still have an STD without other believers around him.
- Believers have the Holy Spirit
- The Holy Spirit will guide us, through others and trough the Word.
- He’s always guiding, but we’re rarely listening over the chaos.
- When we get in the Word, and get around other believers, it tones negativity down and allows for our acceptance of the truth.
- He helps us break free from lack, but it happens in our mind first.
We are getting the results of what we’ve been doing. To get different results, we need to do something different.
- Apply it:
- Purpose in your heart some time to get in the Word
- Purpose in your heart some space to get involved with other believers
- Purpose in your heart to hold on to truth, no matter what looks true right in front of you.
Our faithful God
I just have to give my God a little glory here. I was just entering all of my business info this week as I usually do, and thought I would see how we were doing in comparison to last year at this time. Before I tell you how awesome we are doing, I just want you to know that we have always been faithful tithers for the most part. Once we became Lifer’s, we increased our faithfulness to tithing and also began giving an offering most weeks.
We have been speaking prosperity and fruitfulness over our lives and confessing the following scriptures: Proverbs 8:18 With me (God) are riches, honor, enduring wealth and prosperity and Psalm 35:27 Let the Lord be magnified, who has pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.
Well I’m magnifying Him today as much as I can, because He is definitely doing his part so now I’m doing mine! So the facts are this; just this month alone my business increased 73%!!!! Holy cow! We only gave 10% plus an offering, and He totally out gave us!! So my curiosity drove me to see how much we increased for the year thus far…. 58.6%!! Yes that’s right He increased us more than 5x’s the percentage that we gave. The word works, and I cannot wait for the end of the year to see the complete work! I have to also add that my work is extremely seasonal and we made more this month which is usually a very, very slow month than we did in December which is high season in Naples. Another 58% increased difference! Hallelujah!! Glory to God, He is so faithful.
Happy Mother’s Day from Pastor Sarah Marie
Happy Mother’s Day!
I have been passionate to see my children and spiritual children become an extension of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth.
Matthew 5:13 say, “You are the salt of the earth.” Salt means love. Our life without love is tasteless. Even our good deeds done out of obligation or to be seen are empty. But, when we do deeds with pure love, God rewards us more than we can think or even imagine.
This awesome God that loves us so much gives us His salt, which means His love. When we use His salt, He credits us and rewards us for sprinkling His own salt.
We make Jesus very happy when we are saltshakers to our children first and then extend to others. We will then have an exciting life full of purpose.
Isaiah 59:21 (AMP)
As for Me, this is My covenant I make with you. My Spirit, Who is upon you and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your true, spiritual children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children.
All My Love,
Sarah Marie Gardner
President and Founding Pastor of Life Christian Church
Ripped Off series “Armor of God” with Pastor James (video & notes)
Ripped Off Series
The Armor of God video – Pastor James
Weapons of our warfare:
You don’t have to chase the enemy down and find him and beat him up. You don’t have to pick a fight with him. But, we will talk about how to use the armor of God against his tactics and for ourselves.
Ephesians 6:12 NKJV – For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
The fight:
- No need to fight the devil, he’s defeated. He wants you chasing him around, but there’s no need to chase him around. He’s defeated. The more you chase him around, the more power he has.
- You don’t have to try to defeat him. You enforce the finished work in what you believe. It doesn’t change the enemy’s position of being defeated, but it changes the way you look at him.
- Examples when it doesn’t feel finished:
- A disease comes against us, we believe that it was defeated in Jesus body. We fight our flesh and mind to believe.
- Even if it doesn’t change right away in this realm, it is finished in the realm of the spirit. We stay focused on the promise not the problem. It’s not easy, but it’s the way to see it through. Continue to tell that sickness that it has no hold on you. You are fighting from victory not to it.
- A bad situation comes up in your business, we believe that John 10:10is for us. We fight to believe that this situation is bound to change to a better one.
- Even if we don’t see it change right away, we believe that it is being worked out. We don’t stop moving forward, but in the process we continue to thank God for His promises and for the breakthrough.
- Personal story of healing – sinus infection
- After the healing took place, I still gargled with salt water and took the physical caution so that it wouldn’t return. I kept thanking God during the process. Even though it seemed it was only a 75% job finished, I didn’t stop thanking God. That thing was completely gone by the next work day which was two days later. Usually that would take a week or more with antibiotics.
- A disease comes against us, we believe that it was defeated in Jesus body. We fight our flesh and mind to believe.
- Examples when it doesn’t feel finished:
- Sometimes Believing is the biggest fight against yourself (your human brain, mind, and flesh). I fight to believe against the odds that are constantly bombarding my world.
Sickness, depression, and strife – the enemy’s tactics to Rip you off.
We have authority over the enemy, but we also have authority over what we choose to receive. The authority was given, it’s up to us to remind ourselves of it more than the enemy tells us otherwise. We will evaluate how to do this today.
Ephesians: I think it’s interesting how Ephesians is laid out. He talks about our redemption, living alive in Christ, his stewardship of the church, unity in the spirit, the Christian walk, being imitators of Christ, marriage, relationships, and then the armor. It’s interesting because Paul encourages through most of the book and then he talks about relationships, marriage, and how to act. I have to believe he hits these points just before the armor of God, because this is where we will need the armor. To act right and hold our relationships together.
In this, we have to recognize that the armor and weaponry isn’t just to fight, but also to fend off the wrong stuff from entering into our lives.
- Their is an offensive approach that is taken when you refuse to let the enemy convince you of anything outside of the Word.
To develop this understanding, I think it will help us to break down the armor that is ours as believers. This will help us understand how to use it.
- For example: if you give your baby a set of keys to the car, will he know what they are for? Will he be able to use them affectively? No, he’ll swing them around and make some noise with them and be completely content that they are really cool to make noise. But, he won’t be able to go anywhere.
Ephesians 6:14-18
- Put on and take up
- Put on the whole or fullarmor of God
- Every piece is vital
- Put on the whole or fullarmor of God
- Take upthe full armor
- “raise up” – keep held up. It’s your weaponry. It won’t help you if you don’t keep it raised.
Don’t be ripped off. Let’s take what is rightfully ours and use it.
You might not know this, but this armor is what Jesus put on to bring down the enemy and win over him.
- Tools to your offense
- Loins girded with truth
- To see the importance of truth, we’ll take a look at this word “loins“. You probably have a pretty good idea of what region this is in, but let’s clarify. It’s the region that contains the lower spine, the reproductive organs, and the muscles that hold you up.
- You would probably agree that this is a pretty important area. It’s actually your power plant. If you have an issue in this region, you wouldn’t even be able to use the rest of your body or armor. Truth is a big deal, and we’re faced with deciding on it everyday.
- Two types of truth:
- Telling lies or extruding a story to make it sound better.
- Receiving in facts about a situation or the truth of God’s Word regarding your situation.
- Mom with cancer: I learned this at a young age. My mom had cancer when I was around maybe 7 or 8 years old. I remember her and my dad having many conversations about it prior to them telling us kids about it. I remember not being scared of losing her, the thought never really even crossed my mind, because the way in which my parents presented it was so faith packed. They told us that mom received some bad results from the doctor, but in every conversation they presented the up side. They told us that she would have to go through some treatment, but that she would be ok. We prayed about it frequently, but it wasn’t a crying type prayer, it was a thankful prayer that God had the rescue plan already in place. It was already accomplished, but we just had to walk it out by faith. Of course I had some questions, but they never allowed those questions to turn to a loss type ending. There was no doubt in my mind that she would make it. This wasn’t because I had some great faith or something, but it was because the only thing that I knew about it was a positive outcome. My parents didn’t even let it spread to our friends, because they knew that it could take a negative spin. My mom is alive today, and this is about 26 years later.
- Truth will gird your loins, fact will sometimes sway you from the truth. It’s not easy, but it’s well worth it.
- Two types of truth:
- Loins girded with truth
We have authority over what we choose to receive. Don’t be ripped off.
- Breastplate of righteousness
- You’re not good enough
- You are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Then, He equipped you with the imagery of your breastplate, so you could see that you’re sealed and safe. You’re not in need of putting on your righteousness daily, because you’re called righteous when you accept Jesus.
- A soldier doesn’t have to put on his breastplate to be a soldier or to be part of the kingdom. However, he wouldn’t be very safe in war without it.
- Throughout history, the breastplate many times has the logo or stamp of the king on it.
- Our job is to protect our heart from impurities, negative input, condemnation, anything that opposes the fact that God loves you and thinks you’re special.
- Or, anything that makes you think wrongly of someone else.
- Guard your heart. Your authority was given to you. You’re in the kingdom. You’re on the team. You’re actually a starter on the team. You’re on the front line. God needs you. Guarding your heart will keep you from accepting anything outside of those thoughts.
- A soldier doesn’t have to put on his breastplate to be a soldier or to be part of the kingdom. However, he wouldn’t be very safe in war without it.
- If someone were to say to a soldier, “you don’t have the authority to stop me from doing this.” He would not hesitate to look down at his breastplate emblem, and say “I beg to differ with that opinion, take a close look at what’s on my breastplate. Now, stop or I’ll have to make you submit to me.”
- You are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Then, He equipped you with the imagery of your breastplate, so you could see that you’re sealed and safe. You’re not in need of putting on your righteousness daily, because you’re called righteous when you accept Jesus.
- You’re not good enough
We have authority over what we choose to receive. Don’t be ripped off.
- Feet prepared with peace
- Stress, overwhelmed – hinder forward progress
- Why feet with peace? We move forward by faith, but we follow our peace. He’s tying faith and peace together. You can’t go anywhere without moving forward. But, you won’t get to your destination without peace.
- It’s offered to us, but it’s our job to follow our peace as we walk by faith.
- Example: Many times I find that walking by faith isn’t as easy as it seems. We all say it, but really it’s tough when we can’t see the results that we are believing for in the process. This is just human. You don’t need to look down on yourself when you have these feelings. It’s normal. But, we fight against it lasting and winning.
- Auburn Ridge deal: I recall very vividly our 12 month walk of faith for our debt cancelation last year on one of our properties. I had some times of squirrellyness in my brain. “This isn’t working, this is the tenth lender that I’ve talked too, there aren’t any other avenues to take this to get it financed, we’re up a creek here, we need to walk away…” As you can see, the enemy was having a field day in my head…peace was hard to find.
- The enemy was trying to win by using my agreement with his thoughts. He was trying to win by taking me out of peace. I have to tell you, he was doing a pretty good job a couple of times during that 12 months. He wanted me to stop moving forward, because if he can ruin our peace, we stop in our tracks and our faith in the situation turning out well is dwindled.
- How to overcome: I had good people around me to speak truth not fact into me. This helped me stay at peace. Others were in it with me, they were speaking encouragement when the situation was speaking discouragement. They were praying with me. They got in the boat with me. The Body of Christ is necessary to have around us.
- The peace that they exhibited, was enough to keep me moving forward in faith.
- Another way to stay in peace is this…I regularly would bring it back to the thrown. I would say, God I’m moving forward by faith, if I’m heading the wrong direction stop me. If I don’t hear from you, I’m just squaring up with you about my faith direction since it wouldn’t be faith without action.
We have authority over what we choose to receive. Don’t be ripped off.
- Shield of faith
- Extinguish the flaming missiles (fiery darts) of evil
- This term is interesting. “fiery darts” – I always thought that fiery or flaming was just to put emphasis on the enemy being really mean and dangerous, but in actuality I believe that this term is used a bit differently. The word “fiery” means to set a glow.
- Think about this, when the enemy brings things against us, his intent is to set them a glow so that our focus turns to the issue and not the answer. Light a match in a dark room. Where does your attention go? Right to the match, of course, because you can’t see anything else. The enemy is trying to get your focus off your shield and into his negative force.
- Example: raccoon- Have you ever hit a possum or raccoon with your car? What happens right before he meets his maker? He usually looks up and stops. He’s looking straight into your headlights. He gets mesmerized with the light, and forgets that he needs to get out of the way. I remember one late night driving home, and the worlds’ biggest raccoon walked in front of my car. I saw him about a tenth of a second before he bit my tire at 60 miles per hour. What I remember is him looking up at my lights and stopping. I also remember freaking out and thinking, why didn’t that guy just wait to cross the road or jump out of the way. He couldn’t, he was too focused on my headlights.
- Shining deer: Do we have any proud rednecks (hillbillies) in the room? These folks know all about shining deer. They know what happens when you go out at night and put a spotlight on a deer. The deer freezes. He doesn’t move. He’s looking right at danger, but he’s frozen in his tracks. He’s focused on the wrong thing. He should be focused on his nearest escape, but he’s focused on the problem more than the answer of escape.
- This is what the enemy wants us all focused on. The problem and not the solution that was given to us in Christ.
- Example: raccoon- Have you ever hit a possum or raccoon with your car? What happens right before he meets his maker? He usually looks up and stops. He’s looking straight into your headlights. He gets mesmerized with the light, and forgets that he needs to get out of the way. I remember one late night driving home, and the worlds’ biggest raccoon walked in front of my car. I saw him about a tenth of a second before he bit my tire at 60 miles per hour. What I remember is him looking up at my lights and stopping. I also remember freaking out and thinking, why didn’t that guy just wait to cross the road or jump out of the way. He couldn’t, he was too focused on my headlights.
- Think about this, when the enemy brings things against us, his intent is to set them a glow so that our focus turns to the issue and not the answer. Light a match in a dark room. Where does your attention go? Right to the match, of course, because you can’t see anything else. The enemy is trying to get your focus off your shield and into his negative force.
We have authority over what we choose to focus on. Don’t be ripped off.
- Helmet of salvation
- Crown of thorns off, helmet on to protect the finished work in your mind
- “But, you don’t understand…it’s my boss that makes me mad.” No, your boss does bad things, talks to you wrong, belittles you, etc. But, you get mad. You perceive it a certain way, which is your choice how to perceive it, and then you retaliate either outward or in your mind.
- Boss story
- He was so negative, nothing was good enough. I would beat him into the office by 3 hours every morning and stay 3 hours after him on conference calls to the states from Japan, but he was still mean and angry.
- I let it sink in and it nearly ruined me. Everything started to have a negative spin to it. I remember, it was hard to enjoy anything because I let his view seep into my thoughts.
- When you have a hope, a positive expectation of good things, a foreshadow of good that runs through your mind…you release endorphins.
- Philippians 4:8 NKJV – Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praise worthy meditate on these things.
We have authority over what we focus on and what we let in. Don’t be ripped off.
- Sword of the Spirit
- Word of God – using the fruit of the spirit in your home
- Example: home after a long day- You come home and your wife and kids are screaming and going nuts. She said this, and he said that, and you want everyone to go away and shut up. You had a perfect picture of rest and enjoyment from a tough day at the office, but it isn’t that way.
- Your choice to blow up…turn around and go back to the office…start grounding everyone that’s standing around you (including your wife)…smile and walk directly to your bedroom and close the door (hiding from what’s going on).
- Or, your choice: You use the fruit of the spirit as your sword to cut down the situation. You bring peace into your home instead of another yelling adult. You choose to rely on your sword to cut through this issue and help rather than hinder or leave it as is.
- Which one do you think would work better? Which one will get you to peace quicker?
- Example: home after a long day- You come home and your wife and kids are screaming and going nuts. She said this, and he said that, and you want everyone to go away and shut up. You had a perfect picture of rest and enjoyment from a tough day at the office, but it isn’t that way.
- We probably look at the sword of the spirit as something that we saw in the movie 300, but that really isn’t realistic. It’s cool and tough, but not really easy to apply. You see, your wife isn’t really impressed with your 300 antics. She isn’t really impressed with your tough guy routine. She needs to see you use the sword in a relatable way that solves situations.
- Word of God – using the fruit of the spirit in your home
We have authority over how we use or don’t use our weapons. Don’t be ripped off.
- Extreme uncle example: I remember one of my uncles that just got saved. He was running around hollering at the enemy all day everyday. He was really an extremist. He was either all in or all out. He was either drinking at the bar until he puked or making everyone nervous with his awkward way of yelling at the devil for everything.
- I’m not saying that there isn’t a place for that, but the way it played out was that he never let it sink in. He never let the reality of the principles of the scriptures being a big part of his warfare.
- The flaming missiles are sometimes our choice to abide in the Word or not, so that we know how to use it. Our choice to use the Word is just as much for ourselves as it is to fend off the enemy.
- My uncle never let that reality sink in, and even to this day isn’t following Christ any longer. We need to use the Word as a sword to cut off our negative tendencies. We need to do some surgery with our sword and not just swing it around at everyone else.
We have authority over how we use our weapons. Don’t be ripped off.
2 Corinthians 10:4, 5 NKJV – For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but 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
- Isn’t it interesting that this scripture only mentioned the enemy once (strongholds). And it mentions us twice (arguments & thoughts)
Isn’t it interesting that there is nothing covering your back in all this armor? It’s either because we are to be on the offensive or God has our back…or both.
The enemy doesn’t know who’s inside the armor. The last time he saw it, Jesus was under it…and still is in you!
God has fully equipped you. He sees you pure through His Son that died for you. However, we have a lot to do with how much of this we experience here on earth.
