1-25-13 What Is Shaping Your Life

welcome week for this broadcast I'm telling you this series is incredible I love this series I love the idea that I don't have to change to please God because that old man is already dead every part of me outside of Christ is already dead and all I've got to do is know how to put off that old man and put on the new man I'm telling you life gets easier and easier you see we're always being shaped by something so the question is what's shape in your life see we'll all be shaped by one of two forces either the world that which is external or the Spirit of God that which is internal in that which will shape us is determined by the realm to which we are most attentive you see the world around us is constantly sending us signals about how to dress what kind of car to drive what makes us cool sexy and successful and we've trained our five senses to recognize the never-ending flow of signals from the world but have we trained our inner senses to be just as accurate and just as sensitive you see God is continually speaking to us he's continually sending us signals from the spirit within he's constantly saying this is the way to walk in it this is the decision to make take this path not this path say yes to this don't say no to this trust this person don't trust this person you see God is always always always leading us into success he will never leave us he'll never fellows he'll never forsake us but the question is have we trained our inner senses as much as our outer senses develop your heart to hear and know the voice of God you see he has a better life for you than you've ever heard than you've ever seen or than you've ever imagined and you don't have to earn that life you just have to hear his voice and follow him be sure to stick around to the end of this message I've got an entering moment I'm gonna share with you and also next week we are beginning a new series for the month of February about man I'm telling you I love teaching about relationships so be sure and get ready for that and husbands and wives get ready to watch it together enjoy this enjoy this last in this series and don't forget if you want to go deeper in all this if you want to develop yourself in this more you can order the book in the series and I'm telling you it take you deeper than you ever imagined that you could go in your new identity hello welcome you to program number four in this series about becoming the person that you want to be you know what the things that has to happen anytime you're going to make any journey of faith is you have to decide the outcome that you want you know God these are choices to us if we don't decide what kind of person that we want to be then the truth is we're probably not going to become that kind of person you see most people live by default we have bought into the religious idea that that god is controlling all of the outcomes and that is just not what the Bible teaches that's not what Jesus taught that's not what Moses taught us no we're through the Bible does it tell you that God controls all the outcomes in fact it tells you just the opposite it tells you that you've got to make your own choices you got to choose this day whom you will serve you got to choose life or death you got to choose to obey or disobey you got to choose to deal with your thoughts feelings and emotions and anything that you don't make a choice to do then you default to circumstances you default or whatever going around you going outside of you so the whole reason I'm telling you this and the whole reason we started out with this character sketching at the end and our mentoring section will be we'll be going back to this is if you don't decide what kind of person you want to be then the default situations around you or the situations around you will cause you to default to the world around you which means basically you will be what the Bible calls carnal a carnal Christian a Christian who is living within this natural realm controlled by this natural realm but when you decide what kind of person you want to be I'm telling you something happens inside of you because God created you to be a person of faith and a person of faith is a person who believes God's promises knows that God is faithful and truth knows that the Spirit of God is inside of us knows therefore that we can make any decision based on what God says and we can trust God to work for that particular outcome to happen you know in teaching about faith a first step of any journey in faith is to decide the outcome that you won't know some people I know we're gonna write me and say no you know God's gonna decide the outcome I'm just gonna follow God if it's in the Word of God if it's been promised by God if it's consistent with with the character of God you can make that decision and you can trust God to work in you so from the very beginning we started this thing by saying decide what kind of person you want to be just shod how you want to affect people around you know what that really really gets it real that really gets it real basic because sometimes we can deceive ourselves and say well I want to be a you know I wanted abyss spiritual person but I might have a faulty definition of spirituality so Don told us that the best way to understand spirituality the best way to understand God's priorities according to Jesus is love God love people love yourself that means that every thing that I believe about God every doctrine that I have every theological position I have should accomplish those goals that should cause me a fall more deeply in love with God or have more value for God because that's what the Word of God they love means to value or to consider something precious if every doctrine everything a logical position everything about my my spiritual beliefs should be making me realize how valuable God is but secondly it should be making me realize how valuable people are treating people in a way that conveys value but also so I'm supposed to love others the way I love myself that means I have to have value for myself not in a self-centered way I'm not talking about you know something sick or twisted but I'm talking about having the same value for myself that God has and the value that he has for me is that Jesus came and gave his life so you know what that means I can't treat myself bad I can't be a doormat for other people I have to I have to have my own personal boundaries so we decide what you know am I going to be a spiritual man and gonna be a carnal man but you said well what do you mean carnal that sounds really really bad you're the word carnal just basically means natural a natural man or natural person or a carnal person is a person who lives pretty much by their five senses you see we have these five senses that make it possible for us to be in touch with the world around us and these five senses send information to our brain and our brain determines a sense of reality based on the input or the information that we're getting through our five senses now so this is what it means to be natural and this is the reason that when we die because our body dies and these five senses we lose contact with this world with this natural world around us and but because our inner man is still alive then we are still always in touch with with the spiritual world so we have an inner five senses you see all of the all of the five senses that are described for the natural man are actually mirrored in the spiritual man you know the Bible says taste and see that the Lord knew it here you listen to the voice of the Lord the Bible talks about seeing things with the eyes of your heart the touch Bible talks about smelling the sweet aroma of God so the five cent natural senses that we have are mirrored internally and the internal senses calls us to be able to stay in touch with God staying not just in touch with God information we but stay in touch with the power of God saying touch with the life of God experiencing God inwardly even though outwardly we're experiencing the world around us it was interesting the Bible talks about exercising yourself unto godliness now I find it to be a real interesting thing because you see you see if I can exercise myself under godliness then that means that's something that I can put into practice that as I put it into practice it improves now we've all talked about the fact that when you got born again the Spirit of God came inside you you were made righteous because the Spirit of God is in you the grace of God is at work inside you which means the power the ability the strength the capacity of God that works from your heart it comes by unmerited favors given to you freely so God's power is inside of me now if I exercise my self unto godliness well pick any godly character let's say if I decide I want to be a kinder person and if depending on God if trusting God to help me be aware of my behavior and situations I would normally be unkind if I yield to the Spirit of God inside me I yield to kindness then that's just like going ahead and lifting weights you know you know you get up every day in you and you and you start doing some curls and before long you know you you can lift five more pounds than you're used to and before long you can kid more pounds and before long 20 more pounds and you've build up your muscles you strengthen yourself well that's that exactly what happens in our heart as we depend on God's strength the more we become comfortable and the more natural it becomes to yield to God's strength then the more it happens in our life in a natural way you know it's not that God's strength gets bigger is that God's strength flowing through us gets bigger because we learn to depend on that strength that's what the Bible calls magnifying the Lord you know really you can't magnify you can't make God bigger but you can make God bigger in your experience you can make God bigger and the way you deal with life so I want to train myself to listen to the inner man I love train myself to listen to the voice of my heart that's really what the Bible calls a spiritual man you know all of this starts with a decision and a commitment to do so you make the decision I'm gonna follow God I holy commit myself to following God but you also make the decision I am going to listen for the voice of God inside my heart and once you make that decision and the Bible gives you ways to train and to develop yourself once you make that decision and you begin to make it a way of life and you train and develop yourself you will get to the place to where you are more influenced by what's happening inside you then you are what's happening in the world around you so I made up my mind I'm gonna love God and will love people and I love myself and so from that perspective let me just tell you a few things you can do just start a hearing the voice of God in your own heart you know first alone God's not going to say anything to you that's inconsistent with what he's already said in the Bible so God's not going to be telling you weird flaky things and the other some people that just every thought that runs through their mind they think it's the voice of God and and you don't want to be like that you wanted about says to judge everything it's talking about judging everything that you hear you you want to know for sure that what you're hearing is the voice of God well that's going to happen first and foremost as you read and familiarize yourself with the Word of God because even though the Word of God has been deposited inside you you want to know in your mind you want to confirm that which has been written inside you you won't be able to confirm that with your mind so that there's harmony between how you think and what God is really saying inside you but when you read the Bible it will encourage you this always read the Bible prayerfully and always read the Bible from this perspective Father I depend on you to teach me and today as I'm reading the word show me how I can apply this to my life now those of you who have heard me teach for very long you've heard me say this and I always say this that Jesus said the only way you could really know if what if the doctrine that you're hearing is true if you have the intention of putting it into practice there's a lot of theoretical stuff are you to hear in church not sit then I think that sounds good I'd go up and talk to the pastor afterward I said now you know you said to you said to listen to God so how do you do that and what I found was that people would tell me things that I ought to do but they had they had no idea about how to do it so I started realizing that many of the servings that I was hearing we're really theoretical ideas of what we ought to do but nobody was really doing it nobody was really put it into practice or other people that were preaching it they weren't put in practice and I remember making that decision I will never be an altar preacher I'm not gonna tell people what they ought to do I'm going to share the truth of the people that I'm going to share some ways to get it to work I'm gonna share some ways to put it into practice now the ways that I share we it's not the only way I'm just sharing some some things to give you some ideas so you can start applying the Word of God to you laughs but I'm telling you God gave my life to Jesus I started you know the first thing after giving my life to Him as Lord was I'm gonna read the Bible I'm gonna believe what I find in here you got to show me how to make this work in my life and what you'll find is this when you're reading with your heart open to the Holy Spirit to be your teacher and you have the intention to put it into practice you'll be reading these things and you will see ways to apply it to your life and the more you do that the more you come to recognize when God is speaking to your own heart because that's happening as you're reading the Bible and and you've got the Bible itself confirming and showing you that this is actually God's voice and over time you get to where you pray and listen and you start gaining the ability because you've been doing it as you read the Bible so you're exercising yourself to godliness so you start gaining this ability to notice what God is saying in your own heart and so then in daily life and I talk about pray and listen I'm not just talking about the formal time that we spend in prayer okay it's not the formal - even though there's a great value for formal time of Prayer and I think it's I think it's healthy an important for people to have time they set apart just for themselves in God whether it's prayer prayer and the word prayer and worship but prayer and won't use the word pram just don't like any communication any true open communication with God but while time set apart - God has one certain value the truth is what's really going to navigate you through life and cause you to succeed in your business dealings help you deal with your kids help you through marriage difficulties is when you you do what the Apostle Paul says you pray without ceasing in other words you develop this inner listening we are always attentive to your heart because that's what God speaks to you you're always attentive to your heart and you're recognizing when God is speaking to you and in those very situations instead of judging things based on how what you see and hear and touch and smell and sort of judging things based on how you did it in the past you're hearing the wisdom of God about what to do in that particular situation you're something that I did and I still do this from time to time I don't do it quite as much as I as I did when I first got say you know first gotta say man I was so hungry to know God I want it to know God I want to hear his voice I you know I didn't get in this to play games I didn't get in this to be religious I got in this because I needed God I needed a change in my life and so you know the first many years that I was saved the first eight or ten years that I was saved you know I would set myself aside for for three 1021 days or sometimes 30-day fast and you know I would I would arrange my work schedule to be able to do this and and I would set myself apart I was just fast and praying all to him we misunderstand the value of fasting one of the things that what the terminology that the Bible uses quite often in relationship to fasting it refers to humm the soul or the effect that it has on the soul you see fasting to try to get God to do something as religious legalism you can't there's not enough of any performance there's enough sacrifice that you can do to get God to do anything more than what he's done because Jesus has already given his life we don't have to make the sacrifice to get God to do things Jesus paid that price so fasting doesn't affect God but what fasting does it affects me and I have learned from years and years and years of extended fasting that what happens is I fast that I a couple things happen number one I have to deal with hunger and you know some people just fast and they just think about hunger and think about think about flu think about food know when you get hungry and you're fasting this is where you go into your inner man this is where you connect with the grace of God inside you this where you confess the word over yourself and you you experience the power the grace of strength of God to overcome hunger and I Got News for you hunger is the deepest driving physical force that there is it's deeper than your sex drive it's deeper than any other drive that you have and and when you can experience the grace of God to overcome hunger I Got News for you you can experience the grace of God overcome any physical desire or temptation that'll ever come to you second thing is that as you fast you you become less and less aware of your five senses and you become more and more aware of your inner man and so you're developing this inner awareness you're developing this and what I would find myself that I find myself reading the Bible and really pondering things for hours on end and hearing the voice of God and having insight into the scripture and you know and again when I would fast I wasn't fast and go to work at this it's not an endurance contest I'm not doing it to try to get God to do anything it was time set apart not only set apart from the world but so depart from these five senses where I would connect with God in my inner man I know there's a lot of people that don't fast some people think that's illegal ism it's only legalism if you think it will get God to do something for you see I want to be spiritually minded you know the book of Romans chapter 8 it says this it says because as for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh so where's the law never could bring anybody the life of God the law the law was the law is the wisdom of God the law shows us who God is the law shows us a picture of what our character should be the law shows us how to how to conduct business it shows us things about health but those things about relationship and finances but they what the law can do it can't make you righteous you can't obey enough of the law to become righteous so so it says for what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin he condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according the spirit I want to point out something right there even though we're not trying to live by the law when we are spiritually minded this passage of scripture says that that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us in other words we end up doing those things that are in the law because we're yield it to our inner man were yield to the life of God inside of us but we're not doing it by our own strength we're not doing it to earn anything from God we're doing it because we are a new creation and the more we listened to and yield to the Spirit of God inside of us the more God leads us to walk into the character of his word so the whole key to this though is to become spiritually minded and to be spiritual about it basically gets down to where is your attention what are you most aware of verse 5 says this in Romans 8 says for those who live according to the flesh they set their minds or their attention on the things of the face on these five centuries on gratify in these five senses but those who live according to the spirit they set their mind on the things of the Spirit looking inward seeking to experience God seek and to hear God seeking to follow the wisdom of God so you see life until the life of God manifests itself to the spiritually minded now is given to all men freely through the Lord Jesus but that does not mean that all men are going to have a manifestation of the life of God and selling them you know healing has been purchased for all men but not all men get healed salvation has been purchased for all men but not all men get saved prosperity has been has been purchased for all men but not all men prosper but you see we access these things because we look to the Spirit of God inside of us and we listen to the voice of God in their heart and we we follow and we walk in what God is saying to us we're empowered by the Holy Spirit now listen this verse 6 to be carnally minded is death now this is a letter written to Christians and this is Christians being warned that now if you're Carla my fear naturally minded if you got your mind and your awareness shut on these things out here he says really you're just gonna experience death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace so if I'm looking out here it's going to be death why because it's all based on circumstances it's all based on the illusion of reality it's all based on a everything natural but you don't want if I'm listening in here if I've exercised myself to godliness I'm listening and looking in here not only did I hear God leading me and showing me what to do but I experienced a lot the power to do it and so inwardly no matter what's going on the outside of me I'm filled with peace I'll take some peace and life go hand in hand you can't have life without peace and you can't have peace without knowing that life God's positive life is yours now listen verse 7 because the carnal mind the natural mountain the mind that is paying attention everything out here listen is enmity against God no nobody that's got their attention focused out there is trying to be against God but they will find themselves moving in opposition to how God's trying to move in their life because because they are aligning themselves with the natural world they're aligning themselves with with what they see hear smell taste touch they're aligning themselves with with what their mind tells them is real rather than what their heart tells them is real listen this about the carnal mind it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can it be so then those who are in the flesh verse 8 says cannot please God now it didn't say they probably wouldn't it didn't say they would sometimes not please God is is that when you live in the flesh and it explain it living the flesh is when your mind or your attention is on what comes to you through these five senses it says it will be impossible to please God it will be impossible to experience the life and peace of God because in reality you will always find yourself moving against God or against his truth you know again you're not in your mind you're not trying to move against God but when you're moving against his truth you are moving against God and no matter how much God loves you he can't deliver you from the choice to live a destructive life you know the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 11 without faith it's impossible to please God Paul said in the book of Romans if you're if you're a carnally minded or in the flesh you can't please God I've got to make up my mind that I am who God says I am Jesus really did what the Bible says he did it is all mine right now because I am in him and I've got to do whatever it takes to become a moveable about that reality a moveable about the fact that all the promises of God are mine I'm delivered from all the curses that I can be the person that I want to be no ifs ands or buts no excuses and I've got to make that choice and then I've got to exercise myself the godless I've got a I've got to take the steps it takes to start hearing experiencing empowered of a Holy Spirit foolishness I promise you you can live an incredible life you can have the life you want to have you can experience God's promises you can leave the past behind you can leave yesterday behind you can leave all the weaknesses and limitations behind and you can be the person you want to be now I hope you're enjoying the broadcast today this broadcast is based on my book and CD series becoming the person you want to be I don't know if any truth in the Bible that is more important in your life if you're planning on following Jesus if you want to live a life that's powerful and healthy listen get the CD set and the book and go beyond where we're going these programs you know we want to put all these programs out here so people can have them for free we want everybody to benefit from this message but every month we want to run a special for those of you who sell on a dive deeper I want more knowledge I want to invest in my life I want to invest in my heart so we got a special this month for you for the book and the CD all month long it's going to be a blessing to you it's going to take you where you never believed that you could go all right this is your last assignment in your mentoring session for this series you started out by saying what kind of what kind of person they want to be what kind of effect do I want to have one people now if you've never done this with me before or even if you have you might want to do this again not you thought about okay this is the effect that I want to have on people then this is the way that I need to to treat people this is the behavior I need to have if I want to have this kind of effect now you're right your character sketch and your character sketch is where you simply write down first person present tense always in the positive form and by that I mean you're not trying to talk about what you're trying to stop doing you're always emphasizing what you are doing and what you're starting so let's say that you've said you know I want to be kinder to people I want people to feel loved I want people to feel safe I want people to trust me I want people to to like me or you know whatever it is that you said that you want the effect to be on people so now you write your character sketch and you include all of these traits that you said you're going to have to have and you include all these things that you said you wanted people to experience so and you're writing the first person as if it is real right now and you dress it to God father I thank you that I am a new creation because I'm a new creation I thank you that I treat people in a way that they always feel loved they always feel safe I think that I listen and I pay attention when other people talk I thank your father that I really am concerned about other people's well-being I thank you Father that in every situation I'm always aware of how to best express love I'm always aware of how to bring out the very best and a person I think that no matter what anybody says to me I overlook insults and I encourage people I help people move beyond their boundaries write you out of character sketch putting it all in the first person present tense in the positive form and then every day I just want you to read this and commit this to the Lord as your way of life you

Channel: Dr. Jim Richards

Views: 5,883

Rating: 4.9215684 out of 5

Keywords: Dr. Jamesm B. Richards, Jim Richards, Dr. Jim Richards, Impact Ministries

Id: TQvbM1j6T4k

Length: 30min 55sec (1855 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 25 2013