The Law Of Progressive Overload

[Music] rise up in jesus name open eyes and heal the land rise up [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's time to rise [Music] is a couple of things very quickly now this week we are starting a new series and it's going to be on the laws of spiritual growth and we're going to go through how through the laws of spiritual growth of how to grow spiritually you know i've done teaching on the secrets of divine healing we've done some on the secrets of spiritual power and you're going to see some of these laws overlap these quote unquote secrets and so you'll see them together now uh in that and it's funny because she mentioned specifically just now uh pain-free contractions in childbirth amen that you know that's that's awesome in it i mean and all the women said they made it okay so man we're like oh it's a big deal hey right come on yeah okay anyway okay um so in that i'm going to be mentioning in today's message it's funny she gave that testimony because i'm going to be mentioning specifically about uh how as childbirth gets closer the contraction gets stronger and how it's natural usually the woman generally wants to not push she wants to back off but wise advice is whenever the contractions come push that is the opposite of what most people do for spiritual growth because spiritual growth well let me just just get into it um and we'll just get right into it right now see how much that can hold and stay put so we're going to talk about the first spiritual law uh we're going to go through i think there's about seven of them surprisingly but the first one is going to be the law of progressive overload this is it's hard to say anyone is more important than the other because they're all obviously laws to to grow but you're going to see how some are always active and some you put into play the law of progressive overload is going to be in play no matter what you do the best thing you can do is learn to use it for growth and if you want to grow you're going to have to use it that makes sense so that should cover everybody here right in other words you're going to go through this no matter what but if you want to grow you're definitely going to go through it also so might as well learn how to do it and if you're going to go through it anyway might as well use it to grow from amen so in mark chapter four you don't have to turn there right now but i'm just going to mention this to you you can turn to john 15 that'll be the first one we're actually reading from but in mark chapter 4 and in matthew 13 jesus gave us what most people call the parable of the sore we mentioned that earlier today but it's actually the parable of the soil so let's get used to calling it what it really is it's the parable of the soil not of the sower what that parable teaches us is that the sower jesus gives everyone the same word you get that same seed went into every soil you got that now that's already a that we just killed a sacred cow right there right why because everybody thinks they got a special word everywhere you go you go it's funny you go into this church you got a special word for this church you go to another church you got a special word for that church everybody's got a special word nope one word called the bible understand i'm not saying god can't speak to you specifically in your situation of course he can i'm just saying if you're not into the general word of the bible don't be expecting a special word that makes sense most people run from one prophecy to the next one word from the next everybody's waiting for all the prophets preachers whoever to give the word of the lord for this year okay i've got one too it's read your bible okay and get your face out of all of the stuff okay and actually read the bible um you know i really think there ought to be some way that if a person makes false prophecies they shouldn't be allowed to prophesy again that would shut down a whole bunch of stuff amen because everybody's got a word and then nobody remembers on december 31st what word that person gave january 1st of that year and so people can say whatever they want and never have to give an account for it you are to be held accountable yeah for whatever word you give yeah amen so the bible talks about pillow prophets people that prophesy off of their dreams it talks about false prophets people that just give false prophecies it talks about people who are with flattering lips that will give prophecies that they know people want to hear we talked about that in the first session and so we have to get real people real and decide what the bible actually says and go along with it amen so now going back to that mark 4 and matthew 13 and the parable of the soil there are actually four types of soil we actually did a book on this called healing for everyone the four types of soil we go into the four types of soil specifically dealing with healing but those four types of soil deal with everything not just healing so the four types of soil out of the four types of soil if you remember the the parable three produce nothing different levels of reception some rejected outright some held on for a little bit that kind of thing but three produce nothing but only the fourth type of soil produced anything and that fourth type of soil produced 30 60 or 100 fold now if that soil is producing 30 60 or 100 fold that proves that that soil is not an individual person because then it wouldn't be 30 60 or 100 so jesus is saying a type of soil which is a type of person that can receive so there are four types of people and there are four types of soil but only one type of soil produces and that one type that produces out of that type will come 30 60 or 100 full is everybody with me now how many of you want to be the fourth type of soil amen how many do you want to be the 30 60 100 fold type of soil see that's the best kind of soil am i right all right so that's what we are headed toward that's what we want to do that's what we want to be because we believe that's jesus's plan i don't believe god is satisfied that's the word he's pleased if you produce 30. he's pleased if you produce 60. he's very pleased if you produce 100 but he's not satisfied until you produce a hundred does that make sense god has not ordained you to produce thirty he's not ordained you to produce sixty he has ordained you to produce one hundred but you stop where you may well you decide all right are you with me there yes okay now so there are four types of soil but actually we could also break it into two types of soil what two types the soil that produces in the soil that doesn't right so you got three kind that doesn't one kind that does so you're going to be one of two types of soil at least in the sense that you're either going to be a producer or non-producer does that make sense are you with me so far can we agree on what i've said so far right we're going to build this over the next several weeks as we talk about these things now and remember if i'm preaching the word of god god confirms his word i don't have to preach healing for you to get healed i preach the word he confirms it with meeting your need now if i preach healing you'll get healing but if you don't need healing and i preach healing then you might not believe from it as much as the sick person but if i preach the word without specifying a topic so to speak then it's just the seed that goes out and any soil can produce does that make sense okay now so uh we want to be the soil that produces fruit not the one that doesn't now john chapter 15 let's get there um starting in verse one says this is jesus talking he says i am the true vine and my father is the husbandman now that means he's the farmer he's the as they would say the tiller of the soil he's the one that works his garden right so he says in verse two ev now listen careful we're gonna take this slow because i want you to get this it's not about me preaching a sermon it's about you hearing the word and having that seed in your heart and then you producing from that seed that's what counts not how many words i say but how many words you receive amen so let's let's take this and please don't uh look at this as much as you can don't look at it from a preconceived idea let's just take it read it for what it says and let's believe it even if it may kind of go against the grain of what we've been taught before how many of you know since you've maybe been listening to us uh maybe you've heard some things that disagreed with things you've heard before okay well guess what you're going to hear them again today right so he says i'm the true vine we know that my father is a husband the farmer every branch in me say that with me branch in me so this branch is in jesus is that right he said branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away he he who the father actually yeah the father am i right because the father is the farmer jesus is the vine we're the branch the branch now notice he didn't say the vine that doesn't produce why because the vine produces but he said the branch that doesn't produce the father takes away is is that right he said it takes away takes away from he said if a branch is in me but doesn't produce he takes it away is that right okay now these are the words of jesus the words of jesus are the supreme court of the universe there's no higher authority i don't care what paul said later what paul said it has to be looked at in the light of jesus's words amen so we have to line these things up now every branch in me that bears not fruit he the father takes away now people say wait he jesus said no man will pluck me out of his hand that isn't that right how many of you know god ain't a man so no man can take you out of his hand but god can is that what that says let's just be honest i mean you might not like it but you know if we're gonna start tearing out pages this might as well throw the whole thing away amen okay he take it away now watch and every branch that bears fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit so now notice so now what that means is he's going to clip it back a bit so that it will produce more fruit now see we lack only growth but if you don't have the purging then the growth will actually get stagnated right if you try to have a garden and you say oh no don't don't pull the weeds don't pull anything out i want growth and the weeds are growing so don't kill anything that's growing let anything that's growing let it grow no you have to pull out the weeds so that there is room for the plants that you want to grow because the weeds will take place and take the place of the plant you want to grow and it makes it where the plant you want to grow can't produce because they get smothered and they're right they get choked out okay so he says he purges us that means god will cause a clipping to take place how many of you know the purging the clipping getting always fun any right now i'm sure now you know some people say that plants talk and make sounds and i've heard that even in the bible it says there's an allusion to that so i don't disagree with that but you can imagine if you were going to start clipping plants and you could hear them they would holler don't you think right kind of like you do whenever things start getting clipped away okay we'll just keep going all right now but to know that the reason it gets purged is so that it can bring forth more fruit right so whatever's going on it's it's so that you will actually produce more right now this listen careful when i talk about purging and i talk about a clipping back or clipping you know taking away that kind of thing i am not talking about sickness i'm not talking about disease i'm not talking about those things that jesus died so that we don't have to bear i'm not talking about that i'm talking well you'll see specifically just a minute i'm talking specifically about situations that are uncomfortable but will lead to growth if you react correctly okay now so just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean it's not god how many of you know well i can tell you right now god will almost always as soon as you start to get comfortable god will cause you to move into an uncomfortable place right so just get comfortable with discomfort right and when you do that then things start to work a lot better right it's just that simple so now then he says in verse 3 now you are clean through the word which i have spoken unto you notice the word clean okay abide in me and die in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can you except you abide in me so now he said that we can be a branch in him but now we must abide in him now the problem is a lot of people are in him but they don't abide in him now there's two aspects of abiding there's probably even more but there's two that i'll mention real quick one part of abiding means well when it talks about it it means staying put and not going in and coming out and see a lot of people tend to be in christ be in the branch but they don't abide because they there but then they tend to venture out into the flesh because having you know if you're in him you're in the spirit right and a lot of people but a lot of people tend to venture out into the flesh and they let the flesh or the emotions and their soul rule their situation and when they're doing that they're not abiding in him they're in the branch but they're not abiding so there is also an aspect of abiding where you stay in the branch and the way that that again this is not a message on that particularly but that abiding means that no matter what what's going on you abide in peace you abide looking to him you look to him and that your eyes are stayed on him regardless of what's going on in your life regardless of the storms and you know it's not that you don't feel them it's not that you don't recognize them but you recognize that he is bigger than the storm you recognize that he is stronger than the wind stronger than the problem now listen this we can we can get real religious and talk about wind and storm and waves and how you're going to respond and how you need to react and you can yes and amen and you can walk right out of here and you know something be wrong and all of a sudden you're pulled out and you don't realize and you think well that's that's not what he was talking about he was talking about like big things and this thing over here like getting a bad doctor's report well i am talking about that but not just that i'm talking about the fact that the enemy is looking for any way to cause you to lose your peace the minute you've lost your peace you have left abiding do you hear that so the minute you're out of peace you're i'm not saying you're out of christ in the sense that you're no longer saved i'm just saying that you are at that point you are no longer abiding in him and abiding in him is where all the promises come to fruition amen now i can't i just can't emphasize this enough you're going to have to start recognizing in your daily life when problems come not 15 minutes into the problem but when the problem comes you recognize it for what it is as an attempt to pull you out of peace and to pull you into soul rather than spirit you've got to recognize it and immediately now one of the things and and you know some people probably get upset me saying this but the two areas i'll just be honest if i had not experienced these two areas i would not be able to do and would not have been able to have done the things that we've done and to continue uh you know for over 20 years now of doing the same thing without violating principles that we set up 20 years ago and the re those two things number one or not the first one actually but the first one i'll talk about was going into the military and seeing how you have to subjugate your emotions so that you can respond correctly under under duress now the other aspect of that was my background in martial arts because that also did the exact same thing it put me in high pressure situations that i had to learn to maintain control of my emotions and not let my emotions dictate my actions does that make sense now in that i mean if you look at paul you look at his life you look at how he was raised you look at his progress through life uh god groomed him for his role you look at peter totally different person totally different personality or to a large series actually they had very similar personalities paul was just a little more educated whereas peter would cuss you out paul would do it in words you didn't understand so that you didn't know you were getting cussed out so that's kind of the difference between the two so now but in saying that this is where you have to be um you have to be in the moment but when the moment's going on you have to be able to step back and look at the whole situation you have to be able to detach yourself from the emotion of the moment and realize what's going on and when you do that then you can step back into the moment and do what needs to be done right my dad was a police officer i was a corrections officer for the state of texas i was law enforcement uh in the military and one of the things that we had to learn i actually learned this from my dad before i ever learned it from the military when we would because i would ride with him at times when i was growing up in early teens and we would come on the scene of a wreck and there would be people bleeding people dead different situations going on horrible situations and my dad was like you know wait in the car and i'd have to wait in the police car but i'm watching what's going on and i would watch how there would be panic and crying and screaming and sometimes people would just take off running for i mean they don't even know where they're going they just take off running because of the panic and then you've got people that were running and they were bleeding and when you run and bleed you bleed faster and so you would actually die faster so you have to be able to my dad had to be able to step into the situation remain totally detached and yet get the job done and not let the emotions of the moment cause him to panic or feel even sympathy or compassion or anything at that moment now you the compassion aspect was that he would do what was necessary to help so but i had to learn that and i had to learn to keep my emotions under control so that i could deal with the situation that is probably one of the most valuable lessons i have learned in my entire life because if you situations can be a situation or it can be a person it could be a person that pushes your buttons it could be a situation that causes you to panic or freeze or run you know fight or flight one of those things and so you have to learn to be able to step back and detach and then step into the situation and deal with it correctly if christians would learn that one thing sin would disappear in the church overnight because that's how sin comes in is that the enemy pushes you into a situation where you have to make a decision quick and not where he said make a decision but you have to you will make it quick and your decision many times will lead to sin or maybe it's a temptation to sin instead of you stepping back and looking at what the enemy's trying to do uh you're in the moment you let your emotions take over then you fall well you don't fall into sin you walk into it right so all right now he says here watch as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can you except you abide in me i am the vine you are the branches he that abides in me and i in him the same bringeth forth much fruit so if you are in the if you're a branch abiding in the vine you bring forth much fruit in the story if you are not bringing forth much fruit you are not abiding in the vine you get that now see this is going to be very black and white this is going to be i'm not going to leave you any room to make excuse or leave you any room to make you to okay the the worst thing you will ever have to do is look yourself in the mirror and honestly assess yourself that's the worst thing most people will ever have to do why because they have to realize most people are really good at acknowledging their strengths and really bad at acknowledging their weaknesses or their faults and that's why we get so mad when somebody else points them out why because we spend all of our time trying to avoid them and not look in that mirror but if you're going to grow you have to look in the mirror just if you're going to go to a gym and grow you're going to have to look in the mirror at some point that's why they have mirrors at gems that and for the ego of the people that want to stand around and look at mirrors all day it's amazing the people that look at mirrors most exercise the least but yet they think if they look in the mirror it's gonna be like one of those circus mirrors that make you look bigger or something just generally in the wrong places so but you've got to look yourself in the mirror and say okay this is my shortcomings this is what i need to fix this is a strength and you've okay how did i get strong in that well that's what i need to do in this area and you start to grow right now but now remember what is the number one law of growth spiritual growth progressive overload what does that mean that means guess what here's the good news the next problem you face will be the biggest in your life it'll always be bigger than the last one right yeah you'll see in a minute the difference is you will be able to handle it better because you've grown through the others to get there whatever thing you face you are capable of facing and defeating that's the key right so dr sumrall used to say the problem that defeats you is just a little bigger than you so as the problems get bigger so are you amen so he says here jesus says in verse 5 i am the vine you are the branches he that abides in me and i in him the same brings forth much fruit for without me you can do nothing if a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch do you hear that and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned now is there any misconception about what he's talking about right he's not talking about branches he's talking about people and that he's not talking about trees he's talking about people so he's warning us here about bearing fruit he said if verse 7 if you abide in me and my words abide in you you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you so what's the key to answer prayer abiding in him okay herein is my father glorified that you bear much fruit what does that mean that means god wants you to bear much fruit is that right because he's glorified so he wants you to bear much fruit so shall you be my disciples in other words notice bearing fruit and bearing much fruit is how you be his disciple as you understand the butchering of the language there right okay as the father hath loved me so have i loved you continue ye in my love now notice he's telling them to continue in his love if it were impossible not to continue in his love he would not have to tell them to continue in his love so it is possible not to continue in the love of jesus do you understand that okay look at verse 10 if if biggest word in the bible if you keep my commandments you shall abide in my love well now we know how to stay in his love and that right how do we do that we keep his commandments oh oh brother chris okay i hear you're preaching law now no then preaching the law of spiritual growth yeah but i'm not talking about the law in the sense of moses law right but now notice he said you shall abide in my love even as i have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love so jesus is not asking you to do anything that he himself has not done and he did it as a man now get this he did not use his godness to overcome any temptation which he had already been through at this point isn't that right now think about this at the end toward the end when he was in the garden there was two points in jesus life he was tempted when he came into ministry and tempted pretty much when he left earthly ministry he was tempted in the wilderness he was tempted in the garden and that right and the bible says he was tempted in every way like we are but without sin now get this when you're when you're under temptation there is the temptation and there's the pressure to give into the temptation right because you can be like okay you can be tempted and there not be real pressure but you can also be tempted and there is real pressure and you understand if when jesus both in the wilderness but especially i mean think about this in the wilderness there was temptation but it was all kind of earthly natural temptation the things that people would naturally go through but then in the garden now satan knew man i this guy has beat me every time we have fought so now you know the pressure had to be on why because satan knew man this this is it this is it right i mean here he is you have to realize the fate of the entire world lay in jesus being able to overcome that temptation and follow through and be crucified isn't that right can you imagine the pressure okay a lot of people think well i couldn't stand up and talk in front of people because i couldn't take the pressure of all these people looking at me okay you know you got 100 people 150 people 10 people who cares bottom line is you could have that you could have 10 000 people jesus didn't have the pressure of 10 000 people looking at him he had the pressure of every person from the beginning to the end their salvation their eternal their eternal life their eternal security might say was in that moment and you can imagine the pressure just the soulish pressure of knowing what was at stake can you imagine it i mean you go through temptations and pressures that don't have near as much at stake maybe they affect your family maybe they affect your company or something like that but that ain't the world and it's not eternal life can you imagine just the spiritual pressure that was on jesus to give in just to give in can you imagine that see that's way beyond just an idea of well okay overcome that temptation but it wasn't really that big a deal you know no this was a big deal amen so he says in verse 11 these things have i spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full this is my commandment so what do you say you want to abide in me want to abide in my love then you got to keep my commandments he said this is my commandment that you love one another as i have loved you right now now he didn't just say that you love one another because then that gives you the idea of i can love you the way i want to love you and by my definition of love but he said but i want you to love one another the way i've loved you right and you look at how he has loved them now that doesn't mean that you don't rebuke that you don't correct matter of fact that is part of love amen and so many times people think that if you scold or chastise them with that that you're being mean no the people you don't care about you let them run headlong into whatever problem they're starting you don't say anything and they're right why because you don't love them so if you love them you're gonna say don't run with scissors that's not smart right so you're you're gonna i told you not to do that twice so you know go sit down do a timeout or whatever people are doing nowadays god forbid they would spank them but anyway we saw the results of non-spanking in portland anyway okay so so but i digress we will station we will try to stay on topic here okay he says greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends then he said you're my friends if oh look at there we got an if to be jesus's friend if you do whatsoever i commend you so if you do not do whatsoever he command you you're not his friend is that simple yeah i mean i i you know i know this is not a you know flag waving handkerchief thing you know i i get that but and it may not seem like a pep rally right but let me tell you if you get a hold of this uh this is truth and it will help you and you will grow real simple so now let's keep moving he says henceforth i call you not servants for the servant knoweth the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth see i think this is where lisp came from is speaking king james too much because then you end up talking and everything has a nist on the end of it so he says for the servant know with okay not what his lord do it okay but i have called you friends for all things that i have heard of my father i have made known unto you you have not chosen me but i have chosen you and ordained you ordained you to do what that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatsoever you shall ask of the father in my name he may give it you these things i command you that you love one another so now notice all these have to do with love you hear that all that has to do with love abiding in him keeping his commandments all of it now first john chapter one verse five this then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that god is light and in him is no darkness at all if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie boy don't you just love the bluntness there and that just all right you say you love him but you walk in darkness you're a liar isn't that amazing okay maybe now you can understand why i have extremely short counseling sessions i it just doesn't take long to tell somebody you're lying and then they leave that's pretty much usually you don't get much past that no come back come on come on come on back okay but you're still lying all right but now and but but i say the truth in love i love you but don't lie right so there you go you got it okay yeah so he says uh verse seven but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of jesus christ his son cleanses us from all sin if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us now that's pretty simple isn't it pretty straightforward right now here's the thing remember what jesus said you've got to keep my commandments he's if you don't keep my commandments you're not my friend right if you don't keep my commandments you're not abiding in me right and you're not going to abide in the father's love correct you know what we just read now you say but okay so if i sin you're saying i'm out right okay and you have to realize in the in the church there there's a spectrum of christianity and you've got people at each end and you've got some at one end that says no matter what you do it don't matter once you say the magic word and now you're in right it's the sinner's prayer basically it's what people do and so they say that and say that that doesn't matter anymore what you do because you're in and that's it nothing matters then you've got the other end of the spectrum that says if you sin at all you're out you're done and if hell opened up you'd go straight there right i mean you've got these two extremes right now how do you know that these two extremes neither one of them are correct okay but what we have to realize is that for instance let's say you sin you say well then that means i'm i'm out well he said if you keep my commandments but he said that if you confess your sin then he will cleanse you so that's in the commandments that you must confess your sin so if you if you sin now you may not have the fellowship you had with god before because sin tends to stop fellowship but now notice if you confess it now you're obeying his command so even at the end of that you're still being obedient does that make sense now i'm not giving you a license to sin right as if you needed one you'd do fine without a license but i'm just saying i'm not i'm not telling you it's okay right matter of fact why because when i wrote this down i wrote this down last night was this little note down and it's been playing in my head ever since and i hope it does the same thing with you once i get there which will be just a moment but it says if we say we've not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us and then you go right into first john 2 okay and well actually that was going all the way through first john 2 verse 1 my little children these things right unto you that you sin not hear that not that you sin just a little bit not that you sin less than you did before that you sin not right he had to write them something to tell them something so that they would not sin and if you read first john the whole thing is about the love of god and walking in the love of god and if you know the love of god then you will see sinning now that doesn't mean you're never going to make a mistake right it means that you will not habitually live in sin and you will not habit keep making the same mistakes right now and if any man sin we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world and hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments so if you don't keep his commandments you don't even know him do you hear that there there are crazy people in this world i don't know if you know that or not okay but there's two categories of people that most people don't want to admit exist crazy people and evil people and if the world would ever learn that there's actually evil then things would change but then there's also crazy people have you ever heard uh i was trying to think of the last one i'd heard about it a while back but for some reason there are people that are fans of like celebrities and they'll start writing them you know they'll write them letters and the more they write the more personal the letters get and the person never writes back to him the celebrity never writes back i mean not a word right but they keep writing letters and then pretty soon they graduate from letters to they start stalking them and they start hanging outside their house and they start following them around town and then they start sometimes breaking in their house and and stealing things that are in there or just taking things that belong to them and then and but the crazy part is now that's that can be pretty crazy in itself but the scary crazy part is whenever you talk to these people and they live across the country and they tell you that they're having a relationship with this celebrity and they say oh yeah yeah we're going to get married yep oh they're going to leave their husband their wife they're going gonna leave and we're gonna get married and we have this relationship and yeah and it's secret but it's gonna and and they believe it right right now that's scary crazy that's beyond just crazy that's scary crazy right because some people are just crazy and do things and they know what they're doing but then you got people that are so crazy they don't even know what they're doing and they think what they're doing is right that's the scary crazy right are you with me okay now so you got these people that will say these things and they build up this fantasy in their head and they all talk about conversations they've had with this person and they've never had a conversation but all the conversation is in their head and they'll talk about this thing and oh yes and we did this and yes we did that and we went here and we did they've never even met them and and you you read about these and you think how do these people get to this place well they keep building and it starts small and it grows and it gets more and more intricate because they give way to it now notice here this is what the church has done we have taken the idea of a crisis moment in a person's life where they turn to christ and they get saved many times they're led through a prayer or something like that but that's as far as it goes but then they build up in their head just because i have said something i'm living this way but i they told me to do that and i'd be saved and wouldn't have to worry about hell so i've said that i've done that so but i'm still living this way but now i'm okay and the longer that goes on the more it gets built up in their head that things are okay when they're not and then especially if they hear people preach it and tell them it's okay and then they come up with different definitions of grace and things like that that fit their idea well okay now watch us god does not want us to sin but if we sin we confess our sin to him he forgives and cleanses us is that correct okay if we do that we are still obeying his commands now listen i am not telling you that you're going to spend the last few hours of each day sitting down and going through a list of any sins you might have made or anything else and well i can't leave one undone because i go to sleep and i dying my feet i'm going to go to hell because i didn't confess i sin i'm not saying that right not saying that i'm saying that what you listen if the holy spirit brings it to your attention deal with it don't push it aside don't say well but you know the church i went to they said that doesn't matter so it must not matter i'm just being hard on myself no that's called conviction of the holy spirit and he's trying to deal with you to get that thing out so you deal with it and don't push it aside amen now here's what i wrote down last night the grace message taught wrongly you understand taught wrongly not the true grace the grace message taught wrongly will lead to a seared conscience the grace message taught correctly will lead to a sensitive conscience that will prevent us from sinning i could even say habitually if they wanted to but that's okay do you understand that isn't that simple now see the bible talks about having your conscience seared if you're if it were not possible the bible would not talk about it so when the bible talks about it we have to assume it's possible and if it's possible it would behoove us to figure out what does it mean to have a seared conscience because that seared conscience once we get there it's bad right so you don't want to get there but according to a lot of the grace mission that it has been taught even recently uh it would be impossible to sear your conscience because there's nothing you could do wrong so just something to think about there now a physical remember what we're talking about is the law of spiritual growth right and the first law is what progressive overload remember that now a physical natural law does not always work in the spiritual realm but a spiritual law will always work in the natural realm does that make sense so the natural law doesn't always work in the spiritual some do some don't but spiritual laws always work and they will work in the natural realm too right now because we know we have the law of gravity right and even in the natural we can supersede the law of gravity with the law of lift and that's how we get around on airplanes but the spiritual law of the word going back to the father allowed jesus to be raised up from the earth and violate the law of gravity without even bringing into play implementing the law of lift right because he didn't have wind under him lifting him up amen so it was more like a star wars tractor beam it was okay he was drawn in okay so now in every area of life the law of progressive overload applies ever remember this and if you want to make notes feel free because you you need to remember this in the physical fitness area there must be regular increase of exertion or you will not grow that's the way it is right you can sit and you can confess all day long that you're going to grow and you will grow but not muscle you will grow outward okay so there has to be an increase of exertion in strength and in bodybuilding there has to be heavier weights there has to be more sets more reps that kind of thing shorter rest periods there's all kinds of ways that you can cause the law of progressive overload to come into play but but you're going to have to do that now you have to remember when you start to bring in to play progressive overload it ain't going to feel good matter of fact you it's it's really strange it's almost like an oxymoron to think about it you actually your goal is to lift more than you can which is impossible but that your goal is to be able to lift more than you can so you're pushing and every time you push more than you did last time which means now your muscles are all brought into play so that you can do that even greater so you're actually every time you do it you're almost doing the impossible because you have to push to your maximum to the literally to the point of failure and if you're doing you know eight to ten reps eight to 12 reps have you want to do it it's if you're doing 12 reps uh the 10 all they do is pre-exhaust your muscle and bring oxygen by way of blood into your muscle and that's caused as a pump we'll talk about that a minute and that'll increase but what happens with that it's amazing because that increase those first if you're doing 12 reps those first 10 are really just getting everything ready for the last two the last two is what actually causes growth isn't that something so you got to get through the first 10 to get to the thing that actually causes growth and what causes growth see because the first 10 you you're actually doing things you're just awakening all the muscles getting the blood flow getting everything the oxygen to the muscles but the last two is where you're ripping and tearing the muscles sounds horrible doesn't it it is right that's why most people don't do it but so but you're you're tearing and ripping muscles and it's that healing process where the muscles heal that makes them heal stronger because so actually the guys with the biggest muscle actually just have a whole lot of scar tissue that's really what it comes down to but the scar tissue is stronger because what you break and it repairs is stronger than it was to begin with because of the scar tissue but see nobody likes a scar tissue nobody likes to break because it hurts so people stop and most people stop when they still have 40 percent of their energy left that's why most people need personal trainers coaches pastors to push you past your last 40 percent so you you'll give up to 60 you've got 40 left my job is to take you once you hit the 60 to push you on past for the last 40. amen so don't get mad at me if you walk out of here feeling sore right like someone's been walking on your toes okay so okay so so you need shorter rest periods more reps more sets in endurance sports it's a little different similar it's still the law of progressive overload why because you have longer faster periods of exertion right of energy exertion you have shorter rest periods and actually they've come up with a system now they call the tabata system which actually you you go and then you do like a sprint you know for a shorter period of time then you come back to normal and you do another sprint and it's interspersed so you do increased exertion it's but it's all part of the exercise and then you have to do about four rounds of that now in that all of this means that you have to decide to push yourself this is where people fail most people do not push themselves but if you want to grow you got to push the same thing that you have to do when you're pregnant and you have contractions you want to back off but wisdom is push why because you're that close to your miracle when that bait the closer the baby gets to being birthed the stronger the contractions get and the closer together they get what does that mean that means okay contractions what is that that's pressure put on the muscles of the body am i right so what you're saying is the closer the baby gets to being born the more constant the pressure you're going to be under does that make sense because you have these interspersed little times of contractions but they get closer together and they get stronger so they get stronger and closer so pretty soon it's just one big contraction i mean that's really what it almost what it comes down to and so you have this process now this is the exact same process that you have whenever you are waiting for your miracle you have the exact same thing and here's the key and this is what you want to talk about stepping back and kind of detaching and looking at the whole thing it's hard to do when you're under pressure especially when the pressure is 24 7 right you know what's the 24 7 pressure uh bill's due tomorrow don't have the money to pay it but it's due tomorrow that's 24 hours of pressure that you're going to be under because your mind ain't going to get off that pressure it's going to be there unless you know how to cast your cares upon him believe him and trust him and have done the things that you need to do to be able to reach your miracle amen does that make sense now at the same time that baby gets closer you're under stronger pressure most people as soon as the pressure gets strong they back off and if you do that when you're having a baby all you're doing is prolonging the birth process am i right which means you're going to be in pain longer but people don't recognize that so they want to get out from under the pressure but you have to understand the closer you are to your miracle the more constant and the greater the pressure is going to be so whenever you start recognizing the pressure on your life when you're believing god for something that he has promised see a miracle is nothing more than a fulfilled promise that's all it is and so whenever you get the closer you get to that fulfilled promise the stronger the pressure is going to be so when you get to the point where you think that's it i'm done can't take no more rejoice why because you're right there at your miracle that's when you have to push when everything so when you're trying to push out that last rep and you've done you know your 10 or whatever it is and you've got all the weights there and you push and i mean now listen here's the key a key when you're pushing out that last rep what does that mean whenever you're under constant pressure the doctor has given you a what they would call a terminal report okay you're under pressure you're under pressure from the moment they say the word of whatever the problem is that thing is in your head people talk to you don't even hear them why because i've talked to a lot of people like this and they go here's the situation as soon as they said the c word all of a sudden everything went kind of black and i just walked around like i was you know just numb for days why because that's the pressure the enemy wants you to capitulate he wants you to stop he wants you to give in he wants you to say i can't handle this and just die but god said no no no i've given you a promise for that you want a miracle fulfill the promise how do you do that the pressure's getting there well the doctor said before i had six months but he did another test he said i've got three months guess what contraction got bigger and closer together what do you do do you back off do you go i just can't take the pressure i just can't do it no at that point is when you push that's when you dig in see this this is what made wigglesworth different this is what made john lake different this is what made these guys that everybody looks up to us what made them different they had the ability to grit their teeth wigglesworth said you know what he said i don't care what happens he and his wife made an agreement together no doctors no medicine no surgeries nothing he said no knife will ever touch this body again do you know what kind of pressure that put him under why because as soon as you make that kind of decree all hell comes against you to get you to break it i mean okay let's say this way how many of you know what not to pray for what what do you not pray for what's the one thing don't pray for that what patience exactly why why because you know everything that's meant to cause you not to have patience and to break your patience is going to come after you the minute you pray for patience isn't that right so it's like you know i know it's like if you ever want to eat a good steak declare a fast everybody in town will invite you out to eat it is amazing the minute you declare in private you can do it in your prayer closet and the minute you tell the lord i'm gonna fast for this many days i'm telling you every number one of those days somebody will be inviting you to eat something that you love right they're not going to invite you to go eat broccoli or whatever it is they're going to invite you to go eat something that's good not just good for you all right but that's what they're going to do and they're going to push you and they're going to kill and the funny thing is as soon as you hit that date that you said you wanted to fast everybody quit inviting you it's and they weren't it'd be like something just got switched off and no even tries to invite you anymore so yeah anyway okay so let's let's finish up with this okay what we're talking about this overload principle right progressive overload it has to constantly get bigger stronger more maybe that explains some of the things you know well i became a christian man i thought my life's supposed to get better and all of a sudden that's harder well guess what progressive overload you're growing spiritually it's going to get bigger it's going to get stronger it's going to get the the weight itself is going to get heavier it's why you have to learn how to give it to him and keep walking amen you know the entire crossfit phenomenon is based on this principle the the progressive overload just and they have terms like you know as many reps as possible uh and they have terms like uh you know your personal best your personal uh one rep max what that's not just crossfit that's bodybuilding or weightlifting also but that whole print that whole crossfit thing was based on this now just saying whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger that's the progressive overload principle amen but the thing is and why would somebody say that because it feels like you're dying what doesn't kill you makes you stronger well you know what here i am still standing i guess i'm stronger why because i lasted through that lasted through this kept standing through this and you and every time it gets stronger now let me tell you there is also the opposite effect when temptation comes and you give in every time you give in it makes it easier to give in the next time and it makes it easier to to do the worst thing bigger thing whatever and it's just like a drug that it keeps you you constantly have to have more drug to get the same high same thing as with temptation and the enemy knows that and he will work on you with that and the temptation will get bigger but if you fall prey to it the result consequences are not consequent but let's say the result of the temptation won't be any better matter of fact it would be a letdown but the consequences eternally will definitely get bigger so now yeah you know um okay we know that tearing of a muscle is what makes it grow so you are you have spiritual muscles called faith that's one of them right well when a muscle when the tearing exercise is over okay there has to be proper nutrition or nourishment and and with the proper nutrition and nourishment is what will give the muscle the elements it needs to repair itself and grow stronger that's that's why you need it but there's also there has to be also there's three things okay there has to be exercise there has to be nourishment nutrition and there has to be rest and if you don't rest then you get into over training and then you lose everything and you start to plateau and it's not fun so i've never experienced that but anyway i'm just saying but now scientists have found that there is a certain window of time after the muscle tearing that you have to have the right nourishment into you now you can do some of it before and you will run off of it but then there is also what has to be done there's a window of time afterward that if you get the right nutrition in there right then it will go straight to the muscles and actually makes you grow and repair faster so now what that tells you is this let's say because we're talking about progressive overload we're talking about pressure if we're talking about pressure then whenever the greatest pressure comes and the muscles are tearing and but you over you overcome it now but you've torn the faith muscle i mean you've went to the limit and now you're you've put you but you beat the temptation you you beat it now now you need nutrition right now you need to get it into your system as quick as you can you need to get in the word of god you need to pray and to pray in tongues you need to speak the word of god you need to confess the word of god and you get that in there and those muscles get built back up and the terror starts to heal and now your faith muscle gets bigger and it's going to take a bigger temptation next time to even come after you then after that you all now understand now we know that there's a process your muscles don't actually grow while you're tearing them right they actually have it takes a while it's the healing process and that usually happens within 48 hours there's actually usually at one time i was looking at the statistics about it and there was an 18 minute period of time in which the muscles while you're sleeping at night usually within that 48 hour period that there's an 18 minute period of time when all the muscles repair themselves and then and you wake up the next morning and you're actually bigger because they've actually repaired themselves so but there's a specific time but here's the one area where most of the time the spiritual doesn't uh doesn't kind of completely uh collate with the physical and that is with physical exercise there has to be the nutrition the exercise and you can't do them both at the same time generally and then you have to have rest which you also can't do while you're exercising spiritually you can rest while you exercise spiritually you can walk in rest because he is our rest and we learn how to stay in that rest that's part of that abiding peace is rest that's why we say rest in peace no it's not the same thing but anyway so now matt they work together just make sure you're awake all right but so but you can learn to rest in the middle of the storm you can learn the rest in the middle of that pressure and the thing is it'll be right there and just you just it's amazing because you just remember okay yeah this is yours you got this okay and you can rest and that's what allows for instance when i've gone into hospitals and people are dying and that people are panicking and nurses are in there trying to get you out of the way and because they're trying to you know stab him in the arm or do something to them and you're going in there and you're you're a bother to them because you're in their way right and yet whenever you walk out that person's going to live and not die right why why because you don't go in there and get panicked with them because of the pressure that's a person's life you think they're getting pressure under that of course there's pressure every time i go into a hotel a hospital room uh i live in a hotel it seems like but but if i did up until last year anyway so it's been kind of spoiled living at home now but it's a little bit different but every time you go into a hospital room there is pressure because something's going on well that same pressure is there but the difference is now it's that person's life and you have to win so that pressure is there you have to that muscle tearing that all comes before then you go in there and you win but you have to learn how to stay in rest and peace now you're not going to want to do that you're going to you're going to want to back off when the pressure comes but you're going to have to decide and if you you get you ever see these guys i'm finishing right now i'll finish up with this if you've ever been in the gym and you've watched people working out and if everybody knows themselves you know everybody knows everybody there and you kind of hang out or you know each other then it's funny because you watch this guy that's going to go you know you'll hear the ripple through the gym hey so-and-so is here and he's going to go for his you know as his max he's going to beat his personal record you know he's like a bodybuilder maybe he's you know famous a bodybuilder something like that everybody knows it and so everybody will gather around when he's about to try his thing and maybe he's gone through a couple of reps and now he's getting this point where it's starting to you know his arms are starting to shake and all that kind of stuff and you can see the everything tightening and the blood vessels coming out but now notice everybody comes around there some people don't even know him but they come around they watch him they're like and also somebody goes you can do it you can do it yeah you can do it push come on one more time and he's got his trainer there it's going one more time come on come on you can do it and their hands are under the bars and but they're not touching is come on you got this you got this and now what are they doing man he's got a cheering section and even the people that don't know him will come around they'll cheer him on my god if the church would ever get a hold of that if the church would ever learn that when people are going through things to get alongside them grab their arms raise their arms up get them in there and say you can do this you were built for this you were born for this jesus lives in you all things are possible you can do all things through christ with strengthens you you can do this you can overcome this addiction you can over i know you're going through the shakes i know you got that going on i know you want to you know you you want it you know whatever the addiction is i know you want it but you can do it you can beat this other people who beat it you can beat it jesus is in you you can beat this thing what you but now notice what you don't see in the gym is somebody standing inside going i don't think you can do it i don't yeah that's impossible that yeah that's gonna fall on your head and kill you okay that's that's not you you don't see them around why because all the other people would push them off right as soon as somebody says something negative somebody looked and go shut up go on man if you don't believe go on go somewhere yeah yeah don't listen to him you can do this again if the church would ever learn this and say well i just don't think that's going to you hear what he said they were going to do i don't think that's that's possible hide and watch you know that's what's going to happen so but you have to decide this now yeah i'm going to have to hurry y'all getting anything from this we we we've got to realize you've got to enjoy the progressive overload you know and i was talking with george recently on the phone we were talking about some of these things and we always talk about you know fitness and working out and that kind of stuff and it's funny because when you when you're about to to make these lifts before you do it you can't even have the thought of i can't do this i can't do this because as soon as that thought hits if you don't go no and you don't just absolutely overload that thought with yes i can you will fail i was watching a documentary about a man that isn't he he died a christian he didn't live a christian life most of his life but they said he accepted christ before he died and apparently did pretty good last few years of his life and i couldn't find out i didn't realize it but anyway um his name was evil knievel terrible name okay terrible name but in that documentary he said and and if you remember he made um a hundred and i think i said 115 jumps in his life and he crashed 17 of them i think it was something like that now think about that most people crash once and never get on a motorcycle again but he did this thing again and again and and they said when they were talking with him he would talk about his crashes and then they started noticing every crash he had his team noticed he was a little more nervous before and when they would talk to him he would be a little more negative and if you knew anything about evil and evil he was anything but negative but he would say well i hope i make this jump and they noticed when he said that they would try to not let him do it because every time he would talk that way he crashed they said they would go into his dressing room his trailer and they said they had these little post-it notes type things they said he said the wall was papered with these things that said you can make this jump i will make this jump i mean just paper with the positive aspect of him saying i can do this let me tell you the spiritual always works in the natural realm but the natural doesn't always work in the spiritual and so he was using the spiritual principle the spiritual laws of confession of saying what you will have and he was putting it into effect and it was working for him but the times that he failed was he had it in his head that he couldn't make that jump and so they his team was very picky about who they led around him the day of a jump because they said one mess up could kill him and so they wouldn't let anybody negative around him now think about that imagine if we could orchestrate our world so that we could only have certain people around us at certain times and see this one especially whenever you have the pressure that's going on for something huge in your life that's when you need it most right um that that's in all of this that that mental aspect now understand faith isn't mental but it produces a mental attitude it will produce it there a positive attitude for sure but just being positive minded isn't necessarily faith amen so but so when you're under pressure that's when you have to put all these other principles in place guarding your mind guarding your thoughts taking thoughts captive you can't afford to have people around you that are saying well what if it doesn't happen well you know have you already made funeral arrangements you know just in case i know you're believing god but you don't want to leave that for your family to do it's okay that's called double-mindedness they are wavering don't you waver right get a backbone and run them out of your life get rid of them they are not your friend amen they are causing you to go under and so you have to surround yourself with people listen there are people i will surround myself with that i don't even care for them that much you know what i mean they're just not i wouldn't hang around them on a regular basis but i would surround myself just because they're positive i've said it before i'd rather be around a positive sinner than a negative saint okay anyway i'll leave that there so so finally last thing i promised last thing trying to figure out what i want to do last year okay and paul told timothy see in every life you're going to experience hardship that's going to happen paul told timothy endure hardship as a good soldier so you have to decide ahead of time there's going to be hardship and you're going to overcome it and you can you don't run from the pressure you you start to use the pressure so that you know that whenever you're going into this pressure phase that you're into progressive overload and you have to start looking that as growth that's what george and i were talking about if you look at the pain of exercise you'll find reasons not to do it and you know it's going to hurt but if you start to look at the hurt as proof that the payoff is coming so you can't look at the now you got to look at the later that's what the mirror is for right does that make sense so you have to be able to look you have to say okay this pain this isn't pain this is growth and this growth is going to lead to that and i'm headed there but if you just look at pain then we automatically don't want pain so we will shy away from it so the whole thing is progressive overload now you can let it come or you can go after it the people who excel in any area of life are the people that go after it not the people that wait for it to come to them and that means preparation that means see malachi 2 17 says the horse is prepared for battle but safety is in the lord well you prepare you do what you need to do you prepare ahead of time now i can tell you there's battles coming you can wait till they get here or you can prepare ahead of time and when you prepare ahead of time sometimes you hardly even notice the battle but if you wait till it gets there you're going to notice the battle so prepare ahead of time get in the word say it speak it think it dwell on it you know meditate on it as we would say and get ready for the battle and do it in every area of your life but number one do it in the area of the love of god because if you do it in the love of god you'll know the love of god i know the love of god of course my healing is a done deal why because i know the healer who also loves me and when you look at that or you look at that bill or you look at see you're going to have these pressures come but you're going to have to be able to look at and go no no you don't understand my heavenly father loves me what does that got to do with you paying a bill he's not going to let me starve he's not gonna let me go under why he has already made provision and i trust him and that's where the miracles occur amen because a miracle is just a promise fulfilled amen now amen [Applause] the law of progressive overload do you remember when the egyptians came out of egypt or whenever the israelites out of egypt the egyptians came out chasing them but when they when the israelites came out they got to the red sea the the holy spirit led them to the red sea the holy spirit could have led them around he didn't they followed the cloud and the fire remember that right they followed it so the holy spirit led them to the to the red sea they stood there and god said what's that in your hand and moses you know held out the rod and the water parted then they went over who succeeded moses joshua right joshua's first miracle because that's what remember in joshua 1 it says get up get these people over the jordan into the promised land the children of israel joshua was trying to fill moses's shoes he had to get them across water too it was a river wasn't the red sea but it was a river matter of fact if you look at the timing that river was a it was like niagara falls at that time because that was a time when the everything melted and it all ran down and it would have been a torrent i mean it would have been really it would have been white water you know i'm talking about it would have been a really strong torrent of incurrence of water and it would have been extra wide it came up it overflowed the banks and so now think about this joshua had to do exactly what moses did he had to get these people across this impossible body of water so god talks to joshua and joshua goes over and he says okay bring the priest out kings and priests and that right bring the priest out and let the priests come and put their foot in the and you get that yeah moses they parted and walked across on dry land but with joshua the priest had to step in the water with the ark and stand there and when they stepped in the water and stood still the water parted the first time god moved first the next time the people had to move first the law of progressive overload they had to do something first they had to go stand in the water while it was rushing past them for it to open so the other people could go across not so the priests could go across so the people could go across we've got to have the progressive overload not just for ourselves but so that we can provide the way for the people that don't know god amen progressive overload you'll see it in everything you'll see it in everything even jesus's miracles got bigger and bigger and all the way through we'll talk more about this as we go in jog anything else this morning amen you

Channel: John G. Lake Ministries

Views: 20,803

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Keywords: John G. Lake Ministries, JGLM, Curry Blake, Divine Healing Technician, DHT, New Man Seminar, Life Teams, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Dominion Bible Institute, Diversities of Tongues, God's Son Man's Servant, Renewed Mind, Healing in the Atonement, Killing Sacred Cows, iChurch, JGLM Media

Id: -veFSctXYi4

Length: 76min 58sec (4618 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021