Worship and the Brain

we're so excited to have DR leaf with us this weekend she's a groundbreaking neuroscientist that travels and speaks around the world she also has her own weekly television show called switch ony brain airing on TBN she's had numerous books published that have aided people and understanding how the mind can change the brain please welcome Dr Caroline [Music] Leaf thank you thank you you may be seated wasn't that worship great you know we travel a lot we do about 65 events a year and we stay in a lot of hotels a lot of flights and they always send these little commentary cards send in your comments and I definitely want to send in one about Joseph and Tasha upstairs and say that was really great this morning yeah and here we are all gathered in the name of Jesus is that correct it reminds me of this uh chap was breaking into another fellow's home it was late at night and he was looking around for the DV DV DS and CDs and he heard this voice saying Jesus is watching you so he thought he got to get out of this occupation so he shined a torch in the corner there was a parrot so he said to the parrot did you say that the parrot said yes so he said to the parrot what's your name and the parrot said my name's Moses so he said what kind of stupid people will call their parot Moses he said the same people that call their Rottweiler Jesus bless you all today I've been married to the brain for 27 years makes me the smartest guy in the room today but you're all incredible smart so we're honored to stand before you lots to say Caroline talks real fast and but you were all tracking her last night so we're just honored to stand here and thank you very much for the invitation to come and teach God's truth about science and scripture having the same author bless you okay thank you good morning everyone what a beautiful day a beautiful church we love this weather isn't it wonderful it's nice cool weather you know we come from South Africa which has got this kind of climate and then we move to Texas and I always ask God why Texas because it's hot very very hot then very very flat so but it's still a great state okay so I'm going to be teaching you this morning about the science behind worship you know science should be in the church because science is simply a description of everything and God made everything didn't he God made everything so science is simply a description of the everything and science God reveals himself in science and as you are learning about things and learning about the world science is the way that we do that so science as ma said science and scripture have the same author so as a scientist for 30 years now and then I practiced for 25 years I my role is to to show people how to blend science and scripture this is what I do I never expected to be preaching now I preach literally every Sunday of the year we teach around the world and bring these concepts of science and scripture into into the world and it's so exciting because when you see how amazing you are made your brain your body the world you live in you cannot but admire God God is amazing so I see science is a beautiful tool for admiring God so today we're going to learn a little bit of Neuroscience a little bit of quantum physics and before you think you can't do it I just want to tell you that you are made in the image of an Incredible God do you agree okay so on this side of the stage you see some green trees and the big one is God and the little one is you and I Made In His Image I always teach with a setup so this side of the stage God the big one you the little one and this is the love zone so this is the love Zone over here where you see the little wiry tree that is a toxic thought toxic thinking and this is the fear zone so love and fear are two opposite spiritual forces that cannot coexist and we know the Bible says perfect love casts out fear so if we made in God's image this means that this is our Zone do you agree okay so living a lifestyle of worship enables us to stay in this Zone and all the research on the brain well around this area basically shows that the more you live a lifestyle of worship the more you increase your brain health your intelligence and your body Health isn't that amazing in fact I think a lot of these scientists who went out there to try and see what's going on does God exist is there a God Spot in the brain you know all these silly things that people think about when the silly questions that they ask when they're not Guided by God well well they have been amazed because the more they try and prove that God doesn't exist the more he shows them that he exists so you know God's in control we don't have to worry when the media says God doesn't exist or when you get all these scientific studies coming out through the media you need to develop a Discerning Spirit to recognize and ask God to show you the truth that you're not listening too much to what the media is saying about you but that you're actually listening to what God is saying about you so as a scientist as a scientist of 30 years my most important thing that I can teach you is to set up a constant internal dialogue with the holy spirit let me say that again the most important thing I can teach you is not how to eat well to make your brain your brain function better and all that's important and not how to do this to make your brain better it is to teach you how to set up a constant internal dialogue with God when you do that your brain will be better your body will be better your life will be better and you will be functioning in the lifestyle that you were designed to function in so the first slide I've got is my kids these are my four we Mac and I have four children they were quite big now between the ages of 17 and 24 and they really they they've grown up in this concept of brain science in the Bible and it's got to the point where Mac and I can't even have a decent argument anymore because we get told that's toxic read your book you can make good choices this is bad to your brain but whatever so they are little Watch Dogs so we watch them too anyway so first thing I want to establish here is the concept of the fact that we have a spirit we have a soul and we have a body we are Spirit soul and body we are Triune beings there is not enough I believe emphasis or understanding of this concept the Bible says that we need to be integrated Spirit soul and body so your spirit is the highest part of you and it and it's made of your intuition where the Holy Spirit lays down truth so as we setting up this constant internal dialogue with God so we are learning to actually listen to the Holy Spirit laying down intuition in our spirit man the Holy Spirit also prompts our conscience which is the second part of the spirit man and our conscience as we know the awareness of right and wrong and also the focus on the Holiness of God when you focus on the Holiness of God when you set up that constant internal dialogue with God when you lead a lifestyle of worship you are focusing on the Holiness of God and the Bible says clearly seek after Holiness without which you will not see the Lord so this is we should be seeking after Holiness as we choose to follow Christ as we choose to implant the word of God as we choose to listen to the promptings of the the Holy Spirit as we choose to listen when the Holy Spirit prompts us to right and wrong we are developing our Holiness we developing a Holiness and awareness of the Holiness of God the highest part of spirit man is communion which is the desire to worship desire to have a relationship with God God created us to have a relationship with him he could have made us a bunch of robots that didn't choose but he didn't he made us loving intelligent deeply intellectual brilliant human beings made in His image and this is why you can track everything I'm saying saying because you're brilliant okay got that and he made us in this way and as we use our mind to choose to follow him we are developing this communion this worship this desire you see we are entangled In God We Are One In God we come from God and he has designed us to be addicted to him addiction is a good thing if you are not addicted to God if you are not addicted to worshiping God you're addicted to the world and something in the world that's the way that our brain is designed we see that the networks of the brain the brain we're going to learn simply follows the mind the brain is separate from the mind but what we know from research is that if you are not putting all your energy in focus on God's way of doing things you are doing it on the world's way of doing things and there's a guarantee that you'll land up in some kind of an addiction maybe porn maybe alcohol maybe me myself and I that's a big one me and we're in a world that encourages a lot of Me Myself and I it's all about you never not your faults and giving you lots of excuses to have bad behaviors and that's not what God Said says God says we need to bring all thoughts into captivity to Christ Jesus which brings me to the mind which is the soul which is the middle part of us so the mind and the Soul are the same thing the soul is the mind the mind is the soul this mind soul thing is your intellect you are intellectual you are deeply intellectual you are highly intelligent you are as intelligent as you want to be the more you live a lifestyle of worship the more you will use your mind correctly and the more you will develop the int intelligence in your brain intelligence is not limited it's not fixed I've studied this for many many years it is unlimited the more you use your mind the more your brain will increase in its intelligence so you are as intelligent as you want to be so use your deep intellect so your soul which is your mind is your intellect and your will you have a will you have free will I know you know that but sometimes we act like we don't have a free will we act like we just buffeted by circumstances and when someone in a white jacket says you have X and this is the rest of your life and this is your label you get locked in and think well that's it I may as well just give up that is not what God says God says that you can renew your mind he makes all things new you have hope in Christ he knows the plans I have for you you know the scriptures you see we mustn't just know the scriptures we must apply the scriptures we must live the scriptures and it's the Holy Spirit who teaches us how to live the scriptures in Our Moment by moment Waking Life and when we sleeping as well and that'll only come from a decision of your intellect to choose which is also part of your mind see your mind is your intellect your will and your emotions so you're thinking you're choosing and your feeling as you use your thinking choosing and feeling which is your mind to listen to the Holy Spirit to be led by the spirit of God that is when you will be doing your life correctly that is when you'll be living in the normal Zone which is this Zone which is the love Zone you see you are made in God's image he only made good stuff you are good stuff you are wired for love okay there isn't a circuit in your brain there isn't a structure in your brain there isn't an organ in your body there is nothing about you that is not wired for love that is a statement made by a Nobel prizewinning scientist who basically was studying the fear circuits in the brain and he discovered we don't have fear circuits naturally we have love circuits naturally we actually have to learn to fear through using our mind incorrectly okay so when we choose wrong when we ignore the leading of the spirit when we don't listen to our conscience when we don't listen to the call to worship which is all part of the spirit man we will then that's all a mind decision because that's your intellect you choose that that's your free will your mind's in the middle then when you do that you're going to change your brain differently you you're going to change your brain in a toxic Direction so in other words your third part of you is your brain and your body the physical part of you your brain and your body or your physical part of you your brain controls your body now your brain and your body basically do the will of your soul your soul is designed to be led by your spirit man and your spirit man is designed to be led by the holy spirit so leading a lifestyle of worship means that you choose Jesus Christ as your lord and savior which means that you then plug into the Holy Spirit your spirit is now regenerated and now you have access to the goodness of God through the leading of the Holy Spirit to tell you how to live your life now that's what God offers us all his goodness all his grace all his Mercy everything you need for the rest of your life is in this Zone okay so in this love Zone God is not bound by space and time and as I always teach he's not bound by your tomorrow he's not waiting for your tomorrow he already knows your tomorrow he already knows your next year and the rest of your life God is not stuck in time we are also not stuck in time we have we have a component of us our physical that is stuck in time but the mo majority of us the bigger part of us is beyond space and time the spiritual nature of man the your soul and your spirit which is eternal is basically beyond space and time and what I mean by that is that it goes on forever and ever and it follows these laws of quantum physics which are also not bound by space and time and I know this all sounds weird and quantum physics is often described as being quite weird but what we know about quantum physics is that it's not bound by the here and the now and God created time God created space God created the universe as God created everything he's a big big God so he's created us in His image and when you die your body and brain go to dust but your soul and your spirit are Eternal okay so everything that you need for the rest of your life is in this zone so you need to get an eternal perspective and when you lead a lifestyle of worship when you are connecting to the Holy Spirit when you and your everyday decisions are doing that you are creating this environment within the networks of your brain that change okay so let's see what this means so you Spirit soul body and with this Triune being we've got to get integration between the spirit soul and body and then quickly the Deuteronomy 319 scripture and then I'm going to go into some science the this is your foundation for what we're going to be learning so Deuteronomy 319 I lay before you life and death blessing and cursing choose life so that you and your descendants may live thoughts matter your intellect your will and your emotions what you do with your love power and sound mind makes a difference now to you Spirit soul and body and to those that you're in relationship with in this generation and the next four generations don't think that the thoughts that you think don't count they go through the sperm and the over to the next four generations if you don't deal with stuff it goes through your DNA and this is where we see these things happening in Bloodlines so you either can keep it or you can eliminate it and if you all of us have got stuff from our previous generations and here's just a little bit of good news before you all think you can go blame your grandmother this afternoon for your life okay is that everything that comes through the generations has come through dormant so whatever you do will go through to your Generations that follow you but it goes through dormant because God is so gracious that he says we are not responsible for our father's sin but the Bible says the iniquity of the fathers will reach down to the third and fourth generation so this is called the science of epigenetics okay Epi means over and above the genes and what we see is that the decisions of man the decisions of thoughts when we use our mind when we use our intellect and will and emotion we create signals in the physical brain and those signals cause things to happen and we build physical thoughts into the B brain thoughts are real things that occupy mental real estate so your thinking is what we call an epigenetic signal that causes physical structural change inside of the brain so your mind is separate from your brain your mind is over and above your brain your mind changes your brain your brain is subservient to your mind your brain doesn't run you you run your brain your genes do not run you you run your genes because science shows us that a gene is like a hardware like a computer unless you switch them on they do nothing okay so how do we switch our genes on how do we make our brain work through our mind our mind is the signal that activates everything about who you are so you have 75 to 100 trillion cells in your body and these 75 to 100 trillion cells of your body are responding to your mind and inside every single one of those cells there's all kinds of structures that basically and the DNA and everything is inside the cells and those basically are the things that keep you alive but they have to be switched on they're physical please understand the physical nature is activated and innovated and and energized by your mind and if your mind is not being led by your spirit your mind is not creating a healthy environment in your in your body and your brain but if you are setting up a constant internal dialogue with God if you are praying continuously if you are implanting the word of God which will save your soul James 1:21 then you are creating a different kind of worship environment inside of your cells which is very exciting you see the Bible says it's the implanted word of God that will save your soul not the implanted word of Google and gossip that will save your soul okay so we have to choose where we direct our mind because where our mind goes our brain follows so when we with our mind choose to follow Christ our brain and our body will follow our mind see whatever you think about the most will grow so if you're thinking about doing things in a Godly way you are growing health and life into your brain that is what the scriptures are saying Ecclesiastes 7:29 says I made them perfect virtuous but they choose to go down their own pathway so when we choose to go down our own pathway and we don't listen to Christ we step into this Zone this is mental ill health this is sickness this is disease and this is where research shows that 75 to 98% of all these mental and physical illnesses come from our thought life so your mind matters your thoughts matter what you are doing with your mind matters and this is why worship leading a lifestyle of worship is so vitally important to being successful so let me remind you you have a love power and a sound mind okay not a spirit of fear this is the spirit of fear you have a love power of sound mind so the next time that you sin don't go and say oh well I'm not perfect you know well you are perfect Made In His Image you must read your Bible so you give yourself slap therapy and you go back into this Zone and you say Sorry God you acknowledge your sin you confessed your sin and you start getting your life right that is a mind choice that is using your intellect your will and your emotions correctly because your mind has one foot in the door of the spirit of man and one foot in the door of the physical through your mind you develop your spirit through your mind you imp and change your brain and your body we have responsibility and as a church I implore us to stand up into a lifestyle of worship because when we stand up into a lifestyle of worship that is when we will be creating the correct environments in our body and that is when we'll be doing what God has called us to do and that is when we will step into eternity into our divine sense of purpose as it says in Ecclesiastes 3:11 and that is when the world will turn to us and say I'll have what she's having I'll have what he's having and until we do that the church is sick and broken it's time for the church to stop being sick and broken it is a decision to lead a lifestyle of worship that will change the functioning of the church so we will stop having statistics like one in four people with mental ill health diseases and onean in for this and what we've got to get away from these issues now I don't have time to go down that road but I have TV shows and I have all kinds of information and all kinds of books and DVDs and online programs with my stuff that I did in therapy helping you to understand this perfectly you Zone this love Zone and also helping you to detox your thought life okay so what I'm going to rather focus on this morning is showing you a little bit more about what life what this lifestyle of worship can do for you okay so the next slide is an actual slide of of these neurons inside the brain your brain is made up of neurons you have about a 100 billion of them and they look like trees and this is why I use the analogy of trees on the brain on the stage um because your thoughts look like Tre so you with your mind remember your mind is your soul remember your mind soul is your intellect your will and your emotions so when your mind is in action it is generating this energy and this life through your brain if you're dead your mind is not working in your brain anymore you now in heaven obviously so your brain is now just dust so your brain has to be innovated by your mind mind is separate to brain brain changes mind I spent 30 years researching this I've done all kinds of scientific studies you can see on my web page as well I've done TED Talks if you want to know more about this mind changing brain which is called neuroplasticity okay so your mind changes your brain and as you are thinking and thinking and choosing you are actually growing thoughts now this is what thoughts look like the things that God says bring into captivity to Christ Jesus they look like these three things this is a slide of inside the brain so right now as you're listening to me at 400 billion actions per second and faster you are taking my words and the signals that you're seeing on the screen and you are turning them at very fast speeds through your intellectual will and your emotion which is MIND in action into these physical structures that are made of proteins and various different types of neurotransmitters so how does that happen let's look at another slide this is a computer simulated image imagery of what's actually happening in the brain it's very simplified obviously um this is a slice through the brain as we go inside the brain you will start seeing some neurons and these neurons that as I said look like trees and the little branches at the top we call dendrites so the little branches at the top we call dendrites so as you're listening to me now you are growing dendrites to hold my words you've already grown close to 100 dendrites to hold my words CU that's about how many facts I've already thrown at you okay so what you're seeing over here that thing growing is not worms those are dendrites okay this is just slow down you are growing multiple dendrites at once so as you listen to people as you wake up in the morning as you step into life you are responding with your mind and every response leads to a choice which leads to you building dendrit so thoughts are real things they occupy mental real estate you design the landscape of your brain okay so we're going to go inside a cell body that fat thing that's pulsing over there is a cell body if you were dead we would not see this action we going inside these are chromosomes chromosomes are covered with protein and when the protein sheath through the action of the mind is pulled off the DNA unwinds we have the genetic code on there and the genes Express themselves and proteins are made who wants to repeat what I've just said okay so in simple language what I'm trying to show you scientifically is that your thoughts matter when you think you are changing the DNA in your body you are causing genes to switch on and off you are affecting how your cells function you are creating environments within your cell let's look at another slide of neurons in a Petri dish and these neurons in this petri dish are real neurons in a Petri dish and they are and research was done showing how a very interesting research study was done but first of all I'll tell you about that in a moment for those things that you see growing this is just another Vision another ver another way of looking at this how what's happening in your brain at the moment so you doing this on a obviously scaled up to many more neurons but you are those things that you see growing that's what you're doing now so you're I'm just trying to show you your power of your mind guys you can decide what those look like you are either building good ones or you are building bad bad ones you're not designed for anything but good so when you build bad you put your body into toxic stress and you cause inflammation and you and the proteins fold incorrectly and you build weird wiry looking toxic trees which put you into that vulnerability for disease and illness including the cancers the mental ill health all these things they come from this Zone and cumulatively over the ages DNA mutates and that's how we get diseases and syndromes etc etc God only made good stuff stop blaming God and saying he gave gave me this issue for whatever whatever what God does is when you when you get into an issue through whatever through trauma which is involuntary through sin which is voluntary sin is voluntary ladies and gentlemen tra is involuntary things that come through the bloodline that we activate Etc these things land up in this Zone cumulatively we keep them this makes us sicker this causes issues this throws us into toxic stress this is not a lifestyle of worship okay but even if we have done that and all of us are daily making mistakes all of us are daily exposed to various different Sin Sin choices that we make traumas that we experience stuff that's come through the blood lines now we can either choose to stay here and whine and moan and complain and blame God and everyone else and including your mother for not breastfeeding you for long enough or you can recognize and say hey I got you through whatever means if I was traumatized well that's wrong but the Bible says that he will repay with retribution those who trouble you so confess your sin of keeping it forgive it get it out of your head because if you don't get that that trauma out your head it will you stay connected to the source of the trauma and because we are beyond space and time it's as though the person was standing right in front of you I don't know if you just heard what I said if you don't forgive you stay connected to the tra when you forgive you are getting it out of your head you're getting this toxic stuff that causes disease and illness out of your head and when you do that you are getting set free and this is incredible this is what we do through prayer this is what we do when we change our brain in this direction okay so looking at this slide again we're going to Play It Again an interesting study was done and I'm going to talk about the environments that we create with a lifestyle of either worship or toxicity okay so what this scientist did was he took a whole bunch of stem cells and stem cells are like base cells that will divide and then become whichever whatever the environment dictates so he made he he basically got these stem cells to divide he took these stem cells divided them into three different petri dishes and each of these stem cells were in a different type of environment one was in bone one was in tissue one was in blood okay so the ones the stem cells in bone became bone in tissue tissue one type of tissue became tis muscle tissue the other became blood okay so that makes sense you may that may be logically making sense you may have read something about that we've all read that stem cells become wherever the environment is okay whatever the environment dictates so really that's telling us environment is dictating something so the stem cell needed to be activated okay hang on to that okay stem cells are not what we call self- emergent genes are not self- emergent the brain is not self- emergent nothing physical is self- emergent what self- emergent means is that something that's physical can't switch itself on okay it has to be switched on it has to be activated an environment has to be created if I go and find the light switch in this building me I can go find it I can reach out my hand I can switch it off and the lights will go off I can switch it on and the lights will go on the lights are not self- emergent they have to be switched on or off by me get it okay so we are this function we play this role we switch our genes on and off in every single one of our cells so what this scientist did just to home just to bring this point home is he took he had two more Petri dishes one had cancer one cells in it one had um healthy cells in it he took one group of stem cells from one of the petri dishes so they had the same genetic makeup let me say that again they have the same genetic makeup no difference in their genetic makeup because they came from the the same parent stem cell he put some of them into the cancerous environment he put some into the non-cancerous environment the ones in the cancerous environment became cancerous the ones in the healthy became healthy that makes sense here's the interesting thing he took the healthy ones put them into the cancerous environment they became cancerous took the cancerous ones put them in the healthy environment they became healthy and he swapped those a few times and each time the environment dictated the change in the cell okay so here here is Health here is cancer here is where we land when we lead a lifestyle of worship the thought that you are thinking right now is change is impacting every single one of the 75 to 100 trillion cells of your body you with your mind create your environment of your body you see here's the key you cannot control the events and circumstances of your life because the events and circumstances of your life are the result of other people's choices so bad things happen to good people okay but you can control your reactions to those events and circumstances you can turn to Christ you can learn to Rejoice despite the circumstances you can believe that God will make all things you new you can believe that he will turn your your sorrow and your pain into Joy you can't do it alone we can't live life without God we will make a mess and the world is evident mental ill health is in the worst place it's ever been in the last 100 years with all the advances in medicine basic medical things like um treat cancer treatment and um treatment for diabetes and AIDS and everything that's improving but when it comes to mental health which is a mind thing it's not a physical thing it is a mind thing that has got worse you see we've got to watch the world is in a worse place than it was a few year quite a few years ago and that is not good because we shouldn't be like that and the church has the answer we know that leading a lifestyle of worship will change how we function you see you cannot control the events and circumstances but you can control your reactions how are you going to react to that doctor's message how are you going to react to that diagnosis how are you going to react to that email how are you going to react to your boss how are you going to react to What you're going to go into after you leave church today how are you going to react your husband your wife your friend your children how are you going to react to the things that are happening out there in your daily life are you going to fall apart and get toxic and then get sick and blame God or are you going to say okay this is bad stuff but you know what God you know what you've got our back what do I do how do I handle the situation get into a situation and now I'm going to show you something that I just quickly want you to say to each other I'm brilliant I can understand what she's about to say okay this is my theory okay I honor your intelligence because I know you made an in the image of an intelligent God it seems insane to show you a theory in a church on a Sunday but God made signs so I should be boasting on God okay so you can understand this cuz you just have to look at the colors you green purple blue pink clouds the green the purple and the blue is MIND in action so I studied how mind changes brain and I proposed this theory of how we use our mind and how we've got this whole spirit so body thing and whatever okay so it's a scientific theory that shows that when we think correctly where our mind goes our brain follows and that will result in change inside of the brain okay so I did this research with all kinds of different patients traumatic brain injury ADD ADHD all those kind of categories that I don't even believe in but they that that be used in science to try and describe things okay so and I saw major changes with people with brain damage I worked for 25 years in education in the trenches of Education in South Africa a developing country in schools where children were beaten up raped abused not fed starving AIDS and hadn't seen any kind of love or anything and they would come to school and learn and those are the schools that I spent my Years Learning the skills that I have gained in addition to my private practice so I've seen a lot and that's why I have okay and that green part is reflected in the brain as these physical structures that are protein like structures which I showed you in that slide earlier on as you thinking your DNA expresses and you make these little protein branches so this these things are stored in the activity of the nonconscious Mind impacting how you consciously do life so as you're in life if you are as you in any one moment of time you are receiving stuff through the blue you are that is causing stuff to move from the nonconscious to the conscious and it could be bad it could be good stuff it could be both and you are also able to talk to the Holy Spirit and this is what I where I started in the beginning I'm showing you scientifically I've s of building an argument here and I'm showing you that the frontal part of the brain is designed for you to consciously be aware of in that conscious cognitive purple Melting Pot the purple po which is what operates when you're awake you are able at any one moment in time to handle incoming information what visual auditory through or five senses the upcoming information from the nonconscious mind and you can talk to the Holy Spirit you can do it right now for the rest of the session I want you to start talking to the Holy Spirit be aware of the Holy Spirit be aware of what I'm saying what you're hearing what you are seeing and talk to the Holy Spirit ask the Holy Spirit how should I apply this in my life this is a disciplined renewing of the Mind process renewing of the mind doesn't come with you doing it alone renewing of the Mind means bring all thoughts into captivity capture them all in the conscious Melting Pot in the purple part visualize in your mind get an analogy of Life coming in capture it there before you use your intellect will and emotion to make a choice first ask the Holy Spirit what should I say what should I do how should I react that is a lifestyle of worship that is prayer that is intentional that changes the environment of every single one of yourselves and if you ignore the Holy Spirit which you can do the holy spirit is a gentleman Your Capacity to access his goodness is based upon how much time you spend in in this direction when you can ignore him and you can land up in that Direction okay so basically when you God is a massive big huge God okay God has placed eternity in us we need to recognize that when we step into this Zone we are stepping into this huge bigness of God just let me show you a couple of um let me quickly show you this graph when you step into this Zone when you lead a lifestyle of worship when you intentionally bring those thoughts into captivity in that conscious cognitive Melting Pot when you bring these thoughts up and you say holy spirit should I be thinking these thought when you do all of that can you just start playing quietly for me in the background peace worship team when you start doing that you are changing the physical structure of your brain you see the goodness of God is all done I said that already everything that we need is done your capacity to access his goodness is based upon you leading a lifestyle of worship so this is a fun graph showing that when you don't lead a lifestyle of worship or when you intermittently listen to the Holy Spirit when you intermittently bring those thoughts into captivity in that purple part and look at those things jumping up and ignore the Holy Spirit sometimes and listen to him sometimes well you won't really access the goodness of God but as you discipline your mind so the graph increases and eventually you are landing up in a situation where your lifestyle of worship is enabling you to access the goodness of God and his miracles for you and the thing this is a decision of your mind this is discipline this there's no room for whiny moony in this situation God is a massive God look at the slide very quickly a massive big God just a few facts it takes 93 it's 93 million miles to the Sun it takes 8 minutes for light to cross these 93 million miles I'm just showing you the bigness of God he made this stuff the next closest star you can see there is 4.22 light years away the whole universe is about 150 billion light years across and growing this is just the bigness of God we don't have to look at all those things I want you just to recognize this huge big God those little scientific facts that I was showing you now where we trying to understand this universe that he has created this eternity is in you and me and when we live a lifestyle of worship when we live in this Zone this is what we accessing ladies and gentlemen a God who can create a universe that is 150 billion light years and growing that's in you you see you can worship like a radio and a way that a radio works is it basically is this little box and it transforms an electromagnetic wave and a Quantum wave through this box and then that becomes a sound wave without the Box you don't have this conversion process so there's all kinds of technical things going on in that box now God is the source of all energy he's the source of everything he is the God of Light he is it okay so when we act like a radio when we choose to say God I access your goodness I access your energy it flows through you and then God will speak through you and you will speak the word in season you see when you worship like a radio you are accessing the throne of grace and you are converting the Throne of Grace into words of life and a life of love and that is a choice it's like a swing when what we understand from quantum physics is that matter breaks down into subatomic particles and subatomic particles break down into waves and if you throw a pebble in in a pond the waves form rings and that's because the waves build on each other so this that's called resonance okay so when you push a swing if you push a swing you give it a little push and then it starts building momentum and you give it another push and it builds momentum and eventually you got to kind of stop it a little bit or your child will fly over the swing that's the correct way a little bit of effort and a lot of return a little bit when and that's because the waves are resonating in time you see when you leave a lifestyle lead a lifestyle of worship you will resonate with God so as you push into God there will be big return as you push into God there will be big return but if you go this side and you say okay I'm going to do it without God you're going to grab the swing and you're going to go running up and down like a crazy person get tired hurt your feet your child will be screaming at you and nothing will be achieved don't push a swing like that push a swing like that it changes the way that you function I'd like you to stand up I want to tell you we're going to do an exercise now that's going to take 5 minutes research has shown that when we pray when we lead this lifestyle of worship when we intentionally choose to listen to the Holy Spirit read scripture implant the word of God talk to the holy spirit all day long raise our hands and wor these are all different ways that we communicate with God when we choose to do that continuously when we meditate on the word of God daily when we do that when we resonate with god well our frontal lobe changes our frontal lobe fires up and the sides of our brain the parital lobe they basically drop down in action and you get this almost out of body experience you see when you intentionally absorb yourself into Christ it changes the nature of your brain we also know that the more that you pray the more that you meditate on the word research also shows that your brain produces these gamma waves that increases intelligence gamma waves flow when you are thinking deeply and intelligently and making very healthy positive change inside of your brain we also know from research okay here we go when we speak in tongues very interesting thing happens now when you intentionally Pray when you intentionally choose to talk to the Holy Spirit your frontal L fires up so you are choosing to direct your mind but when you speak in tongues the opposite happens so when when you speak in tongues you intentionally choose so there's an initial peak in your frontal lob and then the activity drops off because your frontal lob Peaks when you are intentionally doing something but when you speak in tongues guess who's doing the work the holy spirit so the intentionality the action drops off and parts of your brain for example there's a stru now your brain doesn't do any doesn't produce we can't say your frontal low produces that this what we say is that when you think intentionally your frontal lobe will respond so your brain structures resp respond to your mind and different structures respond in different ways and when you speak in tongues one of the other things that happens is that a part of your brain starts getting more circuitry in it and it's called the amigdala and it helps with discernment and wisdom when you speak in tongues you get discernment and wisdom increasing inside of you so those are just a couple of the benefits okay so now what we're going to do is we are going to do a little exercise Thanksgiving praise and worship okay right when we sing in worship together at the end of this at the end of the session and we sang at the beginning of today do you know that all our hearts were beating as one that's scientifically proven when you sing together all our hearts lined up and beat in the same Rhythm at the moment you're all beating your hearts are all beating at your own Rhythm but when we sing together in Worship in a few moments your hearts will all beat as one big heart connected to the throne of grace okay so when we thank God he listens when we praise God God he is by our side when we worship God he acts on our behalf those are three distinct different things so we're going to learn how to do those now now this little exercise which we'll do in 2 minutes you can do in whatever amount of time you want I've got lots of videos and things that teach you this as well you can do it in 3 seconds you can do it this is something I do all day long but the point is first you thank then you praise then you worship when you thank God he listens when you praise God he's by your when you worship God he acts on your behalf so now I'm going to teach you how to do the exercise so I want you to look at Mac and I want you to see I want you to cup your hands in front of you hold out your hands cup your hands and I want you to imagine that you've got some toxic issue in your hand like you got one of these ugly toxic trees in your hand but now the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit leads us unto all truth okay not your husband pastor friend whatever they just there to support us it is the holy spirit so I want you now to close your eyes for 10 seconds and I want you to ask the Holy Spirit to show you what should you be working on for the next 63 days why do I say 63 days very quickly science shows us that it takes 21 days to break down a toxic issue and at the same time as breaking down a toxic issue in 21 days you are building up a healthy replacement thought and then it takes another two cycles of 21 days totaling 63 to turn it into a habit something that's implanted in that green part remember my theory that when in the green part of your nonconscious mind so that it pops up and directs your conscious mind we want good stuff popping up but if you can do the same thing in the opposite direction it's called the plastic Paradox you can spend your time focusing on the toxic as well for 63 days I have more in my materials on the 63 days okay so now close your eyes 10 seconds and ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you should be working on for the next 10 days 63 days I want you to kneel down all of you kneel down and I want you just watch Mech all of you look at Mac look at the screen he's going to cast you in you've entered into the throne of grace I want you to reach out and I want you to put that literally throw that toxic issue down put your hands back on your knees don't touch it don't pick it up the Bible says cost all your cares upon Him okay don't pick it up now for 10 seconds I just want you to thank God staying five sentences in 10 seconds starting with Lord I Thank You Lord I Thank You Lord I Thank you fill in the detail it's specific Lord I Thank you for showing me this I thank you that you love me despite this I don't know what your words are 10 seconds five sentences beginning with Lord I Thank you as you thank him he will listen you're not thanking him for the issue you're thanking him that he knows the way through the [Music] issue I want you to stand up reach across this room hold hands the Bible tells us that he inhabits the Praises of his people when we list when we thank him he listens when we whine he doesn't when we praise him he inhabits the Praises of his people when you are holding hands on your left and your right Reaching Across this whole Auditorium I want you to close your eyes squeeze those hands on your left and your right we are now going to step deeper into praise when you praise the major changes are happening in your brain new networks are growing gamma waves are flowing you are changing in preparation for change those hands that you are squeezing that is Jesus he is looking at you he is standing in front of you he is holding your hands and he is responding to your praise 10 seconds now five sentences beginning with Lord I praise you dot dot dot stay focused do this quietly no sound just you in your head with the Holy Spirit your 10 seconds five sentences beginning with Lord I Praise You Lord I praise you stay focused it's on that same issue you cast at the throne of grace don't change topics it's on that same toxic issue you're praising him that he's going to help you get through 10 seconds five sentences when you thank God he listens when you praise God he is by your side but when you worship God he acts on your behalf I want you to raise your hands now and we are going to end the session with me with us all singing together but listen to my instructions when you thanked him you were focusing on your stuff when you praised him you were focusing on your stuff but when you worship Him you are not focusing on your stuff anymore you are now focusing on him you are focusing on God you are focusing on the King of Kings the Lord of lords I want you to worship him now like you have never worshiped before and as you worship him just focusing on him not your stuff he will act on your behalf let's worship our King let's worship like we have never worshiped before May our hearts all be as one as he acts on our behalf thanks for joining us today for Bethany's weekend experience we hope that you were encouraged and challenged during the message if you made a decision to follow Christ or maybe you've rededicated your life to the Lord we want to encourage you to tell someone about it tell your family a friend and feel free to tell us about it by clicking the talk about it button on our homepage if you need prayer for anything else just go to our homepage and click request prayer button we'd love to have you join us or come visit one of our four campuses for a live worship experience we hope you had a great day and we'll see you next time

Channel: Bethany

Views: 161,543

Keywords: Dedicated, Worship, Bethany Church, Dr Leaf, Caroline Leaf

Id: 4RR4Mvhm5rw

Length: 47min 14sec (2834 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 25 2015