Time: Nov. 12th, 2020 08:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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“And in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” (Colossians 2:10)
Objectives:
1. Overcoming Defeating Thoughts
2. God will Help you
3. Surviving your Second-rated life and your Wounded Past
4. Being Whole and Complete - page 97
5. Where is the Evidence
Joyce Thought: “Someday I am going to do something GREAT!”
The enemy will always have you to believe that you will have a second-rate life because of what you’ve done in your past, or what was done to you, or what you are still dong!”
The enemy wants you to see yourself as “Damaged Goods!”
Example:
· “God can’t use me or God won’t use me!”
· I’ve messed up too badly.
· I keep messing up.
· I’m dirty.
A. You don’t have to settle for whatever you can get in life. There must be a drive within you to fight against those negative thoughts.
B. Don’t plan for a second-rate life!
C. Don’t keep listening to your “defeated thoughts!”
Joyce admitted that her life was up and down after her encounter with God moment. She said, “Occasionally, I had glimmers of hope, but the negativity in my mind would always drown it out!”
The enemy always try to drown out what you know about God’s Word. He wants to add a little of God’s Word within you to get your attention, then he goes in for the KILL!
Perhaps you have once bounced back and forth between believing things can be better for you and then doubting that they ever will.
A
WORD OF HOPE
****God will help you get to where you need to be!!!*****
Wrong Decisions that add more pain to your already crushed and wounded soul.
1. Joyce Left home
2. She met a boy
3. He paid attention to her (the enemy used him to fill a void that will eventually aim to destroy Joyce)
4. After only knowing him only a few months, he asked Joyce to marry him.
5. She felt the caution and the lack of peace in accepting his offer….!
6. She did it anyway…she married him. (She thought she was in love)
7. A Decision that wounded her more.
RESULTS FROM THE DECISION
1. 5 Years of abuse in ways she had never experienced previously
2. He was unfaithful regularly
3. He rarely had a job
4. He started stealing from friends and relatives
5. He partied all the time
6. He started living with another woman.
7. He tried to remove her wedding ring from her finger
8. He denied the baby Joyce was carrying
9. She was alone during her pregnancy
10. She had to work during her entire pregnancy without help
11. She didn’t have money nor a place to live.
The Enemy Finds a way to keep the pain-cycle going
1. After she gave birth to their son, her husband showed up to the hospital
2. He wanted to get back together
3. She took back as most women do.
4. It was very common for her husband to abandon her for other women and eventually come back, telling her how sorry he was.
5. She always took him back.
This behavior is common with women who have wounded souls. Because they see themselves as deserving nothing better, or they are afraid of being alone all their lives, they keep letting men abuse them in different ways rather than standing up for themselves.
The Cycle continued until she eventually filed from divorce.
She buried herself under so many layers of emotional pain and fear about the future that she felt completely HOPELESS!!
She prayed for a man of God, and
God blessed her with Dave and they have been married for over 50 years. But the first 20 years were difficult!
When your soul has been damaged:
A. When your soul has been damaged.
B. She didn’t think, feel, or behave right.
C. When your soul is damaged, you see everything through the lens of our brokenness and pain, and it is difficult to believe that anything in life will ever get better.
D. We have fears, but we pretend that we alright.
E. We try to mask our fears.
F. We live with a fake boldness (page 96) that actually manifested in me trying to control everyone around me so they couldn’t hurt me.
G. It’s wasn’t being bold, it was her being rude and unkind.
H. You are insecure, and you will pretend that you’re not.
I. You will be dishonest with yourself and others.
God delivered her from multiple problems and has healed my wounded soul.
Whole and Complete
How can you become “Whole and Complete”
1. When we put ourselves in God’s healing hands, we may begin broken and damaged, but we will end up whole and complete, without any evidence we were ever marred.
2. If we realize that we are made COMPLETE in Christ, then we never have to believe we are damaged and must settle for second best in life.
3. To be complete in Christ means that whatever we might be lacking, He makes up for it.
4. His strength shows itself in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9)
5. Our sin is swallowed up by His mercy and forgiveness.
6.
Our past disappears in the light of the new life
He offers us.
When we are born again…
A. When we are born again, we receive God’s Spirit and our spirit is made WHOLE, COMPLETE, and totally NEW, but we still need work done in our soul.
B. God does the work from the inside out, using His Word and our fellowship with Him to continue the work He has begun.
C. The Complete and perfect thing that God by His grace did in our spirit is worked into our soul.
D. When I say that we are complete and whole in Him, it is a true fact. That is who we are in Christ. It has taken place, yet we may not always think, feel, or behave as if we are whole – but we will if we keep moving forward in faith.
(The Hip Surgery Process – page 98)
1. When we are born again (receive Jesus as our Savior), He makes us complete and whole in our spirit, but we may continue for a period of time noticing things in our emotions, thinking patterns, and behavior that are not fully restored yet.
2. One way to say it might be: “Jesus heals or wounds but sometimes the bruising lingers for a while.”
3. Joyce came home with a new him, but her entire hip and all the area around it was extremely bruised.
When it comes to healing our Soul…
1. When it comes to healing our soul, it is very important during the process NOT to believe that nothing has changed in our life and go back to feeling like we are damaged beyond repair.
2. When Jesus comes into your life, you are made brand-new inside, where everyone can see the amazing work God has done for you.
3. Please be patient.
If ONLY – page 99
IMPORTANT NUGGET!!!
**Don’t let the devil convince you that because you
were abused or misused it means that your
life could never be as good as it would have been if things had been different
for you. Don’t live with the thought, “If only!”
A. None of your past has to matter if you don’t let it matter.
B. If you are determined to turn from your sin and your ways of destruction, there won’t be any evidence that you were ever damaged.
C. When God makes something new, it is completely NEW!!
Joyce Confessed
A. Even after becoming a Christian, she wasted many years with negative thoughts.
B. For example:
“Things are better for me, but they would be really great if only I had not been abused. I wouldn’t have some of the problems I have now if only I had had a normal childhood with parents who really loved me properly.”
Most churches (i.e. pastors/leaders) don’t work with people one-on-one with their emotional healing and emotional pain and emotional wounds.
Once you start reading the Word and seeing God, you will began to experience God’s healing power! Joyce said: “I would be a lot further along if only my previous church had taught me better!”
You may all have a “If Only”
· We cannot go back and change the way things were, but we can go forward and never look back.
· You’ve got to trust God to take what happened and work it all out for your good and make you a better person because of it.
Where Is the Evidence?
1. You may have been wounded or damaged at one time, but the time will come when there will be no evidence in your life that it ever happened.
Daniel in the bible – page 100
1. Chose to be put in the fiery furnace rather than bow down and worship anyone other than God.
2. A decree had gone out
3. You can come out the fiery furnace of life, and there will be no evidence you were ever in it.
4. Not even the smell of the life you once lived will cling to you.
5.
You are not damaged goods, and we urge you not
to think that you are.
A. Don’t plan for a second-rate life.
B. Instead plan on an amazing life in which you do amazing things.
Eat Always at the Kings Table
1. King Saul had a grandson name Mephibosheth.
2. He was the son of Jonathan, who was in covenant relationship with David, who became king after Saul.
3. Biblical covenant relationships were taken very seriously, and long after Saul and Jonathan had died.
4. David was still searching for anyone of his bloodline that he might bless in order to honor his covenant with Jonathan.
5. The boy lived in a town called Lo-debar (means “without pasture”)
POWERFUL LOVE
Even while we are living in dry and miserable places, God is looking for us because He wants to bless someone for Jesus’ sake.
God doesn’t bless us because we deserve it, but simply because He told Jesus that He would bless all those who believe in Him.
Mephibosheth wasn’t seeking a change in his life, but David was seeking him.
He was the grandson of the former king, yet he lived in miserable circumstances, although he could have been eating continually at the king’s table because of the covenant relationship that existed because his father and King David.
Although Mephibosheth was fearful, David told him not to be afraid, because he would show him kindness for his father’s sake and RESTORE all that was rightfully his.
Your Encouragement
a. God intends to restore everything that you have lost!
b. He has sought you out and is inviting you to always eat at His table of blessings and joy
What about Mephibosheth’s response?
His response tells us why he was living far BELOW his inherited right.
“And [the cripple] bowed himself and said, ‘What is your servant, that you should look upon such a dead dog as I am?’” (2 Samuel 9:8)
Notice This:
· He lived a 2nd rate life because he saw himself as damaged goods.
· He had an image of himself as a “dead dog”.
· WOW!!!
· Have you been living an inferior life because you have a poor self-image?
· Do you feel worthless, damaged…as if it is too late for you.
· If so, it is time to move out of Lo-debar (a dry and miserable place) and into the King’s castle!
David took care of Jonathan’s son forever.
It helps us to realize that even though we are lame (have weaknesses), we can still eat at our King Jesus’ table.
Closing Encouragement
Have you been crawling around under the table, being satisfied with the crumbs that fall on the floor?
Have you settled for less than God’s best?
Imagine how you would feel if you prepared a wonderful meal and called your children to come and eat, and they all got under the table and began to tell you how worthless they were and that they were not qualified to sit at the table.
That is how God feels when we refuse to receive His Blessings because we believe we are damaged and therefore not worth anything.
Jesus paid a high price for our healing and restoration when He died on the cross, so let’s start receiving the benefits He purchased for us with His sacrifice.
You don’t have to sacrifice anymore because Jesus has done it for you---now you can sit at the table and eat with the King.