I Declare War - #1

I Declare War

Message Notes for Part 1

It’s time to DECLARE WAR

WHY? you might be asking Why?

You are in ONE whether you like it or not...

The Bible presents actually a number of different verses that help us to see that life is not a playground. Life is a battleground.

We have 3 enemies...

The Devil - He has a crew, plane to destroy, kill, steal

The world, - life style, old habits

Ourselves - fleshly nature, old man/woman

The greatest struggle is within you

Paul in Romans talks about this struggle with him self on v15 “For I do not understand my own actions.”

Romans 7:18–20 ESV

18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Because of our tendency towards self-sabotage

Banksy; frame shredded the painting at the most critical moment, 1.4 million sale had just closed... painting self-destructed. Security guards protected painting from others, didn’t realize the greatest threat was from within.

We can all be our own worst enemy.

Benedict Arnold (a nickname for traitor in USA) to our own progress TRAITOR

Now, I don't know what your war is or wars are. I don't know what the battles that you currently are facing against yourself.

There's so many we could talk about…

Examples of Battles:

Anxiety Moodiness version of you you don’t want to be.

Suicidal thoughts

Numbing agents (Over-eating, drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, social media)

Distraction

We do things every day that are not good for us

An article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

And it was about the rates of success when people are given prescriptions that they need after procedures and after doctor's visits.

100 people are prescribed drug, and one-third of them won’t even fill the prescription, and half of the remaining 67 will fill it, but won’t even take the medication correctly. They will miss doses, they will quit taking it out, they might not even take it at all.

Better rate if prescribed by vet for your pet....

What does it say about our self loathing as a people that we take better care of our animals than we take care of ourselves?

There is a war within going on, no doubt. And that's why I say, it's high time to declare war.

4 keys to winning the battle within....

Starts with a declaration of war. “I Declare WAR”

Where you set yourself wholeheartedly in a singular direction.

There is incredible power in declaring war.

Nothing great has ever been done with half of someone’s heart.

You need to make a war contract—a page where you can write down what in your life you are declaring war on.

You are what you think

If you think like a loser, that’s what you will become.

Think like a Warrior.

Proverbs 23:7 NKJV

7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.

(NKJV) For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.

You can change the way you feel by changing the way you think

You don’t have to think about everything you feel, but you will feel everything you think about.

So many of the struggles come from our feelings, but to a surprisingly large degree we hold the reins on our emotions through what we allow in our mind.

How you fight your inner war determines how you fight you external battles.

"Before battle of fist must come battle of mind.” - Kung Fu Panda

Write this down:

Negative thoughts can’t lead to a positive life

Where the head goes the body must follow.

no one wakes up and says, I want to have a bad day....

but we all have woken up and allowed ourselves to think the kinds of thoughts that lead to a negative day

Colossians 3:1–2 NIV

1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

Romans 12:2 NIV

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Matthew 22:37 NIV

37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

Not saying the answer for every problem is: mind over matter

I am saying what happens in your mind really does matter.

The other problem with negativity is that it begets more negativity

What you look for you will find

Stanford professor Arnold Zwicky called the “frequency illusion.” That will make you see more and more negativity

There are two well documented processes at work:

Selective Attention and Confirmation bias.

Selective attention: Think about the last car you bought. FIAT 147.

They where everywhere after that intense search, pictures....

The number of those cars didn’t change. But, you focused your attention on that particular car and your subconscious mind basically took it as a command to pay attention to that variable in your environment and voila!

You see them everywhere. The more you think about and talk about all the things that are going bad in your life, the more you’re going to see those things in your life.

Once you’ve flipped the switch of your attention to focus on the negative thing (or whatever thing), you’re going to see (a lot!) more of that which will CONFIRM your BIAS to the negative. You’ll see more negative stuff and then tell yourself, “SEE. Told you. It’s all negative. Story of my life.”

Then your subconscious basically got a pat on head and a good boy! For finding what you were looking for and work harder for MORE of the negative which will feed the vicious downward spiral.

That's the bad news.

The good news is, if it can be used for evil, it can be used for good.

What if you taught your subconscious to look for something different by staring at something different? What if you trained it to look for signs of good?

What if you looked for signs of beauty?

What if you didn't look for the worst examples of people in humanity?

You looked for the best?

You found anything praiseworthy?

You found anything good?

You found anything of good report?

I'm not talking about positive thinking as a replacement for God.

Positive thinking is not a replacement for God, it is a response to Him.

Because He's so good, I'm going to think positive

you cannot worship and worry at the same time.

You can't be accidentally negative while you're being intentionally positive.

The answer isn't, try and stop being negative, because the only way to guarantee you'll think about pink elephants is to stop thinking about pink elephants.

So instead, what if I replace it with something else?

What if instead of pouting, I'm praising? because I can't be pouting while I'm simultaneously praising.

What if I'm practicing gratitude? It's going to be the cure for the grumbling that so often sneaks into my life and sneaks into my day.

What if I'm choosing to encourage people instead of being critical?

I won't be able to do the thing I don't want to do while I'm busy doing the thing that God's called me to do. And it will change the game.

So come on. Let's declare war on the old way of thinking.

Let’s pray

Declaration

Jesus is first in my life.

I exist to serve and glorify Him.

I love my wife and will lay down my life to serve her.

My children will love God and serve Him with their whole hearts.

I will nurture, equip, train and empower them to do more for His kingdom than they can imagine.

I love people and believe the best about others.

I am disciplined. Christ in me is stronger than the wrong desires in me.

I am growing closer to Jesus every day. Because of Christ, my family is closer, my body is stronger, my faith is deeper, my leadership is sharper.

I am anointed, empowered, equipped and called to reach people far from God.

I am creative, innovative, driven, focused and blessed beyond measure—because the Holy Spirit dwells within me.

I develop leaders. That’s not something I do. It’s who I am.

My words, thoughts and imaginations are under the power of Christ.

I take all thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ.

I wake up with purpose, direction and meaning every day of my life.

Pain is my friend. I rejoice in suffering because Christ suffered for me.

I bring my best and then some. It’s what I bring after I do my best that makes the difference.

The world will be different and better because I served Jesus today.