(February 22, 2009)

For many of us, the greatest obsticle you'll ever face in your life is yourself. Study King Solomon. He's a classic case of self-sabotage. Mike Tyson had it all, but sabotaged his own success. The Detroit Lions, celebrities, businesses. All cases of self-sabotage. In fact, many of us have lost hundreds of pounds over our lifetimes. So why do we still struggle with weight?

A limited internal belief system are the root cause of self-sabotaging behavior. Make those self-sabotaging behaviors disappear and be replace them with success.

Have a deep relationship with your Heavenly Father. It's not just saying the sinner's prayer. It's not just giving God a bump every once in a while. It's a deep relationship with God. We are joint heirs with Jesus. Jesus is our elder brother and that the rights and privledges therein are part of us. We are never to be worshiped, but we do get to share in the Glory of God. So why don't we treasure that and live in that way? God is in your corner telling you that he wants you to win. God always pours unconditional love upon us. Get in a great relationship with Him because that's the only way you can work toward having a successful life. When you receive Him, you are accepted, secure, significant and successful as promised in God's Word.

You need to begin to overhaul your entire internal belief system. Take every thought captive and make it obey. How you set up this belief system affects all of your choices. If you believe that you are not worthy, you will have that body language, your food choices, your T.V. programming choices and your friends are affected by this, as they are if you belief that you are worthy. If you believe you are, you are. We distort reality to fit into what we believe, either by "faking it until we're making it" (good) or by believing that negative self-talk (bad). Be the person that God has created you to be. The name of the front of the plane is called the attitude. Which direction is your attitude? If you are on autopilot, would you be heading toward the heavens or heading toward a crash? If you are heading down, you need to take control of the plane and steer it toward where you want to go. Focus on what you want, not on what you do not want. We cannot possibly concentrate on all 8 million bits of information that come in through our senses at any given second. We have a reticulating activating system keeps us from focusing on information we don't need to know, like what our middle left toe is doing right now. God gave this system to us to keep us safe and directed in the right way. Philippeans 4:8 tells us to focus on what is important and to ignore those things that are working to take us off track, including negative self-talk. When you are going after your dream and you begin to get uncomfortable, your limited internal belief system is truly beginning to change for the better.

How do you talk to yourself? Say affirmations. Use the scripture to help. Claim God's favor. Take command of every thought and dictate to your mind what you are going to do. Choose to believe what you want to believe, not what the world tells you to believe. Listen to God. Take positive action. Call on things that are not as though they were.

Believe that God wants to Bless You. Imagine what would happen to this church if we say ourselves the way God sees us.