There are things happening in the world that you don't notice that can change your life.
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Scriptures:
- Philippians 4:4-8
- Philippians 4:8
- Matthew 6:24-27
- 2 Kings 6:15-17
- Titus 1:15
- Colossians 3:1-3
Outline:
- Review
- Wholeness - Chapter 2: it’s not a big deal
- What Are You Focusing On?
- Set Your Minds on Things Above
- You Can Change
Philippians 4:4-8
4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! 5Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. 6Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
Dwell on whatever is
- True
- Honorable
- Right
- Pure
- Lovely
- Of good repute
- Worthy of praise
Review
Wholeness is about being _______ healthy
- spiritually
- emotionally
- mentally
So that Experiences/wounds from the past no longer
- Cause interactions or thoughts to trigger undesirable responses or memories
- Negatively skew your Perspective of present
- Impact your current relationships
- Impact your joy and peace
Wholeness is the highest and healthiest version of any person. Wholeness is when your life today lines up with what heaven and God foreknew about you. It allows God to do in your life everything that He has been waiting on.
It’s not only about the absence of sin, but it’s about reaching a level of spiritual, emotional and mental completeness.
Being whole allows you to
- Break generational curses
- Forgive those who have wronged you
- Not focus on pains from the past
- Love God
- Love your neighbor as yourself
Traits of Wholeness
- Authenticity
- Honesty
- Not seeking external approval / validation
- Living by values and principles
- Kindness
- Setting Boundaries
- Know how to say no
- Living with Purpose and Passion
- Optimistism
- Confidence
- Healthy relationships with both genders
- Not losing control
- Anger
- Free from addictions
- Addressing Conflict
- Vulnerability
- Non-judgemental
- Not jealous
- Genuinely applauds the success of others
- Forgiving
- Accept That God loves you as You are
- Not afraid to fail
Mindsets That Will Change Your Life
A mindset is a belief that orients the way we handle situations—the way we sort out what is going on and what we should do. Our mindsets help us spot opportunities, but they can also trap us in self-defeating cycles.
Things you did in your 20s you wouldn’t do now.
- Different mindset
Mindsets
- Growth Mindset
- Abundance Mindset
- Adequacy Mindset
- Selfless Mindset
- Thankful Mindset
- Worthy of God’s Love
Growth Mindset
Growth mindset believes that qualities like intelligence, talent and abilities can be developed through practice and effort.
Fixed mindset believes that basic qualities like intelligence or talents are fixed traits.
- Some people have it and some don’t
- Fixed mindset people believe they are in their position in life is because of their circumstances
Growth Mindset
- Embrace challenges as opportunities to learn
- Self image is not tied to your external success
- Not afraid to fail
- Effort is the path to intelligence, growth and mastery
- Celebrates their friends' success
- Criticism is a source of information
Fixed Mindset
- Says, “I am the way I am…”
- See themselves as victims
- Always concerned about image
- Take the easy route
- In order to avoid failing, they avoid challenges or quit
- Negative feedback is seen as an insult
- Feel threatened when their friends succeed
- Always have excuses
Across many areas:
- Fitness
- Finances
- Education
A growth mindset says: even though it will be much harder for me to do it than someone else, it’s still in my control
Abundance Mindset
You have a peace that you already have everything that you need.
This sense of sufficiency isn’t dependent on outside sources like
- Circumstances
- Available resources
- Relationships
Confident in the future
Scarcity Mindset
Story: orphans
You react from a state of lack or fear that you do/will not have enough
You fear you won’t have enough
- Money
- Food
- Talent
- Love
You will never be satisfied as long as you’re trying to fill your needs through other people
- outside of yourself and outside of God
Short term thinking
Adequacy Mindset
- An abundance mindset tells you that you have enough.
- Adequacy tells you that you are enough.
if I just had ______ I would be OK
Comparison
Sometimes our inadequacy is rooted in comparison to other people.
Selfless Mindset
- vs Self focused
Selfish people are focused on what’s in it for me
Self-centered people, don’t bother to take the time to understand another person’s point-of-view or feelings.
Good relationships happen when you are giving advantage and not just taking advantage.
It’s still selfish if
- You do it to feel like a good person
- You are trying to win favor with the other person
- You feel unappreciated
- You are keeping score
- You think the other person owes you
- Do you think God owes you
Doing something out of responsibility is not being selfless
If you offer to do something later on you’re resentful for doing it… There is a problem
- Pay
- Serve
- Help
Thankful Mindset
Gratitude is about being grateful for what you already have.
- Don’t take everything for granted.
- Don’t focus on what you don’t have.
A lot of the reason that people are unhappy is because they are trying to live up to what society says they should have or should be.
The best place in life is to be grateful for what you have and feel blessed but to also be striving for a goal
Service
A natural extension of being grateful is wanting to help others.
In between the gaps in our life we should ask God what we can give.
Faith
Real faith doesn’t deny a problem's existence.
- It just denies the problem a place of influence.
- Real faith denies a problem a voice to shape heart, to shape thoughts, to shape focus or to shape influence.
Homework Results
- Think of something you’re grateful for
Levels of Growth
- Victim
- Take responsibility and can execute and produce
- Others centered
I want to succeed in a career
- I want to make a better life for my family.
- I also want to make the world better for my friends
- Everybody… even my enemies
- Make the world better today and tomorrow
- 10 years from now
- 100 years from now
- Forever
Worthy of God’s Love
God is waiting for me to do something wrong so that He can punish me
- The bad things happening in my life are God punishing me for what I did
God loves me and wants to reward me
You don’t have to earn God’s love
Wholeness - Chapter 2: it’s not a big deal
Wholeness by Toure Roberts
Mediocrity
What’s mediocre to one person may be a great achievement for another what seems like success in one season of life may seem like mediocrity in another.
Our views of what is mediocre are the byproducts of what we’ve been exposed to. Those standards change based on how much we have accomplished.
What’s exemplary in one context becomes basic in another. we have to keep challenging and stretching ourselves so that we don’t fall short of our potential.
Challenging yourself to grow it’s not the same as beating yourself up. Wholeness never calls you beyond your ability it calls you according to it.
Positive Mindset
Philippians 4:8
8Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
- What you dwell on is important
- Your thought life is part of being whole
Positive thoughts
Why is what you think about important?
Your thoughts become words
- words become your actions
- habits
- character
Worry
Matthew 6:24-27
24“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
We have the ability to imagine the future
- We can imagine problems in this future that won’t ever exist
- We can choose to focus on the imagined problems
In our goals, we can aim too high, or too low.
- So we can be disappointed even when we appear to others to be living well.
Hope
We are always striving for a goal
- An optimists focuses on a future that’s better than the present
- Because we contrast what is with what can be we have to aim at what can be
Much of happiness is hope no matter how bad your circumstances may be
What Are You Focusing On?
This is why mindset is important; Your mindset determines what you focus on.
Elisha and the Unseen Army
2 Kings 6:15-17
15 Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”
16 So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
17 Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the LORD opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
- There was an unseen army that the servant couldn’t see
There are a lot of things happening in the world that we don’t notice
What if I told you that there are many things happening in the world that you aren’t noticing?
- Not even just in the spiritual
Selective Attention Experiment
The gorilla or any of the players never obscure the view of counting the balls. It was indistinguishable from everything else that the participants were ignoring.
Dealing With Complexity
11M bits of information per second
Our conscience attention can process 60 bits per second
How do you deal with the overwhelming complexity of the world?
- You ignore things while you concentrate on your private concerns.
- You see things that facilitate you reaching your desired goals.
- You detect obstacles when they pop up in your path.
- You are blind to everything else.
- And there is a lot of everything else so you are very blind.
- it Has to be that way because there a lot in the world
- So you must choose what to see and let the rest go.
The price you pay for focus is blindness to everything else.
Example: Car shopping
Example: look for brown
If something you are not attending to pops up in a manner that directly interferes with what we are focusing on we will notice it… Otherwise it is just not there.
Example: racism
- How can people not notice racism?
- George Floyd - we were all sheltered in place, so we noticed
Example: racist grocery store
Blinded By Your Desires
People are blinded by their desires and incapable of seeing things as they truly are.
We only see what we aim at.
- The rest of the world is hidden.
- If you start aiming as something different your mind will start presenting you new information.
- from the hidden world to aid us in that pursuit.
And then we can pursue things that are higher like improving someone else’s life.
Example: Texting
https://www.tiktok.com/@psychology.wisdom/video/6876682292992003329?lang=en
- People look for things that confirm what they already believe
You need to decide what you are going to focus on
Media Will Decide
The news is designed to tell you what to focus on
- Fires in Australian wilderness
- Kobe
- Coronavirus
- Killer hornets
- Racism
- Riots / curfew
- Masks
- Impeachment
- Fires
- Mail in ballots
Pure Heart
Do you generally trust people and give them the benefit of the doubt?
- Salespeople
- Politicians
- Homeless people
- People that approach you Who seem attracted to you
What are the consequences of being naïve?
What are the consequences of being hardened and street smart?
Titus 1:15
15To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.
- Children are pure and innocent
- Someone who trust like a child as an adult we call them naive
- When you get older you learn the ways of the world
- When you get older you get hardened
Pure = katharos: clean
2513 katharós (a primitive word) – properly, "without admixture"; what is separated (purged), hence "clean" (pure) because unmixed (without undesirable elements); (figuratively) spiritually clean because purged (purified by God), i.e. free from the contaminating (soiling) influences of sin.
The influence of sin has made us broken
When you are broken you attract broken people and broken situations into your life.
Someone who always has bad luck is broken.
Someone who always gets into relationships with broken people is broken.
Set Your Minds on Things Above
Colossians 3:1-3
1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Paul starts with identity and then he goes to instruction
Identity
If the reality of your position is that you have been raised with Christ I need you to stop seeking so low
- I need you to stop thinking so low
- I need you to stop speaking so low
- Everything about your life
As I live my life down here the temptation is to think down here
But your residence is in heaven
In becoming whole we change our identity
The lesser version of you on your last level was connected to lesser things.
- An identity establishes what you are attracted to and what you attract.
- How you see yourself is what you put out there and you attract on your level.
When you go to the next level, if those things do not graduate with you they are the part of you that died.
Some Things Should be Beneath You
Example: celebrities
- “celebrities don’t hang out in the comment section”
If you knew who you really were there would be certain things that would leave your life immediately.
There is a you that died and is dying. And there is another you that is hidden and is being revealed.
The old you like the stuff that doesn’t stimulate you spiritually or intellectually.
There should be some things that are beneath you
Your Focus Changes
As your focus changes you don’t laugh at what you used to laugh at.
- You’re not motivated by what you used to be motivated by.
- Because that part of you died.
You May Lose Friends
You can get lonely in the middle of that transition season.
What I would lose trying to be average is not worth the company of what is beneath me.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Our actions reflect our deepest beliefs.
- you can find out what you actually believe rather than what you think you believe by watching what you how you act
- It takes observation and education and reflection and communication with others to fully dissect your true beliefs
You Can Change
These first 4 or 5 lessons have shown us that there are things about us that aren’t perfect
- There are things in us that we want to change
- Need to be healed
We can change
- We no longer say “that’s just how I am”
- We have the ability to become better
- We have the choice to change or not
We must give up things that we
- value
- are currently proud of
- knew were hurting us
- didn’t know about
- are holding against other people
We have to let them go
We can change ourselves
After we change, we can impact someone else’s life
We can have an impact on the world to make it better
We can start by paying attention to what’s in front of us
We can make one person’s life better
No longer have to be envious of others. No longer have to be bitter.
You are no longer concerned with what other people are or aren’t doing. Because you have enough to do yourself.
Start with what is bothering you. Start with something right in front of you.
If a soda can on the ground is bothering you can start by picking it up and throwing it in the trash.
Trust that as we grow God will reveal what we need to work on next. God will reveal what we can change. God will guide us.
Compare yourself to who you were yesterday not to who someone else is today.
Homework
Focus on your surroundings: both physical and psychological. Pay attention to things that bother you and that wish you could fix.
Ask yourself these three questions
- Is it bothering me?
- Is it something I can fix?
- Would I be willing to fix it?
If the answer to any of those questions is no then look elsewhere and search for something else that bothers you.
Search for something that you could fix and you would fix
- And fix it
- Do this every day
Ask yourself what you could do to make life better. But don’t dictate yourself what better has to be.
- Maybe it’s reading a bible verse
- a stack of papers on your desk
- a sock that’s been on the floor for three days
- a squeaky cabinet door
- Telling your neighbor about Jesus
Let the task of the day announce themselves for your contemplation.
Offer yourself a reward to make the change.
Do that small thing and make sure you get that reward even if you feel silly about it.
References
Alignment: Keeping a Song in Your Heart
Toure Roberts
Wholeness
Toure Roberts
12 Rules of Life
Jordan Peterson
Change your focus change your life by Tony Robbins
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