I was reading the bible the other day when something I hadn’t seen before smacked me in the chops. Jesus was talking to his disciples about unforgiveness in Luke 17. Jesus told them that if a brother comes to you seven times in day and sins against then asks for forgiveness you should forgive him each time. The disciples were amazed by this because they asked for more faith. What Jesus says next always bothered me. He said that if you had faith as a mustard seed you would say to this mulberry tree be uprooted and be planted in the sea and it would obey you.  I had glossed over that many times.  This time however I read the bit about being a servant underneath and was even more perplexed.  Then it struck me.  Jesus is saying that faith (or an expressed belief) needs to be replaced by another expressed belief in order for the previous belief to be ‘removed and cast into the sea.  I would one belief dissolves the other and removes it’s potency because it stops the previous one from existing.   That is, you get rid of old beliefs by replacing them with new ones that are more powerful.

As you find ways to remove old beliefs about your life, circumstances and so on… it’s like the old beliefs were never there.  Indeed you can make yourself believe anything if you lie to yourself often enough can’t you?  You can change memories, change habits, change how you feel… by having your beliefs changed.  Yet the how is the part we want isn’t it?  How and/or can we change our beliefs?  What I think Jesus might have been saying was this: You can forgive if you believe you can because that belief will enable you to act.  Love is a powerful emotion… use it!  Use what you have and you might just be surprised at what follows.  

“…If you believe you have received it then it shall be yours.” Mark 11:24.

In a previous article I spoke about hope and why I thought it was so important. In this article I want to talk about how to turn hope into faith. Faith is one of those simple to do but hard to understand things that most people need to use and develop in their own life. I believe there are four key steps you need to master to do this.

1. Know what you want

I can’t say this with any more words: KNOW WHAT YOU WANT. If you know what you want… then you will know that you know that you want it. Putting aside all the stuff you may have heard prior to this. The bottom line is that you can create desires and believe for things you want. If you don’t know what you don’t want then you have nothing tangible to believe for. Rev. Paul Yonggi Cho says it this way, ‘have a clear cut objective’. I believe without knowing what you want you can never get what you want. When you have a hope for something better, that’s the starting point for faith. When your dream begins to grow inside you and you see yourself with it then you are beginning to turn hope into faith. Knowing what you want, is the starting point. It is supplemented by hope because hope is faith in embryo form.

2. Ask for what you want

The second most important thing about faith is that you ask. It says in the bible that you don’t ask so you don’t get. I think in reality we think we haven’t earned what we want or some other poisonous belief slips through the crack to show itself in our thinking. You have nothing because you haven’t asked for it. Are you asking for it? Have you asked for it? If you want something from somebody (i.e. God) what do you do? You say, ‘can you please pass me the salt?’ So why should life goals be any different. Ask for what you know that you want.

3. Believe that what you want is yours… already and be thankful for it

This is a tough one. When you hope you defer things into the future. That means that ’someday’ you will get it. Not so with faith. When you have faith you know it because you can call those things which don’t exist yet as though they did. Why can you do this? I don’t know. I know that it works, that’s about all I can tell you at this stage. Once you have asked for what you know that you want you have to believe that you have it. I think of it this way for me. When I put in my request, I think of it as an order. When was the last time you walked into a fancy restaurant and was served the moment you sat down? Or putting it another way when was the last time you were given a cheque and you went and bought a loaf of bread with it. No, you have to cash that sucker first. Faith says, ‘I have placed my order, now I know it’s mine… God granted it to me.’ Beyond that point the how and the why are out of the realm of your concern.

Here’s something that works for me: Close your eyes for a moment and think of something that you really desire. Can you picture yourself with it? I mean really can you see yourself having it, holding it and using it? If you could then what’s stopping you from taking that imagination and using it to be thankful to God that you have it now? What’s the hold up? If you can’t see it then you are still hoping.  Don’t worry.  The time will come when the desire will overwhelm you and you WILL see yourself with it.  I will post on this soon.
4. Begin speaking, acting, thinking and feeling as though it was yours already

A long time ago I thought that when you believed for something that was enough.  I have since learned that when you want something you have to focus yourself to the extent where you begin to talk, think and feel.  Say you want to be healed of something.  So you know what you want and ask for it believing it has been granted to you so now what you have to do is create the atmosphere in the natural order for things to change.  You see, it’s a complete cycle.  This world is one thing split into two parts.  The underlying essential elements (what I call the spirit) and the natural structure.  If you hold to the biblical account (as I do) then you recognise the spiritual underpins and gives birth to the natural.

However, whilst the two orders operate on different principles they are inexplicably connected.  Back to my healing example: you see the solution (the healing), you believe you have it (you can see yourself healed), you now need to take that inner spiritual concept and release it to create in your life.  You see, we create things that come from the inside out.  The light bulb, the wheel and so on began as an ‘inner’ conceptual frame which worked it’s way to the outside.   Here is an example from my own life.

Faith in Action in my own life

Once upon a time I suffered from very severe dermatitis, at the start of the disease my hands were cracked and small blisters appeared on my hands.  As I live in a very humid climate the cracks were exposed to the elements and somehow severe infection set in.  A pastor friend of mine told me that he was healed from sinus when he believed.  So I thought it was time to give it a good aussie go.

The next thing to happen was things got worse.  The infection became so bad that I was in constant pain.  So back to the doctor I went.  I got a new supply of skin cream which at first worked then after a while a new infection set in and I was in even more pain than before.  At some stage I just snapped!  I couldn’t write or type and had a new born baby to contend with.  I actually took the medication and threw it away.  It wasn’t helping, it only made things worse.  After I threw out my medication I began to say ‘I will get my healing from God!’.   Things just kept getting worse and worse.

Then one day about one month later the pain began to subside and within two weeks my hands were restored to normal. During this time I thanked God that he had given me the healing and from there things began to incrementally improve. I still bare the scars on my hands of that time and from time to time it comes back but I always remember what I said and it never lasts long.  Certainly, it’s nowhere near as bad as it was before and it will never get on top of me again.  It was like the moment I began to let the words tell me that I had it, the world around me sat up and took notice.

You can put this to work

I have heard it said that we don’t get because we don’t ask.  That was me for many years.  Now, I am paying debts I could pay ($20, 000 this year alone) and getting opportunities that I never had before.  Does it always work?  No.  But it works more often than not.  Should you throw away medication?  No, I still use it in other areas and have many hurdles that I can’t see my way out of.  Nevertheless, trusting God works more often than it doesn’t.  What’s the alternative… leave your life in the hands of the world?  No thanks.  Tried that and I wound up almost bankrupt.  I would rather use my faith and walk with God thanks.

My advice is to start with something you hope for that is just out of your reach not four hundred years out of your reach.  Stretch yourself so that you ask for something you can’t do that is not completely ridiculous.  So it may be a pay rise at work, help for your relatives, moving a small obstacle or even believing for a pair of socks. Remember there are really four stages at work:

1. Know what you want

2. Ask for it

3. Believe that it’s yours and be thankful for it

4. Speak, act, think and feel as though you have it now.

I want to stress that this is a summary of turning hope into faith.  There are many ways you can do this and a lot of things you can achieve if you begin to stretch your faith.  I am reminded on something that Jesus said to his disciples when they had problems curing the epileptic child:

“All things are possible to him who believes” Mark 9:23.

Isn’t it funny that one of the most intriguing things about us is us? Why is that we go to school, grow up and follow whatever we do and never think about it the reasons why we make decisions. We have in us dreams, desires and natural inclinations that we often don’t even know are there. However, there are really two different kinds of voices that come out of us when it comes to desires. The first is a desire to do something out of our own strength, what we can call what we would like to do and the other is something that comes out of us, which we can call what we should do.

Who are you?

Scientists tell us that we have two parts to the brain, the left side and the right side. Traditionally we have called the left side rational and the right side intuitive. In the spiritual workings of man there are also two really strong ways of discerning what comes from where and how to understand it. On the left (rational) side we have cognitive structures or logical conclusions that help us to reach certain kinds of solutions and on the right side we have intuitive reactions that come from the creative inner workings of our spirits. There is much confusion in Christian circles about how our two parts work together and how they function.

The left side of the brain is often labeled the logical brain. This side of the brain takes our ideas and shapes them into logical structures for us to understand things so we can appropriately frame the world around us. These frames form the foundation of our thinking when it’s logical thinking. Such thinking is a connected set of ideas that can be logically explained. Those who lean to this side of the brain quite often are adept at putting together very good arguments and can see the loopholes in the logic of others. Some people I work with are very good at building logical bridges from one end of a problem to another but all the time they are in analysis mode. All they are really doing is coming to solid conclusions based on the evidence they have before them.

Evidence is the substance that the natural left side of the brain creates things with. Its evidence is solid, factual and represented by sense data that it perceives to be useful to the person who is beholding it. A mathematical equation is purely logical. It has a sound formula to it that if you followed it would result in a known answer. It’s logical and rational. Most human beings operate this way when they are in the spirit. They see something and reach a conclusion based on natural evidence. An example is that I like Lasagne very VERY much. This is a logical conclusion I have reached by eating it and desiring it’s taste. This has nothing to do with the other side of my brain and it certainly has nothing to do with the way I am.

Knowing who you are does not come from drawing natural conclusions. It comes from something much deeper than that. If God had exalted the mind beyond it’s position in the body to be the centre then we could so easily say that we were made to be purely logical and absolutely natural but this isn’t the case. The left side of our brain reaches out into the world around us and makes logical conclusions. The other side the right side of our brain is the intuitive side. This is what we know about ourselves that we haven’t logically concluded.

Intuition is an inner knowing that presents us with information we have NOT logically derived from our experience in the world. This information stems from a deep inner knowing within us about something. Quite often we rationalise God out of existence before he has had a chance to tell us something. We draw logical conclusions without thinking about what we already know on the inside. Knowing the real you, who you really are, comes from the information that is not logically derived because it’s that which underpins everything else.

Logic can better be thought of 1 + 1 = 2 but stop for a minute. You know what you know about yourself because you know it. I know I like to play the guitar. Something inside me gets great pleasure out of creative things and I really enjoy it. I didn’t reach that conclusion by running a stochastic model, I found it out by just being in the right conditions to find it out. The real you is not logically available it’s intuitively available. If you find yourself attracted to certain things and you can’t explain why then you have found it or at least some of it.

I have a small black Chihuahua who went out into the backyard the other day and began barking at a bluetongue lizard. At first I thought she was just being annoying but after a while she got more and more vicious! When I went out the lizard was gone but the dog was still barking. Why was she doing that? Why didn’t she just let it go? She kept going because instinctively she didn’t know why but she had to do it. There was no real reason why but she had to do it. The conditions drew a tendency out of her that she wasn’t aware of and it bubbled to the surface.

One time I thought I was called to make lots of money and build a successful business. As time went on and the creative edge of business maintenance set in I realised I was have hidden entrepreneurial desires that come out in certain conditions yet I am a dreadful manager! The day to day grind of trying to come up with sales and make things work was horrible. I felt so tired and exhausted but I didn’t have the money to get someone else to do it. I am called to be creative and if I don’t pay attention … it finds another way to come out of me. I can write a short story or a novel and it just flows out of me. I get ideas, characters and all kinds of things coming to me. Now, I am not special but when the right conditions come along I find the real me.

Logically if I try to come to conclusions through reasoning, a survey (although they can be helpful in finding the underlying desires) or whatever I won’t find the real me. I already know what I am like and all I need to do is look at the way I am and I will find what I am supposed to be doing. A friend of mine likes to play chess, draw puzzles and play computers. I have found him to always look at what’s going on around him and come to the closest available solution which is less than helpful. However, put the man in front of a computer and he could make it sing. Why? The right conditions present him with what he likes doing being logically creative with technical things.

Now if I took the same person and told him he should sit down and come to a reasoned conclusion about who he really is he would have to come up with something rather than simply being who he is. The hardest choice you will ever have to make is deciding to be who you really are. You have been given talents and gifts by God for a reason. What conditions will you need to make it work for you? What will make you bark?

One half of your brain is logical for a reason, you need to reach conclusions about things that are well thought out and you need to make good decisions. If you want to learn how to drive a car, add up an equation or discern black from white then you need to know some stuff. That’s logical. You are not a machine and you are not an equation you are a living breathing spirit. I am not saying that you will know what you are supposed to do that’s a completely different story but the beginning of knowing who you are starts with what’s already there. You just need the right conditions to come along to tease that the real you out.

In concluding this article I would like to say that I think one of the greatest problems we have in the Christian world we have is that we have a church centric mentality. Every dream and every desire is fine so long as it’s supports the vision of the pastor. There is nothing wrong with vision bearing pastors or church but at some stage you must realise that God may not want you to be involved … he may have other desires in mind for you. Supporting your local church is good so long as you recognise that you are as much a minister as the pastor is and that you have a role to play that is equally as important. There are a lot of people who simply never find their calling in God because they cannot conceive of it outside of the four walls of the church. This is nothing more than religious nonsense. You are important and God loves you remember that.

I hope that you think about what I have written here. Don’t look at yourself through logically eyes to find the answer … look inside into your intuition. What does that tell you? If you can’t see past your logic ask yourself this question: What am I naturally drawn to? What do I want to do like nothing else I have ever done before? It’s my prayer that you will find this and over time allow God to show you what he has in store for you. The best is yet to come.

Technorati Tags: Christian, logical thinking, Chihuahua

The other day my sister in law told us that she found a tree right down the end of her yard that she didn’t even know she had. When she investigated further she noticed something was growing on it … hello Macadamia nuts! When she told me that story I thought how often in life do we not know that we have something valuable and how much we overlook who we really are. Do you know that you may have something valuable that can be shared with others? What stops us from seeing that value we have?

I believe that the answer is not a simple one but a great percentage of people I have met cannot see their value because they believe lies about themselves. The last time you made a mistake did you slam your fist into the table and scream obscenities at yourself. If you did, did you know that you are making yourself believe that you are worth the abuse? You are saying to yourself, ‘Gee I am totally stupid and worthless aren’t I? I guess that I couldn’t run an automated pig farm?’ Think about what you say during a day and make a thought diary.

How do you do this? Well its simple really find a notebook and write down what you think you are every time you say it. There’s a key. We often don’t realise that we are telling ourselves what our real value is everyday of our life when we say it. A principle that most people overlook is this: whether you know it or don’t what you think you are comes from a deep well of underlying ideas that grow inside you. How do you they grow? They grow because we feed them by recognising the value they have by speaking to it.

Knowing your value starts with understanding where you draw your values from. The first thing you need to know is what am I worth? This is not a financial question that you answer by opening up your wallet and taking a look at how much cash you have. Your sense of self-worth does not come from the things you own because if it does you are much emptier than you know. True self-worth comes by recognising that you are not worthless that you have some value. Knowing your value means knowing that you are valuable. How can you really know this?

You know who you are not by what you do but by who you are. Some people attach their identity to what they do. Some people attach their identity to their social standing and the clubs they join. The bottom line is: those things are poor substitutes for the sad truth that people are missing something that they really need. A sense that they don’t need anything to prove their own worth. All they need is to know that they are accepted.

As a Christian you have this right. Service and the things you do make no difference and the influential friends that you hold dear to you are all there to make you feel better about something that you lack. Inside you there is a belief system that says: I need something to make me feel adequate. I need money to feel as if I am somebody… I need a lot of friends because if I need people around me to keep me up or whatever it might be.

For me, a key problem was always trying to prove myself to others to make myself feel like they liked me. I would do extraordinary things to try and get people to like me. I would buy them things, do extra work for them and whatever came to mind to try and make these people think that I had value. What I didn’t realise was that I was trying to buy friends by making them like me. I could make people like me and I could do things that would make me look superior but on the inside I was empty and hollow because I knew (as I imagine you do if you are reading this) that I was totally empty. Sure I had people around me to feel sorry for me or boost me up which helped but the real problem was I thought I didn’t have any value. I needed these people in my life to give me value. The truth is your value comes from something much deeper than that. As a Christian your value comes from God.

In the world’s way of doing things we con ourselves into believing that we are worth something by playing games. We play all kinds of games. At work we climb over people because we think we need to have that next level to feel successful or we talk down to people who are not as ‘affluent’ as us because we think they are inferior. Why would we do that? We do it because we have a deep down need to feel like we have value. The problem is: you already have value.

The bible tells us that Jesus Christ lives with us (2 Cor 6:16) and that he has accepted us (Eph 1:3). If we believe that this is true then what else really matters? Jesus also said that the cares of this world choke the fruitfulness of God’s word in our lives (Mark 4:17-19). It would be easy for me to say, ‘brush them aside and focus on Jesus.’ However, this is easier said than done.

Beginning to recognise your value

Knowing your value starts when you realise this: God loves me unconditionally. Allow the thought that he loves you without any reason to settle in you. Think about it by running the thought through your mind everyday. Whenever you are tempted to think or say something terrible do this: point to yourself and say I am totally accepted by God. So what if people don’t like you… a bunch of people don’t like me. But I am not able to be rejected. You can reject the way I look, what I might say but you cannot reject me because I am not able to be rejected. If at heart I am accepted in Jesus Christ this means I can never be unaccepted. If I am totally settled in that knowledge and people reject me for whatever reason all I need to know is that he loves and accepts me totally.

This kind of knowledge does not come overnight like so many false promises of modern teachings tell us. You grow into this kind of knowledge. But it begins with you making the right decision right now by saying, “I am worth something… God accepts me and loves me unconditionally.” Add your spiritual faculties to this: begin believing it in your heart. Find an imaginative way to attach pleasure to the thought.

After a while you will begin to notice three things:

1. You are constantly devaluing yourself
2. The thoughts of love coming from you are true real feelings coming from God
3. There is nothing else that matters once you know that he accepts you

Now, I am not telling you that instantly you will feel better. Shy away from instant solutions. If they do work it’s only for a little while then you have to go back and put something else in its place. Find a scripture from the bible on what God thinks about you and say it every morning and every night when you go to bed. Think about it on a daily basis. Now I have not perfected this but from doing this I have stopped so many negative beliefs from arising up in my soul. I hope that you do practice what I have said here today by at least attempting to:

1. Recognising how you value yourself
2. Replacing that with a Godly way of seeing yourself

By doing this consistently and thinking about how God thinks about you, you will begin to see yourself as he does. You will see yourself as loved and accepted, totally forgiven and washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. If you don’t see yourself as God does, then you are probably seeing yourself as others do or worse as the enemy does. Grace teaches us that we are accepted, that we are not condemned that we are loved. Start today. Start right now: you are accepted, you are loved. Remember this: if you don’t attach value to you then nobody else will.

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