elevatingtohigherlevels

This week, I am blogging about the sermon “I am Up For It.” This sermon is from the series Stretch Marks. In this series, we are learning how to have spiritual growth in God.

Pastor Steven opened this sermon with the scriptures Acts 3:1-13. These scriptures are talking about how you should have the right spiritual growth with God. Your strength is in the stretch. If you give God your attention, He will always exceed your expectation. God is always trying to stretch our imagination. God is about expansion. The greatest potential for a miracle is something you could possibly be stepping over. God will only do miracles for people who are ready for them.

In this sermon, Pastor Steven made four points for our potential. The first point was Partnership. Who are your partners that you continuously surround yourself with? Do your partners want your life to be better? A lot of times we do not have a relationship with someone different than us. Having a partnership with someone different than us, means that they can push us to be a better person. We should not just surround ourselves with people who comfort us, but with people who actually challenge us. Personally, I surround myself with friends from school and my eGroup from Elevation because they challenge me to be a better person. Your relationship with God is a partnership.

The second point was The Path. You can not get the right partners if you are not on the right path. We need to put ourselves on the path to power. If you put yourself on the right path, God will bring people in your life to challenge you. We should be stretching towards our miracle.

The third point was The Price. Healing is free but obedience is costly. Change will cost you something. If you set out to make a change and you do not count the cost, its a matter of time before the reality of the challenge will out strip your desire for change. Have you made the decision that the progress is worth the price? You will not get change if you do not want to pay the cost. We have all kinds of quick fixes that we rely on to create stability. When you finally decide to pay the price we will say “I have never seen anything like this before.”

The final point that was given to us was The Prop. We have to use each other and prop ourselves up and say “Look what God has done.” God wants to prop us up to show his strength. Our mentality needs to catch up with our reality. What are you leaning on that you do not need to lean on anymore? All we have to do to grow in God is hang with the one who healed you and helped you.

This week my blog is about the sermon called “The Struggle Is The Same”. In this sermon, Pastor Steven was talking about the struggles we have. We can have the same struggles and face them together.

In this sermon, Pastor Steven opened this up with the verses Philippians 1:27-30. In these verses, it is discussing circumstances to contradict our struggles. The grace that got us started is the grace that caries us through. We all struggle with many things. In life, we struggle with one situation that has been going on for years. For a lot of us, our lives show the same struggle. Any conflict that you run from is only going to be waiting for you in a future season.

The enemy wants us to struggle with isolation, but God places us in a community to struggle with others. The only struggle that we need to be focused on is the one that is internal. If you win the struggle within, you can overcome all the struggles on the outside. The outward criticism has overcome the internal insecurity. The things that you are worried about is not what you should be concerned about.

The struggles that we are facing on a daily basis, must be dealt with or it will be more powerful. Your struggle is a sign of God’s strength. Sometimes, when we see someone’s success, we underestimate their struggles. We all share the same struggles, but we don’t realize it whenever we are going through the same struggles. Pastor Steven mentioned that he goes to different places to preach and that when he preaches to different people with the same sermon, it ministers to multiple people in different situations facing the same struggles.

God gives us comfort in our struggles, to give us empathy. There is a difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is I feel you, You hurt, I hurt. Sympathy is I feel for you. When the people around us are struggling, the two most important words that you can say is, “Me too.” By saying this, it is telling others that you have been in that same situation and you can give advice.

Jesus struggled too. We have a God who steps into our situations. If you struggle with God, you share His strength. He gave you your struggle to develop your strength. Surrender is the one struggle that unites us all.

My blog this week is from the series This Is Your Permission Slip. In this series, we are learning that God’s word liberates us not limits us. The sermon I chose is called “Always Been Yes”.

In the beginning of the sermon, Pastor Steven used 2 Corinthians 1:19-20. “19 For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—was not yes and no, but is yes in Him. 20 For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.” These two verses are telling us that it has always been yes. In the world, with non-Christians, they think that God is a no God and has strict rules. In Exodus 20:1-17, you can find the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were created by God for a reason. God gave the Ten Commandments to show us how to live free now that we are no longer slaves. The purpose of the boundary was there to protect us.

When you have been imprisoned in something for so long, you don’t know how to be free. When you keep the first nine commandments you will not want or need any others. We need to learn how to live God’s way. When we follow God’s rules, we have more protection over our lives. When we live God’s way, we will not want to live the way the world does, in addition, our lives will be protected.

Pastor Steven used the verse 1 Peter 2:9 and that says. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” This verse is telling us that we are chosen by God and we may declare God’s praises. “Thou shalt not” leads to “That you may”. We have to look through our burdens to find our blessings. We also should trust the Lord during our tough times because He is always working for our good. So instead of seeing His boundaries as limitations we can see them as boundaries of protection.

This week my blog is about the sermon “The Greatest Source of My Frustration” and the sermon is from the series The Expectation Gap. In this series we learned that there can be a gap in one or more areas of our life between what we expect and then experience.

Pastor Steven opened up with the verses Luke 10:38-42. These verses are talking about expectations we can have. There is a gap in one or more areas of our life between what we expect and what we experience. That gap  can be an area of frustration. Some people respond to their frustration by lowering their expectations to the level of their experience. It creates problems to respond to disappointment or frustration by lowering your expectation. We should start allowing God to fill the gap between your expectations and experiences.

Pastor Steven gave us five points to use with experience and expectation. The first one is “I cannot expect what I do not express.” This means that what we do not express to others around us we cannot expect it and it won’t come to pass. We all have unexpressed expectations of others.

The second point was “I am not authorized to negotiate with anyone else’s relationship with God.” We can be disappointed in expectations of others because we expect them to express their love for God the same way we do. We do not need to put our burdens on others. Sometimes, we go in between them and God and figure out what His plan is for them. A lot of us think that we can be God’s agent to negotiate with others. God works out all of other peoples plans for a reason.

The third point was “I must resist the temptation to draft others into my dysfunction.” You can be so dysfunctional that you think others have problems when really you are the one with the problem. God fixes our problems in a time frame that we don’t always realize. We start hating people who are stable due to us being so dysfunctional.

The next point is “The greatest source of my frustration with others is my confusion about God’s expectations of me.” Sometimes we are controlling others out of something that is controlling us. Our expectations of others is projecting God’s expectations of us onto others. God wants to put a new expectation into everyone.

The final point was “Don’t let what YOU expected keep you from what God wants you to experience.” Sometimes, God exceeds expectations by going deeper. The enemy has no right to determine your expectations based on your experience. God does not reduce expectations, He replaces them. We need to decide what we are going to experience by the expectations of our gap.

In my blog this week, I will be talking about the sermon “A Day In The Life Of Praise.” This sermon is from the series 52 Days of Thanks and Praise. In this series, we learned how to have an attitude of gratefulness.

Pastor Steven opened up this sermon with the verses Isaiah 52:1-2. We need to have a habit of gratitude to produce an attitude of gratitude. If you are waiting for the attitude it may not come. By putting the correct habits in place, it produces the attitude you need, you can tell gratitude to come. Every person has control over their level of gratitude in their life. We need to live it one moment at a time.

Pastor Steven gave three words to help our gratitude. The first one was Alertness. In Isaiah 52:1-2 Jesus is warning Zion to wake up. We need to wake up to God. God gives us a call to action. You are not able to see God in your life if you are not alert to the way that God is working. Be alert to the blessings of God, by increasing the sensitivity of your spirit. In Mark 4:38-39, the disciples told Jesus to wake up and stop the storm and then Jesus was telling them to wake up to Him. We normally alert God to our problems too much. Meanwhile, we miss Him. God is in the midst of your problems. You can miss God in the present.

The second word was Attire. We need to have the right attire for our attitudes. A real friend tells you the truth in love. We should wear a different attitude. Don’t wear a judgmental attitude. You must tell your voice what to say and your mind what to think. Jesus did not die for us to wear a hand me down attitude.

The third word that Pastor Steven gave to us was, Access. God gives us the opportunity to control what we let in. Don’t let in negative thoughts or a negative attitude. By not letting in negative attitudes or thoughts, you can make more room for an attitude of gratitude.

This week, I am changing up my blog a little bit, and I chose to do a sermon by Pastor Steven’s wife, Holly Furtick. This sermon is called “The Orchid and the Oak Tree.” This sermon is from the Moodswingers series and that series was teaching us how to control our emotions in tough situations.

Holly Furtick opened up this sermon with the scriptures Jeremiah 17:7-8. These verses are telling us that our confidence is in God. It is also talking about a tree bearing fruit. When life turns up the heat how do I keep from withering?

Holly gave us five statements to overcome emotional excuses. The first one is “Yes you’re complex, but you do not have to be so complicated.” A lot of the time, we can get complicated. A complicated person is unpredictable, they can also be very difficult to understand and have many different sides. Holly gave one example of two different plants one is complicated and one is simple. The first one is an orchid, orchids are complicated to take care of because they need a certain amount of water, a certain amount of light and a certain kind of air. An oak tree is much more simple and they take care of themselves. We all want the people in our lives to enjoy being around us and we can do that by being like an oak tree.

The second statement was: “No you’re not perfect, but you can still be poised.” Poise is not perfection, it is strength under pressure. We need to learn and start practicing going to God first with our problem instead of letting it out on others. A poised person can handle it on their own. Proverbs 31:11-12 tells us that we should not fail to bear fruit. We should be like the oak tree.

The third statement that was given to us was: “Life brings chaos, but you can keep your calm.” When people make you angry, you have a choice to be calm. We need to have common sense in chaotic situations. A little common sense goes a long way. As Christians, we have a spiritual power inside of us. Philippians 4:5-7 talks about knowing God is with us. Present our requests to God in tough situations. When we go to God first, we will have more peace within us.

For the fourth statement, it was; “High stress is no excuse for high drama.” In difficult situations with stress, we need to get a grip of our emotions. In Hebrews 12:12-13 it says 12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. This verse is saying that we need to have strength. The final statement given was: “You need to be fortified for the fight.” We need to be prepared when people make us angry. When we are prepared, we can swing our moods around. Oak trees have strong deep roots. To be fortified, we need to have strong roots and strengthen them. If we strengthen ourselves, we can have fruit when drought comes in. With great effort, as Psalm 1:3 says “You shall be as an oak tree planted by streams of water, yielding it’s fruit, in its season and whose leaf does not wither. He will prosper in everything that he does.”

This week, I am going to be talking about the sermon I’m better under pressure. In this sermon, Pastor Steven used the verses 2 Corinthians1:8-11 which says: “8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” In these verses, it is talking about how we need to rely on God when we feel pressured. 

Pastor Steven gave us three points to tell ourselves when we feel pressured. The first thing that we need to say to ourselves is “I have been here before.” Sometimes we have a sense in our gut where we start to think that we have never been in the situation before, but instead we have to tell ourselves that we have done this before. We know what the pressure does in the situation that we are experiencing and we also know how it feels. We need to start telling the devil that we have been here before when the pressure triggers you.

The second point he told us to remind ourselves is to say “I’m not that important.” A verse that Pastor Steven mentioned was 2 Corinthians 1:9. In that verse, it is telling us that we should not rely on ourselves and we need to start relying on God. Sometimes God allows enough pressure that we end up giving it back to him because it was his to begin with. We are valuable to God. The world can move on without us. The world does not revolve around us. God works through our failures because He is faithful.

The third point given to us was “I’m better under pressure.” We spend our lives thinking what we could do if there was not so much pressure in the world. What we do not notice is that pressure creates power. Romans 5:3 talks about how we should triumph in our troubles. God uses pressure to produce His purpose. We are built for pressure. More pressure means more power. Only God can show you how to convert the pressure to turn it into something glorious through Him.

This week, my blog is going to be from the series Moodswingers. The sermon is called Beating Burnout. Burnout is not a product of how long you live, but it is a product of how you live.

In this sermon, Pastor Steven taught from Exodus 27:20 – 21. In these two verses, there were three phrases that stood out. The three phrases were clear oil, pressed olives and kept burning. We hear a lot of crash and burn scenarios, but what a lot of us do not talk much about is ordinary people who do not crash and burn but live a life that is burning. A lot of the moods that we experience are a lot of unchecked, unrecognized burnout from out untended internal state. The demands placed on you exceed the resources available to us.

It is not God’s job to fire us up and only we can make the fire within us burn. It is our job to tend to our own passion. Matthew 6:22 talks about how the lamp is the eye of our heart. You are a person of promised presence. The light comes from our heart. If the within us is darkness. It can be difficult to locate God’s presence in darkness.

During the sermon, Pastor Steven gave three thoughts about burnout. The first one is the right light. The light that you put something in, is just as important as what we are looking at. The right light is important. We need to be engaged with the real issues of our day. Looking at our life in the wrong light can cause you to see things that are not really there. Your situation is not as bad as you think. We need to get God to shine on our situations.

The second point is essential oils. Leviticus 24:2. We need to have clear oil for the lamp. The light is only as good as the fuel that creates it. Because if there is any oil, it will burn but it will burn out. From evening to morning the lamp should be lit. We need joy that burns through tough situations. God is using some of the pressure to get pure oil.

The last point is pressing thoughts. It is one thing to want a light that shines. It is better to keep burning. Philppians 4:8. God wants us to get past our first impressions of our thoughts. After it is pruned, it has to be pressed. Normally to get clear oil, you have to hand press olives. Pastor Steven told us that we have to hand press our thoughts. If we hand press our thoughts, then we will end up with a better thought process. What comes out of us, because of what happened to us, is under the hand of God. We need to identify the thoughts that are not pure and press them out. People tend to misinterpret the situations in our life to be bad but they are from the Lord and they must be good. Sometimes we disqualify the positive things in our lives. We have to press against those thoughts that prevent us from living a life that is burning.

In this week’s blog post, I have decided to do it on a sermon from the Moodswingers series. This sermon is called “Cheer up Check up.” It is not a sin to be in a bad mood, but it is a sin to be overcome by your emotions that beat you up because Jesus has already defeated them.

We should be in good cheer, If there is good cheer, there can also be bad cheer. Bad cheer can calm our symptoms instead of giving us a solution that helps us. Sometimes we settle for things that can only make us feel better for a minute. How do you give yourself a cheer up check up?

Pastor Steven said that we should check two things. The first thing that we should check is our countenance. In Acts 27:25, God tells us to keep up good cheer. Can we have good cheer even in difficult situations? God does not want us to have good cheer because of our situation, but He wants us to have good cheer because of who is in the situation. Sometimes we go about it the easy way and give encouragement for someone else’s problem. It’s hard writing a prescription for your own pain. When we choose bad cheer over goof cheer, we create bigger problems.

When we have good cheer, it never runs out. Pain causes us to lose perspective and treat the wrong areas. Where we feel pain, is not where it originated.

We need to start reflecting God’s joy. When you go through something in life that is challenging, you will have a harsh countenance. We can trick our emotions by our facial expressions. The way we look at life is a reflection of how you think God looks after our life.

The other way to check up, is to check your circulation. We need to check what is circulating in our lives. It can be bitterness, anger or even complaining. When we need some encouragement, maybe our prescription should be to give some to others. In Luke 6:37-38 it is explaining if you give, it will come back to you. We should try giving joy to others and it will have an affect on us. You are drowning in whatever you give. What you need is what you should give. What God put in us should flow out.

My blog this week is going to be the sermon “The Great Emoti Con”. This sermon is from the series Moodswingers. In Moodswingers we are learning about how to take control of our feelings so they will not take control over you.

Pastor Steven opened up this sermon with John 15:11. John 15:11 is talking about joy. Jesus and joy are not opposites. Sometimes we think of them as opposites. Pastor Steven said that “You can’t endure what you enjoy.” Jesus endured the cross because he set joy before him. When you set joy before you, you can endure many things.

God wants us to go from a state of emoticonfusion to emoticontrol. God’s word will light up your paths. Happiness is not a destination, it is a path connected to God’s word. If you choose the path of happiness, it can lead us to God’s word which is where you can learn to control your emotions.

Pastor Steven brought up Proverbs 4:18-25. These verses are telling us that we can be righteous people and go down the wrong path. Your moods are not supposed to be mysterious that they lead you in the wrong way.

The first step to take to control your emotions is guard your heart. Everything that we do flows from our heart. We normally guard everything else except for our heart, but we need to flip it around. An attitude from our heart reflects our mind. Every decision we do, is the result of our thoughts. If our goal is to have a better attitude we can’t allow stuff into our hearts. We have to learn to keep our guard up to protect our heart. If we spend our lives letting stuff in, it eventually comes out. How should we guard our heart?

In order to guard your heart, you have to own your emotions. You can not let what someone else did to you affect your emotions. Don’t say they put you in a bad mood. Instead you can say I am not having a positive mood. Your mood is your decision. Sometimes, we let others take the key to our joy. We need to learn to own our emotions. Our emotions do not own us. What is around us can not control what is within us.

To own our emotions, we need to change our concentration. We need to pay attention to our attitude because your attitude reflects our attention. Your frustration reflects your fixation. The way your heart feels is a result of what your mind concentrates on. When life breaks the concentration, your soul sinks beneath the surface. You need to concentrate on what is before you and not on your past. Life drops in distractions. When distractions to have you in a bad mood come in, we should carry a pitcher of God’s joy with us. We can’t control what life drops in, but we can swing our mood with God’s joy.