Embracing Truth: The Path to Transformation

1) "All of us have shortcomings. All of us have some faults. The Bible says there's none righteous, not even one person. For all have sinned and fall short of God's standards. So because we are all defective, we have all kinds of things in our life, that means God needs to change us. I said we need transformation. We need God to change us. And I talked about the reason why we don't change is a couple of things. And again, I'm just going to recap." [03:05] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "In order for us to change if you want God to change you if you want to change as a person you've got to change the way you think you've got to change the way you think we have what we call thinking thinking right and we battle with things in our lives we battle with sin and we battle with these shortcomings and defects And it starts in your head, starts in your mind first, before you begin to act it out. You begin to think about it. And the Bible tells us in Proverbs 23, 7, as the man thinks, so is he. So if you think you're this or that, if you think about things in your life, that's what you're going to become." [07:44] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "Many times you can't control the way you feel, but you can control the way you think. And what we begin to live our lives is we begin to live our lives out of emotions. And we're driven by our emotions. Our lives are dictated by our feelings and not our faith. We're dictated. We're dictated by how we feel and not the word of God. And let me just say this. People rather chase their emotion than building their thinking on the commitment that they made to God. When you begin to think about your commitment, it becomes bigger than your feelings. Chasing feelings instead of building a commitment. When feelings become more important to your commitment, then you're living your life out of emotions." [10:04] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "There must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and your attitude. So if you want to change your attitude, you got to change the way you think. You need a spiritual renewal. They said, well, they're brainwashing you over there. We need a spiritual brainwashing, man. Our brain is so dirty. We got to clean it up. It says you must put on the new nature because you're a new person. Created in God's likeness, which is what? Righteous, holy, and true. So if you're going to change the way things are in your life, you got to begin, according to the scripture, get a spiritual renewal. There needs to be a renewal. In other words, when you get a spiritual renewal, it changes your outlook. It changes your attitude." [12:01] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Repentance is actually a positive thing. And most of us said, man, if I knew all it took was repentance, I would have repented a long time ago. Man, if I could change the way I was thinking, I would have gave my life to Christ a long time ago. Because repentance changes everything about you. It changes everything of how you see God. And how you picture who you are. Who God is. A lot of times we think God is mad at us. Actually, God is mad about you. Amen. He loves you. When he changes your way of thinking, it changes the way you look at life. It changes the way you look at money. It changes the way you look at heaven and hell. It changes the way you look at your problem. It changes the way you look at sex. And you look at it in a more righteous way. It changes the way you look at your parents and your past, your present, your future. It actually changes everything about you." [14:45] (63 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "The fourth thing that's required to change is we need the Holy Spirit. Say Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit, man. We can't do it on our own. We need the Holy Ghost. Verse 24 of Ephesians chapter 4 says, You must put on a new nature because you are a new person created in God's likeness, righteous, holy, and true. So, the qualities of this new nature is what we call the fruit of the Spirit. And so, the fruit of the Spirit is love, right? Joy, peace, gentleness, patience, kindness. Goodness, meekness, self-control, and faithfulness. So, these are the fruit of the Spirit. In other words, it's an inside job. How many know that God's working on the inside of you?" [19:51] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Change requires honesty in community. In other words, you're going to have some people in your life. All of us need some people in our life who will tell us the truth. You need some people in your life that you allow to tell you the truth. You need some people to point out some things. And so, you have to be honest. You've got to have some honest community. There are some things in your life that unless someone points them out, you're not going to change. I was talking to someone the other day and thinking about this. And I think I've even mentioned it here in church. How many times have you seen those guys on American Idol who are auditioning who can't sing Worth of Beings? They can't even hold a tune. And you're wondering, don't you have a friend that could have said, bro?" [22:48] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "If you're going to change, if God's going to change, it's going to require you to learn how to overcome temptation. All of us, no matter who you are, are going to be tempted. In fact, here's what Ephesians 4.26 says. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry. For anger, what? Gives a mighty foothold to the devil. So a foothold is like Satan has a beachhead in your life. Let me kind of explain this. During World War II, the U.S. Marines would go into the islands of the South Pacific. And the number one goal was, simply to establish a beachhead. They wanted a spot of land, maybe a couple of hundred yards in, a couple of hundred yards wide. And as long as they established a beachhead, they didn't take over the beach, they just established a place, a little piece of that beach. And when they did that, as soon as they could establish that, then the rest of the army and everybody else would come in. And eventually, from that very established beachhead, they would take over the entire island." [27:55] (81 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)