One of the things I have been trying to do everywhere I minister is just get people to accept the Bible is God’s Word and believe it and receive it. I remember as a young man, a brand-new Christian, reading the Bible, especially the gospels over and over and getting so excited about this new Christ-life I was going to be living. But I couldn’t seem to find any other Christians who just took God’s Word at face value. Eventually I got a copy of a Word of Faith magazine and read an article on prayer by Kenneth Hagin. I actually started to cry as I found someone who treated the Word of God like a Haynes manual and just believed it, did it and lived it.
Why is it so many Christians struggle with just reading the Word, seeing a promise, thinking it, and accepting that this is for them and will be part of their life? Why is it so many Christians twist and explain away the power and bigness of God in the Bible? Why is it that so many people do not read the Bible like a Haynes manual?
The answer is that most people have been programmed by the world to have teeny tiny thoughts. We don’t expect great and amazing things to happen to us. We expect our lives to be average, mediocre, mostly bad things happen, we don’t get breaks and so we limit God because we limit what God can do for us and in us and through us in our imagination. That is the big deal for so many people. Most people dream big on occasion, but then never go on to see those dreams in reality because in our heart of hearts we don’t see ourselves as a business leader, as a great dad, as a miracle-worker, as a man of peace. We don’t see ourselves as it, so we never end up doing it.
The ability to dream big and expect your life to be awesome and amazing is called hope. Faith is the substance of what we hope for. If you do not have the ability to dream big and create immense images in your mind about your life according to God’s Word, you cannot operate in faith because faith only gives substance to hope. Real hope – not the airy-fairy “I hope so” most people talk about, which means they are waiting for something to fall from the sky and it never does. No – you need an image of a bright immense future in your heart and you need to hold on to that image, and never let go until it appears right in front of you and you are living it.
The problem is that most of us do not have that much space in our minds for hopeful thoughts. We are too busy criticizing others who don’t look or act or behave like us (the smallest of all thoughts), we are too busy worrying (which has its roots in fear), and we are just embalmed in unbelief because we honour the world and the world system so much. So many people have lost their battle for healing because “the doctor says” means more to them than “God says”!
This process of not expecting much out of life and thinking small is programmed into us, most of us from when we were children! We are all born with enough of the image of God in us, even though we are born in sin, to be creative. Children can dream big. But that gets programmed out of us by parents, by school, by peers, and sadly by church too. A study I read says that most of our creativity is programmed out of us by the time we are eight years old. That is tragic! What happens is that the world expects us all to grow up and live in the real world. But this world is not the real world, the spiritual world is the real world. But our society does not like dreamers, and the British society especially hates anyone who thinks they are awesome and good things will happen to them!
Even when I was in Bible College, lecturers told us “none of you will be great, the best you can hope for is to survive” – maybe we should have lecturers who have been great in the kingdom rather than people who have just done Bible College then go straight back into teaching? Maybe that would lead to more fruit. Because even Bible College students with years of intense study inside them seem not to expect much out of life. They haven’t broke the programming yet. They still think about all the obstacles and all the things they cannot do.
Last night, while I was drifting off to sleep under African skies, God asked me to double the giving of Tree of Life. Just for reference we are a very generous church. We give a lot away to world mission and support a lot of ministries. I haven’t even given the implications a second thought because thoughts of this world do not dominate me any more. My self-image is not fragile. I do not see myself running out of money, I do not see myself failing, so I don’t limit what I will do for God.
Most people are not walking like that though. If God told you to double your giving, most people’s first thought is well, I will fail and go under. You can only see problems not opportunities. I know Christians whose self-image and hope level is so weak they cannot even tithe! Those people need emergency surgery on their thinking!
When you got born again, all of heaven is placed inside you. But if we do not re-programme the way we think, it is stuck inside us. We have to think big. We have to stop thinking small. Thinking small stops us even trying. We get saved, but are still just as negative, cynical, petty, and useless as before we get saved unless we change the way we think! Many Christians are cynical even to God’s promises! Many Christians don’t even trust God because they think so small, they don’t think God’s Word means what it says because their small thoughts are so important to them.
Listen very carefully this is what you need to know: the only limits to what God can do in your life – the only limits to God’s promises – are in your thinking. That’s the only place they are. So, you don’t need to scream and shout, you don’t need hands laid on you – you need to change the way you think. You need to renew your mind. You need your soul to prosper. You need to think big and stop thinking small. This is the only thing holding you back. I am not holding you back, your background is not holding you back, your education levels are not holding you back, your nationality and ethnicity, your gender, your past mistakes – NONE OF THAT IS HOLDING YOU BACK. The only way you limit the work of God in your life – the only reason you are sick, poor, selfish, carnal, petty, broke, struggling with habits, not winning in life is because of the way you think. Understand this and deal with this and you will be able to enter the winning realm.
Start reading the Word and start thinking it. If the Word says it is right, it is. Believe it is, think it is. If the Word says it is wrong, it is. Believe it is, think it is. If the Word says you can do it, you can. If the Word says you can have it, you can. If the Word says you are more than a conqueror, get conquering. If the Word says you are the head not the tail, be the head. Stop limiting God by the small images in your mind.
This is not something that you can break in a day, trust me – developing the way you think takes years, takes a long time, but if you start today you will be one step closer today. It’s that simple. Don’t leave it another day, nothing else can change your life other than you stop thinking small.
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