Arise Ministries Apostles Blog

Our confidence level can change if our perspective about the event changes. In reality we need to see our problems as opportunities. If we ask Jesus to help us solve them, he will help us through the situation. So the best thing to do is to stop, take a deep breath, count to ten, and ask the Lord for help and then wait for the answer (be patient). Matthew 7:9-11 declares, “Or what man is there  among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?’ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will our father in heaven give good things to those who ask!” When we call upon the Lord He will surely come and lead us to that place of peace and breakthrough. When we face our difficulties, with the help of the Lord, He will empower us with the confidence (faith) needed to take control of them, rather than our circumstances taking control of us. If you don’t like the current situation that you are facing you have two choices: You can blame others or you can take responsibility for where you are and change your circumstances. The question you must ask yourself is: What do you see? Failure or Success! What are you talking? Failure or Success! What are preparing for? Failure or Success! Where your focus goes, your energy flows and your result shows! Therefore watch the choices you make.

When we are negative on ourselves, we need to jump-start our confidence. We need to start looking for right solutions to our problems with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If you do not have an intimate relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that is an easy thing to rectify. Say this with me, Lord Jesus and Holy Spirit forgive me for my sins and for placing my life before you. Fill me with your presence and with a close and abiding relationship with you. Fill me with the Holy Spirit and Your presence. I give you my life and declare that this day the Holy Spirit has permission to guide my life. Now let the relationship begin and be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit. You ask how do I know if it is God, me or something else. If it lines up to the word of God, of which you should blow the dust off of and begin to consume, and if you are led to do something that will enhance your relationship with the Lord. Drinking alcohol and doing drugs is not godly, your God is pure do not try to satisfy the works of the sinful nature and serve Him simultaneously, it will not work!

Let’s continue, when we focus on what is wrong, we tend to feel discouraged. Confident people exhibit a positive mental attitude. As you know our mind is calibrated to recall past events. Use what God gave you, replay the positive events in your mind and remember what it took to achieve them. Rather than recalling the bad and ugly remember the good and successful. Remember this, no matter what challenges you face, with the help of the Lord, no one can stop you – except you! Confidence is like yeast in dough. It takes a small amount, but before you know it the yeast will work its way throughout the whole lump. Whether it is negativism or confidence they both will work their way through you, you just have to decide which one you want!

There are three principles that will assist you in developing a godly self-confident lifestyle. They are improving your self-image, self esteem and your internal dialogue. To establish a proper self-image you first must know that the image you have of yourself is calibrated much the way a thermostat is and your self-image will only allow you to perform within the prescribed range that you have predetermined. For instance, if you set a thermostat for 70, unless it is broken, the temperature that you have set will come to that degree and go no lower or higher. You, like a thermostat, will act and perform in direct response to what you have determined you are capable of doing. If you set low standards or expectations for yourself that is the place you will stay, and you can never outperform your inner self-image that you have set. Negatives are created in the dark room of our minds so we need to evaluate how and why we develop unfavorable images of ourselves.   These images may well be created by the words we hear and the pictures that we create. In order for you to change the wrong images you have of yourself, you have to change the way you think about yourself. The pictures we have of ourselves has been developed through our past experiences. Each failure, success and the way we were raised create either positive or negative images of ourselves. The truth is we have to choose to think differently about ourselves. The person we see each morning in the mirror can be a new creation in Christ if we will permit it. Developing a new picture of ourselves is the way to move into a new realm of spiritual and physical success. We need to stop looking through the lens of failure and begin to see our failures as transitional moments that bring us to ultimate success. Instead of looking at our self through the negative issues that have ruled our lives, change and begin to see your life through the eyes of Christ!

Secondly, we need our self-esteem improved. What is self-esteem? It’s how much you love yourself. It is our personal estimation of our worth to this world or the value that we place on ourselves. Jesus taught us in Matthew 22:37-40 that the greatest commandment was to love God with all our heart, mind and strength. He further said that the second commandment was to love one another as ourselves, in other words, loving ourselves isn’t a matter of arrogant pride; it’s the right thing to do prior to loving others. If you have problems loving others you may have a problem loving yourself and that dear ones fuels our self-esteem!

The third principle is about our internal dialogue, how do you communicate with yourself? What you say can make you feel confident or insecure, fearful or courageous, good or bad. The truth is that 77 percent of what we speak to ourselves is negative.As surprising as it may seem, around 77 percent of all illnesses are psychosomatic. If what you can say can make you feel bad, then what you say can also make you feel confident and good about yourself. Resetting you mind requires you to first reconcile your negative past experiences thus changing your belief system. Crisis often becomes the tool that reveals our subconscious thoughts. Its like a mud puddle. When calm, the water looks clean. When stirred, all of the mud at the bottom comes to the top. Crisis does not create the pain; it creates the trigger that reveals the thought patterns that you have accepted, our subconscious patterns is what creates the pain. To boost your confidence, it is important that, on a regular basis, you receive affirming words from yourself and from those you have in your life. Hearing affirming words from your mentor, pastor, spouse, parents, employer and friends helps boost your confidence making you more confident about yourself. Be careful in the days to come that you surround yourself with those who will affirm you and not infirm you. Insure that your self-image, self-esteem and your internal dialogue is Holy Spirit inspired and that you clean out ever negative thought that you have about yourself. It will prove to be vitally important as you become, “The New Confident You!” Please let me know what you think about this blog, I am awaiting your response!

The mind is affected by various bits of information that it receives resulting in our positive or negative thoughts. Our mind is a battlefield were we struggle with the Lord, Satan and our will. Many times we yield to old familiar patterns because of deep-rooted fear, insecurity, and passivity to name a few. However, when we become aware of out internal conflicts and choose to surrender our minds to the Holy Spirit, He will make our paths straight. The natural mind is set on the things of this world or for a better term “ourselves!” When we fulfill our personal agendas without the involvement of the Lord, we do not receive God’s best outcome for that situation, we would be in less turmoil if we would trust the Lord for our answers!

As Christians we have, through a sequence of events, permitted the enemy to steal our blessings, inheritances and those things that we treasure. Not only have we allowed Satan and his minions to take what is ours, we have given him the right to take our ability to reason and think properly about the things of God, sabotaging our spiritual and physical success. We can regain our personal and spiritual territory, but we have to recognize who we are in Christ and to whom we serve. When we know know who we are and to whom we belong our confidence is sure. Confidence defined is, faith or belief that one will act in a right proper or effective way, it means trust and the quality or state of being certain. Hebrews 11:6a says, “But without faith (confidence) it is impossible to please Him (God). Taking that to a human dimension, without confidence (faith) you will never be able to please God or yourself.  What I am about to say to you is vitally important for your future, demonic forces do not want to just stop you from being confident, they want to  abort God’s plan for your family line for generations to come. It is easy to use our negative past-life experiences as an excuse to blame-shift onto others, shut down and live in hopelessness rather than have the confidence to change your circumstances. What if you were able to take the pains of the past and convert them to positives, what if you were able to view them through the eyes of the Holy Spirit how would they look then? In case your unaware, the Lord can take those negative issues, heal them and show you how to use them for good.

When we are negative on ourselves, we need to jump start our confidence. One of the quickest ways to increase your confidence (faith) is to focus on the most positive and predictable areas of your life. When we focus on what is wrong with our life, we tend to feel discouraged. Confident people exhibit a positive mental attitude. As you know, our mind is calibrated to recall past events. Rather than remembering the bad and ugly, recall the good and successful. Rather than focusing on the embarrassing moments remember your past successes. Another way to stay confident is to view your failures as successes, how else will you learn! By focusing on your successes or using your failures as a learning tool, you start feeding the right emotion of confidence and you begin straving the wrong emotion of fear, insecutity and passivity. An unknow author pinned the following:   Two natures beat within my heart,  The one is foul, the other is blessed. The one I love, the other I hate, The one I feed will dominate. When we focus on the problems, we sabotage our possibilities! Confidence is like yeast in dough. It only takes a small amount, but before you know it the yeast will work its way throughout the entire batch. Whether it is negativism or confidence they both will work their way through you, you just have to choose which one you want! Please let me know how you feel about this subject, I look forward to your response!

The enormity of God’s love is as personal as it is widespread, and we will never be able to grasp the fullness of His affection toward us. In fact, one aspect of God’s great love is this, He doesn’t love only the populace, He loves people, He doesn’t only love the multitude He loves you! Psalm 104:21 in the New Living translation proclaims, “May the glory of the Lord last forever; the Lord rejoices in all he has made!” The word “rejoices“  in this verse means: glad (delighted), happy (pleased), elated (filled with joy), makes merry (high spirits), or gloating (to think of something with triumphant delight). Therefore, when the Lord rejoices in you, He looks at you with delight, He is pleased, full of joy and thinks of you as a “triumphant delight.”

To be loved by God means to be chosen by Him, and to be chosen is one of the most wonderful gifts that God has given us. It means our Master has seen us as acceptable through the Blood of His Son, and He is calling us closer to Him. There is no gift like being chosen by God and no pain like man’s rejection of such a loving Master. The love of God confers closeness upon the one who is loved, it whispers, I choose you and I want you close to My heart. For shattered people, people with misshapen spirits, crooked hearts and lopsided souls, this is true life.

What each of us need is to have the love, trust and faith of a child again. In case you have forgotten what that feels like, here is a story that hopefully will remind you of that innocent time. A mother woke up during a thunderstorm. She hurried to her son’s room after a particular bright flash of lightning, knowing her son would be terrified. To her surprise, he was standing at the window. “I was looking outside,” the boy said, “and you’ll never guess what happened. God took my picture.” To this little boy a storm became a safe place, because he viewed the problem through the eyes of an affectionate God. I am completely convinced that serious dilemmas can become safe places if we would just see them through the eyes of the Lord. Daniel in the lion’s den, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, a battered boat in the midst of a violent storm all seem dangerous at first, but God changed the circumstances because of His great esteem for His children. No matter the problems that you are facing, remember the Lord loves you just as much as He loved  Daniel, the Hebrew children and the inhabitants of that boat on that stormy day,  He is no respecter of persons!

Realizing God’s love for us helps us to understand that He is stronger than our strongest enemy; He stands behind you, around you and before you. He will never abandon you. No matter what you are feeling right now, lay your issues at the feet of our loving Jesus and watch them dissolve. Let me leave you with this scripture, Psalm 91:1-4 proclaims, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. Surely He will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestlence. He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge: His faithfulness will be your shield and buckler.” Let’s receive God’s unconditional, unfailing love for us. Please let me know what you think about this topic, I await your response!

During the creation process in Genesis 2:7, what does it mean that man became a living soul (KJV)? It means more than being given physical life; the biblical writer declares that man became a living soul or a person, a human being one distinct from all other animals. Since the Lord breathed life in man and he became soul distinctly different from all other animals, there must be importance to our soul. Beside the mind being directly associated with the mind it is defined in the Greek translation to mean “Life” and quite frankly without life we cannot attain Christ -likeness. At the point of Salvation, when we picked up the Cross to follow Jesus, we were unaware of the struggle that we would encounter that exists between our soul and spirit. Mostly we have been conflicted as we have focused on one and then the other. One cannot have a Spirit-led life with life and we have already ascertained that life is derived out of the soul. We must understand how to bring a balance to the issue  between our spirit-man and our soul.

The soul is described as man’s emotions the seat of desire for food, sleep, enjoyment, acceptance, imagination, intuition, longing for God, memory, love, the will to chose and the list goes on. It is the seat of life itself and is our consciousness or awareness of everything around us. On the other hand trying o achieve spiritual understanding through carnal efforts is not possible because Romans 8:7 declares, “…The carnal mind is enmity (hostile) against God; for it is not subject to the laws of God, nor indeed can be.” Therefore, unless a person willingly accepts Christ in their spirit and soul, the Christian experience will be divided in its passion for Christ. Our soul is capable off choosing, this is very important in our Christian journey; the Lord gave us this right s we would choose Him over h noise of the world. If we choose the Lord as a whole person, we have accomplished a holy rite, in doing so we are saying that we love the Lord with everything we are, which obeys the scripture that we should love the Lord with all our heart, soul and strength (Matthew 22:37-40).

What do you think about this?

Many of us have been dictated to by past hurts, which drives us in our decision processes. Deep in our hearts and minds we have stored memories of every event that has occurred in our lives. Every book, song, teaching, ministry, television program, conversation good and bad, as well as every good and bad experience in life is stored somewhere in our memory banks. Each influence has had a positive or negative effect on our belief system. These influences have affected the way we think, act, speak and even feel about ourselves. Some of the bad events have had such a powerful impact on us that they continue to exercise control over our thinking years after the initial event. As a result, many have formed false identities about themselves that stand in opposition to what they were created by God to be. No matter what you’ve been through or learned in the past, you can reset your mind-set and start afresh through the power of the Holy Spirit. Fears, uncertainties and doubts, are all learned feelings and behaviors. If you learned them, you can unlearn them (deliverance)!  You can reprogram your mind to think like confident champions! In truth, the most powerful muscle in changing your future is your mind. The greatest summary statement of all religions and philosophies is this: You become what you think about the most! Solomon was one of the richest and wisest men in history. His philosophy was “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he…” If you think of yourself as a loser, you’ll be one. If you think that the issues of the past will continue to affect you, it will!  Case in point, have you ever heard a person comment that someone is “living out a self- fulfilled prophecy.” As strange as it may seem, this is true about most of us. Routinely we speak something negative about ourselves and then go about doing it! On the other hand, if you think as a spiritually and naturally successful person you will become one, because your outer world becomes a reality of your inner self.

World-class athletes can be physically fit, highly talented, and have home court advantage; however, if they are not mentally prepared for the game, they will not be able to perform to their maximum potential, causing victory to elude them. Even so, if you do not have a strong mental and spiritual constitution, you will find it very hard to succeed in life, if at all. It is very important that we develop a confident and godly thought life! If we reinvent our soul, which you can do, and begin to think differently about yourself, it will cause your spiritual walk to become easier. If you don’t you will create a place of frustration because how can anyone walk in unity, if they do not agree!

Let me hear what you feel about this subject.