No-one should be more confident than a believer in Christ, but how many people access the resident lion living on the inside of us? Do you believe your future can change for the better? If so, you need to start agreeing with the truth and swim against the current. How do we do this? The primary way is speaking God’s word over your situation. We activate our faith thru speech, but some have forgotten this. How do we activate the secret sauce of success? Tune in now with Carl to find out…
Here is a complete transcript of the broadcast (below)…
Friend, this is part three of Courage and Confidence with the Lord. And I believe that this area is one of the areas where the enemy attacks us the most. You know, you need courage to start a new business or learn new things, witness to your family, confront an abusive family member, or even confront your boss if necessary. In fact, probably most things in life require confidence and courage. And as soon as we get attacked in that area, we fall back. We get into fear. We get into stagnation in our life. And the Lord doesn’t want that. He wants us to advance. Amen? So let’s join me now, live in session. Circumstances are subject to the truth of God’s Word. Right? You guys don’t seem sure about that. The truth is the truth is the truth. And your spoken word can change circumstances.
That’s a fact. Mark 11:23 talks about it ad nauseam. But we have to agree with what the Word says, not what our circumstances are telling us. We have to make a concerted effort to swim upstream. Christians always swim upstream. They’re going against the cosmos, the culture, the current of the world is pushing us back all the time. Back into your own lifestyle, back into your old ways, old sins. And we’re like trying to do a Michael Phelps going the other way, right? But we can do that by His Spirit. That’s the only way we can do it.
Hebrews 13:6 is a great scripture. We may boldly say, the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Amen. You can stand on that word, whatever situation you’re in, even if it is a difficult meeting the next day when they’re tear you up and criticize your presentation that was badly prepared at a very short notice because of your boss, et cetera, et cetera. Hebrews 13:6, you can say, “I will not fear what man shall say unto me” and I will have an answer for every situation. Right? You can stand on that. I have. Hebrews 4:16 says, “let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace in our time of need.” Grace is a quipping power to do God’s will. That’s what it is. It’s not a license to sin as some people have preached it. Grace is simply God’s enabling help or power to assist you in a situation. That’s what it’s for. And so we can boldly come to the throne of grace and say, Lord, I need help in this situation. Okay. My family doesn’t serve the Lord. I’m the only one standing on the name of Jesus. I’m the only one, you know, who even talks about Christ in my family. I’m being persecuted, but I can boldly come to you. Amen. And ask for help in this situation.
Sometimes we’ve got to stand on our rights. Friend, we’ve got to remind the Lord of the privileges and rights he’s given us. We’ve got to speak out our identity in Christ that we’re seated in heavenly places in Christ. Jesus far above principalities, powers, might, and dominion. We’ve been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. Right? Sometimes when you say those things, you can even feel the anointing of God rising as you’re saying it. So it takes courage to start a new job, to confront your boss, to start a business, to lose weight, leave a church, learn new things, to join a new church, to confront your abusive family. It takes courage to witness to your family. It takes courage to transition from one part of your life into the next. We need courage every day. We need it all the time. It’s not something that’s going to just go away.
We need Lord fill my courage tank again. One more time. Amen. Oh no. I got courage back in 1978. I don’t need any more. Thanks. I’ve got plenty of that. No, that’s not how it works because the issues of life are always doing this to us and pushing us back stream again. Oh, I got more to deal with than I thought if that’s how it is. All right. So we’re actively engaging against the enemy with the words we speak. That’s how we engage him. We don’t just speak words that are blank. We speak words that are truth standing on the foundation of God’s holy word. The things that he won for us. Okay. This is a fascinating scripture. Acts 4:13, “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” Well, you’re going to say, well, that’s lucky for them. They were born in what? 12 BC.
And they just happened to be around the time when Jesus was alive. Good for Peter and John. However, what is this? The word of God, the living word, right? Isn’t Jesus the living word? If you’re spending time with this, you’re going to have boldness fact. Every week I preach 16 different versions of a word, but it always comes back to this every day, spend time in the word and prayer. That’s it. That’s the secret formula. That’s the secret source. There is no other secret source. Amen. And so when we spend time with him, our boldness rises. Why? Because we’re being more convinced of the truth because faith comes by hearing. And the more we hear it, the more we’re appropriating the truth in our heart. And then we can act upon it. The first level of faith is building your own faith up. But there comes a point where you believe what you say now, and then you’re going to actually move in that face.
The first level of faith is building up inside of you. The next level of faith is changing things around you. Right? Mark 9:23, Jesus said, “all things are possible to him that believes” our belief system is key. It’s key. All things are possible to him that believes. Amen. The more we hear this, meditate, speak it, the more it’s going to become real to us. And then it’s going to start changing things. Acts 4:31, “When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled and they were all filled with the Holy ghost.” And they spake the word of God with boldness. We have prayer right here. We have spending time in the word right here. Both of them result in boldness, boldness, knowing that God is going to take care of my situation. This is where people struggle. Well, I understand Peter and John, they were tight with Jesus. Good for them. What about my situation? Is God going to turn up for me? That’s where people struggle, right? Lord, I know you’re willing, but will you do it for me? The way you become convinced is through again, spending time in the word.
There’s no other way. As you do so, the reality of the truth will be infused in your spirit and it’ll become real to you. When Abraham was fully convinced, then he received the promise. When he was fully convinced, his name was Abraham and he became Abraham. Abraham means father of many nations. Abraham didn’t have any kids, but every day someone would walk up to him and say, Hey, father of many nations, can I take your camel for a spin? Can I borrow your trowel? Can I borrow your wheelbarrow? Father of many nations. Every day he’s hearing. Father of many nations. After what? 25 years, he’s pretty convinced, right? I’m not saying it’s going to take 25 years, kids. All I’m saying is keep hammering the word into your spirit because it’s going to change things. Amen. Confidence and courage go together. We cannot be confident if our heart is condemning us. And this is where many people struggle. It says in first John 3:21, “beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence towards God.” Why would our heart condemn us? Sin that’s deliberate, that hasn’t been confessed, that could condemn our heart. All right. It could be the thing that God’s told you to do that you haven’t done, and that’s still condemning you.
There’s many things that could upset that relationship. So what do we do? We just get right with the Lord. We don’t have to wait three years to do it. We just say, father, I’m just letting go of the stuff in my heart right now. I thank you that you’re cleansing me from all unrighteousness and condemnation is far from me. Amen. I’m not listening to any more of that accusatory junk that the enemy is throwing at me because my sins are forgiven. Amen. Now, once you go through that threshold, you then have confidence. That’s when you start petitioning whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. His commandments are love God, love people, love God, love people. That’s it. That covers all 10 commandments right there. So if you’ve lost your confidence of late, check your heart is what I would say. Just check your heart and just ask the Lord, and it may not be anything. Maybe your heart is fine. Maybe you simply need to get familiar with the promises of his word so that you can stand on something when the enemy comes, right? Earlier on in this session, I talked about a printout that we have on our website called Your Bountiful Inheritance.
It’s two pages, but on those two pages, it tells you everything that Christ won for you on the cross, and it’s personal as well. So you can personalize it when you speak it. If you give me your email address, I’ll send you a copy later, or you can download it on our website. But everything comes back to identity. That’s what the enemy attacks with us is our identity. He remembers everything and likes to replay those old failures back, and some people never move on because that’s all they do is listen to the record that’s broken. Oh yeah, I tried that. It didn’t work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can’t do that anymore. Negative, negative, negative. We’ll break that cycle. Amen? God will convict us, which is a conviction to repentance, but Satan condemns us. There’s a difference. Conviction is an awareness that we’ve done wrong to the point where we repent, turn about face, and change our behavior.
Condemnation has no end to it. Condemnation is always continual. It has no logic. You’re this, you’re that, you’re pathetic, you’re that. It’s not ending in a result. It’s just a continual cycle that has to be broken. Do you see the difference? You are not supposed to be subject to condemnation, only the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And I would suggest that anybody who’s convicted by the Spirit shouldn’t be going more than a day before they make an about face, because if you know it’s wrong, you’re going to leave an open door for the enemy if you continue in that state, right? That’s why David was loved by the Lord so much, because he had a contrite heart. He had a heart that even though he messed up, he went to the temple and he was made right with God as fast as possible. Amen? That’s where his passion was. 1 John 5:14 says, “this is the confidence that we have in Him, the Father, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” Fantastic.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we’ve asked of Him. So again, it’s checking the heart, getting the confidence back, and then moving into petition mode. But it’s very hard to believe from the Lord when our heart’s condemning us at the same time. You’re opposing yourself, because you’re like, well, I don’t feel confident, so is He really hearing me? Am I really going to get my prayer answered this time? Because you’re internally torn. And that’s one of the secrets to prayer, I really believe, is checking the heart. Okay. What is the source of our boldness? And these scriptures are awesome. 1st John 4:17 says, “love has been perfected among us that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in the world.” But notice that love has been perfected. Again, 1st John 4:18, “there is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.” Those who are continually feeling fear have not been perfected in the Father’s love. That’s the bottom line.
The agape, unconditional love. If we are constantly subject to fear, there’s some aspect of our heart that has not been made right, or we have not felt the Father’s love, and therefore Satan has legal ground to come at us in that area. Sounds like an easy thing to do? No, not necessarily. Some people are still trying to grasp the Father’s love. That may not be something that’s obvious to us. The Father sent His Son to die a horrendous death of beating, whipping, and crucifixion, because He loved you. That is the Father’s love. What more could He do? Nothing. There’s nothing else He could have done. That’s how much He loves us. If we are struggling with fear, let’s focus on the love of the Father, and as you do so, that security will come, and then fear will be far from you. Satan attacks us early. He gets us in our teenage years. He gets us in our whatever phase you want to talk about. Yes, friend, the enemy is determined, but we need to be more determined than the enemy, no matter what phase he’s attacked us in. Tomorrow, I’m going to wrap up this session, and I’m hoping you’re enjoying it.
https://carljosephministries.com/podcast/making-wise-decisions-part-2/
https://scripturesavvy.com/bible-verses-about-choices/
Title: Courage and Confidence: Part 3 (LIVE)
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