Podcast appearances and mentions of eric little

We've been talking about electrification of the maintenance fleet for some time now and the conversation always turns to the challenges facing the rollout of this technology particularly when it comes to winter maintenance.  Diminished load carrying capacity due to the weight of the batteries, battery performance in cold operating environments, range anxiety, and the lack of rapid charging infrastructure re just a few.  Well, Edison Motors Ltd based in Merritt, British Columbia has found the answer to these challenges and are in the process of developing a plugin hybrid electric snowplow for Emcon Services Inc, the largest maintenance contractor in Canada.  Frank Rizzardo, President of Emcon Services is here along with the founders of Edison Motors, Chace Barber and Eric Little to tell us all about their plugin hybrid electric snowplow project.  check out the progress of the hybrid snowplow build and other vocational trucks Edison Motors have built on their YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@EdisonMotors.  If this episode has got your interest up in hybrid snowplows you can reach out to Frank at  emcon1@emconservices.ca, Chace at chace@edisonmotors.ca, or Eric at eric.little@edisonmotors.ca to continue the discussion.Sign up for email notifications on future episodes and other communications associated with winter maintenance and winter weather management by clicking on subscribe on the Talkin' Winter Ops website at TalkinWinterOps.comThanks for listening in and stay safe out there!

Its producer Eric's bday!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

https://youtu.be/_1hgPAx1fEoMatt had an opportunity to talk to the co-founders of Edison Motors, Chace Barber and Eric Little, about how they're electrifying trucks. Not just any kind of truck, but the heavy, workhorse trucks used in everything from deliveries to hauling logs for the timber industry. Their approach is really unique and one that makes you wonder, why haven't we been doing this all along. YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/stilltbdpodcastGet in touch: https://undecidedmf.com/podcast-feedbackSupport the show: https://pod.fan/still-to-be-determinedFollow us on X: @stilltbdfm @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmfUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/undecidedmf ★ Support this podcast ★

Have you ever wondered about the real power of faith, hope, and kindness in the world? Ever thought of the kind of impact one person can make on the world for Christ? Well, join us on this incredible journey as we traverse from Eastern Kentucky to Central Africa, unfolding inspiring stories of hope, faith, and resilience in the most challenging conditions. Be prepared to be moved by the story of Chime, a young Central African dreamer who aspires to preach the gospel amidst a remarkable revival that's turning millions to God. Stepping into this episode, we're propelled to live beyond good intentions and harness our potential for Christ. Drawing lessons from the lives of Eric Little, David, Moses, and Dawson Trotman, we'll explore how they visualized and actualized the harvest of changed lives. From the enduring symbols of Noah's flood and the rainbow of promise to Moses's leadership in guiding people to the promised land, we'll see how biblical stories still resonate today and inspire us to leave a lasting impact. Picture the thumbprint you could be leaving on the world around you!To top it off, we delve into how the Hippo Valley Christian Mission is transforming lives through small acts of kindness and how you can do the same. We discuss how to develop a mission, foster an attitude of encouragement, and step up to act on a vision from God, even if it challenges your own plans. As we wrap up, we join in prayer for Jason and his family, leading Follansbee Church, and ask for the Holy Spirit to fill this place with contagious love. So whether you're seeking inspiration or ready to take action, this episode is sure to give you the exhilarating push you need.

In part two of the In Focus interview with Chace Barber, CEO and co-founder with Eric Little of Edison Trucks in British Columbia, Canada, host Carolyn Hutcheson asks about the viability of the power grid as North America moves to electric-powered vehicles.  Edison Motors is building hybrid and all-electric trucks.  Chace Barber also relates how a rural First Nations community has met its energy needs.

In part one of an interview with Chace Barber, CEO and co-founder with Eric Little of Edison Motors in British Columbia, Canada, Carolyn Hutcheson, In Focus host, asks how the trucking company got started and how it uses clean energy to power its engines.  Chace Barber discusses using hybrid, electric, and solar energy, and postings on YouTube illustrate the company's innovations.   Part two of the interview airs May 25.

Christ calls on us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him if we wish to go to heaven. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - I. The Relentless Difficulty of Christ’s Demand Turn in your Bibles to Mark 8:34-35. We'll be zeroing in on these verses on the most difficult command that Jesus has ever given to His disciples, a relentless commitment to follow Him. Look at the words again. "He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.'" This is such a difficult command to us because it is relentlessly opposed by our three great enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Therefore, at every moment, world, flesh, devil are fighting against obedience to this command. Years ago, I thought about this as I was preaching through the parallel text in Matthew, and the illustration came to me of the arduous and dangerous journey that the Alaska king salmon makes. You picture the salmon swimming 2,400 miles upstream against whitewater, against waterfalls, jumping upward against gravity to make it back to actually the original tributary where they were spawned, and they breed and die. That's the image that's in my mind for this. Their journey is a natural one, though arduous and difficult and defies reason, defies logic. Our journey is a supernatural one. We cannot make a single step in this journey without the power of God in us. So my desire is to kind of lay a heavy weight on you with this command. I really just want to get out of the way of the words and let Jesus lay that heavy weight on you as He intends to do, but then also to point you to the greatness of the power of God at work in you, if you're born again, to fulfill these words, so both of them. The reason this is so difficult, the central reason, is the nature of the flesh, the nature of the self. Each human being is born with a dedication to self, to pleasing self, to preferring self, that could best be described as fanatical. It is the central idolatry of the human race. We will do almost anything to please ourselves. Only good parenting teaches an infant gradually the lesson, this fanatical commitment to self, so that we can somehow fit into a world of almost eight billion other such people, each of them also fanatically committed to self so that we can do life together. The flow of the personality of a human being is an even greater force of nature than that whitewater gravity that you can picture in your mind with the salmon as they're swimming upstream. It is purely natural after Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden, natural for every descendant of Adam and Eve to be fanatically devoted to self, to pursue selfish interest in every conversation, every food choice, every move we make in our cars, every shopping choice we make online or at a mall, every website we go to, everything we do with social media, every text we write. Every solitary choice we make, commitment to self is a more powerful force than that Alaskan whitewater. We're called by this command to fight against it, to swim upstream constantly against your desire to save yourself, feed yourself, please yourself, promote yourself, prefer yourself, choose yourself, coddle yourself, cherish yourself. Jesus is actually calling on you to deny yourself, to be willing to die for Him and to do it continually, like I prayed in Romans 12, to be a living sacrifice, just constantly dying, all the time dying on the altar to God, to die in small and large acts of self-sacrifice. Some, a very small percentage of His followers in this world, are called on literally to die physically for Him, for the gospel as martyrs, but all of us a kind of a living martyrdom continually. That's the life that Christ is calling every disciple who follows Him to take. That is the only life that leads to heaven. It is the life that Christ Himself lived, and it is the life He calls on us to live. It is absolutely astonishing to me how much Christ gave for us. As Jesus died on the cross in our place under the wrath of God, His lifeblood was pouring out of His body. His clothes, His little pile of possessions that He had that was left were being gambled over in order to fulfill prophecy and mark Him as the Messiah. There was absolutely nothing He held back for us. It is also absolutely astonishing to me how much Jesus gives to us, inconceivable the riches of the grace of God, inconceivable the value of full forgiveness of all of your sins, past, present, and future in the eyes of God, a new heart, a transformed inner nature so that you're a new creation in Christ, the gift of adoption into the family of God, to be called a son or daughter of the living God, to receive the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity living inside you, ministering Christ to you constantly. The promise of a fruitful life lived for the rest of your life, a life worth living, not vanity of vanities like the writer of Ecclesiastes says, but something of eternal consequence laid out before you. Then when you die, glory, intimate face-to-face fellowship with God, seeing His face, and in the end, a resurrection body that is glorious and powerful and incorruptible and spiritual. It's inconceivable almost what Christ gives to us. But just as amazing in this text is what Christ demands from us. The answer is everything. He gives everything for us. He gives everything to us and, in this text, He demands everything from us. That's the call of Christian discipleship. That's the cost of discipleship. Anything less than your very best every moment of your life is less than this demand. So let's walk through it. Let's look at the context of Christ's demand. "He gives everything for us. He gives everything to us, and in this text, He demands everything from us. That's the call of Christian discipleship." II. The Context of Christ’s Demand We're in the Gospel of Mark, the theme right from the beginning, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It's the consummation also, in the centurion after Jesus died said, "Truly, this man was the Son of God." [Chapter 1, chapter 15]. In the middle, we're in chapter 8, seems to be the crux, the centerpiece right in the center. All four Gospels are to bring you to a confession of faith. This is describing what that life will be like if you make that confession, so these are very, very important verses. We're in Caesarea of Philippi. Jesus is on retreat with His apostles. On the way, He asked them, "Who do people say that I am?" They talk about it. "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" The most important question you'll ever face, as I preached last time, the central question, who do you say that Jesus is? Do you believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God? That was Peter's confession in Matthew's fuller version, Matthew 16:16. There in that chapter, Jesus then immediately promises, "On this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I'm going to build my church. I'm going to build my kingdom on this rock." But Jesus then told them what the cost would be to Him, what He would have to do to build His church. Mark 8:31-32, "He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, teachers of the law and that he must be killed and, after three days, rise again." He spoke plainly about this. Peter couldn't handle it, he took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when Jesus turned and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, "Get behind me, Satan." He said, "You do not have in mind the things of God, the things of man." The significance of this is weighty. Peter's conception of where they were heading, the kingdom and all that, was all wrong. It was too human. It was too self-serving, too selfish, too carnal, too fleshly, too human-like. Jesus has had to strip them, all of them, of their human conceptions of this kingdom to establish that He Himself will have to die on the cross to pay for it and that all of His disciples have a similar pattern to follow in order to go to heaven and to build His kingdom, a daily denial to self, a willingness to die to self. Look at the full statement again. Verse 34-38, "Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what could a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone's ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His Father's glory with the holy angels.'" As Christ's disciples deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him in obedience to His commands, then Christ's kingdom will be built, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Essential to that is that His disciples be willing to deny themselves, lose their lives in this Earth so they can save them in eternity. They have to understand that their eternal souls are worth more than anything this material world has to offer. They have to fight the assault this God-hating world will lay on us that we should act ashamed of the gospel and of Christ because only by boldly, clearly proclaiming Christ and His gospel will the kingdom be built. That's the whole section here. The fullness of these themes is so weighty, I believe, in my judgment as a preacher, that we can't deal with them in just one sermon. So we're going to deal with them in three. I do believe that this is the crux. This is the center. This is the call, and we need to understand it. This week and then two more weeks, you're going to hear the same scripture read, Mark 8:31-38, for three straight weeks. III. To Whom Christ Makes His Demand To whom does Christ make this demand? Remember that Peter interestingly took Jesus aside to rebuke Him. One of the more interesting moments in the Peter/Jesus relationship, "Hey, Jesus, do you have a moment just privately over here? I just have something to say." Isn't it nice how Peter was trying to protect Jesus' reputation? Isn't that kind of him to do that? The arrogance. Jesus didn't go private with His rebuke of Peter. He rebuked Him in front of all the apostles because He knew they're all thinking the same thing, Peter just voiced it. Then He expands with this statement to everyone, to the whole crowd. He wanted everyone within earshot to hear this. This is not a secret, private teaching here. He wants anyone who's evaluating Jesus and the cross to count the cost if they're going to follow Him. It's a heavy dose of realism here for all of us. Look to whom it's addressed. "If anyone would come after me," that's anybody, to the entire world He's saying this. What does it mean to come after me? To follow me in imitation of me in this life, but then also in terms of destination. Where are we going? It brought to mind John 14:1-4. There, Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I'm going there to prepare a place for you. If I go there and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I'm going." I think of that in terms of, if anyone would come after me, if anyone would go where I'm going. Then He said in John 14:4, “'You know the way to the place where I'm going.’" Then Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way?’" Then Jesus said famously, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." If anyone would come after me, so “to come after me” means to go to the Father, to go to the place I'm preparing, to go to heaven. But also He said, "You know the way." They said, “We don't know where you're going." "I am the way." So “to come after me” means also to imitate him. He is the way you get to heaven. So to believe in him, imitate him, saturate yourself in him, if you would come after him, that's what He's saying. IV. Understanding Christ’s Demand Let's understand, the demand comes in three parts. There are three parts of it, three aspects. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. So first, deny yourself. What does that mean? Say no to you. Deny what your flesh wants to do. Say no to your selfishness, your fanatical commitment to self. Picture that salmon swimming upstream. You want to follow Jesus today? You have to fight for it. It's going to be hard today. The world of flesh and the devil will be opposing you today because of, as I already mentioned, our fanatical commitment to self. Every single baby born on the face of the planet is born with one thing in common. That's that fanatical commitment to self. We get it from our first father, Adam, who turned away from God to “embrace me”, embrace himself, and we're born into that. What's in it for me at every moment? We feel it every moment. We can't say it's like genocide or rape or serial murder or some other things. We can't understand how anyone could be that evil. Well, I understand that. But we know this, how could anyone be so evil as to completely be committed to self? “Now wait a minute, now you're starting to meddle. You're talking about me." Yes, we're talking about all of us. We understand this one. Jesus is saying, "Deny yourself. Turn away from that gravitational pull within you to be all about you, to be all about you. Kill your selfishness. Kill it every single moment.” Richard Baxter in his classic, The Christian Directory, said this, "Selfishness is the radical," that means the root, "positive sin of the soul comprehending in seed form and, as a primary cause, all other sins." Everything starts with selfishness. It starts with self. Selfishness is the cause of all wars, all marital squabbles, all lawsuits, all luxury and poverty, all addictions, all parenting struggles, all church splits, all vaunting, ambition. Basically, all trouble between human beings starts with this one, selfishness. Consider how sweet life would be on this planet if this one sin could be eradicated, this love of self, but you’ve got the wiring. Then Satan cleverly has crafted a world to pander to you, to tell you you deserve the best. You deserve luxury. You deserve the weekend away at the spa or the best luxuries that you ... It's all about you. It's lying to you, and everybody is receiving that lie and actually part of it, perpetuating it. That's the world system, and Satan's cleverly pressing it in. "All trouble between human beings starts with this one, selfishness." We're surrounded every day by people who are driving and pushing and striving to meet their own self-interests, who if you let them go first, they'll assume that's the way it should be. They'll probably look on you as weak. But if you don't let them go first, some of them at least will show what they really feel about that. You know what I mean out on the highways, the whole merge moments in life. Car A, car B, neither one wants to give an inch. That's it. That's what we're dealing with. That's exactly what Jesus is telling all of us to deny. All of us are, at best, en route on this one. No one has arrived. The church has definitely insufficient sanctification on this. Richard Baxter again said this, "Selfishness is the hardest sin in the world to overcome. The person that seemed to have put sin to death the best, if you do but cross them in their self-interest or opinion or seem to slight them or have a low esteem of them, what swellings, what heart burnings, what bitter censuring, what proud impatience, if not schisms or separations will result.” Just look at yourself. If somebody disagrees with you, are you awesome with that? Somebody takes something you wanted. Somebody metaphorically or literally takes the last cookie. It's just in us, and none of us is done with this. Nobody's arrived on this one. Deny yourself. It's a constant battle. I say it's the bitterest battle of your life. Second, take up your cross. Be willing to stoop down and pick up what all of those Jews back then knew was an article of execution by the worst possible way. That's what the cross meant to them. It wasn't theoretical or abstract to Jesus' disciples. It's estimated that in Jesus' lifetime, the Romans executed over 30,000 people. Every single day, they saw people nailed to crosses. Jesus, and I don't think He's made it clear yet at Caesarea of Philippi, but He will very soon make it clear that's how He's going to die. He's going to be lifted up. He's going to be crucified. I don't know that He's used that language yet. But they can well imagine if the Romans are involved, that's how He's going to die. But imagine they're shocked when He tells them that they have to take up their cross, to take up their cross. They have to be willing to die painfully, slowly, to be executed. What is this? What does it mean? Is it a metaphor? Is it a parable? What is the cross? It's not merely some distressing burden in life, like a medical issue, like a chronically sore back or cancer even, or a difficult job or a difficult spouse or rebellious child or some other such thing. Non-Christians have those sufferings. Those are common to all mankind. That's not what it is. People use that expression, "Oh, it's just my cross to bear." Be careful when you say that. Be careful what you're meaning. So what is it? I think it's specifically the suffering you have to go through in the two journeys. What are the two journeys? The internal journey of holiness, growth in holiness, and the external journey of gospel advanced through evangelism and missions. Those two journeys are hard journeys, and it will hurt you to make progress in them. That's what it means to take up the cross. You have to die to yourself, and that death will be painful if you're going to grow in holiness, and if you're going to take the gospel to lost people. That's how I understand the cross. On the external journey, it is this, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” I mean I don't want any of that to happen to me. That's the cross. It's going to hurt. It's going to be difficult. Then in terms of the internal holiness, Galatians 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." To die to what you want, your dreams, aspirations, preferences, pride, to die to your desire for approval from others, your desire for comfort and security in this world, your yearning for love and success and money and pleasure and fun and all of that, die to it. Thirdly, "Follow me," Jesus says. Follow Jesus. It's a life of imitating Christ, of following His self-denying example, especially in His death on the cross. He willingly drank the cup the Father gave Him in Gethsemane saying, "Not my will, but yours be done." What does He mean there? We're not going deep into the Trinity and think that there's different wills between the Father and the Son. Not at all. He's saying, "Every fiber of my being as a human being is towards self-preservation, toward that I would not suffer and die. But I'm willing to lay all that aside for your will to be done in me, not my will, but yours be done." To follow Jesus, 1 John 2:6, "Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." It's an imitation of Christ in this self-denying life. Obedience is essential to this. Jesus said in Luke 6:46, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you to do?" Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus is to obey Him meticulously. Just whatever He's commanded you to do, to do it. Or again, John 14:15, "If you love me, you'll obey what I command.” In one of the Synoptics, Luke's Gospel, he adds one word, but it's an important word. Luke 9:23, "Then He said to them all, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.'" No days off, no hours off, no moments off. It's relentless. "Take up your cross daily and follow me." V. The Paradox of Christ’s Demand Jesus gives us a paradox. There's a paradox to Christ's command. Look at verse 35, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." It's interesting. People who prefer themselves and give themselves what they want are frequently the most miserable people. I don't know if you remember years ago the movie, Chariots of Fire. It has Harold Abrams, who is a Jewish man who is the fastest runner in England and all that. He's contrasted with a Christian man, Eric Little, who was just as fast or almost as fast. They were definitely contrasted. It's really clearly a compare and contrast because when Harold Abrams wins his gold medal, which he sought for the last number of years through relentless sacrifice, he gets the gold medal and he's out with his coach. They're getting drunk in some French bar, and there's no one around them. The barkeeper says, "It's 3:00 in the morning, go home," and that's it. He's clearly depressed. One person lamented, "I spent my whole life climbing the ladder of success only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall." Almost 20 years ago, Tom Brady, at that point, the New England Patriots quarterback, was being interviewed in 60 Minutes, by a journalist named Steve Croft. Brady said these amazing things. "A lot of times I think I get very frustrated and introverted, and there's times where I'm not the person I want to be. Why do I have three Super Bowl rings?" Stop. Now he's got seven, but then three. "Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean maybe a lot of people would say, 'Hey, man, this is what it is.' I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think it's got to be more than this. This is it. I mean this can't be what it's all cracked up to be. I mean I've done it. I'm 27." He was 27 then, 45 now. He said, "What else is there for me?" And then the journalist, Steve Croft, said, "Well, what's the answer?" And Brady said, "I wish I knew. Wish I knew." That just seems like someone who's lost and just doesn't know. I mean they got what they wanted. They got everything that this world says you should go after, and it's just straight empty. You find your life, you lose it in this world. The book of Ecclesiastes already knew this. Ecclesiastes 1:14, "I've seen all things that are done under the sun. All of them are vanity, a chasing after the wind." But more than that, eternal judgment follows such a life of selfishness. We're going to discuss this more next time. It's such a weighty topic. I don't want to get into it. But what would it profit someone to gain the whole world and lose his soul? We're going to talk about the soul and what it is to lose it next week. I think this is what it is. It's to hear these dreadful words spoken about you. "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Whoever finds his life will lose it eternally. It's terrifying. But whoever loses his life in the pattern He's commanding will find it. Jesus is the treasure hidden in the field, who the man when he found it, in his joy, he sold everything and bought that field. It's worth everything you have in your life. That's how valuable. What is the treasure in the field? Is it not Jesus in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Is it not Jesus, the Glorious One? Jesus is the finding of the life. It's what you get if you lose your life. You find it in Jesus. More on this next time. VI. Practical Applications Let's make some practical applications. First and foremost, for me, just as a preacher of the gospel, to call you to follow Christ, to repent of your sins, and trust in Christ. In order to do that, you have to understand these words. Jesus is standing here as your evangelist telling you, "You want to save your soul? You want to save your life? You want forgiveness of sins? Then you have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow." He's very honest about this. He wants you to count the cost before you become a disciple. There are a lot of evangelists these days that do some kind of benefit evangelism or Jesus as life enhancer kind of thing. That's not what Jesus would do. Jesus is not life enhancer. Jesus is life itself. So He's not going to lie to you. True evangelists, true evangelists, true missionaries, true pastors will not lie to you and tell you if you follow Christ, you'll get all of the things you want, the prosperity gospel stuff, health and wealth and success and all that. That's not what this text is saying. "Jesus is not life enhancer. Jesus is life itself." But you will get life forever and all of those rich benefits I described at the beginning of the sermon when you come to Christ. What are you waiting for? Come to Christ. Don't lose your soul. Don't lose your life. Then if you have come, I just want to say to you, don't be discouraged by this. I'm telling you the truth. The text, Jesus is telling you the truth. This is the Christian life. This is the life you need to keep living, but God's going to help you. Jesus said, "I'll not leave you as orphans. I'll help you." [Philippians 2:12-13] This is all the help you need, but there's a lot of other verses like it. "So then as you've always obeyed not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to do according to His good purpose." Praise God for that. He will give you what you need every day to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow. He will strengthen you for it. He will help you. So follow Him. Understand this. Understand this is the call of Christian discipleship. This is the real thing. So in the future, if you're not in this church anymore, go to a church that will help you obey these commands. Go to a church that will tell you the truth and say, "You need to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus daily." That's the Christian life. Then you'll have brothers and sisters around you in small groups and in worship, and you'll hear preaching that will help you do this. That's a healthy church. Find it. In the meantime, this is what we're committed to do for all of you and for ourselves, and you do it for us, that we're going to help each other follow Christ to heaven. Along with this come all kinds of detailed sub struggles that come, slaying sin, putting sin to death. It's part of this. Denying yourself, take up your cross, and follow means mortify your sins. Romans 8:13, "If you, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live because those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” That's what it means. You're going to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus to the point of slaying temptations, putting sin to death in all those categories. Then just daily life, your prayer life, it's like, "I want to have a good prayer life." Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow. You know what's going to happen. Your alarm's going to go off tomorrow. You had to set it a little earlier because you want to grow in prayer. Good. It's going to take time. Good. You want to spend more time in prayer, more passion in prayer. The alarm goes off saying, "I'm here to help you. You wanted me." It's like, "No, no, no. I changed my mind." Your alarm, being the weak-willed friend, says, "I have a snooze mechanism. You can just push me, and I'll circle back with you in 10 minutes." If you want to grow in grace, you've got to deny yourself. If you want to grow in prayer, You have to deny yourself. Once you're on your knees and you're praying, your flesh wants you to stop, wants you to stop, and you got to keep pressing on to pray for all the people God has laid on your heart. Prayer life. Your Bible reading's the same. I know back on January 1st, you made a commitment. "I'm going to read through the Bible in a year." If you've been faithful, that's great, it’s a daily thing. It's a average of about half hour or more a day. But if you're still waiting to get started, it's now more like 45 minutes a day or 40 minutes a day. But you have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow to be faithful in Bible intake. So also with your church life as a fruitful member of this church, to just be involved in the life of the church. Come to worship on Sunday morning. You have to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow. To be involved in home fellowship, some of you are hosting home fellowship. You have to deny yourself to do it, and we're grateful that you do. There's a self-denial in church involvement. I want to say to you, the elders of this church announced and made it plain in our budget for the year 2023 that we're committed to planting churches, to church planting in 2023. What that means is that we're going to farm off a significant group of you to not be here anymore and to go to a church plant that will have, I promise you, growing pains, and you know it. You're going to have to make financial sacrifices to see that thing get going financially, and the church has to as well. This is a vision that I think the Lord's laid on all of us. Why ? Because it is healthy, local churches that plant other healthy, local churches, not institutions that do that or state conventions and all that. It's healthy churches. We have an obligation. This region is growing numerically, population. There are people pouring in here who are unchurched. We need lots of local churches, healthy, local churches to meet that need. Churches like ours have an obligation to plant churches. I want all of you throughout this year to feel the weight of that, whether you go or not. We're not going to guilt manipulate anyone into going, but we're going to ask you to say, "Should I be part of that?" At least go to the informational meetings whenever they start. Even if you don't go, just say, "I want to make a financial contribution," or, "I want to at least pray for it, and I want to be encouraging people that are going." We cannot plant churches, not just in 2023, but going forward without deny ourselves, taking up our cross, and following. We could go through all of the areas. I've got a bunch of headings here. Marriage, husbands are called on to give themselves up like Christ gave himself up for the church. That lines up perfectly with deny yourself. "To be a godly husband, do this. Lay down your life for your wife." She has to do the similar thing just from this verse. She has to lay herself down for you, too. That's healthy marriage. Parenting, I already covered this briefly. One writer said, "One of the ways that God helps you with your selfishness is to bring someone into your life who's far more selfish than you are." However cute he or she is, I'm telling you, you know what I mean. They have very little interest in making it comfortable for you at 3:00 in the morning. It gets more complex as time goes on. Sorry, you young parents who think it's going to get easier. You're going to get over the hill and then that little thing, and then it's going to be smooth sailing. No, it's not. You're going to have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow to be a godly parent. So it is with all of these areas. The last one I want to leave you with is evangelism. Could it be that there's some specific person that God has carved you out to be the one to reach? They're surrounded by Christians here in this region, but you're the one. You're the one. It could be a workplace thing. It could be a relative. It could be a neighborhood thing. You cannot reach them without denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following. So be willing to do that for the glory of God in the building of His kingdom. Close with me in prayer. Oh, Father, thank you for this incredible, clear teaching from Jesus. In one sense, hard to hear, but in another sense, we're so grateful for the realism, for the truth. The Bible tells us the truth, and we're grateful, Lord, that Jesus hasn't left us as orphans. He comes to us by the Spirit and enables us to do this, but we know it's hard. So help us, oh Lord. Help us to be willing to put sin to death, to get out of habits of wickedness that are entangling us, to grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ by means that Jesus has laid out before us in this beautiful text. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

We've got a bit of a special edition of Overdrive Radio for you this week. There's a guest host of sorts, who's going to walk us through a conversation with Chace Barber, cofounder of Edison Motors. If Barber's name sounds familiar, you may have read Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie's reporting of some of what Barber's been doing with a diesel-electric concept that's similar to the way locomotive work. The system features effectively an on-board diesel generator serving only to charge in this case a lithium ion battery powering an electric motor capable of monster loads of both horsepower and torque. In the case of Barber and company's prototype, that's all inside a beautiful and beautifully tough old 1969 Kenworth they call, simply, Old Blue. Log hauler, writer, and podcaster Gord Magill recently drew out more of Chace Barber's company's origin story and plenty about just where his electric-drive trucks stand to be best applied in his Voice of GO(R)D podcast. Gord's roots, like Chache Barber's, are in Canada, though Magill now calls the United States home, as our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer wrote in his Faces of the Road series talk with Magill: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15289327/faces-of-the-road-gord-magill As noted, Barber's Edison Motors has been making a name for itself by taking advantage of big strides in battery technology to repurpose something of an old general concept for new application, with big potential. It's not exactly a hybrid diesel-electric in the manner of much of the hybrid technology in cars today, as he told Magill, and over-the-road trucking benefits are decidedly less than more intense applications like log hauling. Yet OTR could benefit in form of fuel savings to the tune of a potential 5-10 percent or more. There's some perhaps non-obvious benefits, too -- think things that might fall into the "weird government" classification Magill mentions in the podcast (electric-drive trucks ELD/road tax-exempt?) -- spelled out the podcast. Find the full two-hour conversation in the Voice of GO(R)D podcast via this link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/01IBVRZ1pokC94ZXvguJfR Here on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/voice-of-go-r-d/episode/old-trucks-new-tech-how-a-b-c-logger-is-making-electric-trucks-less-cringe-211086897 Here on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voice-of-go-r-d/id1663362014 Magill's writing, featured elsewhere in outlets like Newsweek among many others, is also accessible via his Substack page at this link: https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/ Alex Lockie's reporting on Barber and his Edison Motors cofounder Eric Little: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15301066/loghauling-truckings-toughest-niche

Paul Swann speaks with Parkersburg South broadcaster Eric Little about the upcoming West Virginia Class AAA Championship match-up with Huntington. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Actor Terry Burrell and director Eric Little of Theatrical Outfit's “Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill.” The play takes place in a 1950s Philadelphia jazz bar where the legendary Billie Holiday is giving one of her final performances. Plus, Chris Escobar, owner of the Plaza Movie Theater, shares details on the historic theater's upcoming renovations. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The electric buzz continues to spread as more districts, notably those in New York and Boston, embrace EV implementation. Conversations on replacing buses intensify as gas prices rise and federal clean bus funding grows. Eric Little, transportation director for Baldwin County Schools in Georgia, discusses collaboration with his superintendent, efforts to combat the driver shortage in the district, and plans to use federal funding for electric school buses. Read more at stnonline.com/tag/electric-buses.

The day has finally come, after months of living together the guys finally chatted with Chaces business partner Eric Little. Eric has been an equal part in of all the wild adventurers these two have gone on since there university days.

2:20 Where does West Virginia fit, if the Big 12 Disbands? 4:40 Texas the lynchpin in the B12, ESPN to the rescue in 2012 6:20 How does this situation compare to WVU joining Big East in 1991? 8:45 Could Notre Dame become a full member of the ACC? 12:20 How could the potential demise of the Big 12 affect WVU's Olympic Sports? 14:40 Can the Big 12 forge on, without Texas and OU? 16:50 How should the remaining Power 5s proceed going forward? How will the Big 12 manage their “lame duck.” 19:20 How big could the SEC get? 18 teams? 20 teams? More? 21:20 If the Power 5 becomes the “Power 4” which other teams might switch conferences? Which other conferences may get involved? 22:50 Eric puts on the AD hat, looking at how West Virginia might position their brand, going forward. 26:20 What are the potential options for WVU, outside of the ACC? 28:20 Perhaps some surprising options. 30:49 What about some of the other Big 12 members?

Hour long interview with Baltimore-based extreme metal musician Eric Little, drummer and guitarist who has played in many bands like Pessimist, VIsceral Disgorge, Kraanium, and more!

Let’s get LOST together... one last time. Featuring “To the Earth We Return,” written by Nicole Calande (@NicoleCalande) and Taara Rangan and performed by Lindsay Holt (@CoffeeCatKasra), Lucille Valentine (@severelytrans), Eric Little, Dallas Wheatley (@dallas_hawthorn), and Ari Mathae (@Ari_Mathae). Featured music was by Eric Matyas. ***Please note that this episode contains some scenes of gore and violence.*** Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com

An imaginary friend hiding in the walls. Teddy bears that fight real monsters. A puppet show where the laughter disguises something more sinister. Take out that old box of TOYS and let’s play... Featuring “Laffy,” written by Mathew L. Reyes (@MathewLReyes) and performed by Jack Strudwick, Cole Burkhardt (coleburkhardt.carrd.co; @KingColeMiner), Eric Little, Kim Evans, and VXN (IG: @nghm15); and "Hand Raised in Anger," written by Spencer Koelle (spencerkoelle.com; @koellespencer) and performed by Robin Tynan (IG: @skeletonotes), Wart Hill (@wart_m), and Matt. Thanks to Maxx Fidalgo for voice acting support. Featured music was by Eric Matyas and Blue Dot Sessions. ***Please note that this episode contains scenes with non-graphic depictions of pedophilia and domestic violence.*** Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com

Guest Host Eric Little w/ Jay Burnham of UMass Eric Little guest hosts and visits with Jay Burnham who broadcasts for UMass and VCU. He also spent 16 years as an MiLB broadcaster. Topics of discussion include: Eric Little introduces himself and says nice things about the SayTheDamnScore Podcast.He introduces Jay Burnham and discusses the importance of his wife in his sportscasting journey.… Read More

Have you heard of the "Silver Tsunami"? As Baby Boomers age, they will need more and more help. On this podcast, we discovered that the average distance between a parent and their adult child is 260 miles. What happens when parents need help and care? Eric Little from Right at Home joins Nat and Pete to talk about how his franchise helps care for aging loved ones and how they are helping franchisees succeed.  We also hit on Porsche driving instructors, baseball coaching, and multitasking.

(cw for sounds of violence and body horror in "Autotomy") The doppelgänger, or DOUBLE of a living person, is an omen of death—what meaning could yours bring? Featuring “The Other Little Boy,” written by Mathew L Reyes (@MathewLReyes) and performed by Max George (@CrowleyPhoen) of Scream Kings (@ScreamKingsPod), Casey Lucas (@CaseyLucasQuaid), VXN (IG @nghm15), Lindsay Holt (@LHoltRVA), and Nicole Calande; and “Autotomy,” written by Hailey Piper (@HaileyPiperSays) and performed by Gabbie Sibal (@gabbersib), Nicole Penrod (@NicoleCPenrod), J.M. Dow (@whirlingnerdish), Taara Rangan, Ari Reider, and Eric Little. Additional music by Eric Matyas, Blue Dot Sessions, Kai Engel, and Kevin McLeod. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com

In wake of recent controversies involving Thom Brenneman and John Focke, what role should broadcasters play in managing their own culture, in the press box, and on social media? Steve Granado (@SteveGranado) and Eric Little (@TheEricLittle) join me to discuss. Steve Granado Photo Courtesy Wilson Tobs Eric Little Photo Courtesy V 96.9 fM

Both magic and science can bring passion, intrigue, and great power...if you dare to practice the DARK ARTS. Featuring “Artful Mediums”, written by Katherine DeGilio (@katiedegilio) and performed by Casey Lucas (@CaseyLucasQuaid), Meredith Katz (@meredithakatz), Tal Minear (@starplanes), Dallas Wheatley (@swheatpodcasts), Eric Little, and Taara Rangan; and “The Discovery”, composed by Rosśa Crean (@RossaCrean). Guest audio production by Ari Mathae (@Ari_Mathae). Additional music and sounds were by Eric Matyas, David Hilowitz, Kai Engel, and skyklan47. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com

Will our heroes emerge victorious from their struggles, or will they remain ENSNARED by dark forces? Tune in to this bewitching episode to find out... Featuring “Disturbance”, written by J. Danielle Dorn (@bigdornenergy) and performed by Lucille Valentine (@severelytrans); and “The Farmer’s Son”, written by Troy H. Gardner (@troyhgardner) and performed by Ari Reider, Eric Little, B (@afoolofatook), and Wart Hill. (cw for vomiting, gore, and assault with sexual connotations in "Disturbance") Audio production support by Ari Mathae (@Ari_Mathae). Additional music by Eric Matyas and Blue Dot Sessions. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com

Do we take our position in the natural world for granted? What darker motivations lurk behind the flora and fauna around us? Featuring “A Mockery of Birds”, written T.R. North and featuring performances by Natalie Lydick (@backtonat), and “The Cruor Garland,” written by Julie Travis (@zawngoddess) with performances by Matt, Eric Little, J. M. Dow (@whirlingnerdish), Meredith Katz (softcryptid.com, @MeredithAKatz), Casey Lucas (@CaseyLucasQuaid), Mason Hawthorne (@MasonH_wr), and Troy Gardner (@troyhgardner). Addition music by Eric Matyas and Kai Engel. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com.

Hey guys. Are you going through adversity or anxiety or fear or depression right now? If so, stay tuned because this session is for you. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life call? Why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm Os Hillman and I've been helping leaders like you answer these questions and more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGIF Today God is First. And welcome to our podcast this week. You know today we're going to be talking about adversity and overcoming hindrances to our life. And it's a topic that I teach a lot about because I went through some major adversities back in 1994 that really changed my life. And so if you find yourself in that place, this session is for you. You know, I've been teaching this session overcoming hindrances to fulfill your destiny for many years. Because I feel like I'm an authority on this topic. And so today's session is a teaching that I did a few weeks ago for a nightly meeting that I did on overcoming hindrances. And you know, it's really tied to what I went through in 1994, where I had major losses in my life. I lost over a half a million dollars. I had my wife leave me after going through extensive counseling. I had 80% of my business disappear within a few weeks when a client stuck me for $140,000. And then my vice president left me and took my second largest account in my ad agency. And this ushered me into a seven year season of adversity. And man I thought life was over. But you know, two years into that adversity I met Gunnar Olson, the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce. And in our first meeting, he listened to my story and he said, "Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life." And I said, "What is a Joseph calling?" And so he explained it to me. And that would ultimately lead to a relationship that's been over 25 years now. I just talked with him last week and he's been a spiritual mentor to me and father in the marketplace for me. And so this session will help you understand some of the dynamics that we can go through that can hinder us from fulfilling our destiny. And over that time, here now over almost 30 years, I've discovered many of the things that cause my adversity and now I'm able to help many others. So I hope that you'll find this session helpful to you. So let's go ahead and begin the teaching. I was teaching in Scotland a number of years ago, and someone came up to me after going through this session that I'm about to share with you and said, "I just realized something. You must become a free agent before you can become a change agent." And I said, "Well, that's very true. Both God and Satan want you dead but each for different reasons." In second Corinthians four, Paul says, "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus's sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so then death is working in us but life in you." And then we see in first Peter five, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And so Satan wants to kill your destiny. I once heard a mentor of mine say, "Dead men can't have stress." And I said, "Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it. If he can't get out of the coffin he's certainly not going to have stress." In Romans six, it says, "Likewise you also recon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I once had a mentor say to me, "The only thing wrong with you Os is that you're not dead yet. As soon as you let your flesh die, you will be free. So I suggest you die quietly." What happens at spiritual birth? Well, we all know that our human existence is made up of spirit, soul, and body. And when we become born again, our spirits instantly become 100% holy by the power of the holy spirit and God's work in our life. But our mind and will and emotions, which reside in our soul, they don't get redeemed completely in the sense that we don't change immediately. It's a process of sanctification. And that sanctification will go on until we die. And then of course we have the physical body. But we relate to God through our spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the lord Jesus Christ." So that's where we get spirit, soul, and body. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. We live in a war zone, and the prize that Satan wants is our heart." You know, years ago I read the fictional story of Screwtape by C.S. Lewis. One of his great works. It's about a demon coaching an underling demon. And he says to that demon, "I wonder if you should ask me whether it is a essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question at least for the present phase of the struggle has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves." C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two mistakes the church makes when dealing with the devil. To blame everything on him or to blame nothing on him." Here's an amazing statistic. 24% of the general population believe that Satan is real and 52% of Christians believe Satan is real, which means 48% of them don't believe he's real. When you're deceived you don't know you are deceived. Satan's strategy is to kill. Jesus and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So Satan tried to kill Jesus at birth. Now what are Satan's three greatest lies to human beings? These are common to every person. Every one of us have been tempted by these statements. You are powerless over your circumstances. You are a victim of an unjust God who left you here to suffer. Just think about it. Have you ever thought those thoughts, that you're powerless over your circumstances or that you're a victim of an unjust God who doesn't love you, who left you hear to suffer and deal with this stuff all by yourself? If you're honest, you've probably felt that way at one time or another. We blame God for evil. In Mark 14:27 it says, "Jesus told him, 'You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and it's my fault.'" He was saying that to the disciples. The story of your life is a story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could become and he fears it. That is the one thing Satan fears is that you're going to really know the truth because the truth shall make you free. "For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me," said the psalmist in psalm 109. You see, Satan, that word Satan means opposer. And some of the characteristics of Satan are found throughout the scripture. He's an angel of light, he seeks to kill and destroy, he's an accuser. He deceives and lies. He wars against those who obey. He's a lion, a devourer to kill. He blinds unbelievers. So we need to know our enemy and how he works against us. Finally, be strong in the lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. For this purpose the sun of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You see, that was another reason Jesus came to earth, was to destroy the works of the devil. You know I'm often asked by people about why do we go through adversity? And I believe there are four core reasons we will go through adversity. The first one is a consequence of the call. Joseph went through his adversity because of a consequence of the call. It wasn't because of any sin that he did. He was a typical teenage boy that might have been a little bit narcissistic. But it wasn't because of a major sin. And God used that to save an entire people. The second reason we can go through adversity is sin. Gehazi sinned against his employer Elisha, and as a result he was struck with leprosy because he wanted to get money from the general that was healed by Elisha. And so God judged his sin and if we have any open doors in our life then God will judge those sins. A third reason we can go through is sonship. And sonship means that God's going to treat us as sons and daughters, which means there are times that he needs to reprove us and to really correct us in order that we fulfill the purpose and destiny has over our life. A fourth reason we can go through adversity is spiritual warfare. As I've said earlier, John 10:10 says, "Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from your life. But Jesus wants to give you life." And so there's a war on earth vying for our heart. And so our job is to understand what reason we might be going through adversity and it could be a combination of these. But ask the lord and show him, what is the root. Now Jesus had no sin in his life and when he said this verse out of John 14, it references the fact that he had no sin so he would never go through adversity because of sin. He says to the disciples, "Hereafter, I'll not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and that nothing in me." Basically that says, there's nothing in him that he has a right to. There was no sin. There was no open door in his life. He had no entry to Jesus's life due to his sinless life. Now, therefore my primary hindrance is to becoming a Christian who transforms your workplace. And I've talked about this in the past and that is an un-biblical view of work in ministry. We need to understand the holy calling that is upon us. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, do unto the lord. It's the lord Christ you are serving." And then there's a Greek versus Hebraic view of God. If we fall to the Greek influence in our relationship with God, that can hinder us and then the religious sprit and generational strongholds. And we're going to talk about the ladder three of these hindrances tonight. I've talked over the years about this sacred secular and this dichotomy of calling. If there's one statement I hate hearing it's, I'm in full-time ministry. Well, we're all in full-time ministry. We just get our checks different places. And that's not a higher calling. We need to define our ministry as anything that we're doing that's not against the will of God as a holy calling. So whatever you do, do unto the lord. It tells us in Colossians 3:23. Hindrance number two deals more with the influence of the Greek philosophers versus the Hebraic roots. There's a prophetic verse in Zechariah 9:13, "For I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons. O Greece made you like the sword of a mighty man." And so this is a prophetic verse about the conflict between the Hebraic heart set versus the Greek mindset. Hebraic deals with the heart and it's active and appeals to the heart. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and appeals to the intellect. The Greek philosophers understood the difference between Greek and Hebraic roots. So you see Greeks acquired wisdom by reason and analysis and Hebrews acquired wisdom by obedience. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom in the early church." Understood that knowledge was not what changed the world. It was the power of God working through people. Paul said, "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Paul wrote that explaining that the reason he was so effective was it had nothing to do with his knowledge and his persuasive oratory skills, but it was because of the power of God working though him. Now there's two systems that you and I could be relating to God through and one of them would be the Hebraic system. And the Hebraic system is a process focus. Obedience is a priority and relationships are a priority and this yields transparency and love. And it produces mature believers. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and has more of a program focus. Information is a priority with controlled groups and this ends up being more service and activity based in our relationship toward God. And this ultimately produces shallow believers. Another hindrance is the religious spirit. See, Peter Wagner wrote, Freedom From the Religious Spirit. And in that book he defines the religious spirit as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. And of course that's what Jesus ran into in his ministry was the Pharisees. And that's what made him the angriest. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness." So the spirit of religion says I must do something to be acceptable by God. It puts people under the yoke of bondage and legalism. Religion divides us into sacred secular mentality. And religion says only overt spiritual activity is acceptable to God. If you remember the chariots of fire, the runner from Scotland, Eric Little. He told his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." Well his sister thought running was a secular idea and he needed to be on the mission field. But in reality Eric was a more spiritual person. Another spirit of religion comment would be bible study at work is not necessary. I go to church on Sunday. That would be a statement that comes from a religious spirit. Why do I need to participate in a kingdom initiative like that? Religion versus relationship looks like this. I had this vision of this diagram years ago that I had an illustrator make up. And so many of us have grown up thinking that well if I do all these things on the right, prayer and devotions and church attendance and bible study and giving money and witnessing and perform and be a church volunteer, then I'll earn God's love and acceptance and favor. But the truth is it's the exact opposite. When we love God, and when we know and understand the acceptance of God, and know his favor, the byproduct of that is that we want to engage in prayer, we want to do devotions, we want to study our bible, we want to be witnesses as salt and light to our community. These become byproducts of a healthy relationship with God. The religious spirit motivates believers to live out their faith in legalistic and rigid ways. And this is especially evident in the south. Now let's spend the balance of our time talking about spiritual warfare strongholds and childhood wounds. I want you to meet John tonight. He had a need for recognition from performance. Things like civic projects and sports and business success. He had an emphasis on building financial security and so he became a workaholic. He lacked emotional intimacy in his marriage and with other people, and he had an activity based relationship towards God very Greek based. And he exhibited symptoms of over controlling people and circumstances. Well, that person was me. I came out of a family of three generations of business owners and our generation stronghold was insecurity and fear that resulted in motivations to control people and circumstances around us. And the bible says in second Corinthians 10:5, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." So a stronghold can come into our lives because we have a need and we don't understand how to meet that need without allowing ourselves to be opened up to a stronghold. The opposite of stronghold is exhibited in Ephesians 3:17. "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." So you and I were created with seven basic needs. We have a need for dignity and authority, for blessing, and for vision and security, for purpose and meaning and freedom and boundaries, and intimate love and companionship. These are seen in Genesis one and two. They're not listed like this, but they're evidenced in how God related to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were born with all of these needs and God met those needs for them. But whenever we seek to meet one or more of these basic needs outside God, we have set the stage for the development of a generational stronghold. Satan convinced Eve to believe God was holding out on her and he would not meet her needs so she chose to meet her own need. Let's look at some examples of generational strongholds. We see deceit and lying in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see control with Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, and King Saul. We see a sexual stronghold in David, Rahab, Bathsheba, Absalom, Abner, and Solomon. In fact, it would be a pretty good bet that David was probably an illegitimate son. You see, he says in Psalm 51 that I was conceived in iniquity. And then when you look at the fact that his father didn't even consider him when the prophet Samuel came to look at his sons as potential candidates to be the next king. We can surmise from that that perhaps David, not only was he the littlest and smallest, maybe that he was conceived in iniquity. Well, I learned more about this stronghold concept when a mentor of mine who created this workbook that we later published for him. He said, "There's no problem with you Os. You just have a stronghold of insecurity and fear." And I said, "You can't prove that." And he says, "Oh, I think I can." And so, he had me take this little self-assessment tool and rank each one of these symptoms from one to 10 and then added the total and took the average. So that, as you can see in the example on the top right, deceit ... The attributes were six, two, one, nine, and seven for different characteristics. You add those numbers up and divide by six, or five I guess it is, you get the average number of five. So you would do that with each one of these strongholds. So when I did it, I did control, and I would rank those and that became the highest one. And then fear and insecurity, that also was a high one at the time. So he took me through a process of prayer and confession in order to deal with those strongholds. We eventually published a book about this, a workbook called Demolishing Strongholds. We only had the PDF version of that online. But you can find it on our website at tgifbookstore.com. It's a wonderful resource and I've used it to counsel many people over the years. So spiritual strongholds work at the subconscious level. Their influence is often unseen until there is a problem. Strongholds are designed to keep us from experiencing God's love and they're often generational as I have said. All strongholds that are built in our lives are a result of seeking to meet one or more of these needs apart from God's will for us. So here's how a stronghold develops. Satan inspires a thought into my mind subconsciously. We're not even conscious of it. Which appeals to my natural tendencies to meet needs. We entertain these thoughts and it brings on emotions. And then we give in to emotions and this eventually leads to some sort of action. And continual participation in this behavior causes me to develop a habit. And once a habit's developed a stronghold is built by that spirit. Now, strongholds oppress versus possess. They control, dictate, and influence our attitudes and behavior. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter. He said, "Peter, Satan has wanted to sift you." And he was telling him that Satan was impacting his thought life. So strongholds oppress and discourage us and affect how we view or react to situations, circumstances, or people. I was once in Singapore and a woman came up to me after I'd spoken on this topic and she said, "Oh, would you go to lunch with me and my friend?" And I had lunch available so I went with them and she was very, very aggressive and I could see some things that were coming through her that I picked up on. So when we were at lunch I said, "Tell me about your father. What kind of relationship do you have with your father?" And she said, "Well, why in the world would you want to ask me that? I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else." And I said, "Well just humor me. Just tell me how your relationship is with your dad." And she said, "Oh, it's not good. He says I'll never amount to anything and he says I'm fat and he just doesn't have good things to say about me." And I said, "Well, you have a spirit of rejection over your life and part of the reason that you're very, very aggressive is because you're seeking to get approval and you have to be successful at all costs because one of the vows that you've made is that you're going to prove your value to your father by being successful. And so you're a slave to what your father has said about you. So you need to pray. We need to break that over you." And we did. She began to cry as I began to share that with her. And we broke that over her that day at lunch and her whole countenance changed. I also believe that strongholds are a lot like wearing sunglasses. Let's say that you're born with sunglasses on and you go through life wearing those sunglasses and one day it's cloudy and a man says, "Did you know that if you took those sunglasses off you'd be able to see much clearer?" And so you take those sunglasses off and you say, "Oh my gosh, look how bright it is out here." Well that's the way strongholds are. You don't really know that you're operating in that until symptoms begin to show up. So what we need to do is understand where the entry points of those strongholds came in. And one of the resources that we found helpful in addition to our book on demolishing strongholds is a book called Operating In the Courts of Heaven, by Robert Henderson. This book is a great book to help you understand how the devil operates from a legal basis and how we need to do business in heaven at the legal court in heaven as he is our defender. Now, we need to look at the role shame plays in our life. Shame says I am a failure or a mistake, whereas guilt says I made a mistake, but I am not a mistake. We need to understand the difference and walk in Godly guilt versus shame. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every good man's conscience in the sight of God. So I want to pause for a moment and say that if you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the chat area or the Q&A area. Just tell me what you think. Tell me what God's speaking to you about this area in your life. And if you have any questions I'd love to take those. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about arrested development. And this is out of a book called Broken Children, Grown Up Pain, by Dr. Paul Hegstrom. Dr. Hegstrom passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. And I actually went through counseling with him years ago. He says, "When a wounded childhood frees his emotional maturity to within two years of a wound, the adult lives as a child emotionally." That's what it means to be arrested in your development. In other words, somebody might say, "Well he's acting like a child." Well, that might be really true. Because your emotional state in life, even as an adult, you might be living as a 12 year old emotionally because you had a trauma happen in your life that froze you emotionally. So we need to understand that arrested development is caused by the wounds of childhood and amplifies or magnifies our sin nature. The deeper the wounds, the more we act selfishly and childishly. And when we have too much childhood trauma, we're hindered in our ability to develop genuine healthy relationships with our creator and others close to us. We can't readily reach out or accept others because our wounds have made us unteachable. Unable to trust and afraid of truth. Now I believe that Michael Jackson was arrested in his development. Many people felt that there was a sexual issue with him because he liked to hang out with kids. I think that he was arrested in his development and was probably emotionally around a 12 or 13 year old because his father beat him growing up when he didn't sing songs the way he thought he should sing them. And so he had some deep wounds. We also need to realize that when we are impacted from arrested development we can become a false self and we can be a poser in our way we handle ourselves and try to be somebody that we're not. So we seek to hide from our true self because our shame says we will not be acceptable to others as we are. We are driven to hide behind our fig leaf, our false self or false covering that protects us from our true self. This all happens on a subconscious basis as a built in protection mechanism from wounds we received as a child. You know, the movie Groundhog Day is a good example of this where he learns something about him every time he goes through a 24 hour period. And as he goes through each one of those 24 hour periods he changed one aspect of his behavior to get a different outcome. And that's kind of like what we're talking about with our false self and poser. Hegstrom says 90% of our marital difficulties are rooted in a trauma experienced by one or more spouses between the age of five and nine. Arrested development sabotages the heart's good intentions and turns us into a spiritual hypocrite. We all require others to live by the rules we were required to live by in childhood. What does that mean? Well, let's say that you're in a situation that, let's say you're a business owner. And you see people that are just totally inept around you and you really lose your patience because you've been trained to do things with excellence and you've been trained to have high performance. So when you don't see that in others, you get angry. Your expectations are not being met. So you're living by a rule that you were required to live by in your life. And this can show up in a lot of different ways. In perfectionism, impatience, and shame. Competence becomes our method of dealing with a wounded heart. So we can hide behind our competence and compensate for our own pain through our competence. John Eldridge said his plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the wicked witch did to the tin woodman. Make them so busy they ignore the heart and wound them so deeply they don't want a heart. Twist their theology so they despise the heart. Take away their courage, destroy their creativity. Make intimacy with God impossible for them. Of course your heart would be the object of a great and fierce battle. It's your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life. "He delivers the afflicted in their affliction and opens their ears to his voice in adversity," says Job. God forces us back into or wound to learn the truth about our wound in order to become healed and free. It says that Satan is an accuser. "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." So what voice are you listening to when you hear something in your head that accuses you? Are you listening to that accuser? Whenever we grant anyone other than Jesus Christ authority to tell us who we are, we've made that person a god in our life and entered into idolatry. Let's say that you grew up with a parent that said you're never going to amount to anything, or you're not good at this or that, and you were criticized. You were even shamed. Well, you've got to correct that identity and not believe that identity because that's not what God says about you. You need to believe what God says about you. Let's talk for a moment about addictions. Addictions are anything you cannot willingly stop. Addictions are rooted in the need to be loved. And anything you cannot lay down by an act of your will is an addiction. It's a counterfeit desire for love and intimacy. It becomes an isolation chamber designed to mask our pain. In the brain we have something called a neurotransmitter. It emits two feel good hormones. Serotonin and dopamine. Negative or painful emotion causes the under secretion of serotonin. And that's where Satan comes into our hypothalamus and the brain stem connection. And this is where we drop in serotonin. But if we start looking at pornography or we do something that makes us feel good, it helps to bring our serotonin back. It gives us a high. And that is what leads to addictive behavior. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin act as chemical messengers that relay nerve signals through the brain. Dopamine regulates muscle movement, motivation, and the sensation of pleasure. Whereas serotonin primarily affects mood, impulsiveness, and social behaviors. My good friend Craig Hill wrote a small book that talks about the lies of an addiction. Anyone caught in addiction believes that God is not faithful and that the addictive habit will satisfy their addiction. They believe the habit is stronger than the power of God and that addiction is just the way you are. So they're all lies. They're false beliefs, if you will, that Satan plants into our life. Now, men who struggle with sex. Sometimes if a man was not nurtured growing up, he can be a sexualized adult. In other words, he may not necessarily be a sex addict, but he's an affection addict. So sex becomes that affection for him and he'll often look to the wife to get what they did not get in childhood. Maybe they didn't get touched much in childhood. Or hugs. They lack touch. And they came to know sex as love. And the unfortunate thing is the wife can never satisfy that hunger for live if that root issue is not dealt with. And you might even hear the wife say, "You're a sex addict," when he might not necessarily be a sex addict. It might be a basic need that was never met as a child. When we live in compromise we lose confidence in the faith dimension of our lives. We struggle to hear the voice of God, which forces us to live our Christian life through performance and the flesh. In Psalm 106 he says, "And he gave them their requests but sent leanness in their soul." Hey guys. I want to pause for a minute to tell you about something that just give you a heads up on. For the last many years we've been helping men and women like yourself understand what it means to live the larger story of your life. So my gift is really in teaching and I love encouraging believers to fulfill their purpose and destiny. So we've been thinking about a new initiative that could really help people and so we're getting close to announcing it, but we're not there yet. But if you want to know about that and be one of the first ones to know about it when we do release it, you can get on our waiting list. And we've set up a webpage just for that called becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. In addition, we provide a free download for you if you go on there and put your name on the waiting list. It's called Os Hillman's Top 10 Biblical Truths For Success In Life and Work. These are 10 areas that I believe contributed to my own journey with God and business. And I hope that this resource will be helpful to you. There's no cost. Just go to that. But you don't need to go there now. We'll make an announcement at the end of this as well so that you have that website address at your fingertips. Let's go back to the teaching and we'll talk about this later. God bless. So we overcome the influence of these strongholds by renouncing and repenting of their influence through the prayer of faith and Jesus's blood to cleanse us from these influences. Now whenever the reaction to a situation seems to be extreme compared to the offense, you can know there is unresolved pain or the enemy is at work in the situation. So if somebody gives you a response that is a 10, that should be a two on the Richter scale, you know that something is going on under the hood. That their behavior is not logical. So it merely indicates there is a root problem. It's like a dashboard and the lights on the dash coming on. What's the root of this behavior? So you need to revisit the wound. Identify the events, and then renounce it and ask God to bring healing to that area. Discover the lie. What agreement have you been making with the enemy? And apply the truth. The truth shall make you free. So the steps of freedom from a stronghold is one, identify the strongholds and their symptoms. Rank them from one to 10 by the level of influence they have. And work with someone close to you to confirm the strongholds and confess to renounce the influence of strongholds in Jesus's name. Each believer has the power of the holy spirit to renounce the influence of strongholds over their life as shown in second Corinthians 10:4. We have the divine power to demolish strongholds. And then you want to meditate and walk according to the word and renew your mind. One of the things I had to deal with, I was a workaholic. But it was rooted in fear. So I had to change the number of hours I was working because I was working out of fear. Any self-image contrary to the truth of who God says you are in the spirit is a false self-image. You must agree with God, not with your flesh or the devil. Who said that? That's what you need to ask every time something comes into your head that might be contrary to your identity. "Let this mind be in you. It is also in Jesus Christ." Philippians 2:5. So whatever God sets you free from this and automatically gives you an anointing to set other people free from the same thing you were a victim of. That is your payback on the enemy. For I the lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Take a look at this. This is a fascinating comparison of two families over a 200 year generation. Max Jutes was married to an atheist woman. They had 560 descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 criminals, seven murderers, 100 drunkards, one half of the women were prostitutes. It cost the US government 1.2 million in 19th century dollars. But Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, married a godly woman. They had 1,394 descendants, 295 graduated from college, three state governors, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, three US senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 56 doctors, 75 military officers, 100 missionaries, preachers, and authors, and 80 held public office, three mayors, and one comptroller of the US. Don't tell me the gospel doesn't make a huge difference in family systems. So you need to transform your past into a new beginning. You need to realize your identity and learn to contend for it. All right, well that concludes our session for today. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging to you. If you want to go deeper in this topic, I have developed a book called Overcoming Hindrances to Fulfill Your Destiny. It has a lot more information in it and more teaching in this resource. It's only about 100 pages and you can get it off of our website at tgifbookstore.com. Earlier I mentioned about this new program that we're going to be launching soon, but we're not ready to announce it yet. But if you do want to know about it, just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified. You can go to our website, becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. And that will have your name on our waiting list and you'll be the first one to be notified. And you'll also receive a free resource called My Top 10 Biblical Truths for Succeeding in Life and Work. And this was a resource that I put together recently that were the top 10 things that I felt were the most important in my journey to be able to be successful in business and in ministry. So I hope that that will be of help to you. Just click on the website listed on the screen there. So we look forward to seeing you in the next session. We're doing weekly podcasts now. We've set up this on our YouTube page and also iTunes. If you just want to listen to the sessions you can listen to them on iTunes as well as YouTube at the TGIF At Work podcast. God bless. See you next time.

Hey guys. Are you going through adversity or anxiety or fear or depression right now? If so, stay tuned because this session is for you. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life call? Why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm Os Hillman and I've been helping leaders like you answer these questions and more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGIF Today God is First. And welcome to our podcast this week. You know today we're going to be talking about adversity and overcoming hindrances to our life. And it's a topic that I teach a lot about because I went through some major adversities back in 1994 that really changed my life. And so if you find yourself in that place, this session is for you. You know, I've been teaching this session overcoming hindrances to fulfill your destiny for many years. Because I feel like I'm an authority on this topic. And so today's session is a teaching that I did a few weeks ago for a nightly meeting that I did on overcoming hindrances. And you know, it's really tied to what I went through in 1994, where I had major losses in my life. I lost over a half a million dollars. I had my wife leave me after going through extensive counseling. I had 80% of my business disappear within a few weeks when a client stuck me for $140,000. And then my vice president left me and took my second largest account in my ad agency. And this ushered me into a seven year season of adversity. And man I thought life was over. But you know, two years into that adversity I met Gunnar Olson, the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce. And in our first meeting, he listened to my story and he said, "Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life." And I said, "What is a Joseph calling?" And so he explained it to me. And that would ultimately lead to a relationship that's been over 25 years now. I just talked with him last week and he's been a spiritual mentor to me and father in the marketplace for me. And so this session will help you understand some of the dynamics that we can go through that can hinder us from fulfilling our destiny. And over that time, here now over almost 30 years, I've discovered many of the things that cause my adversity and now I'm able to help many others. So I hope that you'll find this session helpful to you. So let's go ahead and begin the teaching. I was teaching in Scotland a number of years ago, and someone came up to me after going through this session that I'm about to share with you and said, "I just realized something. You must become a free agent before you can become a change agent." And I said, "Well, that's very true. Both God and Satan want you dead but each for different reasons." In second Corinthians four, Paul says, "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus's sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so then death is working in us but life in you." And then we see in first Peter five, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And so Satan wants to kill your destiny. I once heard a mentor of mine say, "Dead men can't have stress." And I said, "Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it. If he can't get out of the coffin he's certainly not going to have stress." In Romans six, it says, "Likewise you also recon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I once had a mentor say to me, "The only thing wrong with you Os is that you're not dead yet. As soon as you let your flesh die, you will be free. So I suggest you die quietly." What happens at spiritual birth? Well, we all know that our human existence is made up of spirit, soul, and body. And when we become born again, our spirits instantly become 100% holy by the power of the holy spirit and God's work in our life. But our mind and will and emotions, which reside in our soul, they don't get redeemed completely in the sense that we don't change immediately. It's a process of sanctification. And that sanctification will go on until we die. And then of course we have the physical body. But we relate to God through our spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the lord Jesus Christ." So that's where we get spirit, soul, and body. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. We live in a war zone, and the prize that Satan wants is our heart." You know, years ago I read the fictional story of Screwtape by C.S. Lewis. One of his great works. It's about a demon coaching an underling demon. And he says to that demon, "I wonder if you should ask me whether it is a essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question at least for the present phase of the struggle has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves." C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two mistakes the church makes when dealing with the devil. To blame everything on him or to blame nothing on him." Here's an amazing statistic. 24% of the general population believe that Satan is real and 52% of Christians believe Satan is real, which means 48% of them don't believe he's real. When you're deceived you don't know you are deceived. Satan's strategy is to kill. Jesus and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So Satan tried to kill Jesus at birth. Now what are Satan's three greatest lies to human beings? These are common to every person. Every one of us have been tempted by these statements. You are powerless over your circumstances. You are a victim of an unjust God who left you here to suffer. Just think about it. Have you ever thought those thoughts, that you're powerless over your circumstances or that you're a victim of an unjust God who doesn't love you, who left you hear to suffer and deal with this stuff all by yourself? If you're honest, you've probably felt that way at one time or another. We blame God for evil. In Mark 14:27 it says, "Jesus told him, 'You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and it's my fault.'" He was saying that to the disciples. The story of your life is a story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could become and he fears it. That is the one thing Satan fears is that you're going to really know the truth because the truth shall make you free. "For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me," said the psalmist in psalm 109. You see, Satan, that word Satan means opposer. And some of the characteristics of Satan are found throughout the scripture. He's an angel of light, he seeks to kill and destroy, he's an accuser. He deceives and lies. He wars against those who obey. He's a lion, a devourer to kill. He blinds unbelievers. So we need to know our enemy and how he works against us. Finally, be strong in the lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. For this purpose the sun of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You see, that was another reason Jesus came to earth, was to destroy the works of the devil. You know I'm often asked by people about why do we go through adversity? And I believe there are four core reasons we will go through adversity. The first one is a consequence of the call. Joseph went through his adversity because of a consequence of the call. It wasn't because of any sin that he did. He was a typical teenage boy that might have been a little bit narcissistic. But it wasn't because of a major sin. And God used that to save an entire people. The second reason we can go through adversity is sin. Gehazi sinned against his employer Elisha, and as a result he was struck with leprosy because he wanted to get money from the general that was healed by Elisha. And so God judged his sin and if we have any open doors in our life then God will judge those sins. A third reason we can go through is sonship. And sonship means that God's going to treat us as sons and daughters, which means there are times that he needs to reprove us and to really correct us in order that we fulfill the purpose and destiny has over our life. A fourth reason we can go through adversity is spiritual warfare. As I've said earlier, John 10:10 says, "Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from your life. But Jesus wants to give you life." And so there's a war on earth vying for our heart. And so our job is to understand what reason we might be going through adversity and it could be a combination of these. But ask the lord and show him, what is the root. Now Jesus had no sin in his life and when he said this verse out of John 14, it references the fact that he had no sin so he would never go through adversity because of sin. He says to the disciples, "Hereafter, I'll not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and that nothing in me." Basically that says, there's nothing in him that he has a right to. There was no sin. There was no open door in his life. He had no entry to Jesus's life due to his sinless life. Now, therefore my primary hindrance is to becoming a Christian who transforms your workplace. And I've talked about this in the past and that is an un-biblical view of work in ministry. We need to understand the holy calling that is upon us. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, do unto the lord. It's the lord Christ you are serving." And then there's a Greek versus Hebraic view of God. If we fall to the Greek influence in our relationship with God, that can hinder us and then the religious sprit and generational strongholds. And we're going to talk about the ladder three of these hindrances tonight. I've talked over the years about this sacred secular and this dichotomy of calling. If there's one statement I hate hearing it's, I'm in full-time ministry. Well, we're all in full-time ministry. We just get our checks different places. And that's not a higher calling. We need to define our ministry as anything that we're doing that's not against the will of God as a holy calling. So whatever you do, do unto the lord. It tells us in Colossians 3:23. Hindrance number two deals more with the influence of the Greek philosophers versus the Hebraic roots. There's a prophetic verse in Zechariah 9:13, "For I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons. O Greece made you like the sword of a mighty man." And so this is a prophetic verse about the conflict between the Hebraic heart set versus the Greek mindset. Hebraic deals with the heart and it's active and appeals to the heart. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and appeals to the intellect. The Greek philosophers understood the difference between Greek and Hebraic roots. So you see Greeks acquired wisdom by reason and analysis and Hebrews acquired wisdom by obedience. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom in the early church." Understood that knowledge was not what changed the world. It was the power of God working through people. Paul said, "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Paul wrote that explaining that the reason he was so effective was it had nothing to do with his knowledge and his persuasive oratory skills, but it was because of the power of God working though him. Now there's two systems that you and I could be relating to God through and one of them would be the Hebraic system. And the Hebraic system is a process focus. Obedience is a priority and relationships are a priority and this yields transparency and love. And it produces mature believers. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and has more of a program focus. Information is a priority with controlled groups and this ends up being more service and activity based in our relationship toward God. And this ultimately produces shallow believers. Another hindrance is the religious spirit. See, Peter Wagner wrote, Freedom From the Religious Spirit. And in that book he defines the religious spirit as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. And of course that's what Jesus ran into in his ministry was the Pharisees. And that's what made him the angriest. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness." So the spirit of religion says I must do something to be acceptable by God. It puts people under the yoke of bondage and legalism. Religion divides us into sacred secular mentality. And religion says only overt spiritual activity is acceptable to God. If you remember the chariots of fire, the runner from Scotland, Eric Little. He told his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." Well his sister thought running was a secular idea and he needed to be on the mission field. But in reality Eric was a more spiritual person. Another spirit of religion comment would be bible study at work is not necessary. I go to church on Sunday. That would be a statement that comes from a religious spirit. Why do I need to participate in a kingdom initiative like that? Religion versus relationship looks like this. I had this vision of this diagram years ago that I had an illustrator make up. And so many of us have grown up thinking that well if I do all these things on the right, prayer and devotions and church attendance and bible study and giving money and witnessing and perform and be a church volunteer, then I'll earn God's love and acceptance and favor. But the truth is it's the exact opposite. When we love God, and when we know and understand the acceptance of God, and know his favor, the byproduct of that is that we want to engage in prayer, we want to do devotions, we want to study our bible, we want to be witnesses as salt and light to our community. These become byproducts of a healthy relationship with God. The religious spirit motivates believers to live out their faith in legalistic and rigid ways. And this is especially evident in the south. Now let's spend the balance of our time talking about spiritual warfare strongholds and childhood wounds. I want you to meet John tonight. He had a need for recognition from performance. Things like civic projects and sports and business success. He had an emphasis on building financial security and so he became a workaholic. He lacked emotional intimacy in his marriage and with other people, and he had an activity based relationship towards God very Greek based. And he exhibited symptoms of over controlling people and circumstances. Well, that person was me. I came out of a family of three generations of business owners and our generation stronghold was insecurity and fear that resulted in motivations to control people and circumstances around us. And the bible says in second Corinthians 10:5, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." So a stronghold can come into our lives because we have a need and we don't understand how to meet that need without allowing ourselves to be opened up to a stronghold. The opposite of stronghold is exhibited in Ephesians 3:17. "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." So you and I were created with seven basic needs. We have a need for dignity and authority, for blessing, and for vision and security, for purpose and meaning and freedom and boundaries, and intimate love and companionship. These are seen in Genesis one and two. They're not listed like this, but they're evidenced in how God related to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were born with all of these needs and God met those needs for them. But whenever we seek to meet one or more of these basic needs outside God, we have set the stage for the development of a generational stronghold. Satan convinced Eve to believe God was holding out on her and he would not meet her needs so she chose to meet her own need. Let's look at some examples of generational strongholds. We see deceit and lying in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see control with Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, and King Saul. We see a sexual stronghold in David, Rahab, Bathsheba, Absalom, Abner, and Solomon. In fact, it would be a pretty good bet that David was probably an illegitimate son. You see, he says in Psalm 51 that I was conceived in iniquity. And then when you look at the fact that his father didn't even consider him when the prophet Samuel came to look at his sons as potential candidates to be the next king. We can surmise from that that perhaps David, not only was he the littlest and smallest, maybe that he was conceived in iniquity. Well, I learned more about this stronghold concept when a mentor of mine who created this workbook that we later published for him. He said, "There's no problem with you Os. You just have a stronghold of insecurity and fear." And I said, "You can't prove that." And he says, "Oh, I think I can." And so, he had me take this little self-assessment tool and rank each one of these symptoms from one to 10 and then added the total and took the average. So that, as you can see in the example on the top right, deceit ... The attributes were six, two, one, nine, and seven for different characteristics. You add those numbers up and divide by six, or five I guess it is, you get the average number of five. So you would do that with each one of these strongholds. So when I did it, I did control, and I would rank those and that became the highest one. And then fear and insecurity, that also was a high one at the time. So he took me through a process of prayer and confession in order to deal with those strongholds. We eventually published a book about this, a workbook called Demolishing Strongholds. We only had the PDF version of that online. But you can find it on our website at tgifbookstore.com. It's a wonderful resource and I've used it to counsel many people over the years. So spiritual strongholds work at the subconscious level. Their influence is often unseen until there is a problem. Strongholds are designed to keep us from experiencing God's love and they're often generational as I have said. All strongholds that are built in our lives are a result of seeking to meet one or more of these needs apart from God's will for us. So here's how a stronghold develops. Satan inspires a thought into my mind subconsciously. We're not even conscious of it. Which appeals to my natural tendencies to meet needs. We entertain these thoughts and it brings on emotions. And then we give in to emotions and this eventually leads to some sort of action. And continual participation in this behavior causes me to develop a habit. And once a habit's developed a stronghold is built by that spirit. Now, strongholds oppress versus possess. They control, dictate, and influence our attitudes and behavior. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter. He said, "Peter, Satan has wanted to sift you." And he was telling him that Satan was impacting his thought life. So strongholds oppress and discourage us and affect how we view or react to situations, circumstances, or people. I was once in Singapore and a woman came up to me after I'd spoken on this topic and she said, "Oh, would you go to lunch with me and my friend?" And I had lunch available so I went with them and she was very, very aggressive and I could see some things that were coming through her that I picked up on. So when we were at lunch I said, "Tell me about your father. What kind of relationship do you have with your father?" And she said, "Well, why in the world would you want to ask me that? I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else." And I said, "Well just humor me. Just tell me how your relationship is with your dad." And she said, "Oh, it's not good. He says I'll never amount to anything and he says I'm fat and he just doesn't have good things to say about me." And I said, "Well, you have a spirit of rejection over your life and part of the reason that you're very, very aggressive is because you're seeking to get approval and you have to be successful at all costs because one of the vows that you've made is that you're going to prove your value to your father by being successful. And so you're a slave to what your father has said about you. So you need to pray. We need to break that over you." And we did. She began to cry as I began to share that with her. And we broke that over her that day at lunch and her whole countenance changed. I also believe that strongholds are a lot like wearing sunglasses. Let's say that you're born with sunglasses on and you go through life wearing those sunglasses and one day it's cloudy and a man says, "Did you know that if you took those sunglasses off you'd be able to see much clearer?" And so you take those sunglasses off and you say, "Oh my gosh, look how bright it is out here." Well that's the way strongholds are. You don't really know that you're operating in that until symptoms begin to show up. So what we need to do is understand where the entry points of those strongholds came in. And one of the resources that we found helpful in addition to our book on demolishing strongholds is a book called Operating In the Courts of Heaven, by Robert Henderson. This book is a great book to help you understand how the devil operates from a legal basis and how we need to do business in heaven at the legal court in heaven as he is our defender. Now, we need to look at the role shame plays in our life. Shame says I am a failure or a mistake, whereas guilt says I made a mistake, but I am not a mistake. We need to understand the difference and walk in Godly guilt versus shame. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every good man's conscience in the sight of God. So I want to pause for a moment and say that if you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the chat area or the Q&A area. Just tell me what you think. Tell me what God's speaking to you about this area in your life. And if you have any questions I'd love to take those. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about arrested development. And this is out of a book called Broken Children, Grown Up Pain, by Dr. Paul Hegstrom. Dr. Hegstrom passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. And I actually went through counseling with him years ago. He says, "When a wounded childhood frees his emotional maturity to within two years of a wound, the adult lives as a child emotionally." That's what it means to be arrested in your development. In other words, somebody might say, "Well he's acting like a child." Well, that might be really true. Because your emotional state in life, even as an adult, you might be living as a 12 year old emotionally because you had a trauma happen in your life that froze you emotionally. So we need to understand that arrested development is caused by the wounds of childhood and amplifies or magnifies our sin nature. The deeper the wounds, the more we act selfishly and childishly. And when we have too much childhood trauma, we're hindered in our ability to develop genuine healthy relationships with our creator and others close to us. We can't readily reach out or accept others because our wounds have made us unteachable. Unable to trust and afraid of truth. Now I believe that Michael Jackson was arrested in his development. Many people felt that there was a sexual issue with him because he liked to hang out with kids. I think that he was arrested in his development and was probably emotionally around a 12 or 13 year old because his father beat him growing up when he didn't sing songs the way he thought he should sing them. And so he had some deep wounds. We also need to realize that when we are impacted from arrested development we can become a false self and we can be a poser in our way we handle ourselves and try to be somebody that we're not. So we seek to hide from our true self because our shame says we will not be acceptable to others as we are. We are driven to hide behind our fig leaf, our false self or false covering that protects us from our true self. This all happens on a subconscious basis as a built in protection mechanism from wounds we received as a child. You know, the movie Groundhog Day is a good example of this where he learns something about him every time he goes through a 24 hour period. And as he goes through each one of those 24 hour periods he changed one aspect of his behavior to get a different outcome. And that's kind of like what we're talking about with our false self and poser. Hegstrom says 90% of our marital difficulties are rooted in a trauma experienced by one or more spouses between the age of five and nine. Arrested development sabotages the heart's good intentions and turns us into a spiritual hypocrite. We all require others to live by the rules we were required to live by in childhood. What does that mean? Well, let's say that you're in a situation that, let's say you're a business owner. And you see people that are just totally inept around you and you really lose your patience because you've been trained to do things with excellence and you've been trained to have high performance. So when you don't see that in others, you get angry. Your expectations are not being met. So you're living by a rule that you were required to live by in your life. And this can show up in a lot of different ways. In perfectionism, impatience, and shame. Competence becomes our method of dealing with a wounded heart. So we can hide behind our competence and compensate for our own pain through our competence. John Eldridge said his plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the wicked witch did to the tin woodman. Make them so busy they ignore the heart and wound them so deeply they don't want a heart. Twist their theology so they despise the heart. Take away their courage, destroy their creativity. Make intimacy with God impossible for them. Of course your heart would be the object of a great and fierce battle. It's your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life. "He delivers the afflicted in their affliction and opens their ears to his voice in adversity," says Job. God forces us back into or wound to learn the truth about our wound in order to become healed and free. It says that Satan is an accuser. "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." So what voice are you listening to when you hear something in your head that accuses you? Are you listening to that accuser? Whenever we grant anyone other than Jesus Christ authority to tell us who we are, we've made that person a god in our life and entered into idolatry. Let's say that you grew up with a parent that said you're never going to amount to anything, or you're not good at this or that, and you were criticized. You were even shamed. Well, you've got to correct that identity and not believe that identity because that's not what God says about you. You need to believe what God says about you. Let's talk for a moment about addictions. Addictions are anything you cannot willingly stop. Addictions are rooted in the need to be loved. And anything you cannot lay down by an act of your will is an addiction. It's a counterfeit desire for love and intimacy. It becomes an isolation chamber designed to mask our pain. In the brain we have something called a neurotransmitter. It emits two feel good hormones. Serotonin and dopamine. Negative or painful emotion causes the under secretion of serotonin. And that's where Satan comes into our hypothalamus and the brain stem connection. And this is where we drop in serotonin. But if we start looking at pornography or we do something that makes us feel good, it helps to bring our serotonin back. It gives us a high. And that is what leads to addictive behavior. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin act as chemical messengers that relay nerve signals through the brain. Dopamine regulates muscle movement, motivation, and the sensation of pleasure. Whereas serotonin primarily affects mood, impulsiveness, and social behaviors. My good friend Craig Hill wrote a small book that talks about the lies of an addiction. Anyone caught in addiction believes that God is not faithful and that the addictive habit will satisfy their addiction. They believe the habit is stronger than the power of God and that addiction is just the way you are. So they're all lies. They're false beliefs, if you will, that Satan plants into our life. Now, men who struggle with sex. Sometimes if a man was not nurtured growing up, he can be a sexualized adult. In other words, he may not necessarily be a sex addict, but he's an affection addict. So sex becomes that affection for him and he'll often look to the wife to get what they did not get in childhood. Maybe they didn't get touched much in childhood. Or hugs. They lack touch. And they came to know sex as love. And the unfortunate thing is the wife can never satisfy that hunger for live if that root issue is not dealt with. And you might even hear the wife say, "You're a sex addict," when he might not necessarily be a sex addict. It might be a basic need that was never met as a child. When we live in compromise we lose confidence in the faith dimension of our lives. We struggle to hear the voice of God, which forces us to live our Christian life through performance and the flesh. In Psalm 106 he says, "And he gave them their requests but sent leanness in their soul." Hey guys. I want to pause for a minute to tell you about something that just give you a heads up on. For the last many years we've been helping men and women like yourself understand what it means to live the larger story of your life. So my gift is really in teaching and I love encouraging believers to fulfill their purpose and destiny. So we've been thinking about a new initiative that could really help people and so we're getting close to announcing it, but we're not there yet. But if you want to know about that and be one of the first ones to know about it when we do release it, you can get on our waiting list. And we've set up a webpage just for that called becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. In addition, we provide a free download for you if you go on there and put your name on the waiting list. It's called Os Hillman's Top 10 Biblical Truths For Success In Life and Work. These are 10 areas that I believe contributed to my own journey with God and business. And I hope that this resource will be helpful to you. There's no cost. Just go to that. But you don't need to go there now. We'll make an announcement at the end of this as well so that you have that website address at your fingertips. Let's go back to the teaching and we'll talk about this later. God bless. So we overcome the influence of these strongholds by renouncing and repenting of their influence through the prayer of faith and Jesus's blood to cleanse us from these influences. Now whenever the reaction to a situation seems to be extreme compared to the offense, you can know there is unresolved pain or the enemy is at work in the situation. So if somebody gives you a response that is a 10, that should be a two on the Richter scale, you know that something is going on under the hood. That their behavior is not logical. So it merely indicates there is a root problem. It's like a dashboard and the lights on the dash coming on. What's the root of this behavior? So you need to revisit the wound. Identify the events, and then renounce it and ask God to bring healing to that area. Discover the lie. What agreement have you been making with the enemy? And apply the truth. The truth shall make you free. So the steps of freedom from a stronghold is one, identify the strongholds and their symptoms. Rank them from one to 10 by the level of influence they have. And work with someone close to you to confirm the strongholds and confess to renounce the influence of strongholds in Jesus's name. Each believer has the power of the holy spirit to renounce the influence of strongholds over their life as shown in second Corinthians 10:4. We have the divine power to demolish strongholds. And then you want to meditate and walk according to the word and renew your mind. One of the things I had to deal with, I was a workaholic. But it was rooted in fear. So I had to change the number of hours I was working because I was working out of fear. Any self-image contrary to the truth of who God says you are in the spirit is a false self-image. You must agree with God, not with your flesh or the devil. Who said that? That's what you need to ask every time something comes into your head that might be contrary to your identity. "Let this mind be in you. It is also in Jesus Christ." Philippians 2:5. So whatever God sets you free from this and automatically gives you an anointing to set other people free from the same thing you were a victim of. That is your payback on the enemy. For I the lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Take a look at this. This is a fascinating comparison of two families over a 200 year generation. Max Jutes was married to an atheist woman. They had 560 descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 criminals, seven murderers, 100 drunkards, one half of the women were prostitutes. It cost the US government 1.2 million in 19th century dollars. But Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, married a godly woman. They had 1,394 descendants, 295 graduated from college, three state governors, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, three US senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 56 doctors, 75 military officers, 100 missionaries, preachers, and authors, and 80 held public office, three mayors, and one comptroller of the US. Don't tell me the gospel doesn't make a huge difference in family systems. So you need to transform your past into a new beginning. You need to realize your identity and learn to contend for it. All right, well that concludes our session for today. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging to you. If you want to go deeper in this topic, I have developed a book called Overcoming Hindrances to Fulfill Your Destiny. It has a lot more information in it and more teaching in this resource. It's only about 100 pages and you can get it off of our website at tgifbookstore.com. Earlier I mentioned about this new program that we're going to be launching soon, but we're not ready to announce it yet. But if you do want to know about it, just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified. You can go to our website, becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. And that will have your name on our waiting list and you'll be the first one to be notified. And you'll also receive a free resource called My Top 10 Biblical Truths for Succeeding in Life and Work. And this was a resource that I put together recently that were the top 10 things that I felt were the most important in my journey to be able to be successful in business and in ministry. So I hope that that will be of help to you. Just click on the website listed on the screen there. So we look forward to seeing you in the next session. We're doing weekly podcasts now. We've set up this on our YouTube page and also iTunes. If you just want to listen to the sessions you can listen to them on iTunes as well as YouTube at the TGIF At Work podcast. God bless. See you next time.

Hey guys. Are you going through adversity or anxiety or fear or depression right now? If so, stay tuned because this session is for you. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life call? Why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm Os Hillman and I've been helping leaders like you answer these questions and more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGIF Today God is First. And welcome to our podcast this week. You know today we're going to be talking about adversity and overcoming hindrances to our life. And it's a topic that I teach a lot about because I went through some major adversities back in 1994 that really changed my life. And so if you find yourself in that place, this session is for you. You know, I've been teaching this session overcoming hindrances to fulfill your destiny for many years. Because I feel like I'm an authority on this topic. And so today's session is a teaching that I did a few weeks ago for a nightly meeting that I did on overcoming hindrances. And you know, it's really tied to what I went through in 1994, where I had major losses in my life. I lost over a half a million dollars. I had my wife leave me after going through extensive counseling. I had 80% of my business disappear within a few weeks when a client stuck me for $140,000. And then my vice president left me and took my second largest account in my ad agency. And this ushered me into a seven year season of adversity. And man I thought life was over. But you know, two years into that adversity I met Gunnar Olson, the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce. And in our first meeting, he listened to my story and he said, "Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life." And I said, "What is a Joseph calling?" And so he explained it to me. And that would ultimately lead to a relationship that's been over 25 years now. I just talked with him last week and he's been a spiritual mentor to me and father in the marketplace for me. And so this session will help you understand some of the dynamics that we can go through that can hinder us from fulfilling our destiny. And over that time, here now over almost 30 years, I've discovered many of the things that cause my adversity and now I'm able to help many others. So I hope that you'll find this session helpful to you. So let's go ahead and begin the teaching. I was teaching in Scotland a number of years ago, and someone came up to me after going through this session that I'm about to share with you and said, "I just realized something. You must become a free agent before you can become a change agent." And I said, "Well, that's very true. Both God and Satan want you dead but each for different reasons." In second Corinthians four, Paul says, "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus's sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so then death is working in us but life in you." And then we see in first Peter five, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And so Satan wants to kill your destiny. I once heard a mentor of mine say, "Dead men can't have stress." And I said, "Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it. If he can't get out of the coffin he's certainly not going to have stress." In Romans six, it says, "Likewise you also recon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I once had a mentor say to me, "The only thing wrong with you Os is that you're not dead yet. As soon as you let your flesh die, you will be free. So I suggest you die quietly." What happens at spiritual birth? Well, we all know that our human existence is made up of spirit, soul, and body. And when we become born again, our spirits instantly become 100% holy by the power of the holy spirit and God's work in our life. But our mind and will and emotions, which reside in our soul, they don't get redeemed completely in the sense that we don't change immediately. It's a process of sanctification. And that sanctification will go on until we die. And then of course we have the physical body. But we relate to God through our spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the lord Jesus Christ." So that's where we get spirit, soul, and body. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. We live in a war zone, and the prize that Satan wants is our heart." You know, years ago I read the fictional story of Screwtape by C.S. Lewis. One of his great works. It's about a demon coaching an underling demon. And he says to that demon, "I wonder if you should ask me whether it is a essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question at least for the present phase of the struggle has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves." C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two mistakes the church makes when dealing with the devil. To blame everything on him or to blame nothing on him." Here's an amazing statistic. 24% of the general population believe that Satan is real and 52% of Christians believe Satan is real, which means 48% of them don't believe he's real. When you're deceived you don't know you are deceived. Satan's strategy is to kill. Jesus and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So Satan tried to kill Jesus at birth. Now what are Satan's three greatest lies to human beings? These are common to every person. Every one of us have been tempted by these statements. You are powerless over your circumstances. You are a victim of an unjust God who left you here to suffer. Just think about it. Have you ever thought those thoughts, that you're powerless over your circumstances or that you're a victim of an unjust God who doesn't love you, who left you hear to suffer and deal with this stuff all by yourself? If you're honest, you've probably felt that way at one time or another. We blame God for evil. In Mark 14:27 it says, "Jesus told him, 'You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and it's my fault.'" He was saying that to the disciples. The story of your life is a story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could become and he fears it. That is the one thing Satan fears is that you're going to really know the truth because the truth shall make you free. "For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me," said the psalmist in psalm 109. You see, Satan, that word Satan means opposer. And some of the characteristics of Satan are found throughout the scripture. He's an angel of light, he seeks to kill and destroy, he's an accuser. He deceives and lies. He wars against those who obey. He's a lion, a devourer to kill. He blinds unbelievers. So we need to know our enemy and how he works against us. Finally, be strong in the lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. For this purpose the sun of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You see, that was another reason Jesus came to earth, was to destroy the works of the devil. You know I'm often asked by people about why do we go through adversity? And I believe there are four core reasons we will go through adversity. The first one is a consequence of the call. Joseph went through his adversity because of a consequence of the call. It wasn't because of any sin that he did. He was a typical teenage boy that might have been a little bit narcissistic. But it wasn't because of a major sin. And God used that to save an entire people. The second reason we can go through adversity is sin. Gehazi sinned against his employer Elisha, and as a result he was struck with leprosy because he wanted to get money from the general that was healed by Elisha. And so God judged his sin and if we have any open doors in our life then God will judge those sins. A third reason we can go through is sonship. And sonship means that God's going to treat us as sons and daughters, which means there are times that he needs to reprove us and to really correct us in order that we fulfill the purpose and destiny has over our life. A fourth reason we can go through adversity is spiritual warfare. As I've said earlier, John 10:10 says, "Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from your life. But Jesus wants to give you life." And so there's a war on earth vying for our heart. And so our job is to understand what reason we might be going through adversity and it could be a combination of these. But ask the lord and show him, what is the root. Now Jesus had no sin in his life and when he said this verse out of John 14, it references the fact that he had no sin so he would never go through adversity because of sin. He says to the disciples, "Hereafter, I'll not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and that nothing in me." Basically that says, there's nothing in him that he has a right to. There was no sin. There was no open door in his life. He had no entry to Jesus's life due to his sinless life. Now, therefore my primary hindrance is to becoming a Christian who transforms your workplace. And I've talked about this in the past and that is an un-biblical view of work in ministry. We need to understand the holy calling that is upon us. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, do unto the lord. It's the lord Christ you are serving." And then there's a Greek versus Hebraic view of God. If we fall to the Greek influence in our relationship with God, that can hinder us and then the religious sprit and generational strongholds. And we're going to talk about the ladder three of these hindrances tonight. I've talked over the years about this sacred secular and this dichotomy of calling. If there's one statement I hate hearing it's, I'm in full-time ministry. Well, we're all in full-time ministry. We just get our checks different places. And that's not a higher calling. We need to define our ministry as anything that we're doing that's not against the will of God as a holy calling. So whatever you do, do unto the lord. It tells us in Colossians 3:23. Hindrance number two deals more with the influence of the Greek philosophers versus the Hebraic roots. There's a prophetic verse in Zechariah 9:13, "For I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons. O Greece made you like the sword of a mighty man." And so this is a prophetic verse about the conflict between the Hebraic heart set versus the Greek mindset. Hebraic deals with the heart and it's active and appeals to the heart. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and appeals to the intellect. The Greek philosophers understood the difference between Greek and Hebraic roots. So you see Greeks acquired wisdom by reason and analysis and Hebrews acquired wisdom by obedience. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom in the early church." Understood that knowledge was not what changed the world. It was the power of God working through people. Paul said, "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Paul wrote that explaining that the reason he was so effective was it had nothing to do with his knowledge and his persuasive oratory skills, but it was because of the power of God working though him. Now there's two systems that you and I could be relating to God through and one of them would be the Hebraic system. And the Hebraic system is a process focus. Obedience is a priority and relationships are a priority and this yields transparency and love. And it produces mature believers. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and has more of a program focus. Information is a priority with controlled groups and this ends up being more service and activity based in our relationship toward God. And this ultimately produces shallow believers. Another hindrance is the religious spirit. See, Peter Wagner wrote, Freedom From the Religious Spirit. And in that book he defines the religious spirit as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. And of course that's what Jesus ran into in his ministry was the Pharisees. And that's what made him the angriest. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness." So the spirit of religion says I must do something to be acceptable by God. It puts people under the yoke of bondage and legalism. Religion divides us into sacred secular mentality. And religion says only overt spiritual activity is acceptable to God. If you remember the chariots of fire, the runner from Scotland, Eric Little. He told his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." Well his sister thought running was a secular idea and he needed to be on the mission field. But in reality Eric was a more spiritual person. Another spirit of religion comment would be bible study at work is not necessary. I go to church on Sunday. That would be a statement that comes from a religious spirit. Why do I need to participate in a kingdom initiative like that? Religion versus relationship looks like this. I had this vision of this diagram years ago that I had an illustrator make up. And so many of us have grown up thinking that well if I do all these things on the right, prayer and devotions and church attendance and bible study and giving money and witnessing and perform and be a church volunteer, then I'll earn God's love and acceptance and favor. But the truth is it's the exact opposite. When we love God, and when we know and understand the acceptance of God, and know his favor, the byproduct of that is that we want to engage in prayer, we want to do devotions, we want to study our bible, we want to be witnesses as salt and light to our community. These become byproducts of a healthy relationship with God. The religious spirit motivates believers to live out their faith in legalistic and rigid ways. And this is especially evident in the south. Now let's spend the balance of our time talking about spiritual warfare strongholds and childhood wounds. I want you to meet John tonight. He had a need for recognition from performance. Things like civic projects and sports and business success. He had an emphasis on building financial security and so he became a workaholic. He lacked emotional intimacy in his marriage and with other people, and he had an activity based relationship towards God very Greek based. And he exhibited symptoms of over controlling people and circumstances. Well, that person was me. I came out of a family of three generations of business owners and our generation stronghold was insecurity and fear that resulted in motivations to control people and circumstances around us. And the bible says in second Corinthians 10:5, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." So a stronghold can come into our lives because we have a need and we don't understand how to meet that need without allowing ourselves to be opened up to a stronghold. The opposite of stronghold is exhibited in Ephesians 3:17. "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." So you and I were created with seven basic needs. We have a need for dignity and authority, for blessing, and for vision and security, for purpose and meaning and freedom and boundaries, and intimate love and companionship. These are seen in Genesis one and two. They're not listed like this, but they're evidenced in how God related to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were born with all of these needs and God met those needs for them. But whenever we seek to meet one or more of these basic needs outside God, we have set the stage for the development of a generational stronghold. Satan convinced Eve to believe God was holding out on her and he would not meet her needs so she chose to meet her own need. Let's look at some examples of generational strongholds. We see deceit and lying in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see control with Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, and King Saul. We see a sexual stronghold in David, Rahab, Bathsheba, Absalom, Abner, and Solomon. In fact, it would be a pretty good bet that David was probably an illegitimate son. You see, he says in Psalm 51 that I was conceived in iniquity. And then when you look at the fact that his father didn't even consider him when the prophet Samuel came to look at his sons as potential candidates to be the next king. We can surmise from that that perhaps David, not only was he the littlest and smallest, maybe that he was conceived in iniquity. Well, I learned more about this stronghold concept when a mentor of mine who created this workbook that we later published for him. He said, "There's no problem with you Os. You just have a stronghold of insecurity and fear." And I said, "You can't prove that." And he says, "Oh, I think I can." And so, he had me take this little self-assessment tool and rank each one of these symptoms from one to 10 and then added the total and took the average. So that, as you can see in the example on the top right, deceit ... The attributes were six, two, one, nine, and seven for different characteristics. You add those numbers up and divide by six, or five I guess it is, you get the average number of five. So you would do that with each one of these strongholds. So when I did it, I did control, and I would rank those and that became the highest one. And then fear and insecurity, that also was a high one at the time. So he took me through a process of prayer and confession in order to deal with those strongholds. We eventually published a book about this, a workbook called Demolishing Strongholds. We only had the PDF version of that online. But you can find it on our website at tgifbookstore.com. It's a wonderful resource and I've used it to counsel many people over the years. So spiritual strongholds work at the subconscious level. Their influence is often unseen until there is a problem. Strongholds are designed to keep us from experiencing God's love and they're often generational as I have said. All strongholds that are built in our lives are a result of seeking to meet one or more of these needs apart from God's will for us. So here's how a stronghold develops. Satan inspires a thought into my mind subconsciously. We're not even conscious of it. Which appeals to my natural tendencies to meet needs. We entertain these thoughts and it brings on emotions. And then we give in to emotions and this eventually leads to some sort of action. And continual participation in this behavior causes me to develop a habit. And once a habit's developed a stronghold is built by that spirit. Now, strongholds oppress versus possess. They control, dictate, and influence our attitudes and behavior. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter. He said, "Peter, Satan has wanted to sift you." And he was telling him that Satan was impacting his thought life. So strongholds oppress and discourage us and affect how we view or react to situations, circumstances, or people. I was once in Singapore and a woman came up to me after I'd spoken on this topic and she said, "Oh, would you go to lunch with me and my friend?" And I had lunch available so I went with them and she was very, very aggressive and I could see some things that were coming through her that I picked up on. So when we were at lunch I said, "Tell me about your father. What kind of relationship do you have with your father?" And she said, "Well, why in the world would you want to ask me that? I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else." And I said, "Well just humor me. Just tell me how your relationship is with your dad." And she said, "Oh, it's not good. He says I'll never amount to anything and he says I'm fat and he just doesn't have good things to say about me." And I said, "Well, you have a spirit of rejection over your life and part of the reason that you're very, very aggressive is because you're seeking to get approval and you have to be successful at all costs because one of the vows that you've made is that you're going to prove your value to your father by being successful. And so you're a slave to what your father has said about you. So you need to pray. We need to break that over you." And we did. She began to cry as I began to share that with her. And we broke that over her that day at lunch and her whole countenance changed. I also believe that strongholds are a lot like wearing sunglasses. Let's say that you're born with sunglasses on and you go through life wearing those sunglasses and one day it's cloudy and a man says, "Did you know that if you took those sunglasses off you'd be able to see much clearer?" And so you take those sunglasses off and you say, "Oh my gosh, look how bright it is out here." Well that's the way strongholds are. You don't really know that you're operating in that until symptoms begin to show up. So what we need to do is understand where the entry points of those strongholds came in. And one of the resources that we found helpful in addition to our book on demolishing strongholds is a book called Operating In the Courts of Heaven, by Robert Henderson. This book is a great book to help you understand how the devil operates from a legal basis and how we need to do business in heaven at the legal court in heaven as he is our defender. Now, we need to look at the role shame plays in our life. Shame says I am a failure or a mistake, whereas guilt says I made a mistake, but I am not a mistake. We need to understand the difference and walk in Godly guilt versus shame. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every good man's conscience in the sight of God. So I want to pause for a moment and say that if you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the chat area or the Q&A area. Just tell me what you think. Tell me what God's speaking to you about this area in your life. And if you have any questions I'd love to take those. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about arrested development. And this is out of a book called Broken Children, Grown Up Pain, by Dr. Paul Hegstrom. Dr. Hegstrom passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. And I actually went through counseling with him years ago. He says, "When a wounded childhood frees his emotional maturity to within two years of a wound, the adult lives as a child emotionally." That's what it means to be arrested in your development. In other words, somebody might say, "Well he's acting like a child." Well, that might be really true. Because your emotional state in life, even as an adult, you might be living as a 12 year old emotionally because you had a trauma happen in your life that froze you emotionally. So we need to understand that arrested development is caused by the wounds of childhood and amplifies or magnifies our sin nature. The deeper the wounds, the more we act selfishly and childishly. And when we have too much childhood trauma, we're hindered in our ability to develop genuine healthy relationships with our creator and others close to us. We can't readily reach out or accept others because our wounds have made us unteachable. Unable to trust and afraid of truth. Now I believe that Michael Jackson was arrested in his development. Many people felt that there was a sexual issue with him because he liked to hang out with kids. I think that he was arrested in his development and was probably emotionally around a 12 or 13 year old because his father beat him growing up when he didn't sing songs the way he thought he should sing them. And so he had some deep wounds. We also need to realize that when we are impacted from arrested development we can become a false self and we can be a poser in our way we handle ourselves and try to be somebody that we're not. So we seek to hide from our true self because our shame says we will not be acceptable to others as we are. We are driven to hide behind our fig leaf, our false self or false covering that protects us from our true self. This all happens on a subconscious basis as a built in protection mechanism from wounds we received as a child. You know, the movie Groundhog Day is a good example of this where he learns something about him every time he goes through a 24 hour period. And as he goes through each one of those 24 hour periods he changed one aspect of his behavior to get a different outcome. And that's kind of like what we're talking about with our false self and poser. Hegstrom says 90% of our marital difficulties are rooted in a trauma experienced by one or more spouses between the age of five and nine. Arrested development sabotages the heart's good intentions and turns us into a spiritual hypocrite. We all require others to live by the rules we were required to live by in childhood. What does that mean? Well, let's say that you're in a situation that, let's say you're a business owner. And you see people that are just totally inept around you and you really lose your patience because you've been trained to do things with excellence and you've been trained to have high performance. So when you don't see that in others, you get angry. Your expectations are not being met. So you're living by a rule that you were required to live by in your life. And this can show up in a lot of different ways. In perfectionism, impatience, and shame. Competence becomes our method of dealing with a wounded heart. So we can hide behind our competence and compensate for our own pain through our competence. John Eldridge said his plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the wicked witch did to the tin woodman. Make them so busy they ignore the heart and wound them so deeply they don't want a heart. Twist their theology so they despise the heart. Take away their courage, destroy their creativity. Make intimacy with God impossible for them. Of course your heart would be the object of a great and fierce battle. It's your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life. "He delivers the afflicted in their affliction and opens their ears to his voice in adversity," says Job. God forces us back into or wound to learn the truth about our wound in order to become healed and free. It says that Satan is an accuser. "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." So what voice are you listening to when you hear something in your head that accuses you? Are you listening to that accuser? Whenever we grant anyone other than Jesus Christ authority to tell us who we are, we've made that person a god in our life and entered into idolatry. Let's say that you grew up with a parent that said you're never going to amount to anything, or you're not good at this or that, and you were criticized. You were even shamed. Well, you've got to correct that identity and not believe that identity because that's not what God says about you. You need to believe what God says about you. Let's talk for a moment about addictions. Addictions are anything you cannot willingly stop. Addictions are rooted in the need to be loved. And anything you cannot lay down by an act of your will is an addiction. It's a counterfeit desire for love and intimacy. It becomes an isolation chamber designed to mask our pain. In the brain we have something called a neurotransmitter. It emits two feel good hormones. Serotonin and dopamine. Negative or painful emotion causes the under secretion of serotonin. And that's where Satan comes into our hypothalamus and the brain stem connection. And this is where we drop in serotonin. But if we start looking at pornography or we do something that makes us feel good, it helps to bring our serotonin back. It gives us a high. And that is what leads to addictive behavior. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin act as chemical messengers that relay nerve signals through the brain. Dopamine regulates muscle movement, motivation, and the sensation of pleasure. Whereas serotonin primarily affects mood, impulsiveness, and social behaviors. My good friend Craig Hill wrote a small book that talks about the lies of an addiction. Anyone caught in addiction believes that God is not faithful and that the addictive habit will satisfy their addiction. They believe the habit is stronger than the power of God and that addiction is just the way you are. So they're all lies. They're false beliefs, if you will, that Satan plants into our life. Now, men who struggle with sex. Sometimes if a man was not nurtured growing up, he can be a sexualized adult. In other words, he may not necessarily be a sex addict, but he's an affection addict. So sex becomes that affection for him and he'll often look to the wife to get what they did not get in childhood. Maybe they didn't get touched much in childhood. Or hugs. They lack touch. And they came to know sex as love. And the unfortunate thing is the wife can never satisfy that hunger for live if that root issue is not dealt with. And you might even hear the wife say, "You're a sex addict," when he might not necessarily be a sex addict. It might be a basic need that was never met as a child. When we live in compromise we lose confidence in the faith dimension of our lives. We struggle to hear the voice of God, which forces us to live our Christian life through performance and the flesh. In Psalm 106 he says, "And he gave them their requests but sent leanness in their soul." Hey guys. I want to pause for a minute to tell you about something that just give you a heads up on. For the last many years we've been helping men and women like yourself understand what it means to live the larger story of your life. So my gift is really in teaching and I love encouraging believers to fulfill their purpose and destiny. So we've been thinking about a new initiative that could really help people and so we're getting close to announcing it, but we're not there yet. But if you want to know about that and be one of the first ones to know about it when we do release it, you can get on our waiting list. And we've set up a webpage just for that called becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. In addition, we provide a free download for you if you go on there and put your name on the waiting list. It's called Os Hillman's Top 10 Biblical Truths For Success In Life and Work. These are 10 areas that I believe contributed to my own journey with God and business. And I hope that this resource will be helpful to you. There's no cost. Just go to that. But you don't need to go there now. We'll make an announcement at the end of this as well so that you have that website address at your fingertips. Let's go back to the teaching and we'll talk about this later. God bless. So we overcome the influence of these strongholds by renouncing and repenting of their influence through the prayer of faith and Jesus's blood to cleanse us from these influences. Now whenever the reaction to a situation seems to be extreme compared to the offense, you can know there is unresolved pain or the enemy is at work in the situation. So if somebody gives you a response that is a 10, that should be a two on the Richter scale, you know that something is going on under the hood. That their behavior is not logical. So it merely indicates there is a root problem. It's like a dashboard and the lights on the dash coming on. What's the root of this behavior? So you need to revisit the wound. Identify the events, and then renounce it and ask God to bring healing to that area. Discover the lie. What agreement have you been making with the enemy? And apply the truth. The truth shall make you free. So the steps of freedom from a stronghold is one, identify the strongholds and their symptoms. Rank them from one to 10 by the level of influence they have. And work with someone close to you to confirm the strongholds and confess to renounce the influence of strongholds in Jesus's name. Each believer has the power of the holy spirit to renounce the influence of strongholds over their life as shown in second Corinthians 10:4. We have the divine power to demolish strongholds. And then you want to meditate and walk according to the word and renew your mind. One of the things I had to deal with, I was a workaholic. But it was rooted in fear. So I had to change the number of hours I was working because I was working out of fear. Any self-image contrary to the truth of who God says you are in the spirit is a false self-image. You must agree with God, not with your flesh or the devil. Who said that? That's what you need to ask every time something comes into your head that might be contrary to your identity. "Let this mind be in you. It is also in Jesus Christ." Philippians 2:5. So whatever God sets you free from this and automatically gives you an anointing to set other people free from the same thing you were a victim of. That is your payback on the enemy. For I the lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Take a look at this. This is a fascinating comparison of two families over a 200 year generation. Max Jutes was married to an atheist woman. They had 560 descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 criminals, seven murderers, 100 drunkards, one half of the women were prostitutes. It cost the US government 1.2 million in 19th century dollars. But Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, married a godly woman. They had 1,394 descendants, 295 graduated from college, three state governors, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, three US senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 56 doctors, 75 military officers, 100 missionaries, preachers, and authors, and 80 held public office, three mayors, and one comptroller of the US. Don't tell me the gospel doesn't make a huge difference in family systems. So you need to transform your past into a new beginning. You need to realize your identity and learn to contend for it. All right, well that concludes our session for today. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging to you. If you want to go deeper in this topic, I have developed a book called Overcoming Hindrances to Fulfill Your Destiny. It has a lot more information in it and more teaching in this resource. It's only about 100 pages and you can get it off of our website at tgifbookstore.com. Earlier I mentioned about this new program that we're going to be launching soon, but we're not ready to announce it yet. But if you do want to know about it, just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified. You can go to our website, becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. And that will have your name on our waiting list and you'll be the first one to be notified. And you'll also receive a free resource called My Top 10 Biblical Truths for Succeeding in Life and Work. And this was a resource that I put together recently that were the top 10 things that I felt were the most important in my journey to be able to be successful in business and in ministry. So I hope that that will be of help to you. Just click on the website listed on the screen there. So we look forward to seeing you in the next session. We're doing weekly podcasts now. We've set up this on our YouTube page and also iTunes. If you just want to listen to the sessions you can listen to them on iTunes as well as YouTube at the TGIF At Work podcast. God bless. See you next time.

Hey guys. Are you going through adversity or anxiety or fear or depression right now? If so, stay tuned because this session is for you. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life call? Why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm Os Hillman and I've been helping leaders like you answer these questions and more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGIF Today God is First. And welcome to our podcast this week. You know today we're going to be talking about adversity and overcoming hindrances to our life. And it's a topic that I teach a lot about because I went through some major adversities back in 1994 that really changed my life. And so if you find yourself in that place, this session is for you. You know, I've been teaching this session overcoming hindrances to fulfill your destiny for many years. Because I feel like I'm an authority on this topic. And so today's session is a teaching that I did a few weeks ago for a nightly meeting that I did on overcoming hindrances. And you know, it's really tied to what I went through in 1994, where I had major losses in my life. I lost over a half a million dollars. I had my wife leave me after going through extensive counseling. I had 80% of my business disappear within a few weeks when a client stuck me for $140,000. And then my vice president left me and took my second largest account in my ad agency. And this ushered me into a seven year season of adversity. And man I thought life was over. But you know, two years into that adversity I met Gunnar Olson, the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce. And in our first meeting, he listened to my story and he said, "Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life." And I said, "What is a Joseph calling?" And so he explained it to me. And that would ultimately lead to a relationship that's been over 25 years now. I just talked with him last week and he's been a spiritual mentor to me and father in the marketplace for me. And so this session will help you understand some of the dynamics that we can go through that can hinder us from fulfilling our destiny. And over that time, here now over almost 30 years, I've discovered many of the things that cause my adversity and now I'm able to help many others. So I hope that you'll find this session helpful to you. So let's go ahead and begin the teaching. I was teaching in Scotland a number of years ago, and someone came up to me after going through this session that I'm about to share with you and said, "I just realized something. You must become a free agent before you can become a change agent." And I said, "Well, that's very true. Both God and Satan want you dead but each for different reasons." In second Corinthians four, Paul says, "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus's sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so then death is working in us but life in you." And then we see in first Peter five, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And so Satan wants to kill your destiny. I once heard a mentor of mine say, "Dead men can't have stress." And I said, "Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it. If he can't get out of the coffin he's certainly not going to have stress." In Romans six, it says, "Likewise you also recon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I once had a mentor say to me, "The only thing wrong with you Os is that you're not dead yet. As soon as you let your flesh die, you will be free. So I suggest you die quietly." What happens at spiritual birth? Well, we all know that our human existence is made up of spirit, soul, and body. And when we become born again, our spirits instantly become 100% holy by the power of the holy spirit and God's work in our life. But our mind and will and emotions, which reside in our soul, they don't get redeemed completely in the sense that we don't change immediately. It's a process of sanctification. And that sanctification will go on until we die. And then of course we have the physical body. But we relate to God through our spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the lord Jesus Christ." So that's where we get spirit, soul, and body. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. We live in a war zone, and the prize that Satan wants is our heart." You know, years ago I read the fictional story of Screwtape by C.S. Lewis. One of his great works. It's about a demon coaching an underling demon. And he says to that demon, "I wonder if you should ask me whether it is a essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question at least for the present phase of the struggle has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves." C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two mistakes the church makes when dealing with the devil. To blame everything on him or to blame nothing on him." Here's an amazing statistic. 24% of the general population believe that Satan is real and 52% of Christians believe Satan is real, which means 48% of them don't believe he's real. When you're deceived you don't know you are deceived. Satan's strategy is to kill. Jesus and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So Satan tried to kill Jesus at birth. Now what are Satan's three greatest lies to human beings? These are common to every person. Every one of us have been tempted by these statements. You are powerless over your circumstances. You are a victim of an unjust God who left you here to suffer. Just think about it. Have you ever thought those thoughts, that you're powerless over your circumstances or that you're a victim of an unjust God who doesn't love you, who left you hear to suffer and deal with this stuff all by yourself? If you're honest, you've probably felt that way at one time or another. We blame God for evil. In Mark 14:27 it says, "Jesus told him, 'You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and it's my fault.'" He was saying that to the disciples. The story of your life is a story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could become and he fears it. That is the one thing Satan fears is that you're going to really know the truth because the truth shall make you free. "For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me," said the psalmist in psalm 109. You see, Satan, that word Satan means opposer. And some of the characteristics of Satan are found throughout the scripture. He's an angel of light, he seeks to kill and destroy, he's an accuser. He deceives and lies. He wars against those who obey. He's a lion, a devourer to kill. He blinds unbelievers. So we need to know our enemy and how he works against us. Finally, be strong in the lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. For this purpose the sun of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You see, that was another reason Jesus came to earth, was to destroy the works of the devil. You know I'm often asked by people about why do we go through adversity? And I believe there are four core reasons we will go through adversity. The first one is a consequence of the call. Joseph went through his adversity because of a consequence of the call. It wasn't because of any sin that he did. He was a typical teenage boy that might have been a little bit narcissistic. But it wasn't because of a major sin. And God used that to save an entire people. The second reason we can go through adversity is sin. Gehazi sinned against his employer Elisha, and as a result he was struck with leprosy because he wanted to get money from the general that was healed by Elisha. And so God judged his sin and if we have any open doors in our life then God will judge those sins. A third reason we can go through is sonship. And sonship means that God's going to treat us as sons and daughters, which means there are times that he needs to reprove us and to really correct us in order that we fulfill the purpose and destiny has over our life. A fourth reason we can go through adversity is spiritual warfare. As I've said earlier, John 10:10 says, "Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from your life. But Jesus wants to give you life." And so there's a war on earth vying for our heart. And so our job is to understand what reason we might be going through adversity and it could be a combination of these. But ask the lord and show him, what is the root. Now Jesus had no sin in his life and when he said this verse out of John 14, it references the fact that he had no sin so he would never go through adversity because of sin. He says to the disciples, "Hereafter, I'll not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and that nothing in me." Basically that says, there's nothing in him that he has a right to. There was no sin. There was no open door in his life. He had no entry to Jesus's life due to his sinless life. Now, therefore my primary hindrance is to becoming a Christian who transforms your workplace. And I've talked about this in the past and that is an un-biblical view of work in ministry. We need to understand the holy calling that is upon us. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, do unto the lord. It's the lord Christ you are serving." And then there's a Greek versus Hebraic view of God. If we fall to the Greek influence in our relationship with God, that can hinder us and then the religious sprit and generational strongholds. And we're going to talk about the ladder three of these hindrances tonight. I've talked over the years about this sacred secular and this dichotomy of calling. If there's one statement I hate hearing it's, I'm in full-time ministry. Well, we're all in full-time ministry. We just get our checks different places. And that's not a higher calling. We need to define our ministry as anything that we're doing that's not against the will of God as a holy calling. So whatever you do, do unto the lord. It tells us in Colossians 3:23. Hindrance number two deals more with the influence of the Greek philosophers versus the Hebraic roots. There's a prophetic verse in Zechariah 9:13, "For I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons. O Greece made you like the sword of a mighty man." And so this is a prophetic verse about the conflict between the Hebraic heart set versus the Greek mindset. Hebraic deals with the heart and it's active and appeals to the heart. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and appeals to the intellect. The Greek philosophers understood the difference between Greek and Hebraic roots. So you see Greeks acquired wisdom by reason and analysis and Hebrews acquired wisdom by obedience. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom in the early church." Understood that knowledge was not what changed the world. It was the power of God working through people. Paul said, "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Paul wrote that explaining that the reason he was so effective was it had nothing to do with his knowledge and his persuasive oratory skills, but it was because of the power of God working though him. Now there's two systems that you and I could be relating to God through and one of them would be the Hebraic system. And the Hebraic system is a process focus. Obedience is a priority and relationships are a priority and this yields transparency and love. And it produces mature believers. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and has more of a program focus. Information is a priority with controlled groups and this ends up being more service and activity based in our relationship toward God. And this ultimately produces shallow believers. Another hindrance is the religious spirit. See, Peter Wagner wrote, Freedom From the Religious Spirit. And in that book he defines the religious spirit as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. And of course that's what Jesus ran into in his ministry was the Pharisees. And that's what made him the angriest. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness." So the spirit of religion says I must do something to be acceptable by God. It puts people under the yoke of bondage and legalism. Religion divides us into sacred secular mentality. And religion says only overt spiritual activity is acceptable to God. If you remember the chariots of fire, the runner from Scotland, Eric Little. He told his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." Well his sister thought running was a secular idea and he needed to be on the mission field. But in reality Eric was a more spiritual person. Another spirit of religion comment would be bible study at work is not necessary. I go to church on Sunday. That would be a statement that comes from a religious spirit. Why do I need to participate in a kingdom initiative like that? Religion versus relationship looks like this. I had this vision of this diagram years ago that I had an illustrator make up. And so many of us have grown up thinking that well if I do all these things on the right, prayer and devotions and church attendance and bible study and giving money and witnessing and perform and be a church volunteer, then I'll earn God's love and acceptance and favor. But the truth is it's the exact opposite. When we love God, and when we know and understand the acceptance of God, and know his favor, the byproduct of that is that we want to engage in prayer, we want to do devotions, we want to study our bible, we want to be witnesses as salt and light to our community. These become byproducts of a healthy relationship with God. The religious spirit motivates believers to live out their faith in legalistic and rigid ways. And this is especially evident in the south. Now let's spend the balance of our time talking about spiritual warfare strongholds and childhood wounds. I want you to meet John tonight. He had a need for recognition from performance. Things like civic projects and sports and business success. He had an emphasis on building financial security and so he became a workaholic. He lacked emotional intimacy in his marriage and with other people, and he had an activity based relationship towards God very Greek based. And he exhibited symptoms of over controlling people and circumstances. Well, that person was me. I came out of a family of three generations of business owners and our generation stronghold was insecurity and fear that resulted in motivations to control people and circumstances around us. And the bible says in second Corinthians 10:5, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." So a stronghold can come into our lives because we have a need and we don't understand how to meet that need without allowing ourselves to be opened up to a stronghold. The opposite of stronghold is exhibited in Ephesians 3:17. "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." So you and I were created with seven basic needs. We have a need for dignity and authority, for blessing, and for vision and security, for purpose and meaning and freedom and boundaries, and intimate love and companionship. These are seen in Genesis one and two. They're not listed like this, but they're evidenced in how God related to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were born with all of these needs and God met those needs for them. But whenever we seek to meet one or more of these basic needs outside God, we have set the stage for the development of a generational stronghold. Satan convinced Eve to believe God was holding out on her and he would not meet her needs so she chose to meet her own need. Let's look at some examples of generational strongholds. We see deceit and lying in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see control with Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, and King Saul. We see a sexual stronghold in David, Rahab, Bathsheba, Absalom, Abner, and Solomon. In fact, it would be a pretty good bet that David was probably an illegitimate son. You see, he says in Psalm 51 that I was conceived in iniquity. And then when you look at the fact that his father didn't even consider him when the prophet Samuel came to look at his sons as potential candidates to be the next king. We can surmise from that that perhaps David, not only was he the littlest and smallest, maybe that he was conceived in iniquity. Well, I learned more about this stronghold concept when a mentor of mine who created this workbook that we later published for him. He said, "There's no problem with you Os. You just have a stronghold of insecurity and fear." And I said, "You can't prove that." And he says, "Oh, I think I can." And so, he had me take this little self-assessment tool and rank each one of these symptoms from one to 10 and then added the total and took the average. So that, as you can see in the example on the top right, deceit ... The attributes were six, two, one, nine, and seven for different characteristics. You add those numbers up and divide by six, or five I guess it is, you get the average number of five. So you would do that with each one of these strongholds. So when I did it, I did control, and I would rank those and that became the highest one. And then fear and insecurity, that also was a high one at the time. So he took me through a process of prayer and confession in order to deal with those strongholds. We eventually published a book about this, a workbook called Demolishing Strongholds. We only had the PDF version of that online. But you can find it on our website at tgifbookstore.com. It's a wonderful resource and I've used it to counsel many people over the years. So spiritual strongholds work at the subconscious level. Their influence is often unseen until there is a problem. Strongholds are designed to keep us from experiencing God's love and they're often generational as I have said. All strongholds that are built in our lives are a result of seeking to meet one or more of these needs apart from God's will for us. So here's how a stronghold develops. Satan inspires a thought into my mind subconsciously. We're not even conscious of it. Which appeals to my natural tendencies to meet needs. We entertain these thoughts and it brings on emotions. And then we give in to emotions and this eventually leads to some sort of action. And continual participation in this behavior causes me to develop a habit. And once a habit's developed a stronghold is built by that spirit. Now, strongholds oppress versus possess. They control, dictate, and influence our attitudes and behavior. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter. He said, "Peter, Satan has wanted to sift you." And he was telling him that Satan was impacting his thought life. So strongholds oppress and discourage us and affect how we view or react to situations, circumstances, or people. I was once in Singapore and a woman came up to me after I'd spoken on this topic and she said, "Oh, would you go to lunch with me and my friend?" And I had lunch available so I went with them and she was very, very aggressive and I could see some things that were coming through her that I picked up on. So when we were at lunch I said, "Tell me about your father. What kind of relationship do you have with your father?" And she said, "Well, why in the world would you want to ask me that? I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else." And I said, "Well just humor me. Just tell me how your relationship is with your dad." And she said, "Oh, it's not good. He says I'll never amount to anything and he says I'm fat and he just doesn't have good things to say about me." And I said, "Well, you have a spirit of rejection over your life and part of the reason that you're very, very aggressive is because you're seeking to get approval and you have to be successful at all costs because one of the vows that you've made is that you're going to prove your value to your father by being successful. And so you're a slave to what your father has said about you. So you need to pray. We need to break that over you." And we did. She began to cry as I began to share that with her. And we broke that over her that day at lunch and her whole countenance changed. I also believe that strongholds are a lot like wearing sunglasses. Let's say that you're born with sunglasses on and you go through life wearing those sunglasses and one day it's cloudy and a man says, "Did you know that if you took those sunglasses off you'd be able to see much clearer?" And so you take those sunglasses off and you say, "Oh my gosh, look how bright it is out here." Well that's the way strongholds are. You don't really know that you're operating in that until symptoms begin to show up. So what we need to do is understand where the entry points of those strongholds came in. And one of the resources that we found helpful in addition to our book on demolishing strongholds is a book called Operating In the Courts of Heaven, by Robert Henderson. This book is a great book to help you understand how the devil operates from a legal basis and how we need to do business in heaven at the legal court in heaven as he is our defender. Now, we need to look at the role shame plays in our life. Shame says I am a failure or a mistake, whereas guilt says I made a mistake, but I am not a mistake. We need to understand the difference and walk in Godly guilt versus shame. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every good man's conscience in the sight of God. So I want to pause for a moment and say that if you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the chat area or the Q&A area. Just tell me what you think. Tell me what God's speaking to you about this area in your life. And if you have any questions I'd love to take those. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about arrested development. And this is out of a book called Broken Children, Grown Up Pain, by Dr. Paul Hegstrom. Dr. Hegstrom passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. And I actually went through counseling with him years ago. He says, "When a wounded childhood frees his emotional maturity to within two years of a wound, the adult lives as a child emotionally." That's what it means to be arrested in your development. In other words, somebody might say, "Well he's acting like a child." Well, that might be really true. Because your emotional state in life, even as an adult, you might be living as a 12 year old emotionally because you had a trauma happen in your life that froze you emotionally. So we need to understand that arrested development is caused by the wounds of childhood and amplifies or magnifies our sin nature. The deeper the wounds, the more we act selfishly and childishly. And when we have too much childhood trauma, we're hindered in our ability to develop genuine healthy relationships with our creator and others close to us. We can't readily reach out or accept others because our wounds have made us unteachable. Unable to trust and afraid of truth. Now I believe that Michael Jackson was arrested in his development. Many people felt that there was a sexual issue with him because he liked to hang out with kids. I think that he was arrested in his development and was probably emotionally around a 12 or 13 year old because his father beat him growing up when he didn't sing songs the way he thought he should sing them. And so he had some deep wounds. We also need to realize that when we are impacted from arrested development we can become a false self and we can be a poser in our way we handle ourselves and try to be somebody that we're not. So we seek to hide from our true self because our shame says we will not be acceptable to others as we are. We are driven to hide behind our fig leaf, our false self or false covering that protects us from our true self. This all happens on a subconscious basis as a built in protection mechanism from wounds we received as a child. You know, the movie Groundhog Day is a good example of this where he learns something about him every time he goes through a 24 hour period. And as he goes through each one of those 24 hour periods he changed one aspect of his behavior to get a different outcome. And that's kind of like what we're talking about with our false self and poser. Hegstrom says 90% of our marital difficulties are rooted in a trauma experienced by one or more spouses between the age of five and nine. Arrested development sabotages the heart's good intentions and turns us into a spiritual hypocrite. We all require others to live by the rules we were required to live by in childhood. What does that mean? Well, let's say that you're in a situation that, let's say you're a business owner. And you see people that are just totally inept around you and you really lose your patience because you've been trained to do things with excellence and you've been trained to have high performance. So when you don't see that in others, you get angry. Your expectations are not being met. So you're living by a rule that you were required to live by in your life. And this can show up in a lot of different ways. In perfectionism, impatience, and shame. Competence becomes our method of dealing with a wounded heart. So we can hide behind our competence and compensate for our own pain through our competence. John Eldridge said his plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the wicked witch did to the tin woodman. Make them so busy they ignore the heart and wound them so deeply they don't want a heart. Twist their theology so they despise the heart. Take away their courage, destroy their creativity. Make intimacy with God impossible for them. Of course your heart would be the object of a great and fierce battle. It's your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life. "He delivers the afflicted in their affliction and opens their ears to his voice in adversity," says Job. God forces us back into or wound to learn the truth about our wound in order to become healed and free. It says that Satan is an accuser. "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." So what voice are you listening to when you hear something in your head that accuses you? Are you listening to that accuser? Whenever we grant anyone other than Jesus Christ authority to tell us who we are, we've made that person a god in our life and entered into idolatry. Let's say that you grew up with a parent that said you're never going to amount to anything, or you're not good at this or that, and you were criticized. You were even shamed. Well, you've got to correct that identity and not believe that identity because that's not what God says about you. You need to believe what God says about you. Let's talk for a moment about addictions. Addictions are anything you cannot willingly stop. Addictions are rooted in the need to be loved. And anything you cannot lay down by an act of your will is an addiction. It's a counterfeit desire for love and intimacy. It becomes an isolation chamber designed to mask our pain. In the brain we have something called a neurotransmitter. It emits two feel good hormones. Serotonin and dopamine. Negative or painful emotion causes the under secretion of serotonin. And that's where Satan comes into our hypothalamus and the brain stem connection. And this is where we drop in serotonin. But if we start looking at pornography or we do something that makes us feel good, it helps to bring our serotonin back. It gives us a high. And that is what leads to addictive behavior. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin act as chemical messengers that relay nerve signals through the brain. Dopamine regulates muscle movement, motivation, and the sensation of pleasure. Whereas serotonin primarily affects mood, impulsiveness, and social behaviors. My good friend Craig Hill wrote a small book that talks about the lies of an addiction. Anyone caught in addiction believes that God is not faithful and that the addictive habit will satisfy their addiction. They believe the habit is stronger than the power of God and that addiction is just the way you are. So they're all lies. They're false beliefs, if you will, that Satan plants into our life. Now, men who struggle with sex. Sometimes if a man was not nurtured growing up, he can be a sexualized adult. In other words, he may not necessarily be a sex addict, but he's an affection addict. So sex becomes that affection for him and he'll often look to the wife to get what they did not get in childhood. Maybe they didn't get touched much in childhood. Or hugs. They lack touch. And they came to know sex as love. And the unfortunate thing is the wife can never satisfy that hunger for live if that root issue is not dealt with. And you might even hear the wife say, "You're a sex addict," when he might not necessarily be a sex addict. It might be a basic need that was never met as a child. When we live in compromise we lose confidence in the faith dimension of our lives. We struggle to hear the voice of God, which forces us to live our Christian life through performance and the flesh. In Psalm 106 he says, "And he gave them their requests but sent leanness in their soul." Hey guys. I want to pause for a minute to tell you about something that just give you a heads up on. For the last many years we've been helping men and women like yourself understand what it means to live the larger story of your life. So my gift is really in teaching and I love encouraging believers to fulfill their purpose and destiny. So we've been thinking about a new initiative that could really help people and so we're getting close to announcing it, but we're not there yet. But if you want to know about that and be one of the first ones to know about it when we do release it, you can get on our waiting list. And we've set up a webpage just for that called becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. In addition, we provide a free download for you if you go on there and put your name on the waiting list. It's called Os Hillman's Top 10 Biblical Truths For Success In Life and Work. These are 10 areas that I believe contributed to my own journey with God and business. And I hope that this resource will be helpful to you. There's no cost. Just go to that. But you don't need to go there now. We'll make an announcement at the end of this as well so that you have that website address at your fingertips. Let's go back to the teaching and we'll talk about this later. God bless. So we overcome the influence of these strongholds by renouncing and repenting of their influence through the prayer of faith and Jesus's blood to cleanse us from these influences. Now whenever the reaction to a situation seems to be extreme compared to the offense, you can know there is unresolved pain or the enemy is at work in the situation. So if somebody gives you a response that is a 10, that should be a two on the Richter scale, you know that something is going on under the hood. That their behavior is not logical. So it merely indicates there is a root problem. It's like a dashboard and the lights on the dash coming on. What's the root of this behavior? So you need to revisit the wound. Identify the events, and then renounce it and ask God to bring healing to that area. Discover the lie. What agreement have you been making with the enemy? And apply the truth. The truth shall make you free. So the steps of freedom from a stronghold is one, identify the strongholds and their symptoms. Rank them from one to 10 by the level of influence they have. And work with someone close to you to confirm the strongholds and confess to renounce the influence of strongholds in Jesus's name. Each believer has the power of the holy spirit to renounce the influence of strongholds over their life as shown in second Corinthians 10:4. We have the divine power to demolish strongholds. And then you want to meditate and walk according to the word and renew your mind. One of the things I had to deal with, I was a workaholic. But it was rooted in fear. So I had to change the number of hours I was working because I was working out of fear. Any self-image contrary to the truth of who God says you are in the spirit is a false self-image. You must agree with God, not with your flesh or the devil. Who said that? That's what you need to ask every time something comes into your head that might be contrary to your identity. "Let this mind be in you. It is also in Jesus Christ." Philippians 2:5. So whatever God sets you free from this and automatically gives you an anointing to set other people free from the same thing you were a victim of. That is your payback on the enemy. For I the lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Take a look at this. This is a fascinating comparison of two families over a 200 year generation. Max Jutes was married to an atheist woman. They had 560 descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 criminals, seven murderers, 100 drunkards, one half of the women were prostitutes. It cost the US government 1.2 million in 19th century dollars. But Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, married a godly woman. They had 1,394 descendants, 295 graduated from college, three state governors, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, three US senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 56 doctors, 75 military officers, 100 missionaries, preachers, and authors, and 80 held public office, three mayors, and one comptroller of the US. Don't tell me the gospel doesn't make a huge difference in family systems. So you need to transform your past into a new beginning. You need to realize your identity and learn to contend for it. All right, well that concludes our session for today. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging to you. If you want to go deeper in this topic, I have developed a book called Overcoming Hindrances to Fulfill Your Destiny. It has a lot more information in it and more teaching in this resource. It's only about 100 pages and you can get it off of our website at tgifbookstore.com. Earlier I mentioned about this new program that we're going to be launching soon, but we're not ready to announce it yet. But if you do want to know about it, just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified. You can go to our website, becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. And that will have your name on our waiting list and you'll be the first one to be notified. And you'll also receive a free resource called My Top 10 Biblical Truths for Succeeding in Life and Work. And this was a resource that I put together recently that were the top 10 things that I felt were the most important in my journey to be able to be successful in business and in ministry. So I hope that that will be of help to you. Just click on the website listed on the screen there. So we look forward to seeing you in the next session. We're doing weekly podcasts now. We've set up this on our YouTube page and also iTunes. If you just want to listen to the sessions you can listen to them on iTunes as well as YouTube at the TGIF At Work podcast. God bless. See you next time.

On this most special night, we revel in the pandemonium and jubilation of the season with this exciting and fun ode to Halloween. Featuring “Morton Street”, written and performed by Victoria Black and featuring performances by Dallas Wheatley (@swheatpodcasts; credited as Sarah Wheatley), Kiki Gonglewski, Troy H. Gardner (@troyhgardner), Kim Schmidt (IG @kats_cant_draw), Meredith Katz (@MeredithAKatz), B (@afoolofatook), and Kimberly Evans; “Bin Night”, written and performed by Mason Hawthorne (@MasonH_wr) with additional performances by Rachel Shaw, Eric Little and J.M. Dow (@whirlingnerdish); and “A Night Called Halloween”, created and performed by Darius James (youtube.com/DariusJames92389). Addition music and sounds by Eric Matyas, Blue Dot Sessions, and Pooleside. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com.

Be wary of visiting cemeteries after dark. There can be GRAVE dangers lurking between the mournful markers... Featuring “Digging” written by Charlotte Platt (@Chazzaroo) and performed by Wart Hill, Eric Little, Ari Reider, and Matt (deadinsi.de/@Ackthrice); and “The Man Who Stalks the Space Between the Graves” written by Scott Savino and performed by J.M. Dow. Music by Eric Matyas, Kevin McLeod, Patrick de Arteaga, and DJ Falafel. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com.

Search out the ghastly secrets in this GOTHIC episode, and you may find more than you bargained for... Featuring “Sparrow” written by M. Regan (facebook.com/mreganfiction) and performed by Sheila Begin, Abigail Birkett (@abigailbirkett), Eric Little, Anna Podds, and Della Robertson-Glenn (@dellrglenn). Additional music is by David Hilowitz, Soularflair, Kai Engel, and Jason Shaw. Sound design by Allara Din. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com

Thank you for listening to the Leaders, Innovators and Big Ideas podcast, supported by Rainforest Alberta.  The podcast that highlights those people who are contributing to and/or supporting the innovation ecosystem in Alberta. In this episode, Manuel Olumorin hosts and his guest is Eric Little.  Manuel is an engineer who worked in the oil and gas business, now a marketer helping small businesses reach new customers on digital platforms and keep their existing customers happy.  His superpower is that he has an insatiable hunger to learn and try new things.  Eric Little is the founder of Solstice Power Corp.  He realized that when oil & gas well sites are decommissioned/abandoned, there is a lot of infrastructure and low flow residual gas remaining that could be turned into electricity.  He could also build solar farms on those otherwise contaminated and unusable areas of land. Hear Manuel and Eric talk about renewable energy, the challenges that exist and how innovative ideas can become a reality if you aren't afraid to ask questions and take a look at old problems in a new light. Please be sure to share this episode with everyone you know. If you are interested in being either a host, a guest, or a sponsor of the show, please reach out.  We are published in Google Podcasts and the iTunes store for Apple Podcasts.  We would be grateful if you could give us a rating as it helps spread the word about the show. Credits... This Episode Sponsored By: Zinc Ventures Graphic Design: Mackenzie Bedford Episode Music: King Aurorus Creator & Producer: Al Del Degan 

In a universe of mostly empty space, the rare contact with life not of this world can be rife with apprehension, fear, and chaos. However, it can also be a chance for curiosity, wonder, and escape. It’s time to reach out and experience the ALIEN, in all its permutations. Featuring “The Bermuda Tapes” written by producer Nicole Calande (@NicoleCalande) and performed by Sheila Begin, Matthew Aranda, Eric Little, Katie Youmans (@kateryoumans), Liesl Matzka, Janine Carmel (@maryolivervevo), and Abigail Birkett (@abigailbirkett); Scene 2 of “The Music of Erich Zann” composed by Michael J. Evans; and “The Orb” written and performed by Cero Lopez. Additional music and sound by Eric Matyas, Norman Hittle, and ondrosik. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com.

DARKNESS gathers around and lurks within the characters in this month’s episode. Will they give in? Or is there still a chance for light? Featuring “O Fortunato” written by producer Nicole Calande (@NicoleCalande) and performed by Ari Reider (Tumblr: hendecagram), with additional voices by Taara Rangan, Matthew Aranda, Eric Little, Nev, Lucille Valentine (@severelytrans), and Della Robertson-Glenn; “Jubilee” written by Perry P. (Tumblr: perringwrites), performed by Max George (@crowleyphoen) of Scream Kings (@ScreamKingsPod), Sheila Begin, Zach Wells, and Lindsay Holt (@LholtRVA); and “Something in the Dark” written by Jeff Baker and read by Eric Little. Additional music and sound by Douglas Grindstaff, Jack Finlay & Joseph Sorokin, Michael Evans, Irma Thomas, and Bluedark. Learn more at monstersoutofthecloset.com.

Justice through adaptation, safety through change, and maturity through metamorphosis—this month, TRANSFORM with us. Featuring “No Good Deed” written by supporting producer Taara Rangan with performances by Thomas Head, Julian Lopez (IG: Dream_Cradle), Eric Little, Della Robertson-Glenn, and Liesl Matzka; “Terraformation - Soletta,” composed by Nicholas Vines (nicholasvines.com) and performed by Ryan MacEvoy McCullough; and “Sea and Stone,” written by producer Nicole Calande (@NicoleCalande) and read by Gabbie Sibal (@gabbersib). Additional music and sound by maisonsonique, Kai Engel, and Sergey Cheremisinov. We are currently seeking submissions for our December episode and beyond! Find out more at monstersoutofthecloset.com.

Wherein Eric shares a poem with his Big Mama, loves immediate surprises, and differentiates between work ethic and will. 5-time Suzi Bass Award Nominee Eric Little has been seen onstage with True Colors Theatre Company, Horizon Theatre, and Aurora Theatre. He is currently a part of the Reiser Lab Team for the Alliance Theatre, and is an adjunct professor at Clark Atlanta University.

Mike and Heather come out of the chute with great words of encouragement - Never let people marginalize the gifts God gave you. Instead use them for His glory for the benefit of others - and the best part? Believers in Jesus are given a Helper - the Holy Spirit - who gives you opportunities to do just that!

Life, but not as we know it… Area 51’s finest minds join an unexpected fight for freedom and find a little freedom for themselves along the way. Featuring "Little Leap of Logic" written by Ada Dela Cruz, and performed by Lara Elaine, Zach Wells (IG @zachwellz), Lucille Valentine (twitter: @severelytrans), Eric Little, and Sam Andico (twitter: @samidoriya, IG: @sambajuice. Music by Kai Engel, and Sci-fi Laboratory Ambience by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License with sounds by wolick, swiftoid, Diboz, and beerbelly38. We are still currently seeking submissions for our August-October episodes. Find out more on monstersoutofthecloset.com.

A secret that keeps a family apart, and a secret that dooms an intolerant community. A secret kept, a secret hidden—both made with binding love. Featuring "Drifting" written by Elana Stein and read by Nicole Calande; and "Garden," written by Lucille Valentine (@severelytrans), and performed by Katie Youmans (@kateryoumans), Kiku Marie (about.me/thekikumarie), and Eric Little. Music by Ross Crean, David Hilowitz, and Kai Engel. Additional sound design was provided by Lucille Valentine. Find out more on monstersoutofthecloset.com.

The ties that bind and haunt us... Featuring "Rust" written and recorded by producer Shriya Venkatesh; "Revelations" written and recorded by Sarah Schaff; and "The Well" written by Mason Brubaker of Eyetooth Fiction (@jabbershire), recorded by Eric Little. Submissions for Episode 3 ENDINGS is November 26th (late submissions accepted through December 1st). Follow us on Twitter (@Pod_Monsters) and Tumblr (monstersoutofthecloset.tumblr).

This week's episode features just the audio track from our October 25 LIVE video special where we covered Washington, DC's "25th Annual High Heel Race." We understand that much of what you might hear during this episode won't make sense without the pictures, so we encourage you to (also) check out the video itself. You can watch it right on the front page of swishedition.com. Hosted by Dale & Scott on the main stage and Steve in the street, the coverage includes chats with the race participants, special interviews with Jonathan Howard of GLAAD, executive director of the Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets Paul Williams, TOWN and Cobalt hostess Lena Lett, vice president of J.R.'s Bar & Grill David Perruzza, and many more. Plus, play-by-play of the race itself, the winner (an Amy Winehouse lookalike), a video from Miss Sherry Vine, and much more gay (and straight!) hilarity. Brought to you in part by Atlantis Events' January 29, 2012 Allure of the Seas Caribbean Cruise. Special thanks to our director Eric Reader; cameramen Stone Lyons and Scott Farmer; show runner Deborah Russell; street coordinator Elaine Feehrer; guest wrangler Glen Marsocci; security members Dennis Black and Christopher Dorsey; still photographer Chris Burch; Eric Little, David Perruzza and Paul Greeno of JR's Bar & Grill; Mark Rutstein of Cobalt/30 Degrees; co-host Scott's mom and dad who made sure we sounded and looked good on the other end; and, all of our friends and listeners who cheered us on! We love you all. Episode 157 is called, "25th Annual High Heel Race AUDIO," and while we hope you listen...you might enjoy the video version on our front page instead.

Introduction: Encouragement for the Race Well, it's delightful to be back with you. It's been a couple of weeks since I've had the privilege of preaching here and absence truly makes the heart grow fonder. It's a joy to be with brothers and sisters in Christ in other places, and to see the unity that we have in the spirit. Isn't it? But it's sure good to come home. So I praise God for that. When I was a child and through my growing up years, one of the big events in my home town of Framingham, Massachusetts, was in April we would go down and watch the Boston Marathon. It would come right through our town a world-class event coming right to us and very quickly through us. Alright, right by they went. And some of the world's best runners and some who were not the world's best runners would come right on through our town six miles from the start. So they all looked pretty fresh. They're feeling good about themselves. But anybody who's run long distance races or read about it, there's something that hits a long distance runner called the "Wall." And generally in a marathon it's somewhere around 20 miles and they say that physically and psychologically, the marathon, 26 miles, the marathon is half over at the 20 mile mark and it just so happens in the Boston Marathon that there's a series of steep hills right at that point. Three hills one after the other, right at the 20 mile mark. And they're dropping like flies, it's called Heartbreak Hill and it's tough and there are people, some of the best running fans in the world and some of the most sadistic and masochistic people in the world, just line the streets right up Heartbreak Hill and just enjoy encouraging these folks on or just watching them not make it, one or the other, I'm not sure. Not everyone there has the same motive, but there are some that are there who's express purpose is to give those runners everything they need to get to the top of the hill and to urge them that it really is downhill from the crest. That hill right up there, from then on it's downhill and you'll make it. Is there a brother or sister in Christ here today that doesn't need that in the Christian life? Do you not need the encouragement of the Holy Spirit today? Did you not come in here needing to be cheered on, in your Christian faith? And I don't care if things have gone well for you this week or not. You need the encouragement that Scripture gives. That's what today is all about. That's why I love Sunday, that's why I love to be here because I get weak in my faith, I need to be encouraged, I need the ministry of the Body of Christ, I need the ministry of the Word of God, don't you? And in the spiritual realm, Satan and his demons are lining the road and discouraging us. You'll never make it. Why don't you give up. Sin owns you, you'll never change. Constantly discouraging and so is vital for us that we receive today the ministry of encouragement through the word of God and that is the topic of Romans 15 4-6, it is the power of the Scripture to give to us everything we need to finish the race, that's what it's about. Fully Equipped and Supplied for the Christian Race The Lord wants us fully and amply supplied right to the end of our Christian race. He doesn't want us just to start or to proceed for a while, he wants every one of his chosen children to finish the race. Of all that the Father has given me I will lose none but raise them up at the last day. We have to finish this race and He is going to give to us everything we need to finish, and He does it through scripture. And from scripture comes instruction and from instruction comes endurance and encouragement, and from all of these come hope. And all of this produces a unity in the body of Christ, that is essential to the completion of God's work in the world, and without these regenerating supplies, I tell you, the church will not be able to finish its infinite journey, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. And without these regenerating supplies you will not be able to finish your personal race either, for you are commanded to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect. To be just like Christ. And that's a long journey. And so for both the internal journey of Christ-like maturity, the external journey of worldwide evangelization, we need the regenerating supply of encouragement that the scripture is here to give us. Now, last time, a number of weeks ago, we looked at Romans 15 1-3, and you can look there now, we saw the obligation that strong Christians have to bear the failings of the weak. Verse 1 says We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves, each of us should please his neighbor for his good to build him up, for even Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. So that's what we looked at last time. Now, remember the context, maybe some of you haven't been here with us, through Chapter 14 and 15, but the context is the church at Rome, Rome is the capital of the Roman empire, the most important city in the Gentile world. And that church that Roman Church was a mixed church of Jew and Gentile, and they struggled with debatable issues, they struggled with, with what kinds of foods they could eat and what the role of the law of Moses would play in the church life, and it's amazing how the apostle Paul gives a chapter and a half, about, to the issue of the church getting along through these debatable issues. And the reason for this incredible focus verse after verse after verse as the Apostle Paul tries to keep the Roman Church united, the reason is that a united spirit-filled, gospel believing gospel preaching church, is the chosen instrument of Almighty God for the destruction of Satan's empire and for the advancement of His name and His glory in the world. That's what he's chosen. And so therefore, the church must be united, the church must understand the gospel of liberty, the church must be pure from sin. We have to help one another because this is the way that God has chosen to destroy the devil and his empire. So Paul desires for the strong Christians, the mature ones to help the weak, he desires them to stay together to not fracture and fragment into a bunch of groups that fall apart and drop down into the dust. There they are in Rome surrounded by Imperial pomp and paganism, and worldly success and temptations of plenty, and it would have been so easy for that fragile coalition of Jew and Gentile believers in Christ, to fragment and for pieces to be lost. And Paul did not want that to happen, and so he wanted to minister here, encouragement, he wanted to minister the body of Christ, to hold it together by the power of the Spirit. I. Ancient Scripture’s Immediate Purpose And so he's zeroing in on those supplies that will keep the Church united. And he begins in verse four by talking about the role and the purpose of scripture. "For everything that was written in the past, was written to teach us…" So he's talking about the ancient writings, the scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. Now, we have to ask in context, why this parentheses, why does Paul stop and talk about scripture at this point, what's his purpose? Well, the immediate purpose, verse three had just gotten done quoting scripture, as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me at Psalm 69, he's quoting the Old Testament. And frankly it's a bit obscure the quotation, it's a little hard to follow, how it fits in if you read Psalm 69, you might have a hard time seeing the point that Paul was making, but he makes his point. But then he wants to stop and say I want you to know something about Scripture. I want you to understand the ongoing role of the Old Testament. Now, this is by my count, the 65th time that the Apostle Paul has quoted the Old Testament in the book of Romans. 65 times up to this point and he'll quote it six more times in this chapter And so he wants to stop and just talk about the ancient writings, the ancient scriptures. He wants to commend the purpose of scripture. Now, I believe that the devil's ancient work may be one of the oldest works of the Devil on Earth is to get human beings to doubt the Scripture, to doubt the Word of God specifically. You look at Genesis 3, and what does the devil say to Eve "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?" Injecting the seed of doubt. Oh how much trouble has come from that seed of doubt over the Word of God. But injecting that seed of doubt. Now how does it fit into the context of the church at Rome? Well it's a mixed church, you've got Jews who are well-acquainted with the Old Testament, and Gentiles who probably weren't as well-acquainted with the law of Moses and with all of these regulations and all that. They haven't been living them, they maybe were familiar with them. They're coming together now in a whole new era of redemptive history. It's the New Covenant now, it's a different time. And so I think the Gentiles in particular are going to be tempted to want to just jettison the Old Testament or least sections of it, to say we don't need this anymore, it's obsolete. Why do we even have to read the law of Moses? We don't have to circumcise our sons anymore, we can eat any kind of meat we want. Why do we even need it? And so Paul wants to stop and to espouse, to establish the ongoing role of the ancient scriptures for both Jew and Gentile believer. So that they don't throw out the Bible. Furthermore, you know it was those Old Testament regulations that excluded the Gentiles anyway, that was that wall of separation that kept them on the outside. So if you're a Gentile believer, you might be tempted to just want to throw it out and get rid of it. He says No. "Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us." He says. He's talking about the Old Testament. Now, what's amazing for me as a church historian somebody interested in church history is that within one century there was a heretic in Rome named Marcian who did the very thing that Paul's protecting against. Marcian in 144 AD started his own church, in Rome. I guess that would be second Baptist in Rome, something like that. But it was the second, it was a schismatic group, and at the root of Marcian's heretical church was that the Old Testament was written by an evil God, what he called a demiurge. A wicked and evil God and therefore its teachings are wrong. We just need the letters of Paul, we need some or parts of the Gospel etcetera. He considered himself to be the successor to the Apostle Paul in his battle against Jewish legalism, he really wanted to strip the church of all of its Jewish roots that was a heresy that he started in Rome. Now, there are modern attacks on the old Testament. Ever hear it? There's the God of the Old Testament and then there's the of God of the New Testament, the God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath, and arbitrary rules that we don't need to follow anymore. The God of the New Testament is the God of love and mercy and grace, we see it in Jesus, in His inclusivity, and in his love for people. But then the Old Testament, this God reigns down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah and so there's a split there. So you see people like Thomas Jefferson or Mahatma Gandhi or Albert Einstein making disparaging comments about the Old Testament, and even somewhat attracted to Jesus even Einstein as a Jewish man. Many modern people attack the concept of the Old Testament and any thought of reconciling the message of the Old Testament and the New. All Scripture Given for a Purpose But Paul here, I believe, is defending all of scripture, and saying, all of scripture is helpful and beneficial to Christians in an ongoing way. The scripture was given for a purpose. Look at verse 4, it says, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope." That is a purpose statement. It's why the Bible was given to us, God had a reason for writing it down. So many attackers of The Bible, critics of the Bible make it a human book. The Bible is ultimately God's book and God had a reason for giving it to us, he had a purpose in writing it down. Look at the purpose statements, everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. That's an infinitive of purpose. So that that's a purpose statement. That we might have hope, that is the purpose that he's giving us. This is a very purposeful statement here, and he's saying that all of scripture is a gift, it's all that way. "Everything that was written in the past," he says, reminds me of 2nd Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." And that means everything, that means the history books, all the Old Testament history, that means the genealogies are there for a reason. That means the Law of Moses still has something to say to us even though it's been fulfilled in the new covenant. That means that the prophecies are there for us to read. Everything that was written in the past, etcetera. And what is God's intended audience? Well, it's us, His people, His chosen people, through every generation century after century. God was thinking about you when he spoke to Abraham and he said, "So shall your offspring be." And Abraham heard that promise concerning the stars, he heard that promise, and he believed God, and the scripture says, "Abraham believed God and it was credited him as righteousness," Romans chapter 4. The Apostle Paul says this, "The words, 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us to whom God will credit righteousness - for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." Those words were written down for us so that we could read them. All of those prophecies. You look at what David wrote, "They have pierced my hands and my feet," Psalm 22. Did David know what He was writing? He didn't understand it was written for us. First Peter 1, said they didn't understand they searched trying to understand it, but "it was revealed to them, that they were not serving themselves," but us. Jesus himself in the debates with the Sadducees, he talked about the account of the burning bush and he said, "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven't tou read what God said to you. I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." God is speaking to you through Scripture. When you take up the Bible in the morning for your quiet time, you should say, God speak to me, say something to me, this is a biblical concept. So everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that we might have certain things happening in our soul. Some time ago. I read a book by Graeme Goldsworthy called "Gospel and Kingdom" and he's troubled by some of those glib applications, you know David and Goliath. There was a chapter somewhat humorously, entitled "Killed any good giants lately?" And basically the problem he has with the application of scripture is that it goes too quickly from the text right over to immediate modern day application. So what are the giants in your life? Boy it'd be easy for me as a preacher to just do that. Alright? What are the giants in your life? And whatever problems financial. I could even do a three-point sermon. You probably might like it occasionally. Alright, giant number one, giant number two, giant number three. I looked at that and I said that isn't right, but you know something, I must tell you, I've kind of come, not full circle, but come to a different place. You still need to read the story of David and Goliath, saying what are you saying to me, Lord? What are you trying to teach me here? Yes, David is more like Jesus, than he is like us, We are not called to be heroic and go save the people of God, by facing such a ferocious giant. We're more like the Israelites cowering in the holes wanting someone else to save us. That is all true but you still need to learn something, you need to be fed by the scripture, you must be. That's why it was given. And so I've kind of come full circle. My yearning today is that you who are sitting and listening to me today will get what you need for this week to be holy and fruitful for Christ. That's my yearning, apart from that I've wasted my time and yours. Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. Now, there's a lot of immediate purposes, here. Look at it, you see, everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. So, that's instruction so that through endurance and encouragement, we might have hope. Those are immediate goals of the scripture. There are others that come in, not right here, but they're there. As you read the Bible, warnings against sin, and their enticements, through promises. Joy and celebration, wonder and awe, insight and understanding. All kinds of good things come to us when we read the Scripture. But let me tell you something, the ultimate purpose of scripture, the ultimate purpose of scripture is that God may be glorified by your salvation. That's the purpose. Because it says in Second Timothy 3-15. Paul speaking to Timothy, how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That is why the scripture was given and you know that salvation is a lifetime work, and so through faith in Christ Jesus, that you would be given the wisdom you need to believe. And the ultimate goal of Verse 6, "So that with one heart and mouth, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." That's why the Bible was given, so that we wretched sinners would be cleansed of our wretched sin. And that we would be brought into the very presence of God and that we would be eternally glorifying God for His mercy in Christ. That's the purpose of scripture. II. Scripture’s Glorious Chain Reaction Now, look at the glorious chain reaction we have here. Look again at verse 4, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope." First, Paul starts with instruction. The Bible Was Given For Instruction The Bible was given to teach us. Have you ever heard people speak about head knowledge? They almost always say, it negatively. Well, I'm not sure what part of my body I'm supposed to use to have knowledge. Okay, is it okay for us to have head knowledge? What do you think? I don't think it's just Okay, I think it's absolutely essential to the Christian life. The problem is if it just stays in your head and it's not transforming your heart, that's what they say, and we agree about that. But my goodness, there can be no heart knowledge without first there being some head knowledge. Would you all agree? Just nod at me, I know it's hot in here friends. I know I'm hot too, but yes, we must have the head knowledge before we can have the heart knowledge. And so the scripture was given to teach us, to teach us things that we would not know any other way. Facts about God, His attributes, what he's like, his decrees in eternity, his actions in history, facts about God, facts also about Christ, His person, His miracles, His teachings, His death on the cross, His resurrection, His ascension, His future reign. His coming in glory, judgment He will sit and all the nations, gather before him. I need to know these facts and I can't know them any other way, except from the Bible. Facts also about the people of God, about the Jews in the Old Testament, about the church in the New Testament trying to understand what happened to people when they obeyed, what happened to people when they disobeyed. I need to know these things. And scripture was given to teach me. And frankly, without this knowledge we cannot have faith and without faith our character cannot be transformed and without our character being transformed we cannot act differently. And so knowledge that the Scripture gives primes the pump for the entire Christian journey. We must have this knowledge, we must know what the Bible teaches. I think this is the essence of Romans 12:2 were it says, "Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. And so the scripture was given to teach us. Don't despise a teaching ministry. Thank God for it. I'm not here just to move your emotions. I think there are other speakers that can do that better than I can. But I want you to know what Romans 15, 4 through 6 teachers. That's my goal today because I trust that this scripture will help you in your Christian life. And I have a sense I may never preach on it again. And so my desire is that you would understand as fully as possible within the hour and a half that we have together that you would understand. See, some of you are laughing, others are visitors and you're worried now. Okay? We are not going to be here an hour and a half, but in the brief time we have I want you to understand this text. That's my goal, every week. So teaching. The Bible Was Given for Endurance Secondly, endurance. Notice that Paul gives two character traits that are closely related, endurance and encouragement. Endurance is the ability to persevere through trials and temptations without giving up. Endurance means you don't give up, you keep going, you're in a 26 mile race and at the 20 mile mark when you are exhausted and you think there is no way you can make it through those last six miles that now are feeling like 60 and your legs are heavy and you burned all of the resources you have and you just don't have any idea how you'll make it another step, you must have endurance. That's what endurance is. Endurance is essential to your salvation. Think about Luke 8:15, The Parable of the Seed and the Soils. The seed on good soils stands for those with a noble and good heart who hear the word, retain it and by endurance produce a crop. You gotta stick with it in the Christian life. You can't give up. Again, in Romans 2:7, it says, "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality He will give to them eternal life." That is not salvation by works, friends. He's just describing the life that ends up in heaven. Persistence in doing good, seeking glory, honor and immortality. That's the Christian life. Romans 8:25, it says, "But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it with endurance, we wait for it patiently." And again in Hebrews 10:36, you need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. Perseverance, endurance is essential to the Christian life. Now, the Christian life can become easily very discouraging, isn't that true? Are you ever tempted to be discouraged in your Christian life? Look inward, you say you know you need to be like Christ, but you keep seeing the sin crop up. You thought you were done with it. Irritability, lust, pride, selfishness, materialism, idolatry. And you thought you were done and you're not. And it's so discouraging as you fight sin, so discouraging. You yearn to see more godliness in your family life, in your marriage, in your parenting, in your relationship, in your family. And their sin is active as well. You want to see yourself lead more people to Christ, but nobody ever seems to come to Christ or the ones that show some indications they end up being the other seeds in the soil. The sun comes up or whatever and then a year later they're not around. And that's so discouraging. You want to see your church be a glorifying spirit filled fruitful Church and it's less than you think it should be. And all of us see it. And it's discouraging, it can be very discouraging. Let me tell you something. I said recently, we're meeting with a group of men and I said, "Satan is eager to sell you discouragement at every corner of the road." I remember I was on a mission trip to Haiti. I'll never forget this. And we were going through the streets of Port-au-Prince and we were in the poorest area of the city, Cite Soleil. And we saw kids coming with containers and getting muddy ditch water out of the ditch and then going into the tent city there. And I thought, "What in the world are they going to use that water for?" Well, about a mile of the road there were these cute little Haitian kids coming right up to our bus, we weren't moving very fast, we were going... We were just stop and go. And they're coming right to the windows and they're trying to sell us refreshing looking drinks of blue and red and orange color. They didn't look new. The bottles looked mostly clean. And I looked at that and I said, "No way am I buying that and drinking it, even though I'm very thirsty." And it did have condensation on the outside, it looked refreshing. But I said, there's poison in that bottle. There's no way my system can handle it. But they were persistent in selling it, they really wanted to sell it to us. And I think that's a picture of what the devil tries to do with discouragement. So, "Here, have this, drink this." All of the time, "Be discouraged, feel down." And we've got to say, "No sale." I can't be discouraged just because my story has a happy ending, has a glorious ending. How can I be discouraged? And the whole Church's story is a glorious story with a happy ending. Discouragement is unfit for the Christian life. We have to fight it at every turn. So how does scripture resupply our endurance? Well, it gives us examples of endurance in the Bible. Look at Abraham waiting 25 years to get Isaac. Look at Joseph who unjustly is sold into slavery by his brothers, unjustly imprisoned by Potiphar, unjustly left there when some others of servants of Pharaoh said they would get him out, but they didn't. But through all of that he maintains, Jacob said, "Limber arms in the service of God." He's ready to go and when his time came he wasn't bitter, he wasn't angry, he just stepped forward. Endurance. Or you've heard of the patience or endurance of Job, how he went through all of these trials and never cursed God or sinned. So examples. Hannah, who prayed for a child and God granted her prayer. Or the Apostle Paul as he city after city is persecuted. Endurance. Scripture also re-supplies our endurance by giving us promises connected to our endurance. How about this one, in Matthew 10:22, "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." Well, that's an encouragement. Isn't it? To endurance. Or by dire warnings of what happens to people who don't persevere. Look at Samson. Samson made it through three tests with Delilah, right? "Tell me the secret of your great strength." I just want to know. He was not a discerning guy. Why do you want to know the secret of my strength? This is making me suspicious. Alright? And then even worse to test whether he told the truth, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you." This is not a good relationship. And he should've known, but he didn't. And finally through the nagging on and on, he gave up, he just gave up. It's a picture of us and temptation, isn't it? We just get tired and we give in. It's an example. Look what happened to him, his eyes were put out and he lost his strength. Or by stimulations to prayer through to strengthen perseverance. Jesus said in Luke 18:1, He "told His disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and never give up." So He gets you praying, Jesus tells you this parable about the persistent widow and all that. And that you should never give up, keep praying. Or just commands in Hebrews 10:36. "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will see what He has promised. You must persevere. These five different ways, He strengthens your endurance. The Bible Was Given for Encouragement The next word that Paul talks about here is encouragement. We've been talking about it the whole time. This is a weighty word, it's related to the word "paraclete" which is the Holy Spirit, the counselor, it is that encouragement that the Holy Spirit gives, the scripture was given for that purpose. You read of the sweetness of heaven and you're encouraged. You read of the power of God, the immutable, the unshakable power of God to finish your salvation and you are encouraged. You read of the mighty power of Christ resurrection from the dead and he is a pattern of what you will do someday. And you're encouraged. You read of the ultimate defeat of Satan, we'll get to it in Romans 16, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. And you're encouraged. You read of the promises of God to help you day after day and you are encouraged. Strengthen yourself by the Word of God, don't yield to that weakness that discouragement brings. The scripture was meant to give you encouragement. The Bible Was Given for Hope And the ultimate result of this glorious chain is hope. Hope is a certainty of delightful future things based on the promise of God. Absolutely delightful and absolutely certain. That's what hope's all about. And you know something, without hope you will not fight the good fight of faith. You just won't. You'll give in to temptation. You'll stop doing your ministry, you'll give up, you'll give up on this church, you'll give up in your family, you'll give up in your marriage, you'll give up in your fight against sin, you just will give up. You must have hope because if you don't have hope you will not fight. And if you don't fight you will not make any progress. You've got to have hope. So you see the glorious chain. Scripture instructs us, through the instruction we get endurance and encouragement. The result of that is hope and we keep moving in the Christian life. III. God’s Wonderful Gifts: Endurance, Encouragement, Unity And praise God for it. That's what he's giving us. Now, all of these wonderful things are from God. Isn't that wonderful? Look at verse five and six, "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus. So that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is the benediction. It's not a prayer. Because you're not talking to God, but he's talking almost like a prayer. It's like a benediction. May the Lord be gracious to you and bless you, may He make his face shine upon you and give you rest. That kind of benediction. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement. But the point of the benediction is that all of the good things you need to see the race through to the end, they come from God. Now, many of you saw a number of years ago that film about Eric Little, Chariots of Fire. And I don't know if you remember, but there's this very dramatic point earlier in the movie in which he, who's usually just a sprinter, 100 meter runner, runs the 400 meters. And he gets knocked down to the ground. And in a race that short it's still longer, it's longer than 100 meters. But race that short, that's a kiss of death. There's no way you're going to be able to get up off the ground and win a 400 meter race. Except that Eric Little just wouldn't give up. So he gets up and he digs deep and he fights as hard as he can. And at the tape, he wins the race. After that he gives somewhat of a gospel presentation. And he's talking about the Christian race, he likens the Christian faith to the running of a race. And he says, "Where then does the strength come from to see the race through to the end?" And what does he say? "It comes from within." No it doesn't. I'm sorry, I know it's a good Christian movie and all that kind of thing, but that's just wrong. Let me ask you a question, how long would you have lasted in your Christian life if all of your resources had to come from yourself? Would you not have given up a long, long time ago. Let me ask the question again because it is a good question. We just need the right answer. Where then does the strength come from to see the race through to the end? He actually corrects it later in the movie by quoting Isaiah 40. You remember? He's in Paris he's at the Church of Scotland and it's so powerful, this montage of success and failure, athletic, whatever. And you're listening to Isaiah 40 and this is what it says, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the Earth, He will not grow tired or weary. His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary, he increases the power of the faint. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." So where then does the strength come from to see the race through the end? It comes from God. How do you keep getting up in the morning and having your quiet time, how is it after a day in which you have yielded to temptation and you feel disgusting and you feel totally unfit to be a Christian, the next day there's an internal strength to get up, repent, confess and try it again. Where does that strength come from? It comes from God who will not let you go. And praise God for it. He's got hold of you and He will never let you go until you are finished being saved. Where then does the strength come from to see the race through to the end? It comes from the one who began the race in you and that is God. And God wants to give us, this church and all Christian churches around the world, one final gift. He wants to give us a spirit of unity among ourselves. He wants us to love each other and care about how the race is going for each other and to notice when somebody is stumbling and falling and to help them to be a minister of encouragement to them strengthening them by means of the scripture, that's what he wants, he wants to give us a spirit of unity among ourselves so that we don't give up. None of us give up. Brother and sister, does it matter to you if your brothers and sisters finish this race? Did you care? Does it matter to you? You should. We will watch over one another in brotherly love. That's what we say we're going to do for each other. And what is God's ultimate purpose in all of this? Well, may the God who gives endurance and encouragement, give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ, literally, according to Christ Jesus so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. IV. God’s Ultimate Purpose: Perfect Unity in Glorifying Him Friends, the purpose of everything is right there, the Glory of God. He does it all for His own Glory, he's saving you so that you can with one heart and mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Where are we heading? Where are we going? Well, in Christ, we're going to heaven and what are we going to see when we get there? Well, we're going to see a throne and someone sitting on it? And if we look around, we're going to see people from every tribe and language and people and nation. And they will be with one heart and mouth focused on one thing, the throne and the One sitting on it. And they will be honoring and glorifying the Lamb of God. Who shed his blood that they could be there. Who paid the price so that we could be there. And there will be no divisions by race. There will be no divisions socio-economically, no division by talent or intelligence or gender or what era of church history we lived in. We'll all be one. That's where we're heading. Now, I think it's good for us to act like it in the meantime. So that when people walk into this Church they sense and feel strongly a sense of unity among ourselves. We need to see it in our corporate worship. We're shifting out application. Every Sunday, will you please get yourself ready to worship and glorify God? Will you please do it in this way? Go to the Scriptures and say, "Lord, who am I in Christ? Please tell me how much you love me." If you have to confess sin then do it. Repent and bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. Get yourself ready to be with the brothers and sisters in Christ. Strengthen yourself in the spirit. And listen, if this upcoming week you're discouraged, don't just lay there and be discouraged. Fight it, open up the Word of God and say, "Lord encouraged me. Please feed me, sustain me and strengthen me through the word of God. Give me a message today so that I could be filled with joy." You know something? We're of no use if we don't really believe how much God has loved us. We have no use if we're not happy in Jesus. So you need to labor on yourself every day in the Scripture to be encouraged. And then finally, ultimately, you need to trust in Christ as your personal Savior. I have no idea, I look out at faces and I don't know where each of you are at. Some of me I know very well, but others I don't know well. The Scripture gives the central endurance and encouragement in this way, come to Christ, come to the cross, believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. Close with me in prayer.