Description
ALL JACKED UP
Conflicted Within
Bil Cornelius
Even in the problems in your problems in your life. Instead of saying I have a problem. Wait a minute. Turn the light bulb on. I have an opportunity to grow and be a better person and make me more like Christ. This is a good thing. Not a bad thing. I am not the same. I have made a change. This is a brand-new me. Each and every day, open up my eyes to the possibilities. A new life starts today. A new life starts today. A new life starts today. A new life starts today.
Well today I’m talking about the second installment of a new series we’re doing called all jacked up. Last week we talked about what do you do when your relationships are all jacked up. What do you do when you’re jacked up? When you feel you don’t have it together. Have you ever felt like man, I want to live this way but I’m living this way? I want to have energy and excitement but I feel I’m laying around all day and can’t get off the couch. I want to be in great shape. I feel tired and run down. I want to eat right I find myself with a twinkie hanging out of my mouth. I want to feel this way and spiritual and close to God but I feel distant and confused what he has for me.
What do you do when the way you want to live is so far removed from the way you are living? Well the apostle Paul can relate to that. Because he felt he was all jacked up. Maybe you feel that way too. Let’s look at scripture today. Let’s look at Romans 7:21-25. We’ll just dive right in. You know as you turn there, have you ever been frustrated you can’t get someone to do what you want them to do? Have you ever been frustrated or mad at someone because they won’t act the way you want them to. I can’t get me to act the way I want to. I can’t get myself to act the way I want to act most of the time.
We can relate to the apostle Paul here in Romans 7. He said this. I’ve discovered this principle of life that when I want to do what is right I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart but there’s another power within me at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that’s still within me. What a miserable person I am. Can you relate to that or what? I can relate to that. If the apostle Paul feels miserable and wrote half the New Testament I might as well drive my car off the bridge right now. Come on. It’s discouraging, isn’t it? Who will free me in the life of death? The answer is Jesus Christ my Lord. In my mind I want to obey God’s law. Because of my sinful nature I’m a slave to sin. The apostle Paul says man I want to live right, but so many times I don’t live right.
So He understands the frustration but rather than let that discourage you, I want to actually challenge you to turn around and let it be an encouragement to realize that if the apostle Paul who wrote half the new testament can be that discouraged what makes you think you and I won’t be discouraged at times that we’ll feel we’re always spiritual and always up? That’s not reality.
I want to encourage you the first thing I’ll tell you number one, is we’re all conflicted within. Everyone of us has an inner conflict. You and I are not perfect but we are being perfected. Slowly God is perfecting us. But we’re not there yet. You are an unfinished product. I’m an unfinished product. I’m not done. God is still working on me. I have some stuff I’m still working on. I’m all jacked up.
Turn to a person say I’m all jacked up. Just tell them. If they look at you funny, say you are too, I know. I know you’re jacked up. I know. You can let them know. We are all jacked up. I mean all of us have some areas that we got a lot of work to do on. We’re all growing in the Lord. None of us are a completed deal. It’s like there’s two Bils within me one wants to live for the lord. One wants to live for me. Me that honors god. Me that doesn’t honor god. Me that wants to do the right thing. Me that wants to do the wrong thing. Me that wants to say nice things. Me that wants to talk bad about somebody. Me that wants to honors people. Me that wants to dishonor people. We all have two nature’s within us. We have the promise of god within us. But we also are marred by sin. We also have sin within us pulling us in the wrong direction at the same time.
You see, if I had two dogs in my backyard and they were fighting all the time. You know the one that would win eventually would be the one I feed the most. So I have two natures within me warring and the one that is going to win is the one I feed the most. So whenever I’m feeding. If I’m feeding the good nature, positive side of me that wants to honor god and serve the lord and full of vision, if I feed it that wins out. If I feed the negative deceitful dishonoring side of me, that also can win out.
I just want to challenge you, what are you feeding? Are you feeding the nature within you that’s the Lord, God’s spirit living within you? Or are you feeding the sinful desires? Because one or the other will eventually win out in your life. I want to encourage you. We’ll all have setbacks. We’ll have times we stumble. Doesn’t mean just because you stumble you’re out. Because you messed up too far you can’t mess up too far that you mess up beyond god’s love and grace. No matter what you did last night or last hour, God will forgive you and give you fresh start again. He loves you enough to not leave you where you are. He wants to take you from where you are to where he wants you to be.
The scripture the apostle Paul says he’s a miserable person. He says there’s a war that’s going on in his mind. So apparently, what you think about is a very big deal. You show me someone’s life who is jacked up and I’ll show you someone who has a jacked up mean thought process. If you have a jacked up mind. You’re not thinking right. Have you ever seen someone messing up and say to them, what are you thinking? What in the world are you thinking? That’s just it. They’re thinking the wrong thoughts which lead to the wrong actions. What you think is the cause and therefore the behavior is the affect.
Let me say that again. What you think about is the cause, and your behavior is the affect.
We think behavior is the cause. No. The cause is what you think; the affect is the behavior that leads to results in your life for the good or the bad. I want to challenge you to focus your mind and take captive your thoughts. It will change every area of your life. Look at Romans 12:2.it says in here, don’t copy the behavior and copies of this world but let god transform you. Transformers.
My little boy used to say when he was little I want to trance and form. We have to trance and form. Sure to transform the way we think. It says but God transforms you into a new person by changing the way you think. It’s the way we change is by changing our thoughts. Then you’ll know God’s will for you who are good and pleasing and perfect. The way you’re going to feel close to god is change the way you think. The way you’ll feel close to your spouse after years and years of struggles, change the way you think about him and think about your kids boss and schooling. If you change what you think about your schooling God will make your grades go up. I’m not smart. You have to change that. If you change and believe you’re smart suddenly it’s amazing smart people get better grades. If you think you’re smart you’ll get better grades. It really is that simple.
Now obviously I know there’s some limitations we all were born with but the truth the greatest limiter on our life is not talents or abilities. It’s the way we view ourselves. How you view yourself will determine how far you go in life. Ephesians 4:22 says throw off your sinful nature and former way of life that’s corrupted by lust and deception. Deception means lies. We bought into lies about ourselves. Instead let the spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Not only change what we’re thinking about but change our attitudes towards what we’re thinking about. Attitudes are like diapers they just need to be changed every once in a while. If you don’t, it’s going to stink.
I’m going to encourage you, you’ve got to let god renew your attitude. You may not need a new career. You need a new attitude towards the same place you’ve been going to work every day. Change your attitude towards the place. Change your attitudes towards the clients and tear tore. Territory. There are only lousy attitudes that make the territory spoiled. If you have a good attitude towards the territory you’re in it becomes a great territory and region to work. The reality is your attitude is everything.
Most of the time we don’t see the world how it is. We see the world how we are. Most people that have a negative attitude have a negative view of themselves. I want to challenge you on this. The truth is God’s word tells us the truth on us. We listen to the lies of the world, you’re not good enough unless you have what I have, unless you have his product, you’re not beautiful unless you use this or that. That may sell a product. It also sells you a bill of goods that says you’re not good enough like you are. That’s not true. We have to believe the truth on us. We are good enough. We are made in the image of the Almighty. You are beautiful. You are strong.
Listen, I’ll tell you what I tell my wife, you can’t talk for the next few minutes. You have to listen and soak it in. You’re beautiful. You’re of great value. You are strong. Your honor able. You are commendable. You are, listen; you are the apple of god’s eye. He has your picture in his wallet and he thinks you’re awesome. He’s like the father or mother you run across if you bring up the kid they’ll pull up the pictures and little Johnny does this and this. Blah blah blah. That’s what God is doing to the angels in heaven. They’re doing this. I love them. They’re wonderful. That’s the way God feels about you. That’s the way God thinks about you all the time. He really believes that.
Listen. I think it’s great we can have faith in god but what really freaks me out is that God has faith in us. God believes in us. He thinks we’re all that. I’m looking at you right now and you’re good looking! It’s the truth. God just made you awesome. Just like you are. We’ve got to get a better view. I need you to change your view of you. Change your view of you. If you don’t change that, nothing else will change. Our lives get jacked up because we don’t think we’re worthy of a good life. We don’t. We approach. We have to get a great opportunity.
You know it’s just little me. I don’t think I’m worthy of that. I’m worthy of that. I’m made in the image of god. When God sent his son to die on the cross for you, for you to say you’re of no value is to devalue the cross. Because the purpose behind the cross was your salvation. So for you to devalue you is to say the cross is a joke. And I’m not willing to say that. So the cross of great value which means you and I are of great value. He went to the cross to pay the price for you. Why? You’re worth it to him. Because you and I are worthy to him. We are made in God’s image. That’s the way God works. My favorite thing was a little pillow when I was a little kid my mom bought me. Had a little cartoon on it. It said God don’t make no junk. May not be proper English but that’s proper truth, isn’t it?
He doesn’t make junk. He made you. You’re in his image. You’ve got to begin to change the way you think about yourself. Change what you think about others. It will change everything else about your life. That’s the truth of it. Do you know what? Ladies, God didn’t blind your husbands. He sees it all. He thinks you’re all that. That’s the way he should feel. When he doesn’t feel that, that’s the way he’s blinded. He’s falling for the deception of this world. But that’s the truth. I don’t have blinders on. I see my wife plain and clear and it’s all gorgeous. That’s the truth of it. God made you beautiful. He made you strong. He made you worthy. He made you of great value.
So I want to challenge you, number two, change your mental pictures to change your life. Change the mental picture you have of yourself to change your life. It seems simple I know but we have to visualize and see ourselves successful and close your eyes and begin to picture yourself succeeding at what you do. Begin to picture in your mind winning that award at work. Begin picturing in your mind getting the college degree. Begin imagining in your mind walking down the aisle beautiful marrying the man of your dreams or marrying the woman of your dreams. Picture in your mind the success you’re longing for.
I’m a huge football fan, football season is back around. I love watching the game. My wife, the poor woman, pray for her, when the football season starts I have games on all the time. She’s like who is playing? East Carolina state technical school. And you’re watching this? Yeah they’re pretty good. I’m glued to it. How many guys here? It doesn’t matter what the game is if its junior high B team they’re pretty good. So I’m watching. And my wife can’t believe I can just watch a random game. It doesn’t matter. I’ll just watch. It’s all good. I’m watching the game.
But I love to watch wide receivers. I played wide receiver in high school a little bit and when I say the word play I use that very, very loosely. Anyway, I would run these routes and they would have us run the routes over and over and over again before they would throw us the ball. We had to know the route before they would throw us a ball. Quarter backs may not be on the field yet. We’re running the routes so hopefully whenever game time came we would find ourselves in the end zone. We ran that route hundreds of times in our mind before we actually ever made the touchdown.
See the way you score in life, the way you win the game in life is by running the route of victory in your mind over and over and over again before you actually get on the field and do it. You have to have a mental picture of success of what it would look like for you to be in the end zone before you get in the end zone. You have to imagine it. We have to increase our imaginations and begin to picture the success god wants to give us. When I’m using the word success I’m not talking about worldly success. Worldly success is different from the businessman in New York and missionary in Africa but both of them if they want to succeed at what they’re doing have to visualize themselves succeeding.
Imagine it happen before they do it. People ask me about bay area out at the mall or eating. God has blessed you guys. They’ll say something like this, Man could you ever believe all that’s happened would happen? Do you know what? Because I have been trained in our society you have to sound humble and obviously I believe in being humble. But I know the answer that you’re supposed to say. So I say that I oftentimes say well God’s just been good. Who knew? It’s neat. God surprised all of us. And that sounds great. But to be honest that’s really not true.
The truth if I were to say it may sound arrogant and I don’t mean this arrogantly. The Lord does it. God can replace me in a second. I think it’s more of god’s grace he can use the clown to lead this church. When people say can you believe? I normally have the thought I want to look at them yes I believed it. That’s why it happened. I did see it. I thought thousands of people gathered together and that’s why we’re here.
Listen, hear my heart. If you didn’t see that too this church wouldn’t have happened. Not just about me. No, no, no. We all had to visualize it. This building wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be going on international television. We had to see the fruit of the ministry before we actually experienced the fruit of the ministry and people’s lives being changed. If I didn’t see this why would I move my family to start a church when I didn’t know anyone in this town? I better have a vision. You better see your business succeeding before you open a business. If you don’t see it, you’re in a lot of trouble. You’ve got to see customers pouring in. You’ve got to picture it happening. You’ve got to see the reality. You know what will help you break up Mr. And Mrs. Wrong? See Mr. And Mrs. Right before they walk into your life. You have to see it before you seize it. You’ve got to see it first. You’ve got to have the right mental picture. And believe that God can do that. That’s what God will do. Not about who we think we are. Who we think our God is.
It’s not about how great we think we are. No, no, no. Who we think our God is. For me to believe I’m of no value is devaluing the Creator who made me. God wants us to see our value in him. You’re incredible value. You’re incredibly worthy. The dreams God put in you, the very fact a dream is in you tells you God thinks you’re worthy of it or he wouldn’t put it in you. You’re worthy of it. You deserve it. God has entitled you to what it is he put the dream in your heart for. Don’t confuse entitlement attitude with entitlement. Entitlement attitude is I don’t have to do anything to get it. That would be a waste of your talents and abilities. God wants you to work to earn what it is he’s placed in your heart.
But god entitled you with a vision which means he gave you the title of the deed of the ownership of the life that you want. It’s time for you to realize you deserve that and live into that and cause the right thoughts in your mind that lead you to right actions and lead you to right results.
I want to challenge you to begin to change the mental picture you have of yourself of your situation and of what you are worthy of. It’s amazing how you can take your life that’s all jacked up and completely unjack up your life. And straighten it out. God wants to give you unjack-tification. You have to say that fast. I don’t think that’s a word. I’ll get it in the dictionary. I’m working on that. God wants you to unjack your life by unjacking your thinking, straightening out the way you think of you, your situation and all that’s going on in your life. God has a purpose and plan. God has a purpose for the problems in your life. Instead of saying I have this problem. Say wait a minute. Turn the light bulb on and say I have an opportunity. I have an opportunity to grow through this. This will make me a better person, more like Christ. This is a good thing. Not a bad thing.
Always look for the seed of goodness within the bad of your situation. There’s always a seed of goodness in every bad situation that God wants to grow you through. I want to encourage you change the mental picture and it will change everything else. Change your mind. How do I do that? How does it actually work? Philippians 4:8 tells us how. Finally beloved. Beloved means you’re loved. That’s the first part. Realize that we are loved. We are worthy. God thinks we’re all that. We already talked about that. Finally beloved, he’s talking to us. We’re loved by him. Beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there’s any excellence and there’s anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Do you know what we do? We do the exact opposite of this. We fill our minds with the worst TV programming imaginable. We listen to all the wrong songs and wrong lyrics and fill our minds with all kinds of trash and wonder why our lives are trashy. We fill our minds with negative and wonder why our minds are negative. If you listen to the average song and the way they talk about women or men or relationships and you wonder why your relationships are jacked up.
Before you listen to a song having to do with relationships look at the one who wrote it and sings it and ask them how is their relationships going? Are they healthy? They’re not healthy, why am I listening to them? Why am I listening to what they think? It’s no wonder we find our relationships all jacked up. We’re listening to the wrong people. We’re watching the wrong programs. Not all TV is bad. You should be watching Bil Cornelius television right now. The truth is this. We need to put a filter on what comes into our minds what we listen to watch what we watch and cable TV and listen to. Make sure you’re listening and watching things that are honorable and commendable and pure and pleasing to God. If you’re filling your mind with the wrong thoughts is it any wonder you also get the wrong life, wrong relationships, you find yourself at the wrong place wrong time with the wrong people? Show me what you listen to and I’ll show you your future. Show me what you read. I would love to see your book shelf. Show me what you’re reading. Show me the websites you’re going to. Don’t clear the history. What are you going to? What are you filling your minds with? That will determine what you become, what you do and what you have in your life.
The reality you just go to the house of God and don’t leave it. Become faithful. My marriage is all jacked up. I can’t believe how many couples enter our doors that way that leave straightened out with a strong marriage doing well. Maybe a part of the church but they’ve been faithful to God and faithful in this house and that straightens out your life. Nothing can change your life like the house of God. No conference, no event, no certain book, I don’t care how great it is, business guru, they’ll not straighten out your life. Robbins can’t do it. Secret won’t do it. Oprah won’t do it. The house of God is what changes your life. That’s what changes you for good.
Dr. Phil may have some wisdom but his wisdom is borrowed from Jesus. All good wisdom anything that comes out of us that’s good is borrowed from Jesus. So I just want to encourage you if you want your life to change, be in the house of God.
Number three. Prioritize the house of God. If you do that, God will change your life through that. I’ll leave you with one last question before we leave. What change can you make today that will make everything in your life better? See, I believe in making decisions that change our lives. In fact, I believe that there’s probably right now one or two decisions you can make today in a moment’s notice that will completely destroy your life. How many of you can think of something? How many of you can think of one thing that will completely mess up your life for good? That wasn’t hard. You had something on your mind already. No. The truth is we can think of that pretty quickly. I think of a decision that will destroy everything for me. One or two moves that will mess it all up.
If I think of one or two decisions that fast that can devastate my life maybe since God gave me good working mind here I can think of one or two decisions that can completely transform my life. Maybe there’s one or two things I could start doing. I can make a decision that would completely make my life take it to a whole another level. It would just ramp it up in my life. I believe that God will give you some idea, some decision you can do that changes everything in your business.
It changes everything about your marriage. It changes everything about your spouse. Change everything about your kids. Changes everything about your life. If you’re not a Christ follower I believe the decision is simple. God made one decision to change the whole world. He made one decision to send His son to die on the cross. That one decision changed history. It was a global impact. One move. If you will make this one decision with me today I want to receive that decision and receive what god did he will change everything about your life.
If you’re a Christ follower I believe God will show you a decision, some change in your home, some change in your life, some change in your career or time or what you do with your life, some simple change that can have that big of an impact. But for those of you that don’t know Christ there’s only one decision to change everything and that’s to receive him as your Lord and savior.
Will you bow your head with me? During this prayer time you can pray a simple prayer with me. I want to slow down right now so you clearly understand what we’re talking about. God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for you and me and pay the price for the sins we committed to keep us from heaven and get us all jacked up here on earth. He died on the cross to pay the price for all our sins and rose again from the grave. That’s the difference from Jesus and all other world religions is that our savior rose again from the dead.
With your head bowed and your eyes closed you can receive him right now by praying a simple prayer. You can say dear Jesus I realize I need you in my life. I believe you died on the cross for me. I believe you rose again from the grave proving that you’re god. I want to ask you to come into my life and change me from within. I want to make you the Lord and boss and coach of my life. I turn from living from myself and I want to live for you. I want to make you the Lord of my life. I look forward to one day when I pass away to going to heaven to be with you. Until then I want to follow you. Thank you, Jesus, for saving my jacked up life. Thank you for changing me on the inside. In Jesus’ name, amen. Isn’t God good? His word is so good. It is.