Week One: Believing in You

Synopsis of Bible Study 9/12/18

Delivered by Bishop Walker III DMin

Foundation scripture: Hebrews 10:35-36 (NKJV) 35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:

I.                Introduction

• All of us have to face challenges and some of our challenges are intense. Know that challenges are not sent to knock the wind out of you and cause you not to pursue your purpose.
• As you encounter life, you have to realize there is another side to your suffering. When challenges you begin to realize that there is fight in you.
• Know that life doesn’t make an appointment. Life just happens.

A.    You have to fight from a place of faith.

2 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV)  says 14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us [a]diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.- There is a 100% guarantee that you will be triumphant if you allow God to lead you.

1. If you go through the hell on earth and believe that you are a victor and not a victim, then you are
2. Relationship with Christ, puts His DNA into my life. This makes me respond like Him during life’s struggles.
3. It makes me respond like him. Philippians 4:13 (NKJV) says 13 I can do all things through [a]Christ who strengthens me.- Through relationship, I am empowered. In his strength, I am able to do what I could not do.
4. There are things we barely made through with Christ in our lives. Imagine then someone trying to go through this same stuff without Him. When you understand this, you realize that through this relationship, you refuse to go through, living your life in the past.

II.              Struggles of your past

A.    Never allow your past pain to cause you to lose confidence in your assignment.

1. Just because you have lost a few battles, doesn’t mean you will lose the war. The enemy will try to make you look like you are failing, but you got to realize that the battle isn’t over until God says so.
2. You got to stop romancing your mistakes. Fight forward! Fear is the only thing that can cause you not to win.

3. Philippians 3:13-14 (NKJV) says 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have [a]apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. – Brethren in this scripture is universal term. It has nothing to do with Gender. It is talking to both male and female.
4. Read the characteristics below and circle the things that you feel apply to you.
5. Characteristics displayed when we fear failing:
   1. Failing makes you worry about what other people think about you.
   2. Failing makes you worry about your ability to pursue the future you desire.
   3. Failing makes you worry that people will lose interest in you.
   4. Failing makes you worry about how smart or capable you are.
   5. Failing makes you worry about disappointing people whose opinion you value.
   6. You tend to tell people beforehand that you don’t expect to succeed in order to lower their expectations.
   7. Once you fail at something, you have trouble imagining what you could have done differently to succeed.
   8. You often get last-minute headaches, stomach aches, or other physical symptoms that prevent you from completing your preparation.
   9. You often get distracted by tasks that prevent you from completing your preparation which, in hindsight, were not as urgent as they seemed at the time.
   10. You tend to procrastinate and “run out of time” to complete your preparation adequately.
6. All of these things will make you forfeit your future. This is about you allowing your past pain to dictate your future. This is self-sabotage.
7. In order not to be hindered, you must be
8. Paul says he recognizes that he doesn’t know everything, but he chooses not to focus on what’s behind him.
9. What is Paul doing? He is reaching. There is no way to reach without stretching. Paul is saying he is reaching beyond what is natural. You can’t spring forth, if you are clinging to something. Your future is tied to what you are willing to let go of.
10. What is press the root word of? It is the root word of “pressure”. Pressing means something will always be pressing against you. We have to press against whatever is pressing against us in order to get to our goal. My pressing is tied to my fight!
11. When you press something, you are pressing against some type of force. For example, you don’t press your clothes unless they are wrinkled. You press against the wrinkles to smooth out the pants. If a tire is flat, then the air you put in must press against the tire to inflate it.
12. Ex – Bishop was on a trip for his birthday. He got the opportunity to see Floyd Mayweather train. Bishop notice that when he trains, he did a lot of getting hit. This was strange to Bishop, because Floyd is known for avoiding getting hit.
13. During the training session, Bishop noticed that Floyd had trained himself to respond with a counter blow, every time someone hit him. Normally when someone gets hit, they buckle, especially if it is in the stomach. This is was not the case with Floyd Mayweather though. Every time he got hit, the responded with some kind on counter blow.

B.     It happened to make you stronger not to stifle you

1. Just like all the hitting done to Floyd in his training, you got to know that it came not to stifle you, but instead make you stronger.
2. When there is a struggle, there is resistance. You can’t struggle without gaining more power. Everything you have gone through has made you stronger. If you look back on it, you can see where you have gotten stronger. Things that would have broken you down years ago, does not break you down today. You have gotten stronger mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually all because of the things you have gone through.

 “To be a champ you have to believe in yourself when no one else will.”
–Sugar Ray Robinson

2 Timothy 2:12 (NKJV) 12 If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.- Your ability to stay in the fight will get you to the next level.

III.            This is the season for preparation.

A.    The season following your painful predicament is practice for your promotion.

1. You got to stay in combat mode. Don’t become comfortable or complacent. Some people can pass the strength test, but not the endurance test.
2. David says in Psalm 40:1-2 (NKJV) 40 I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry. 2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps.-David gives us insight of something he encountered. This was not a physical place, it was a spiritual place.
3. David said he was in a dark pit, in slippery clay. When he tried to get out, he kept slipping back in it.
4. To keep slipping back, trying to come out, implies that David was here for a while. He was there long enough to realize that he couldn’t get himself out, so he cried out to God! He prayed to Him who could get him out and so God reached down and pulled him out of this place and did for David what he could not do himself.

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” –J.K. Rowling

5. God set his feet on a rock. He established his going. David implies that he was in a pit filled with darkness and despair. He was functioning in a slippery space. He learned how to survive in the mud. He was institutionalized by his situation.
6. When God brought him up, He sit him up on new terrain. It was stable foundation and God had to teach David how to walk on it, reminding him that he belonged there. David had been in his situation so long, he did not know how to function in his new environment.
7. If I don’t’ understand how to establish how to operate on my new foundation, I live in fear that I might slip and fall. You got to learn how to walk on your new terrain when God brings you up.
8. You got to believe in you. God didn’t bring you up for nothing. If you hadn’t hit rock bottom, you wouldn’t know that life had a bottom.

B.     You are called to walk in confidence to the place He is about to take you

1. God is about to take you somewhere. Some of you have already been sensing it in your spirit. 2 Corinthians 2:9 (NKJV) 9 For to this end I also wrote, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things.- You got to be willing to fight through some things in order to get to the place you dreamed about.

“Great it is to dream the dream when you stand in youth by the starry stream, but a greater thing is to fight life through and say in the end the dream is true!” –John Osteen

2. God set great things in your path, but they won’t come to past, if you don’t fight for it. You can’t just hope for the best. You got to fight through and make great decisions.
3. We think through faith and we study the word in context. Divine intervention doesn’t happen without human interaction. You have a role in the process. There are many places in the bible where God responds after you move. One example is when God says if you bring the tithe, he will open the windows of heaven.
4. Human responsibility + divine intervention makes (=) miracles happen.
5. David had to fight from the pasture all the way to the Palace. Joseph didn’t make it from the pit to palace without fighting through some things. That person around you looking nice, who seems to have it all together, will tell you that they had to do a lot of fighting to get where they are.

IV. The Significance of the Promise

A.    The promise is guaranteed for those who learn to endure. You won’t have to wait long.

1. Hebrews 10:37 (NKJV) 37 “For yet a little while, And He[a] who is coming will come and will not [b]tarry.- It won’t take long. You been hit so much, you’ve developed an immunity to it. You promise is on the way.
2. Daniel didn’t run from the lions in the lion’s den. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t run from the fiery furnace. Isaiah 41:10 (NKJV) says 10 Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’- Know that you can endure. 2 Timothy 2:3 (NKJV) says 3 You therefore must endure[a] hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.– Endure like a good soldier.
3. You’ve rid yourself of fear. Now:

B.     Faith is required on the journey towards your future.

1. Forgive those who hurt you
2. Forsake trying to impress others
3. Forge new and healthy relationships
4. Focus on what’s important
5. Faith it, don’t fake

1 Corinthians 15:58 (NKJV) says 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.– What you are doing is not out of order.

V. Conclusion

1. Every attack is going after your hope. The enemy wants your hope.
2. Your hope is tied to your faith.
3. You got to come to place where you believe in yourself. Stop doubting where you are.
4. You’ve made mistakes, but now that behind you. Romans 8:18 (NKJV) 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.- There is glory coming in your life. Glory does not come in your life absent from a story. No story, no glory.
5. You wouldn’t go through it, unless God was about to blow your mind. The glory of the Lord will come over everything in your life, because you didn’t give up.
6. Stay in the ring and keep fighting!