The Practical Living Series Series

Introduction

• If you are continually stressed out and troubled, it is time to change your mindset.

• Consider whether your thoughts align with God's Word or the world's way of thinking.

• As Christians, we are not to carry worry and stress. We must be careful not to blend in with the world, as it leads to stress, worry, and fear.

• Through God's Word you will learn how to live stress-free.

1) The amount of thought you give to the Kingdom of God determines the level of manifestation you will experience from it.

(AMP) Mark 4 24And He said to them, Be careful what you are hearing. The measure [of thought and study] you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure [of virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you--and more [besides] will be given to you who hear.

a) Shout…I want to experience the Kingdom of God.

b) We must examine what determines our thought life.

i) When you are subject to the world's system of operation and way of thinking, you will live in stress and fear.

ii) Shout…I choose not to live with stress and fear.

(1) You are a sum total of your thoughts. What are you thinking?

iii) God's Word will help you live without stress and fear of the world.

(1) God's Word gives life; there is no profit in the flesh.

(NKJV) John 6 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

(2) Jesus has called us to the purest, highest level of living. (Quality of Life – Wk 3)

2) Don’t choke out the Word.

a) Shout…I want to Word to take root in my heart.

b) When you allow yourself to be too busy, worried or concerned, you allow the Word to be choked out of you.

(AMP) Mark 4 14The sower sows the Word. 15The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown [in their hearts], but when they hear, Satan comes at once and [by force] takes away the message which is sown in them. 16And in the same way the ones sown upon stony ground are those who, when they hear the Word, at once receive and accept and welcome it with joy;

c) Worldly cares choke the Word out of your heart. Then you will have no results from it.

i) Many times you may start off with the right mindset; then Satan distracts you with the pressures of life.

ii) You can be everything God has called you to be without blending in with the world.

(Message) Romans 12 1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

(1) Today’s cultures are ever-changing; they lack boundaries.

(2) Culture is a system of beliefs, ways of life, institutions, etc., being passed down from one generation to the next. iii. Do not take on the attitudes or ways of the world.

(AMP) Romans 12 2Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].

iii) Our hope is also in the Holy Spirit. He keeps us from becoming stressed out.

iv) If you are a friend of the world, you are an enemy to God.

3) Satan is trying to stop your pursuit of the things of God.

a) If you are steadfast in faith and refuse to be moved, God will reward you.

i) The Word of God will prepare you to overcome the attacks of the enemy.

ii) God's Word will apprehend negative emotions caused by pressure from the enemy.

iii) When you face challenges, renew your mind with the Word for specific areas.

(1) Allow the Word to change you from the inside out.

b) Stress and worry create trouble and strife.

i) For example, Martha was stressed out and angry because she was too busy (Luke 10:38-42, AMP).