Odds are, if you really think about the way you feel, you can always find a thought that started it. If you’re feeling insecure, did you compare yourself to someone else first? If you’re frustrated, did you catch a thought of offense?
Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC is helping us guard our minds and hearts from thoughts that are making us sick.
In this season of our lives we’re practicing social distancing because we all know we can catch a disease from being in contact with other people. But are we paying attention to the contacts in our phone? We may not be close to others physically, but that doesn’t mean we are immune to the influence of their mindsets.
Pastor Steven challenges us to ask this question whenever we’re feeling like we don’t matter and struggling with insecurity, “Where did that thought come from?” He helps you know what to do when your thoughts attack? Just like Eve in the garden of Eden who caught a deceptive thought from a serpent, we are susceptible to deception and manipulation from the competing voices vying for our attention.
We believe watching this message will help you fight back against the thoughts that are attacking your peace of mind.
Honestly, this is why I had to stop hanging
out with some certain people.
I started realizing you catch what you’re
close to.
Now if you need to take out your phone at
this point in my sermon and do some surgery
with that “swipe left, delete” move…
Some of y’all don’t need to lift your hands
to have more faith; you need to swipe your
thumb, because it is your contacts…
I caught something.
I catch something every time I’m around them,
every time I scroll.
I noticed this the other day.
I get in a certain mood, and I can’t figure
out, “How was I so happy three minutes ago,
and now…?”
Have you ever had it switch that quickly?
I started studying, and I realized that before
I caught a feeling, I caught a thought.
Sometimes that thought is just me going through
my feed, and I will see something that won’t
register…
Here’s what I noticed.
You don’t feel it while you’re scrolling.
When I ate a whole bag of Oreos one Thanksgiving
after I’d already eaten three meals, I didn’t
feel sick while I was eating them.
My taste buds didn’t tell me to stop.
So I’m scrolling, and I don’t feel sick until
after I’ve stopped.
What I realized about myself…
Maybe you’re more spiritually mature than
me and you can find a church where the pastor
is whole, healthy, and doesn’t have these
issues, but for all of us who understand that
sometimes you are mad about something that
you saw 10 minutes ago on your phone because
you were in everybody else’s life but your
own, trying to figure out, “Am I better than
them?
Are they better than me?”
What happened while I was scrolling…
I saw them on vacation, and I know they’re
in debt, so I caught a thought of judgment.
“Why should they be on vacation when I know
they’re in debt?”
Now I feel sick 10 minutes later because of
a thought I caught while I scrolled through
somebody else’s situation that has nothing
to do with my responsibility.
What happened to me was I caught a thought
of offense, and then I reaped an attitude
of frustration.
I got offended the other day because I saw
God blessing somebody he wasn’t supposed to
bless.
Did you ever watch God just do something awesome
for the wrong person?
He didn’t consult you.
So I found myself feeling insecure.
he reason I felt insecure in myself is because
I caught a thought of offense about somebody
else.
Now here’s what happens: You become a victim
of your own judgment.
When you judge others that way, you judge
you that way.
So when you catch a thought of judging others,
don’t be surprised when the judgment comes
upon you.
So I caught a thought.
I caught a thought, and I realized the thought
I hold onto…
You know, like you can catch a wave.
You can catch a football for the game-winning
touchdown, like Graham Furtick did yesterday.
Just this very yesterday.
But I never knew I could catch a thought.
I knew you could catch a case.
I have some relatives who did it.
I knew you could catch a cold, but I found
out you could catch a thought.
Then I trace sometimes the weakness of my
faith, and I ask myself the question, “Where
did that thought come from?”
It’s important where it came from, because
where it comes from determines where it leads
to.
My issue is that when I say I hear from God,
I don’t hear him out loud.
God bless you if you do.
I’ve never heard the audible voice of God.
Ever.
I mean, he speaks through my wife all the
time, but other than that exception, I’ve
never heard the audible voice of God.
If you have, I’m not mad at you…unless you
start trying to use it to manipulate people
by making up stuff God told you, because God
has three-way calling and he can tell us both.
Don’t tell me God spoke to you something I’m
not in agreement with and try to get me to
do something you want to do by saying God
told you to, especially if you say God told
you to quit your job because you’re just tired
of dealing with frustrating people.
I don’t know if that’s God or if you’re just
tired and need to get some sleep and have
a better attitude when you show up.
I’ve never heard from God out loud.
One guy asked me one time, “When you say God
spoke to you, how do you know?”
Great question.
I don’t hear God at an auditory level, so
when I say, “God spoke,” that can be misleading.
When Peter said, “Jesus spoke to me,” it was
literal.
Jesus was a person.
“He spoke to me.
I was fishing one night.
I hadn’t caught anything.
I was frustrated, and Jesus said, ‘Let down
your nets in the deep for a catch.'”
And Peter would say, “At first I was frustrated,
because I thought, ‘You’re a carpenter.
I’m a fisherman.
You do your job; I’ll do mine.
You wanted my boat to preach from.
I didn’t know you were going to try to drive
it.’
But because you say so, I will let down the
nets.”
Now, when he let down the nets, he caught
a great number of fish, but God was showing
me that before he caught the fish, he caught
a thought.
Before there was a seat, there was a thought.
See, the issue with this is I don’t hear God
out loud like that, so I connect with God
not on an auditory or sensory level; I connect
with God at the level of thought, which would
be fine if God spoke to me at the level of
thought and he was the only one who spoke
that way.
But I have this other joker.
They call him the Devil.
When I say, “The Devil tempts me” or “The
Devil discourages me,” I’m not talking about
a guy in a Halloween costume that he got on
clearance at Target, walking up with a pitchfork
and a cape and some horns.
I never saw the Devil like that.
I’d just put him off my shoulder.
He’s not on my shoulder.
When he comes to me, he comes to me through
a thought.
So now I have God speaking to me through my
thoughts.
I have the Enemy trying to speak against what
God spoke to me through my thoughts.
I have two voices on the same device, and
I’m caught between a thought.
One is telling me, “Your greatest years are
ahead of you.”
One is telling me, “You’ve already done all
the good things you’re going to do.
You’d better ride it out, because it won’t
be much longer.”
One is telling me, “Go ahead and speak it
and say it and do it and step into it and
believe for it.”
The other one is telling me, “Well, you’d
better not go too far out there.
If you go too far out there, you’ll be embarrassed.
After all, if you climb high, they can pull
you down.”
I’m caught
between Caleb (“We can”) and the other spies.
I’m caught.
I got a thought.
I got caught.
I got caught by a thought.
I don’t know how it happened, but, y’all,
I have this thought that goes through my mind
all the time that says, “It doesn’t matter.”
Just all the time.
I could be doing anything, and it will be
like…
You know that eye roll emoji?
That would be the face of it, but the thought
behind it is like, “Who cares?
It doesn’t matter.”
Have you ever had that thought catch you trying
to do something?
“You’re not enough.”
I don’t know if you say it exactly like that,
but it’s crazy how many people I talk to…
I used to think it was people who didn’t have
a lot of confidence, but then I realized professional
athletes have this thought that “I’m not enough.”
They are the ones who our society worships,
and still there’s a thought…
It’s a thought that’s going around.
The reason it’s going around so much more
now than it used to go around is because now
we don’t judge ourselves or measure ourselves
according to the calling God has given us;
we compare ourselves to a fictionalized account
of somebody else’s life.
That’s where you always get in trouble.
Now get this point.
You always get in trouble when you start comparing
your calling to somebody else’s.
When you compare callings, you catch insecurity.
When you compare callings, you catch insufficiency.
When I think, “I’m not enough…”
Even the disciples…
“It’s not enough food to go around, Jesus.
You need to send them away.”
How many times have I sent away something
God put in my life because I caught a thought
that I’m not enough?
They wandered around and around and around
in the wilderness for 40 years, not because
of their enemy but because of their thought.
Then even sometimes when things are going
well I have this thought.
I don’t know where it comes from.
I don’t think it’s God.
I don’t think it is.
It’s hard to tell sometimes, because it’s
not like he talks like this.
He doesn’t sound like Morgan Freeman.
It’s just a thought.
Come on.
If God sounded like Morgan Freeman, you could
do it.
If he narrated your life like that, you could
do it.
You could make it.
You would go to sleep and wake up and just
be ready for the day.
But it comes like a thought.
Even when it’s going well…
“It won’t last.
They’ll leave you too.
You can’t count on them.”
Then you sabotage the gift because you’re
not secure in it, because even while it’s
happening you don’t believe it’s real.
These are my thoughts.
I don’t know where I caught them.
I had a good mom, a good dad.
I mean, they weren’t perfect.
Don’t get me wrong.
I wish I could trace it back to just one traumatic
event.
I think that would be easier.
“I’m not enough.”
Where did that thought come from?
I’m not sure where it comes from, but I know
where it takes me.
When I look back on the seasons of my life
that I was so deep in depression…
And I know the Bible verses.
I know them better than you.
Let’s have a quoting contest.
“Rejoice in the Lord always.
I will say it again: Rejoice!”
See my hand motions?
I know the verse.
“Rejoice in the Lord always.”
Then Paul says, “I will say it again: Rejoice!”
Well, you can say it as many times as you
want to, Paul.
I’m sad right now, and I can’t find my way
out.
So now I’m fighting on the level of my feelings,
but before it became a feeling…
It wasn’t just like Moses was a bad leader.
Even Paul had to fight against opposing voices
and thought systems that undermined the essence
of the grace of God in the gospel, even in
the churches he started, even in the church
at Corinth.
He would write to that church, and what would
happen to them was they would be led astray,
or the word he likes to use in 2 Corinthians
is deceived.
He says, “I fear that you’re being deceived
by the power of suggestion.”
He uses the example…
He says, “Like Eve was deceived by the Serpent.”
Do you remember that story?
When God said, “You can eat any of this,”
and then she caught a thought from a snake.
She allowed something that was beneath her
to speak to her.
She caught a thought.
See, I’ve never had a snake slither up to
me and talk to me.
I wish I did.
I wish it was a snake that I could chop the
head off of.
It’s a thought, and I have to live with this,
and I have to deal with it.
The Serpent said to Eve, “Did God really say…?”
Do you see it?
He introduces a doubt into the possibility
and potential of faith, causing her to focus
on what is not available rather than what
is.
Paul says, “I’m afraid that you will be deceived.”
There are these spies in the church at Corinth,
and they’re leading the Christians astray.
They’re doing it by the power of thought.
They are introducing the thought into the
church that you need something other than
Christ to justify you.
He says, “I fear that you have been led astray
from your pure devotion to Christ.”
Pure is the right word.
That’s the important word: pure.
It’s that uncontaminated place that you access
occasionally, where you know God has got you
and everything is going to be all right.
Have you ever just felt that and you had no
reason to and you didn’t even have the facts
to back it up?
Have you ever just felt that, like, “Wow!
I feel like I’m going to make it and God is
going to do it.
I can’t even prove it on a flow chart or anything
like that, but I just…”
What happens is the Enemy deceives you.
He can’t take what God gave you.
You know that, right?
I need to make sure you know that.
He can’t take what God gave you, but if he
can get you to catch a thought that opposes
it, he can keep you so weak you will not walk
into it.