You know when you're under the influence of spirits, you see things that aren't there, and they look like they're real, but they're not there, they're all in your head. That's why you've got to - it says, think soberly, and how do we think soberly? Soberly means I agree with God about my value. I'm very special, I will treat myself like God treats, as something special, of value, a highly prized possession. See, I'll treat myself right, and this is based on faith, what God says. So I need to read what the word of God says, and meditate on that. I need to listen what the Holy Ghost says, and sometimes God speaks to you through people. He gives you feedback through people, and He says some good things through prophesy that encourage you, and He says some other things that help you realise where you need to shape up, because you're not coming through too good. So God's got a lot of ways of talking to us. We need to get faith in our heart to believe God about our life. Isn't that true?
Now notice this. Here's another scripture now, because sometimes you find scriptures seem to be quite contrary to one another, but they're not, it's just a matter of getting the perspective. Look at this one, Philippians, Chapter 2, and it says - Verse 3 - Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others, better than himself. Let each of you look out not for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Now notice He starts of by saying, He's talking about pride, thinking of yourself the wrong way. He says don't do things out of ambition. Ambition means I'm driven by my personal desire for fulfilment, and I'll use you to get it. You can't build well that way. He's saying don't do anything out of that motive, and He says but rather do something different. He says in lowliness of mind, let each esteem the other, better than himself. Now you think well what's that about? This is what it means. It means first of all, get a good grip on your own personal value. When you've got a good grip that you are valuable, then when you see other people, they're really valuable too. Lift them up, and put them higher than you, so you can serve them.
In other words, have a good value on them. Place value on other people - but of course, if you don't have personal value yourself, you'll have trouble valuing people. You tend to end up, and you're using people to build what isn't being built into your life, so we need to place a right value. Jesus had that kind of right value, so let me give you some key aspects then, of actually a way, looking at loving yourself, loving yourself. Remember love your neighbour as yourself. It means to regard the welfare of, to hold in high regard, to treat as a prize possession. Let me give you some very practical things, and they're quite simple. Actually Jesus operated in all of these, every one of them, so we can too. Here's the first one. The first one is, you need to discover who you are. How can you turn up in life and really enter into good relationships, if you haven't got a clue who you are?
So what I mean by knowing who you are, well you've got to know what God says about you, first of all, otherwise you'll live out of your life before Christ, full of condemnation, guilt, grief, disappointments, sadness and accusations, all that kind of stuff. You've got to know what God says. I'm a child of God, I'm forgiven, I'm an ambassador of heaven, I'm a representative of God, I'm filled with the Holy Ghost. I've got to get that into me. I've got to discover what the word of God says about this new creation man that I am, otherwise I'll live out of the old creation, the way I used to be. So because we've lived that old way so long, it's like a default setting, and you just go back into it, but God wants you to shift, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so as I renew my mind with what God says about me, then I'm beginning to discover the new man. But there's other things I need to discover as well, and they're quite a practical sort of thing.