How many here in the church have found themselves, you've been here a while, and you've done things you'd never have thought you could have done? Look at it, all over, see? Because you just needed some words that would build you up, and encourage you, so you'd stretch out and do things you'd never done before, so obviously you were limited in your thoughts, and limited in what you were saying on the inside. There was a need to change. It's very well known of course in the sports field, this whole issue of self-talk, and insurance people use it, sportsmen do it. The cutting edge between winners and losers in the sports field is often not about the talent, it's about the inner mentalities, and that is generated and developed by what they think on, and what they say to themselves; I can do it. I can do it - so there's an inward talk that goes on.
See even naturally, without any presence of God, it's understood in the secular world, that you can actually improve your performance by speaking the right kinds of things to yourself, and stopping the whining, negative talk. How much more then, if you're a Holy Spirit-filled believer, and you begin to start to speak words into your own life, how you yourself will begin to change on the inside - but you've got to do it. See, I can tell you the message, and I can tell you the how, I can get alongside you and show you what to do, but at the end of the day, when you walk away, you've got to do something. You just have to decide at the end of 2008, I will be enlarged in my capacity, I will have changed some things in my life, and one thing I'll change is the way I talk, particularly the way I talk to myself. I'm going to begin to speak differently. I'll talk to you a little bit about what to speak - see, so we can - that word impart grace, means to supply something needed to build and strengthen you, from the resources God has made available. Isn't that amazing aye? You can build yourself.
There was a season in my life where I had to make a conscious decision to devote time specifically to building myself. Now a lot of Christians get this religious kind of thinking that oh well, you know, just be thinking about other people, doing stuff for other people. No, listen. You can only give to others what you've received. If you can grow and increase your personal capacity, and mentalities, and skills, and attitudes, you've got more to give. Even the world understands that. If you just come in and you have no skills, you get paid a low rate, but if you go away and train and you learn new skills, you're worth more. You have more to give. Well now what a tragedy for people who remain Christians, and never do anything to improve themselves, to increase their value.
You know you can have one year's Christian experience 10 times, or you can have 10 years experience. You've got to think about that. What have you done to put into practice what you learned this year? Okay, so let me just read you another verse, Isaiah 55, Verses 8 and 9. Look what it says here, and God is talking to Isaiah, a prophet. He makes an interesting statement, and this is what He says; My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as heaven is higher than the earth, so are My ways of doing things higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.
Okay, let's just stop there for a moment. Now what He's saying is, He's not being negative. He's just saying this; He's saying a human being without God is limited in their thinking. What He's saying is, the thoughts I think, are far higher than what you would think, they're bigger than what you think, they have more value than what you have. If you would connect with Me, and begin to listen to My thoughts, and come into agreement with them, your inner life would shift and change, and then your world would change. So He says My ways of doing things, now for example, one of the ways of God doing things is serving. Jesus came, He said I've come not to expect anything, or to get anything from anyone, I've come to serve and give my life. Now very clearly, the greater you are at serving, the greater influence you have, but often people think the other way.