Precious in His Sight - Born to Be a Winner, Part 2

Do you realize that you were born to be a winner? That's right, God is for you. He loves you.

He's got a great plan. My experience is most people don't feel like a winner. Most people feel like they don't measure up, that God doesn't really care. Our goal today is to help you to see yourself the way God sees you. Stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry featuring the daily Bible teaching of Chip Ingram.

I'm Dave Drew. We're so grateful you've joined us as we continue our series, Precious in His Sight, taught by our guest teacher, Teresa Ingram. You know, as society continues to drift further from the truth of God's Word, we realize it's vitally important to turn to biblically grounded voices like Teresa to share a different viewpoint to what we're experiencing in our world. We believe that through her insight and the wisdom of our teaching team, we can better encourage and support Christians to really live like Christians. So with all that said, here's Teresa with the second half of her talk as she unpacks some very practical ways we can internalize God's truth in our hearts. I've given you here two resources for Scripture memory.

And the first one, we have some at our resource table. It's called the Topical Memory System. It's put out by the Navigators. And it's a wonderful tool to help you learn how to begin to do Scripture memory on a regular basis. And it has a systematic plan to follow for those of us who really like organization. And it will help you to make Scripture memory a part of your life. It takes you through a process of how to do this over a period of time and how to review so that you won't forget the Scriptures that you've memorized. The very first time I did Scripture memory was probably 20 years ago.

And that's what I started with. And I got that packet and I memorized whatever it was, this 60 verses in the packet. And after that, I started writing out my own from the Bible, just like they are on those little cards. It gives you a topic and it tells you the verse. And I can't tell you what it's done in my life.

It's changed me. I don't respond in situations the way I used to because his word is there and he reminds me like that and he brings it to my mind. But see, we have to put some work into it. We have to do something.

We have to act upon his truth. And another thing is a memory card handout that we've prepared for you. And it has two passages for each of the self image concepts that we have in the front of your booklet and some of the things we're talking about.

So there's it's topically and there's two passages each and and you could get started tomorrow. So so tonight you're going to put your little cards together and I just think of what can happen. And and it's just a great thing to do. And you'll be so glad that you hid God's word in your heart.

You'll be so glad it's there. Well, the third thing here under renewing your mind is that we need to train our minds to think on what's true. As I said, it just doesn't automatically happen. We have to train our minds. We have to do something.

In Philippians 4 8 it says, Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. It's a choice that we make. It's something that we need to do. Colossians three to set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are of the earth. What does it say? It says, Set your mind. It's a choice that we make.

It's something that we need to do. It's stopping and making a decision not to dwell on the negative thoughts about ourselves and to replace those thoughts with what God says is true about you is to take those negative thoughts. See, you can't just decide. I'm not going to think that it doesn't work. What you have to do is to decide I'm not going to think that, but now I'm going to replace it with God's truth.

This is what I am going to think. And part of that for me happened as I began to study my own thinking patterns. I began to think about what I was thinking and watch myself and hear what I was thinking. And it was amazing to me some of the negative thoughts that were going through my mind. And so I had to become aware, first of all, of what I was thinking and ask then, why am I thinking this? Well, if I had that thought, OK, why am I thinking it? And then I need to ask, is this true?

Is this consistent with God's truth or not? And if it's not, you see, then I need to stop that thinking pattern. And I've given you two resources also for this. And the first one is to learn a healthy self-concept.

You have this in your booklet. And this has five areas of a healthy self-concept of what we need to believe about ourselves. And if you would take these five things and read them out loud to yourself every day for three weeks, you would have them memorized and you wouldn't even have to work at it.

I guarantee you will. And it's a good thing to think about every day. And the other thing is to use stop cards as a tool to stop negative self-talk and replace it with God's truth.

And what I mean by using stop cards is to take a three by five card. And when you study your thinking patterns and you begin to become aware of some of the false beliefs of the negative things that you believe about yourself that you know aren't true and they're affecting how you're responding and how you're living in different situations, then you write that misbelief down on one side of a card of a three by five card, whatever that is. And I've given you examples of mine.

Maybe some of you have the same ones. So these are ones for you to use unless they apply to your life. But say my misbelief at one time was I need other people's approval in order to be happy. I write that down on one side of the card and I write stop real big. And so I use this as I would go over scripture memory cards.

I would take out these cards of these misbeliefs and I would read them over. I need other people's approval in order to be happy. Stop.

That's not true. And then I turn it over and read the truth and think about the truth. And the truth is I want people's approval of me, but I do not need it. When with God's approval, I am no longer compelled to earn love and acceptance. I am free to be me.

You see, that's who I truly am. That's God's truth about me and that's what God wants me to believe. Another example, down maybe three, the third one, my value as a person depends on what others think of me. Stop.

That's not true. My value as a person has already been determined by God because of my relationship to Christ. I will not give the power to any human being to determine my value.

I will not do that. And see, in my mind, you know, I'm thinking about my dad. It doesn't matter what he thinks. It doesn't matter if I please him or not. It doesn't matter if he ever tells me that he's proud of me. You see, it doesn't matter because I have God's approval and that's all I need.

And I will not give him the power to determine my value. But see, I needed to learn that truth so I could apply it to my life. And when you use these kinds of things as tools, then after a while, you start thinking that automatically.

You see what it is? It's training your mind to think on what's true. We have a book, I think back there, Telling Yourself the Truth, and it explains more in detail how to do this. And it's real helpful. I found it real helpful to me. And I just want you to know that I did these things over a period of years. I mean, it didn't happen in two months.

It's been over a period of years that I've worked and I've worked hard at it. The third thing here is to pray and ask God to help you think the way he wants you to, to pray. Prayer is a powerful thing. Ask God to help you. I talk to lots of people and they seem to, they're really good about praying for everybody else.

They don't pray for themselves. And you need to pray for you and ask God to help you. Prayer is a vehicle whereby God displays his power toward his people. And I want this power at work in my life and I want to depend on him to change me because he's the only one who can.

I need to put in all the raw material for him to work. I have my responsibility, but only God can change my life. And I need to pray and ask him to do that and to seek his guidance and help. And I know he'll be faithful to do that because he promises that he will. And when we pray, another aspect of our prayer needs to be with thanksgiving.

He needs to be with thanksgiving for the way that he has made you. Flaws and all to be thankful, to be thankful for the background that you came from, to thank him for the kind of parents that you had and quit blaming other people for your struggles. We do need to understand the influence that our parents had on our lives. It's important, but it's important to understand to help us to grow, you see, not to blame them. And they, my parents, when I was growing up, they didn't know the Lord. And we didn't have the word of God as a guide in our home.

And they were parenting out of the concepts that they had learned from their own backgrounds. And I love my parents and I choose to thank God for the good things that they instilled in my life. And I'm trying to learn from the negative things.

And so we need to be thankful for our past and we need to thank God for his forgiveness for what we've learned through our failures and through our struggles and thank him that he takes everything, everything in our lives and works it for good, no matter how difficult it is that he will use it for good in some way as we trust in him. And he, and as we pray, we need to submit to God, it says, and to yield our lives under his control under the mighty hand of God and yet resist the devil. He says to resist, to yield to God, but resist the devil and resist those negative thoughts.

And he says, he will flee from you. You know, I don't have to listen when those thoughts come to my mind. I don't have to dwell on them. I don't have to maul over and over in my mind on negative thoughts.

You see, because I can stop them right in their tracks if I choose to do that. But sometimes I need the tools to be able to, and that's what we're talking about tonight. In Ephesians one, 17 to 19 is a wonderful prayer. If you don't know what to pray for yourself, I want you to pray this prayer for yourself and write it down. And when you pray, pray it to God. It says in Ephesians one, 17 to 19 to ask the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory to please give me a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of you. I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened so that I may know what is the hope of your calling, what are the riches of the glory of your inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of your power towards me.

So if you don't know what to pray, pray that, and God will answer in a great way. Number four, here's to walk by faith, to walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is believing and acting on the word of God, even though our circumstances may look the opposite and even though my feelings may be telling me something else. It's the step out on the promises of God.

It's not based on feelings. It's acting on God's promises on what's true. In Hebrews 11, six, it says, but without faith, it's impossible to please God. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek after him. And in Hebrews 11, one, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

It's stepping out and trusting God when we don't see the answer, when we don't know what the outcome is going to be. And it's by faith, you see, that we hold on to God's promises about us and we refuse to listen to the lies that Satan brings into our minds or that we have learned to hear in our minds. It's by faith that we do that. And it takes a step of faith for us to make a commitment, even this weekend, to start filling your mind with God's truth on a regular basis. Maybe there's some of you who you don't read your Bible regularly and you don't pray regularly. You're not seeking God's guidance. You're not putting his word deep in your heart. And you see, it takes a step of faith to say, you know, I'm going to start this by faith. I'm going to step out. And you're trusting that God is going to work in your life and he will.

I promise you he will. It's it's by faith that I accept God's forgiveness and that I choose not to dwell on my past. It's a step of faith, an act of faith. And faith is stepping out, as we said, and believing God's promises when we haven't seen the answer yet. And I guarantee you, if you take seriously some of the truths that we have talked about this weekend and apply them to your lives on a consistent basis over the next year and you come back to the retreat a year from now, you will be amazed at how God has worked in your life and how much he's changed you. I can guarantee you that. And so I just really challenge you to take a step of faith and begin to get in his word, begin to put his word in your heart, begin to memorize his word and to pray.

Pray for yourself and ask him for for his help to change your thinking and help you to believe what's true. Well, number five here is to get a partner. To get a partner, God has never asked us to grow alone. And I've seen a lot of that happening here this weekend at the retreat. Seems like people are really connecting very well. In Ecclesiastes 4, 9 and 10, it says two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. We need each other. We desperately need each other. God has given us each other. We need to encourage one another. We need to help each other believe what's true and to become all that he designed us to be.

And so I encourage you, if you don't already have a partner, to find someone, a friend or get involved in a small group, someone to hold you accountable to be in God's word and to grow spiritually and to encourage you in your faith. We need to help each other because we can't grow alone. We need each other. And number six is our words of encouragement may instill a healthy self-image in another's life. The words that come out of our mouth are powerful.

They're powerful and they can either build up another person or they can tear them down. Then the power of an encouraging word is an amazing thing. And we know it is.

We know it is. When somebody encourages us in our faith, in our walk with the Lord, in who we are, it makes us feel so good. And it gives us hope. In Ephesians 4 29 it says, Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear. And what this means is that our words would be a minister of grace to others. You know, as God gives grace to us, we minister grace to others through our words as we edify and build them up in Christ, as we give them hope and as we instill confidence in their lives and help them to see what they can really become. You know, God never, He never, ever gives up on us. He never gives up because He always sees what we could become. And, you know, we need to be that to others in our lives.

We need to help them to see what they can become, help others see their gifts and their abilities. Because so many times people don't recognize what they have, like me. I didn't see what I had. I didn't see the good qualities I had. Yet God brought people into my life to help me to see that. And one of the ways that I discovered what my spiritual gifts were was through encouraging people in my life. It was people seeing me in doing different activities or whatever it was and coming to me and telling me, you know, you're really good at that. I see this quality in your life. God's really using you there.

Is there anything I can help you to develop that area? And it was people in my life that helped me discover my spiritual gifts. And we need to do that for others because we all have so much and sometimes we fail to see what we truly have. Well, there's an Indian folklore that's about an eagle. And this eagle spent his whole life thinking he was a prairie chicken. And he did everything that a prairie chicken would do. And he scratched in the dust for seeds and insects to eat. And he thrashed around with his wings and a flurry of feathers.

And he couldn't get off the ground but just a few feet. And after all, that's how prairie chickens are supposed to fly. And years passed by and this eagle grew really old. And one day he saw this magnificent bird up in the sky and he thought it was a wonderful thing. This bird was just hanging with graceful majesty in the sky on these wind currents.

And it soared in the sky with scarcely a beat of its wings. And the eagle thought, that was wonderful. And he looked up and he said, what a beautiful bird. He said to his neighbor, and he said, what is it? And his neighbor said to him, he said, well, that's an eagle.

That's the chief of the birds. And his neighbor clucked and he said, but don't give it a second. Thought you would never be like him. And you see all along, he never was able to enjoy what he was really designed to be. He never really enjoyed his true identity. And so I just encourage you to think about who you are, to give it a second thought.

Don't be like the prairie chicken. Give it a second thought. God has given us all that we need. He's given us his word.

He's given us his spirit. He's given us all the things that we need to become all that he wants us to be, to be a reflection of Christ in the sphere of influence that he has given each one of us to live out our true identity and enjoy who we are. And so do give it a second thought and become what God wants you to be. So I want to ask you now, what's tattooed on your mind?

What's tattooed on your mind? Are you born to be a winner? Well, God says that you are. And with God's help, you can be all that he planned for you to be. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your word. I just think of how important it has been in my life and how your word has changed me, that your word is living and active and that it does transform our minds and help us to live out your word according to your will. And so, Lord, I ask for each of us that we would take hold of all the wonderful things that you've given us, that we would make time to be in your word on a regular basis, that we would instill your truth deep within our hearts and that we could learn to live out the identity of who you have truly made us to be and that we can enjoy the lives that you've given us.

And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Teresa Ingram has been our guest teacher for this program, which is from her series, Precious in His Sight. Teresa and Chip will be back in studio shortly to share some application to what we heard today. Teresa's messages really get to the heart of an issue that both men and women wrestle with, identity. You know, many of us define ourselves by our work, our looks, our wealth, or our accomplishments.

But the thing is, those ideas never quite satisfy, do they? Well, in this series, Teresa reveals the freedom that comes with knowing we are children of God and that He values and loves us just the way we are. Discover how you can live in that truth every day and experience true wholeness and satisfaction.

Now, if you missed any part of this series, Precious in His Sight, or want to learn more about our helpful resources, the Chip Ingram app is a great way to get plugged in. Chip, you know, we're living in a society that is constantly chipping away at our self-worth and value. Whether it's parents comparing their life to others or teens changing who they are to fit in and be more popular or beautiful, how can we combat these unrealistic expectations and really see ourselves the way God sees us?

Well, Dave, I'll tell you. I mean, listening to Teresa's messages and some of the research that I've been doing, the pressure on our young people, especially girls, is unlike anything I've ever seen. I mean, the power of social media, of what's happening in terms of depression, anxiety, suicide, and those are sort of the extremes. I mean, we've got tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of young Christian women of all ages who, you know, they may not be having anxiety or panic attacks, but just down deep don't like themselves and feel like, you know, I've got to fit in and I'm unworthy. And we've all, you know, I mean, this isn't just young girls or women. We've all looked into that mirror and said, I'll never be good enough.

I just don't measure up. And so, you know, my joy is I've had the front row seat of watching a woman, as she's very honestly shared, who on the outside looked beautiful and just thought she was so ugly, so unwanted. And I've watched like a flower bloom before me, but it took lots of work, lots of renewing her mind. And we just had so many women say, please tell us your story. And so we made the affirmation cards and those went out like hotcakes.

And then it was like, could you put this in a book? And if people knew the agony for her to do this, but I will tell you, if you're a woman and you want to see yourself the way God sees you and have someone that really, really understands you, get Teresa's brand new book, Precious in His Sight, and then get those cards to renew your mind the way that she has for so many years. And what I can tell you for sure is that as you do that, you will begin to see changes in your thinking, then your emotions, your self-esteem. And it's a journey that you really need to be on. And we're thrilled to provide those resources.

Thanks, Chip. Well, I can't encourage you enough to get Teresa's new book and a set of her affirmation cards that we've bundled together just for this series. And if you haven't thought of it already, these resources would make great Mother's Day gifts for any of the women in your life. So be sure to place your order by April 29th to receive this bundle in time. For all the details, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or livingontheedge.org.

App listeners, tap Special Offers. Well, now here's Chip and Teresa with today's application. Well, Teresa, thanks again for coming back in the studio and taking a moment to share personally after these messages. And you know, in the last couple of programs, you shared a number of real specific things that help us learn to embrace our identity in Christ. And would you mind taking a minute and maybe fleshing those out or helping us see how you personally kind of practice those?

I think that would help a lot of people because I've watched you do this. Well, I would say that we all need to learn to practice what we call spiritual disciplines in our lives. God's Word says that His Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. He says that His Word is my hiding place. His Word is my strength. I find hope in His Word, that His Word is living and active.

It's not just like any other book. It's a divinely written book from God, written to us, to His children. And He wants us to know Him and we know Him as we spend time in His Word.

So that's what I do. The second thing first is God's Word. The second I would say is prayer.

He wants to have this relationship where we come before Him and we pour out our hearts and we tell Him what we need and He is so willing and able to reach into our lives and help us with whatever that is. The third thing is to memorize and meditate on God's Word. That's the only way that I can actually replace the lies that Satan or the world puts into my mind is if I have instant recall in my mind because I memorized God's Word.

I have it there. And then the fourth thing, I spend time with God every morning. I get up and He's the first person that I deeply share my heart with and pray and talk to Him. And I begin my day every day with thanking Him for just being grateful to wake up for a new day and all the possibilities that He has for me in this new day. And just to be grateful really gets you started off in a good way in the morning.

And number five, I would just say, and I'm not always the best person at doing this, is just to step out. And whatever God shows you to do, step out and be faithful and God will lift your head. And so that's our part. God is in control. He loves us. He provides. But we have a part to play in this too because it's a relationship between us and the Lord.

Those are some great disciplines for us to practice. And remember, Teresa, thanks. Well, just before we close, I want to thank each of you who's making this program possible through your generous giving. One hundred percent of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help Christians really live like Christians. Now, if you found Shipp's teaching helpful, but you're not yet on the team, would you consider doing that today? To donate, just go to livingontheedge.org, tap donate on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003. And let me thank you in advance for whatever the Lord leads you to do. Well, until next time, for everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.