Abundant Life TV – Brain Training part 3
In Part 3 of Brain Training, with Ashley and Carlie Terradez, we learn that you can actually control your thoughts! Dive into the books of 2 Timothy and Phillippians as we learn how to use God’s Word (the Bible) to guide our hearts!
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In Brain Training part 3 the key scripture of study is 2 Timothy and Phillippians.
Transcription
Carlie: Did you know that you can guide your heart? That’s right. We need to guide our heart, actually, otherwise it’s going to lead us into a whole load of trouble. Stay tuned to find out how.
Announcer: Why live a normal life when you could be living the abundant life. Welcome to the Abundant Life program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.
Ashley: Hello, and welcome to Abundant Life. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today in the lounge. Praise God. We’ve an exciting program for you today. We’re talking about brain training. I know you might think brain training. I thought this was a spiritual Word of God show. It is. That’s just our fancy name for-
Carlie: We’re going to have muscles in our brain before-
Ashley: Brain training. That’s our fancy name for mind renewal. We’re talking about mind renewal. We actually in a series, aren’t we? About mind renewal and how to renew our minds to the word of God. So brain training, we can actually take charge of our thoughts.
Carlie: That’s right.
Ashley: Which is liberating.
Carlie: It is totally, because I don’t know about you but for years my life was ruled by my feelings and it got me into all kinds of trouble, really honestly. I mean, I’ve shared my testimony before, but I’ve dealt with a lot of fear from different traumas, different things that I’ve been through. There was a lot of fear. Some of that was natural from bad experience. Some of that was just completely irrational.
Ashley: Yeah. Some of it was crazy.
Carlie: Some of it was just crazy.
Ashley: I mean, when we first we were dating and the first time we went into a mall there was an escalator-
Carlie: Hang on, crazy and dating in the same sentence, where are we going with this?
Ashley: That’s probably where, that’s probably about right. But anyway, so we were dating, we were just young things back then, 18 years old.
Carlie: We were still just young things, hey?
Ashley: But that was a few years ago. Anyway, I was dating, I didn’t know Carlie very well. And I held her hand to go down this escalator in this mall and all of a sudden she got all, started shaking and got all-
Carlie: Man, I’d breakout in cold sweats. It was bad.
Ashley: … squeezing my hand, hurt my hand. I was like, what is going on? And then I realized she had a fear of escalators. And that was because when you was little, I believe you fell down an escalator, yeah?
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: And that must’ve been a traumatic thing.
Carlie: I was in the mall about five years old. And my mum had told me, don’t play at the top of the escalators. And I didn’t listen to her because I’m stubborn. And so I held-
Ashley: Heard it here. She admitted it.
Carlie: Here you go.
Ashley: You’re going to take that [inaudible] and use that.
Carlie: But I had my hand on the moving handrail and I didn’t realize that my feet were stationary at the top. So my hand… So I was going down and fast.
Ashley: Oh no!
Carlie: I’m like… and before my brain could catch up. I realized, hang a second my head is moving, but my feet aren’t.
Ashley: Oh, she was going face first down the sharp metal steps.
Carlie: Yes.
Ashley: Oh, bless your heart.
Carlie: And it was traumatic.
Ashley: I wonder if we could find the security camera for that and…
Carlie: They probably didn’t have those in, honey.
Ashley: If only it was videoed, we could’ve used that.
Carlie: But here’s the thing-
Ashley: That caused a fear because you had that bad experience…
Carlie: It did.
Ashley: Then that caused the fear. So whatever it was 18 years later, or 15 years later, you were scared to still go on escalators because you had that bad experience.
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: So sometimes we have these fears and they can shape how we operate in life. How we walk out at life.
Carlie: I mean, and that’s just really a trivial example. And there are much bigger things where people will have a genuine fear of something that is not illogical. It’s completely rational, but still the effects of fear on us are the same.
Ashley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carlie: And we were not called to be people of fear. We’re not designed to be people fear. We’re designed to be people of faith.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: You have that scripture in Second Timothy right there.
Ashley: Second Timothy. This is Second Timothy 1:7. It says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” [inaudible] power, love, and of a sound mind. And that’s the truth. You are a child of God and you have not been given a spirit of fear. If you have fear operating in your life, it is not from God. God does not use fear to motivate us. God does not use fear to teach us. Fear is not from God. And we are not designed to carry fear. In fact, a lot of health, medical issues are down to worrying and fear and stress and things like that.
Carlie: It’s true.
Ashley: And it’s because we’re not designed to carry that. We’re not designed to carry fear, but instead God has given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. That’s what God has for you as a born-again believer. So if you’re in fear, if you experiencing a lot of fear, whether it’s rational or irrational, if you have fear that’s dominating you as Carlie said, you’re going to find it hard to walk in faith at the same time as fear. In fact, they’re opposites.
Carlie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley: And what happens is, really fear is like the devil’s counterfeit to faith.
Carlie: Yeah. It’s false evidence appearing real.
Ashley: False evidence appearing real.
Carlie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley: Good one. So what happens is, the devil will try and give us thoughts and try and have as meditate on a bad situation or on something that’s a problem or something that’s going to go wrong. That’s when Jesus talked about in Matthew 6, he talked about, don’t worry and it’s not going to help if you worry. So the devil will have us thinking on these things. And then that will produce fear in our life and we’ll start to have those fearful emotions and start to experience that fear, and it’s going to paralyze us and stop us doing things and make us do things irrationally or not make sound decisions.
Carlie: That’s true.
Ashley: Whereas the opposite of that is, the Lord is trying to give us good thoughts. He’s trying to have his meditate on his word, his promises, have these good thoughts, in Philippians 4:8, Paul tells us what to think on. Those things, whatever is good, whatever is good report, virtuous, praiseworthy, all those things. He gives us a list of things that he says, meditate on these things, think on these things. They’re good things. And what happens is, we do that, that’s going to give us faith because faith comes by the word of God. And what’s going to happen is, is we going to then act and be motivated to go out and do things rather than having that fear of having to retreat and being paralyzed.
Carlie: And the truth is fear is alien to us as believers. It’s not part of our born again nature. In previous lessons, we’ve talked about how when we got born again, when we received Jesus on the inside of us. We became spiritually alive on the inside of us. There’s a whole part of us that was created new. Old things are passed away, all things have become new. Where fear resides is in our soul, it’s in our heart, it’s in our emotions. Our mind, will, and emotions is part of our unrenewed mind.
This whole series of brain training is talking about how we renew our mind so that we understand what the word says about us. What it says about our situation. And you know what? This is important because as it says in Proverbs 23, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” What we think is who we become. If we think like a victim, we’re going to become a victim. If we think like a loser, we’re going to become a loser. If we think like a winner, we’re going to become a winner.
Ashley: It’s how we see ourselves.
Carlie: It’s how we see ourselves. If we think like a sick person, sickness is going to manifest. If we think like we are poor, poverty is going to manifest, right? We’re going to reap whatever we’ve sown. And fear, now we’ve mentioned this before, the enemy has no real power.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: Like it says in Hebrews 2:13, 14, 15, it goes through there and it says, people, all of their lifetime were subject to bondage through fear of death. It had held them subject to bondage. And fear is not something that we want to tolerate.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: We’re not given a spirit of fear. Perfect love, it says this in First John, perfect love casts out fear.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Jesus wouldn’t tolerate fear. He wouldn’t tolerate fear. In fact, if you look through the scriptures, hundreds of times in the scriptures, it says, do not fear or do not be afraid.
Ashley: 364 times, I’ve read somewhere. Because-
Carlie: At least one for every day of the year.
Ashley: I have to check on that. Yeah, one for every day of the year, it says, do not fear. So if God’s telling us do not fear, if God’s saying to you do not fear, that means you have the ability to not fear.
Carlie: The problem is, if I tell you just don’t be afraid.
Ashley: It’s tough.
Carlie: It’s hard.
Ashley: If I get scared about something and it’s like, I’m not going to be afraid. It’s actually, because I’m focusing on that, I’m magnify and that makes it worse.
Carlie: It’s true.
Ashley: So how do we overcome it?
Carlie: Well, just saying to people, just don’t be afraid that’s silly. I mean, if you’ve got a real phobia or you’ve been through a trauma and your fear is based on something, just to say to someone to stop being afraid, just quit it, just turn it off. It’s not that easy.
Ashley: It’s actually a really… In certain circumstances…
Carlie: It’s a very real struggle for people.
Ashley: It’s a terrible thing to say, just don’t fear because that’s the worst. It’s like they want to not fear. People don’t want to stay in that fear, but they need tools to know how to get out of it.
Carlie: Right. Exactly. So in this session, we’re going to unpack a little bit what it means to guide your heart. Our heart needs to be led. It needs to be guided. A heart left to its own devices is naturally going to find fear coming out of it.
Ashley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carlie: We’re living in a world, we are constantly bombarded, surrounded by influences in the world. And I kind of liken it to sitting in a tank of toxic waste sometimes, right?
Ashley: Okay.
Carlie: If you sat in tank of toxic waste, eventually you’re going to start to absorb some of it.
Ashley: Okay.
Carlie: It’s not going to be good. It’s going to start to pollute what’s on the inside. When we really understand the gravity of… You mentioned this scripture earlier I believe in First John, it says, “Greater is he who is in us, than he who is in your world.”
Ashley: First John 4:4.
Carlie: Amen. When we really start to understand who it is who lives on the inside of us, it gives us boldness. It gives us strength. It gives us… It breeds faith on the inside of us.
Ashley: Yeah.
Carlie: And eventually what happens rather than the outside influence getting in, what’s inside is going to start to come out.
Ashley: That’s really good. You have your confession card there? I was looking for one.
Carlie: I don’t think I have one with me actually.
Ashley: I had one here, it’s gone missing.
Carlie: It’s around somewhere. It’s probably [inaudible] the couch, stuffed down the side.
Ashley: I want to offer to you, this is a great time to offer you Carlie’s confession card. Because this card basically is scripture about who you are in Christ. And when you read this card, I’m telling you, it’s going to… Well, what Carlie’s saying is you’re you’re going to start seeing who you really are in the spirit. See the real you is a spirit. When you got born again, all things became new, Second Corinthians 5:17, your spirit became new. And you are just like Jesus, First John 4:17 says, as he is, as Jesus is, so are you in this world. That means in your spirit, you have the fruits of the spirit, Galatians 5:21. You have all the fruits of the spirit inside of you. You have joy, peace, hope. You don’t have fear in your spirit. But the problem is in our soul. That’s the part of us that needs renewing and how we renew it is, we agree with who you are in the spirit rather than agreeing with who we are in the world. And when we agree of who were on the spirits…
So this confession card, the details are on your screen. We’d love to give you a copy as our gift. And what you do is as you read those scriptures and you start agreeing with how God sees you.
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: So God sees you completely different than how you see you a lot of the time. A lot of time we hardened ourselves, we don’t see ourselves as God sees us. But really God sees us, he loves us. I mean, he loves you. He sees you as a success. Praise God. A tongue twister. He sees you as a success. He sees you as someone who is more than a conqueror. He sees you as someone who is victorious, he sees that in you. Praise God. Because that’s who you are in the spirit. So when you read that confession card, let it become real to you. And I tell people this, we look in the natural mirror to see how we are in the flesh, is our hair okay, and our makeup okay for we’re women. [inaudible].
Carlie: I don’t know. You spend more time in the morning in the mirror than I do.
Ashley: You think I do.
Carlie: I totally do.
Ashley: I need more work [inaudible].
Carlie: Ashley has [inaudible], this is like a confessional.
Ashley: I have to do more work to myself.
Carlie: Ashley has more shoes than I do. He has a bigger wardrobe than I do.
Ashley: Okay. This is bad.
Carlie: Now it’s getting personal.
Ashley: Edit this out. Anyway, I do spend… Because my face takes more work than yours. That’s what it is.
Carlie: Oh, that’s sweet.
Ashley: Someone told me the other day that I have a great face for radio.
Carlie: [inaudible] being kind.
Ashley: Oh, I see. Yeah.
Carlie: Anyway. So what we’re saying is in our heart-
Ashley: I’ve got to finish the story.
Carlie: Oh my gosh.
Ashley: Look in the mirror to see how you are in the natural. You need to look in the spiritual mirror to see who you are in the spirit. And the only way to do that is through the word of God.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: So get that confession card. Read them scriptures over yourself because that’s who you in the spirit. That’s the real. Praise God.
Carlie: Amen. The word of God is where we need to allow our opinions of ourselves to be formed from. Our heart needs to be guided. We mentioned this last time. I’m going to read this again because it’s good. This is Proverbs 23:19, “Hear, my son, and be wise; and guide your heart in the way.” Now we know that the word heart and soul are used interchangeably. The heart itself is the seat of our passion, our desire, our thoughts, our intentions, okay? But we need to guide it. To guide our heart, it actually means this, it means to lead, to pronounce, to call blessed, to advance and progress. Left to our own devices, our heart will lead us astray. We can guide our heart. How do we guide our heart? With our words.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: And when we start speaking the word of God over our situation, it’ll start changing our situation. Look at what Timothy says in Second Timothy, it says this in verse… This is Chapter 1, Verse 13. It says, “Follow the pattern of sound teaching which you had heard from me in the faith and love that is in Christ Jesus. Guard the treasure that was committed to you through the Holy spirit who lives in you.” That talks about the word of God as a treasure. This word is a treasure. If you’ve been through trauma like me, if you’ve had traumatic things happen to you throughout your life. If you’ve got either logical or illogical fears, phobias, and negative patterns of thinking, wrong mindsets. If you’re seeing fruit in your life that you don’t like, and you want to change it, the most effective way to do that is with the power of the Holy Spirit in the word of God.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Honestly, we began this series in Second Corinthians 10:5 talking about how we need to take captive every thought.
Ashley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carlie: We can’t just let our thoughts run wild.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: Our thoughts come from our heart. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. But if we don’t capture our thoughts, if we don’t start bringing them into the obedience of Christ. Amen. And measuring them up to what I call the John 10:10 rule.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: You know what john 10:10 says right?
Ashley: John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to kill, steal and destroy, but I’ve come to give you life and life more abundantly.”
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: So basically, if you’re having thoughts or feelings that basically aren’t giving you life and life more abundantly, they’re not lining up with John 10:10. They may be coming to kill, steal and destroy. Then they’re not godly thoughts. Take that thought captive and replace it with the truth. So, if you’re having a thought, I’m going to run out of money, I’m going to experience lack, I’m not going to able to pay my bills. Okay, that’s what Jesus would call worrying. And you take that thought captive. So hang on a minute. No, the truth is God’s going to supply all my needs. Or maybe you think I’m going to have this, I’ve got this symptom, that must be something serious, I must be going down with this or going down with that. I’m going to have this issue. You say, no, I’m the healed of the Lord and no plague comes near my dwelling.
So you replace that negative thinking. You replace those negative thoughts with the truth, the word of God. And you don’t let yourself go, you don’t let your thoughts just run away with themselves. For years, I used to think, well, I can’t help how I think. I’m just thinking, this is just my thoughts. And you’re driving on your car and you’re thinking these things, well, I can’t help it. Yes, we can help it. God has given us the power to stop thinking those things. God has given us the power to change and replace those thoughts, to renew our minds. God has given us the power to not just let anything come in and meditate on it. And we said this in a previous program, we can’t… If we have a fleeting thought, if a thought just comes into our mind, then we can’t help that because it’s often-
Carlie: It’s not sin that it came into your air space, right?
Ashley: But it’s sin if we take that thought and meditate on it and allow it to take root and allow it into our hearts. That’s where the issue comes. So if you have a thought… Just the other day, actually I was listening to the radio that’s what it was. We were talking about in a previous program, be careful how you hear and be careful what you set before your eyes, be careful of the company you keep, because all these things are going to lead… They’re going to shape your thinking and shape your heart. So I was driving, there was a radio commercial come on, “If you live in Colorado, you cannot avoid hail damage.” That’s what it said, you cannot avoid hail damage.
Carlie: We get kind of mad when those come, don’t we?
Ashley: And I had this thought and I was like, hang on a minute. I was like, this is… And now I got to thinking, man, that’s true, I’m going to get hail damage. And I was thinking, man, I’ve got a high deductible on our roof. And I started having these thoughts. So I took that fleeting thought and started to take it to heart.
Carlie: You started to dwell on it.
Ashley: I started dwelling on it. I was like, hang on a minute our roof deductible is thousands of dollars. I better contact our insurance agent, and I’m going to… And before I knew it, I’d already lived out that scenario. I said-
Carlie: So you were already planning your actions based on what you were thinking [crosstalk].
Ashley: Just one thought I allowed in, I meditated on it.
Carlie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley: And you know what I did right then? I said, no, this is not good. I realized this, and I thought, this is not good. And right then I replaced that thought. So, no, you know what? I’m blessed. Everything I own is blessed. Hail is not going to damage my house. And even if it does, God’s going to give me the resources to pay deductibles and everything else. I don’t have to worry. And I shut that down.
Carlie: But you had to take that thought captive.
Ashley: Yeah.
Carlie: God gave me this picture years ago now, but it’s really helped me. I believe it’s going to help somebody. Our thoughts, it’s like an air traffic control tower, right?
Ashley: An air traffic control tower.
Carlie: Yeah. We fly a lot and that fascinates me. If you’ve ever been in an airport and just watch the planes taking off and landing.
Ashley: Do you secretly want to be the controller up there in the air, traffic controller?
Carlie: No, I want to be the pilot. I think flying is so cool. I want to fly a fighter jet.
Ashley: Really?
Carlie: That’s on my bucket list.
Ashley: Okay, that’s cool.
Carlie: Well, maybe just be a passenger.
Ashley: Okay.
Carlie: I don’t actually want to fly it. But anyway, if you go to the airport-
Ashley: I flew a plane once. It was just a little two seater, single propeller plane. Anyway, carry on.
Carlie: Anyway, so go to the airport, watch planes land. There is an air traffic control tower. Let me tell you, any plane from anywhere can fly into that airspace, but it cannot land unless it has permission. And God showed me, we are like the air traffic controllers of our minds. We can get to choose what planes or what thoughts land in our brain.
Ashley: That’s good.
Carlie: We can’t stop them coming into our airspace necessarily, but we can stop them from landing. We can refuse them permission to land. And this is a great scripture here, this is a… I think you mentioned this earlier in Philippians 4, I’m going to start in Verse 6, it says, “Be anxious for nothing.” Be anxious for nothing. Not just a few things. Absolutely nothing. “But in everything by prayer and supplications, with gratitude.” That means with thanksgiving, make your request known to God. And in other words, as a result of doing those things, “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will protect your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.” Timothy told us to guard the treasure that’s in our heart, to guard the treasure, to guard the word. To take the word of God and like a treasure in our heart and to guard it. And here it’s saying, look, the peace of God is going to be our protection. It’s going to protect our hearts.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Previously, we talked about how the place where doubts arise in Mark 11:22-23, Jesus says, doubts arise in our heart. And here it says, the peace of God will surpass all understanding will protect our hearts. We can actually use the word of God like a shield to protect our hearts and minds from the negative thoughts and break negative thought patterns.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: And take captive those thoughts and bring them to the obedience of Christ. In Verse 8, it expands on this and it says, “Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report.” Man, this is so important. “If there’s any virtue, if there’s any praise, think on these things. Do these things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.” Peace is the antidote to fear.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Amen. Isaiah 26:3 says, he who keeps his mind, his thinking stayed upon the Lord is kept in perfect peace.
Ashley: Amen. That’s our decision, right? That’s our choice. It’s your choice to keep your mind stayed on the Lord.
Carlie: It is.
Ashley: It’s your choice to do that. And Paul here gives almost like a prescription of what we need to do and backing up a couple of verses in Philippians 4:4 he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” There is always something to rejoice about.
Carlie: So these are all very practical things.
Ashley: Very practical things to do, but they’re going to take some effort to do them.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: Okay. And like we said before, grace has already provided it. God has given you everything you need, but you have a choice to make to activate what God’s already given you. And right here, Paul’s telling us what to do. And sometimes we just pray and I’ve done it, I’m guilty of doing it. I’ll… God just give me peace. And we just pray, God, just give me a peace. We have peace in our spirit, but Paul’s telling us here how to activate that peace and just praying for it. Okay. That’s that’s fine. It’s okay to pray for that. But look, Paul tells us here what we need to do to have God’s peace activated in our life. And that is to be anxious for nothing. Guard your thoughts, guard your heart. And then it goes on to say, only think and meditate on these things.
Carlie: Meditate on them.
Ashley: If we meditate on things of fear, if we meditate on negative reports, if we meditate on anything that’s opposite to this list that Paul gives us, we’re going to experience a lack of peace. We’re going to experience fear.
Carlie: The word meditate in itself, it means to speak it, study it, utter it, or roar it like a lion.
Ashley: [inaudible] roar it like a lion.
Carlie: Roar it like a lion.
Ashley: You going to hear me roar.
Carlie: Come on now.
Ashley: [inaudible] I’m going to burst into song.
Carlie: Oh no!
Ashley: You’re going to hear me roar.
Carlie: People will tune out.
Ashley: I’ve got the eye of the tiger. But it’s true. Meditating on it is to mull it over, to think over it. In fact, meditation really is the opposite of worrying. So when you worry, people say to me, well, Ashley, I haven’t got time to meditate on the word of God.
Carlie: It’s not like sitting cross-legged in a lotus position.
Ashley: No, that’s a very different type of meditation. We’re talking about keeping our mind stayed on the Lord. They say Ashley, I work a job or I’m a single parent, or I have all these responsibilities. I just can’t sit around and meditate on God’s word all day. Well, the neat thing is, God’s given us an ability to think on the word, to think on him while we’re doing these other things.
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: That’s what worrying is. Worrying is like the counterfeit of that. You can do your job. You can do… I bet you can remember times when you’ve had a whole day’s work or you’ve had responsibilities to do, but in the back of your mind, that part of you is still worrying and it never leaves. Worrying about a relationship or worrying about-
Carlie: It’s just a thought that keeps rolling around.
Ashley: It’s a thought that keeps rolling around your head. That’s one way of meditating. Well, you can replace that with a word of God, replace that with a scripture, do whatever you have to do, write them out on post-it notes. Keep them on your cell phone. Do whatever you need to do. But have that. And it doesn’t need to be a bunch of scripture. It could just be one scripture that’s the antidote to your fear at the time. And you keep thinking about that and say, my God is never going to leave me nor forsake me.
Carlie: Yeah. You have to replace a lie with the truth.
Ashley: Amen. I’ve never seen the righteous begging for bread. And you get a scripture like that and you keep meditating on it. You think, you know what? I’m a giver, I’m going to increase. Or whatever it is, I’m the healed of the Lord. Jesus has paid for my… I am the righteousness of God in Christ. You start meditate on those things. And what happens is, you have to choose to do it, your thoughts will start driving your feelings and you’ll start seeing the results and your circumstances will eventually have to change. That’s how it works. It’s going to take an effort on our part. We’re going to have to choose that. God says, I lay before you life or death, Deuteronomy 30. Choose life. You’ve got a choice. You want to think on negative? You want to think on bad things? You want to think on good things? Choose the good things. It’s going to be a lot better for you.
Carlie: Right. We’re going to run out of death at this rate. I’m just saying, there’s going to be no takers.
Ashley: But people probably won’t… The English viewers will understand this, but anyone in any other part of the world won’t understand this. There was an old skit once about choosing…
Carlie: Cake or death.
Ashley: Cake or death. And everyone chose cake obviously, and now Carlie is saying choose life or death.
Carlie: I think about that one [crosstalk] that scripture.
Ashley: Choose life or death.
Carlie: I’m sorry.
Ashley: Everyone chooses cake and the guy says, we’re going to run a cake at this point. So anyway, given the choice between life or death it’s a no brainer.
Carlie: Life is better. I’ve tried both, hey. Life is better.
Ashley: Choose life. There’s no need to choose death. Cake is better than death. Amen. So anyway, [inaudible].
Carlie: I don’t know where that came from.
Ashley: Send your complaints to some other ministry. No, [inaudible] ministries we’ll [inaudible] your emails.
Carlie: Oh my goodness!
Ashley: Praise the Lord. So…
Carlie: Do you have a question or a testimony?
Ashley: I have a question. I have a testimony, actually. If you want to write to us we love to hear from you. So please write your testimonies or write your questions to us. You can go to our website, the details are on your screen. We want to hear your testimonies. We want to hear your questions. Praise God. If you’ve received anything from these programs, we’d love to hear it. So I’ve got a question here. If I can find it. You’re going to give me a hard time for using my iPad rather than paper.
Carlie: Yeah. I don’t have a problem. Mine’s always on see.
Ashley: You don’t have to turn your iPad on. Okay. So this is, I routinely pray. This was one of our partners. So thank you for sending this testimony. And said, “I routinely prayed, God, I don’t hear your voice. You don’t talk to me.” So they’re saying, this is what they would pray. They would go into the prayer closet and say, God, I can’t hear you. That’s not a great way to pray.
Carlie: That’s some great expectations.
Ashley: So, “God I can’t hear you. You don’t talk to me.” That’s what she’s saying here. And then she read John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice.”
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: And she started, she said, “I realized that I am his sheep and I can hear his voice. So I changed my confession. I changed my thinking.”
Carlie: That’s awesome.
Ashley: She says that, “I began to say, thank you, Lord, that I am your sheep. And that I can hear your voice.”
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: She said, “After that I began to actually hear God’s voice more and more clearly. In fact, he even reminded me of times in the past when he had spoken, but I hadn’t even realized it was him.”
Carlie: Wow!
Ashley: That’s a great testimony. Thank you so much for writing us and letting us know that.
Carlie: That’s the power of a renewed mind.
Ashley: It really is. And it’s just what we’ve been teaching today. If we go in and say, I can’t hear God’s voice, God doesn’t speak to me. Then our natural minds are going to shut down. We’re not going to be able to hear God’s voice as clearly. But if you start confessing and saying, I am his child, I can hear his voice. He’s my shepherd, I’m his sheep. I can hear his voice. Then you’re going to start hearing God’s voice clearer. Praise God. And you can apply that to any area of your life that you’re struggling in. Start having a positive confession, start agreeing with how God sees you. How can two walk together unless they agree? So start agreeing with how God sees you. You say Ashley, I don’t feel like it. Don’t worry about that. Your feelings…
Carlie: Your feelings will follow your thoughts.
Ashley: Your feelings with follow your thoughts eventually. I’m not saying just deny everything and fake it until you make it. No, I’m saying agree with the word of God. Agree with who you are in the spirit, because who you are in the spirit is awesome. Praise God. You’ve got everything you need to do everything God’s called you to do. I’m telling you, God has got great plans for you. Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans I have you, plans to prosper you and to give you a future and an expected end.”
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Praise God. I’ve mashed a few different translations together there. I think that was New king James and NIV coming together. I just…
Carlie: Amen. You got the heart of God, huh?
Ashley: That’s my paraphrase. Praise God.
Carlie: [inaudible].
Ashley: I’d love to pray for them. Thank you, father God for everyone watching today. I thank you Lord that you have given them everything they need to succeed in Christ. I think you Lord, you’ve given us the ability to choose our thoughts. I thank you Lord, you’ve given us the ability to choose what we meditate on. And right now I pray for every listener, every viewer that they’re going to choose life, they’re going to choose to think on good things. They’re going to choose to meditate on your word and how you see them. They’re going to choose to meditate on you Jesus. I thank you Lord, you are awesome. You only have good things for us. I thank you Lord, you love us and you’ve got such good things for us, good plans for us. And Lord, we want to receive those good promises. We want to receive everything you have for us. In Jesus’ name.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Amen. Praise God.
Carlie: Thank the Lord.
Ashley: God good?
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: God so good. Hey, thanks for being with us today. We’re going to be back with more of this brain training.
Carlie: Yes.
Ashley: So stay tuned. We’ll back real soon. But until next time, remember, don’t settle for just living a normal life when you could be living the abundant life. We’ll see you next time.
Announcer: To order your copy of this teaching. Visit our website, TerradezMinistries.com or call us at 719-600-3344.
Ashley: Hey, thanks for watching today. We’ve been talking about how to train your brain. That’s right. How to keep your mind stayed on the load, how to renew your minds to God’s thoughts and start to agree with how the word of God says the situation should be. We can do that. You have the power and the ability to do that. You have the ability to choose what you think on and what you meditate on. Now, we’ve only been able to cover a small portion of this, but I’d love you to get the series. We’ve got a whole series called brain training. The details are on your screen and you can go ahead and get this series. You can renew your mind. This is really going to help you. You’re going to be listened to it or watch it. Praise God. So go ahead and get this series today. The details on your screen. You’re not going to want to miss it. And as you do this, your mind is going to be renewed. And as you renew your mind, your circumstances are going to change. And you’re going to start experiencing the abundant life that God has planned for you.
Announcer: To order your copy of this teaching. Visit our website, TerradezMinistries.com, or call us at 719-600-3344.
Ashley: Anytime you find yourself saying to God, God, don’t you care or God can’t you see my situation. Or Lord, don’t you care that I’m starving, don’t you care that I’m having this situation. Anytime you start saying that to God, then-
Carlie: Then you’re in trouble.
Ashley: You’re in the wrong. I mean, it’s not like God’s not mad at you, he loves you. That’s a wrong type of attitude. All of a sudden you’re accusing God of not caring for you. I think Mary and Martha had the same thing. Martha was like, Lord, don’t you care that my sisters left me to serve alone.
Carlie: These people are going to starve.
Ashley: Anytime we say that, yeah, we’re in trouble. So, if you pray that… I’ve prayed that sometimes, Lord, can’t you see what’s going on here. Of course he can. And you know what? He wants you to succeed. He wants things for your good more than you do.