10 Minute Transformation Dave Milford

We live in a world full of takers. We honor those who have the most money, fame, power or prestige. God’s kingdom is just the opposite. God rewards givers. Givers receive from God when they give with all their heart.
00:00 Take a Step and God Will Meet You With What You Need 
4:07   Give and it Shall Be Given to You, Pressed Down, Shaken Together and Running Over
6:66 Activation: Apply this Spiritual Principle to Your Life
 I share a story about being badly hurt by the betrayal of a friend and how I couldn’t forgive that friend until he “gave” an act of forgiveness to the friend.
 Luke 6:37-38 says:
 37Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
 
“Give” it says in Luke 6:38. I needed to give something. So, I called my friend. I called and acted as if the betrayal had never happened. We talked about everyday things – just small talk.
 
As I talked with my friend, the forgiveness I was still struggling to find, suddenly dropped into my heart. I remembered all the years of our friendship, the memories we have together, and I remembered why I love this guy. And then it was easy to forgive.
 
Forgiveness is not an emotion. It’s a decision followed by an action. Act first, and the emotion will follow. We step out in faith, and God gives us what we need, to do what is right. I gave my friend a second chance and God restored our friendship and gave me peace, forgiveness, and love for my friend.
 
Before I took a step, I was unable to forgive, even though I was trying. After I acted, taking just one step toward forgiveness, God flooded my heart with forgiveness.


There is a powerful spiritual principle at work in Luke 6:38. We give to God and he gives more to us. Much more. I took one small step toward forgiveness, a phone call reaching out to my friend. God ran to me and filled my heart with memories of a long friendship and filled my heart with the forgiveness I had been trying to get on my own. It was an amazing experience. 
 
Give and it Shall Be Given to You, Pressed Down, Shaken Together and Running Over
 This principle is proven true in many contexts in scripture. 
In finances, in relationship with God and in relationship with others.
 I share several stories of God’s supernatural provision during the 12 years we lived in Hong Kong. 
 2 Corinthians 9:6 says:  
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
 
Activation: How to Apply this Spiritual Principle to Your Life

Human failure is our reality. God’s forgiveness and restoration is our greater reality!! At the last supper the disciples argued who was the greatest. Jesus told them he would be arrested and they would all abandon him. Peter said, “not me.” Jesus told him he would deny Christ 3 times before dawn. Yet, in the middle of all this, Jesus assured the disciples that their reward in heaven would be great. These verses teach us that God’s grace is infinitely greater than our sin.
 
00:00 Jesus gives the disciples grace
2:53 Grace is Grater than Human Failure
3:45 Satan wants to sift you like wheat
4:07 All men fail God
4:22 The Blood of Jesus is greater than our failures (Romans 3:22-25)
4:53 Made righteous not by what we do but by what we believe
5:24 Human love is conditional; God’s love is not.
5:52 Angry Christians
6:37 jesus is our Righteousness (Romans 8:1, 2 Corinthians 5:21)
7:16 Saving Faith (Faith working in love, Galatians 5:6)
8:15 Grace that is greater than our sin
8:25 What God sees when he looks at you
9:08 When we return to the Lord, He restores us
9:30 ACTIVATION


 Jesus was having a last meal with the disciples he loved, when they began to squabble about who was the greatest among them. At the same meal, Jesus told them they would all abandon him. Peter said, “Not me.” Jesus told Peter he would deny knowing Jesus 3 times before dawn. 
 
In the middle of all this human failure by the disciples, Jesus assured them that their reward in heaven would be great!!
 
All men fail God. Repeatedly. Every single one of us. In our lives we are sifted by struggles, problems and brokenness. We fail. We run away from God. We sin. We fall short of what God requires. And the blood of Jesus covers and removes our sin, our flaws and our failures.
 Romans 3:22-25 NKJV
 
We are made righteous not by what we do but by what we believe. 
 Romans 8:1 AMP
2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB


Saving Faith works in love. 
Faith that saves and makes us righteous and holy is faith (believing and trusting Jesus and Father God) because we know they love us. And our natural response to receiving their love is to love them back.
 Galatians 5:6 NASB 
 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. 
 
The Galatians had fallen into the trap of trying to obey the requirements of the law to sustain their salvation. Paul corrected them. It’s not your performance that makes you righteous, he is saying. It is your faith flowing from your love.
 
We must come to a point in our lives that we truly believe that grace (the favor we have from God because he loves us and for no other reason) is greater than our sin.
 
We must come to a place where we accept the amazing truth that when God looks at us he doesn't see our performance (what we think, say or do) and our many failures and flaws. No, God sees every born-again believer as being "in Christ." When God looks at us, He sees Jesus' perfect life of love and sacrifice. We are "In Christ." Our lives are no longer our own. We have accepted Jesus' offer to join, to unite our lives with His.
 
And just like the disciples, God knows that our flawed humanity will cause us to fail Him. We will sin. We may even turn our back on God for a season. But he reminds us that there are great rewards for us in heaven. And, like Peter, God restores us. 
 
Peter, who had denied Jesus three times, was the apostle who spoke to the crowd on the day of Pentecost and led 3,000 people to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Peter had been restored to his true identity. 
 

In the book of Mark, Jesus was interrupted 35 times. People asked Jesus to come teach, to heal the sick, to cast out demons and raise the dead. He said, “Yes.” Jesus had discovered that God’s frequent interruptions weren’t interruptions at all. They were God’s opportunities. They were God’s plan for his life. The same is true of you and I. We need to learn how to live like Jesus: to live letting God interrupt our lives.


 Jesus was interrupted during meals, while teaching crowds, while walking down the road, even when he was trying to just get away from the crowds and spend time with God. People crowded him, grabbed his clothes (Mark 5:27-28) and invaded his personal space. Two Blind men even burst into the house where he was, apparently uninvited (Matthew 9). Jesus healed them. Four men tore up the roof of a house to lower a sick man down so Jesus could heal him. (Mark 2) Imagine the dust and debris falling on Jesus, as they ripped up the roof above his head. That was outrageous. But Jesus didn’t get upset. He healed the man. 

Jesus’ didn’t just patiently endure all of this, a fake smile pasted on his face. He genuinely felt the pain of the people. He had compassion on them. He felt God’s love for them and He loved them by serving them.
 
00:00 Jesus lived an Interruptible Life
1:36 God Used Homeless People to Teach me to Be More Interruptible
5:15 God Wants to Be Part of Our Daily Lives (scriptures)
7:11 Interruption is God’s Invitation 
9:14 Activation

*God Highlighted Homeless People to Teach Me to Be More Interruptible
I tell stories of how God taught me to be more interruptible by highlighting homeless people everywhere I went last summer and fall. 
These people were assignments for me. Holy Spirit kept pointing them out. I learned to immediately respond.
. 

*God wants to be a big part of our lives – every day. He has specific plans for us. He has works prepared for us to do – things that were planned long before we were born. Ephesians 2:10 GNT, Psalm 37:23 NKJV, Proverbs 16:1 ESV, Proverbs 19:21 EXB, Proverbs 20:24 NIV, Jeremiah 10:23

The highest life, the most rewarding life we could possibly live is the life God planned and prepared for us. Our role is to live interruptible lives, completing God’s assignments and living the lives God planned for us to live. 

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in” Life Together”:
 “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God." 

**Interruption is God’s Invitation 
*to come closer to God, to know his heart for people.
*to overcome evil with good. You and I can’t overcome all the evil in the world, but we can stop for the one person in front of us. We can make a difference in their life. We can love and care for them the way Jesus would.
*Interruption is God’s invitation for you to be transformed to become like Jesus. –A life lived for Christ is a self-less life. It is a life dedicated to others. God’s interrupts us to transform us into new people. (see Romans 12:2)
*It’s an invitation to open your eyes to see as God sees. You will develop fresh awareness of people, problems, and God – his power, his love, and his faithfulness.
*to hear God and immediately obey God. Developing a habit of immediate obedience is a powerful thing. 
*to learn to love – it is through serving that we learn the true meaning of love. Matthew 23:11 NIV:  The greatest among you will be your servant.
*to learn humility. Living interruptible will empower you to “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,” Philippians 2:3 NIV
*an invitation to the Joy of loving and serving others. Such joy!!
Ecclesiastes 9:7 NASB 
Activation- Learn to embrace God’s interruptions and to create margin (time, energy, and resources) for God to interrupt you.

You may feel the weight of world on your shoulders right now. You may be overwhelmed by fear, drained and defeated by what has happened to you. Jesus wants to lift you from under your circumstances and seat you far above them with Him. From there, He will teach you how to pray and overcome whatever you are struggling with. 

The prayer activation at the end of this video WILL enable you to pray above your circumstances. Do the activation.

The Phone Call In The Night
This video begins with the story of an emergency phone call in the night (a person’s mother’s heart stopped) and how fear and hopelessness try to take control. God has answers to your fear and despair.

Hebrews 4: 16 NLT 
16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

You approach God’s throne as a much-loved son or daughter, to receive His compassion, His love, and grace (his favor) to help you when you need it most. 
You remember Psalm 100:4: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.”

As you praise and worship God, His peace will come and fill your heart.
Now you’re ready to pray.

Jesus, how are You praying for my Mom? What do you want me to know about this situation?”  

You wait. When anxious thoughts again try to come, you just gently praise them away. When Jesus speaks, it may be a picture in your mind, a still small voice, a Scripture or an inner knowing that you recognize as Him. You wait, confident Jesus will answer. You’ve done this before – many times.
You have the faintest impression – a picture of a heart beating. And a wave of peace washes over you. You have Jesus’ answer. Your mother will live. Somehow, in your spirit, you know that now.

You pray with faith, not an ounce of fear.
Romans 10:17 NKJV promises: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” You heard God and your faith cannot be shaken. 

What Just Happened?
Our physical life is limited to the earth. But we are spirits. We live in a body and we have a soul, but we are spirits. When we were born again, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus….”
Ephesians 2:6 (NIV)

When we pray, we go to Jesus – boldly approaching His throne of grace and mercy. What is Jesus doing in heaven? He’s interceding for us.
Hebrews 7:25 (NLT)
 
When He answers, then I know how to pray. I’m not praying to Him; I’m praying to God with Jesus. And I KNOW that prayer will be answered because Jesus has told me how to pray.

Activation
Life’s problems can quickly overwhelm you. You weren’t meant to live crushed under the devil’s feet.  John 16:33 NIV


Think of a situation or problem that is weighing you down and stressing you out. Follow these 4 steps.
 
**1st Step. Accept Jesus’ invitation to “come up here.” Rise above your situation by heartfelt thanksgiving and praise. Psalm 100:4: ““Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.”

**2nd Step. Draw Near to God and Resist the Devil. 
James 4:7-8 NIV


**3rd Step. Join Jesus’ prayer meeting. Ask him how to pray.  
*Sometimes, how we see a person or situation is the problem. 
Jesus, show me how you see _________ (a person, situation or problem). Let Jesus show you His perspective. 

*How are you praying, Jesus? What is Your provision for me in this?

* Approach Jesus knowing there is always an answer.  
Philippians 4:19 (NIV), 2 Peter 1:3 (NLT)

 
**4th Step. Once you know how to pray, you will be able to pray in faith. And God will answer your prayers.  1 John 5:14-15 (NIV), Matthew 17:20 (NIV)

One of the greatest stories of God’s faithfulness in being with us when we need him most is a story many people don’t know.

It happened 800 years before Jesus came to earth. Israel was split into two Kingdoms, Judah to the South and Israel to the North. Israel was an ungodly nation, let by King Ahab and his wicked wife, Jezebel. Yet, God was faithful to his people in Israel. God gave Israel Elijah and then Elisha as prophets to lead and protect Israel. Aram, a Syrian nation, had attacked Israel in a series of raids.

2 Kings 6:8-23 NIV tells the story:
8 When the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he would confer with his officers and say, “We will mobilize our forces at such and such a place.”
9 But immediately Elisha, the man of God, would warn the king of Israel, “Do not go near that place, for the Arameans are planning to mobilize their troops there.” 10 So the king of Israel would send word to the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he would be on the alert there.
11 The king of Aram became very upset over this. He called his officers together and demanded, “Which of you is the traitor? Who has been informing the king of Israel of my plans?”
12 “It’s not us, my lord the king,” one of the officers replied. “Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel even the words you speak in the privacy of your bedroom!”
13 “Go and find out where he is,” the king commanded, “so I can send troops to seize him.”
And the report came back: “Elisha is at Dothan.” 14 So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city.
15 When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha.
16 “Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!”
17 Then Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes and let him see!” The LORD opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.
18 As the Aramean army advanced toward him, Elisha prayed, “O LORD, please make them blind.” So the LORD struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked.

Elisha led them to Samaria and the king.

21 When the king of Israel saw them, he shouted to Elisha, “My father, should I kill them? Should I kill them?”
22 “Of course not!” Elisha replied. “Do we kill prisoners of war? Give them food and drink and send them home again to their master.”
23 So the king made a great feast for them and then sent them home to their master. After that, the Aramean raiders stayed away from the land of Israel.
The king of Aram wisely decided to leave Israel alone after this. You would leave a nation with a god that powerful alone too!

I Will Never Leave You or Forsake You

Like Elisha’s servant, you may be outnumbered by your enemies, facing an impossible situation right now. But like Elisha, God is on your side. Throughout scripture, God again and again tells his people, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”


No matter what you are facing today, here is God’s personal promise to you: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them [your enemies or circumstances], for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 [added for clarity]

This promise is repeated in Joshua 1:5, 1:9 and in Hebrews 13:5.

The same promise is made in different words in Isaiah 41:10 ERV:
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Activation
Do the activation to deal with fear and anxiety in your circumstances. Declar

Rick Warren’s son succumbed to depression and took his own life. Rick was surprised to get letters from people his son had led to Christ. In God’s grace, even broken people bear fruit for God. 
00:00 Matthew Warren’s Tortured Life
2:41 We’re all Broken
3:47 Jesus Will Never Reject You
4:17 Your Faith In Jesus makes you holy Before God
5:00 Peter and Paul were Broken People Just Like You and I
8:02 When You are Weak, Then You Are Strong
8:58 Your Greatest Ministry Will Come Out of Your Greatest Pain
9:43 Activation


Jesus will Never Reject You
Matthew 12:20 says of Jesus, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out…” You may be spiritually, physically or morally bruised, your light for God sputtering, smoldering, about to go out, but Jesus will not reject you.  He will bless you and bring you to Him.
 
Your faith in Jesus justifies you (makes you holy, righteous) before God.
Romans 3:20, 28 NIV
 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 
Ephesians 3:8-9 NIV
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
Justification is the exchange of our sins for Jesus’ righteousness when we believed in Jesus. 
We are all broken people.
Did Jesus reject Peter and throw him on the scrapheap of humanity when Peter denied Christ 3 times in one night? No! In fact, Jesus restored him. And on the day of Pentecost, when power from heaven fell on Christians for service to God, who spoke and won to Christ 3,000 souls that day? Peter!! (See John 18, 21, and Acts 2)
Did Jesus disqualify Paul who had imprisioned and killed Christians as he zealously tried to protect the Jewish religion? No! Jesus went after him. He wanted Paul’s brilliant intellect and his religious zeal to be used to establish Christianity, not destroy it. A murderer and persecutor of the Church established churches throughout Asia. And God gave Paul the privilege of writing 2/3 of the New Testament – the most read, most influential book in the history of the world. 
What God did for them, he has done for you. By faith in Jesus, you are made righteous before God. 
 
When I am weak, then I am strong.
God will use your weaknesses to strengthen others. In our weakest times, God reveals His strength. He becomes strong in and through us, even as our strength fails.  See 2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV


Your Greatest Ministry Will Come Out of Your Greatest Pain
Rick Warren concludes, “Your greatest ministry will come out of your deepest pain. I say that from experience. There's not a week go by that somebody famous calls me with either a mental illness issue or a suicide issue, and I'm talking about from the highest of the highest people, personalities in politics and in celebrity. And Kay and I did not ask for this ministry of ministering to families with mental illness and ministering to families struggling with suicide of a family member. I didn't want that ministry, but it's one that God gave us, and I'm not going to waste the pain.
You're going to go through pain in life; just don't waste it. If you're going to go through pain, you might as well use it to help somebody else out.”
See Rick Warren's interview with Matt Crouch of TBN where he discusses this in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCUbog65dP4