I’m going to pull out irrational belief patterns that may be hindering you from going to the next level. One of them is undeserving. I do not deserve the good measure that flows – I just don’t deserve it. I just can’t see myself as being in this position, I don’t deserve it.
Undeserving
This often comes from things that people said to you or about you and they had convention, they programmed you to see yourself in a limited parameter. And so when you see opportunities beyond how you’ve been programmed, you reject it because you don’t feel like you’re deserving of it.
Ordinary
The other one is — beyond undeserving is ordinary. I do not want to stand apart or be different. I want to fit in. You’d be surprised at the people because they have a belief system that holds on to being ordinary, they will not take the lead. I am afraid that I will become a target and you will.
I want to — let me say that to you too in the name of honesty. If you take the lead you will become a target. But just because they’re shooting at you doesn’t mean they shot you. In fact, some of you should rejoice in the fact that event, that somebody had emptied out their quiver of arrows shooting at you and you are still here, and that person that wouldn’t go out and do what you did for fear of being shot at didn’t recognize that because of your faith and your convictions you have been able to pass through the arrows that have been shot at you and survived.
But you have to have courage to do that and you have to get rid of your fear to do that. And you have to be able to see arrows singing by you, people hating on you, the controversy rising all around you and you have to say like Job, “Though he slay me, yet shall I trust you.”
The third belief system that may be hindering you is social change. I fear rejection, loneliness, or claims that I had changed or sold out. I don’t – I don’t want to be rejected by my sociological environment. And this is very very important to minorities, because when you are a minority there is a clammy survival mechanism that fits in, no matter what kind of minority you are in any situation.
I was in Mexico a while ago and a gentleman came up and said to me, if you’re going to rent a boat because I like to rent boats and go fishing — he says — you’re going to rent a boat, rent a boat for me because I’m an American. Because in that setting, he was a minority. And the idea is we have to stick together. Watch out for we’s, because people will control you with the we and you will miss your opportunity at what may be the best deal for you. Trying to be loyal to the we is what we teach our children, about peer pressure and all of a sudden in order to fit in in your sociological environment, you passed up the promotion, you wouldn’t buy the house that was the best deal for you because it moved you out of the neighborhood that you were defined by, you passed up the position that you wanted to take, because now your girlfriends won’t like you, because you’re now managing the girls who used to run with and so in order to fit in you’re going to stay in the seat that I started this sermon from rather than to take your rightful place behind this rostrum because you want the people you’re sitting beside to like you and accept you — and you don’t want to be a sellout. Oh my —
Fleeting
The next one I want to deal with is fleeting. My success will be temporal and I will not be able to sustain it. You have performance anxiety, you’re afraid that it won’t last. It won’t last. You don’t want to go out on the date because if he does — if you go out on the date you start a relationship and things start to go – it’s not going to last.
I am not going to take this position because if I get this position, I may lose this job, it’s not going to last and I’m not going to go back to school because I may not complete it, it will not last and you have a fear that the blessing is fleeting. So you won’t get back out on the boat and throw your nets again, because you have already programmed yourself that nothing else exciting is never going to happen to you again.
And as I go through these belief systems, I want you to look for the ones that sound like you. Have I hit anything yet?
Perfectionism
The next one I want to talk about is perfectionism. I will have to behave as if I am perfect and I am NOT. I believe this was part of Peter’s problem. When he saw the power of God to bless him, he recognized the power of God to destroy him. Think about this. When he saw the power of God to bless him he recognized the power of God to destroy him. He said “Get out of here, Jesus. Depart from me.”
Why? Because I know I’ve got imperfections and I don’t want to get in the light because somebody might see them. And so I’m going to be secretly talenting. I’m going to sing at home. I’m going to leave the church and say what they ought to do and what somebody ought to say and what somebody ought to write a book about that, somebody ought to get up and say so and I’m going to drive home locking my treasure up inside of me because I am imprisoned by my imperfections. And I don’t want anybody to know that I’m not perfect even though I’m good at this, I’m weak at that. Peter said look you made me a great fisherman but I’m a sinful man. Go, I reject the opportunity to be blessed because I know something about myself that I don’t want anybody else to know and I’m more concerned about the security of my reputation than I am my progress.
Perfectionism. I’m not going to get involved with him because if I get involved with him and he gets too close to me, he will see that I’m not perfect. Being able to balance your imperfection and they may not even be more imperfection, in the case of the dating, it may be physical imperfection. Oh, no he couldn’t say he want me, I am too fat.
Where you don’t give the person the chance to accept you because you already criticized yourself over to, you’ll be surprised as the people who talk other people out of loving them. Convincing that you’re not – oh, no, no look at me –
You know exactly what to do to move up into the next position but you don’t want the light on you because you have issues. Newsflash, everybody has issues. Everybody had junk in the truck and if you’re waiting to clean out all the junk before you put your pedal to the metal and drive and go forward, you may be stuck 20 years cleaning out the truck.
