 We will read from Romans chapter 12 and verse 3 it says the following for I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith and the second verse I want us to read is 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7 and it says the following for we walk by faith and not by sight can somebody say amen I want you to repeat this prayer out loud after me say Lord Jesus open my heart to your word Lord Jesus open my heart to your faith Lord Jesus open my heart to your spirit amen in the first verse it said that not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to but to think soberly somebody says soberly means God is saying for us not to be intoxicated in your thinking that when you think you have to not to be intoxicated in your thinking but you have to think soberly and he said according to the measure of faith that you have from God means God wants us to think according to our faith not according to our feelings if you're taking notes write this down the first point that we are going to have is your life will change if you don't think on the level of your feelings your life will change if you don't think on the level of your feelings God is telling us in this scripture to think according to our faith and not to think intoxicated sometimes our thinking is intoxicated meaning our thinking is not sober meaning our thinking is filled with emotions and our circumstances to that degree that we're not thinking straight and any person who ever gets intoxicated realizes there comes a time and the intoxication leaves your body and you become normal again and many people go like this through their life when something bad happens it gets into their head and it becomes intoxicated means they think intoxicated they walk around feeling so depressed and so down until somebody gives them a hundred dollars God is good you're intoxicated you just got intoxicated with circumstances and you switch from being intoxicated from circumstances to a hundred dollars if it takes a hundred dollars to quickly shift your mood that means that you are intoxicated and not sober in your thinking because what Paul is saying is that be sober means don't think on the level of your feelings think on the level of your faith now that's okay when we will have our feelings going up and down but what's important is that our feelings never trap our thinking the illustration always kind of helps me is the illustration about the net about the net and and fishing i am not an expert in fishing but i judge and i come up with lessons about fishing from pictures and stories you see a man in the boat and he throws a net into the water and the secret of catching a fish is to throw the net into the water but don't ever throw yourself in the net now imagine yourself you're trying to catch fish and you throw the net into the water and then you jump into the net what's going to happen you're gonna catch you and you're gonna get trapped in the net because the way you catch some certain birds or some certain animals is you throw the net and the more movement they make the more trapped they become see the boat is the word of god it's your faith the net is your feelings when you are in the boat of god's word you can control your emotions when you leave your confidence from the word of god and you jump fully into your emotions you are trapped by the devil the devil cannot trap a christian who is ruled by the word of god say this a lot after me say the devil cannot trap me if i am ruled by the word of god if you are ruled by the word of god he cannot trap you as a christian remain in the boat and throw the net outside don't throw yourself into the net or else you will become trapped in the net and many people become trapped in their feelings when you are ruled by your feelings and you think on the level of your feelings and this is like this i feel down i must be down i feel rejected i must be rejected i feel poor my circumstances i'm saying i am poor i must be poor i feel sick i must be very sick when you begin to think on the level of your feelings you become trapped by your feelings it takes one bad thing to happen and your confidence in the word of god goes outside of the window because you're not based in a boat that's solid the net will fluctuate your feelings are not constant your feelings like i've mentioned it takes one good thing for some of you it takes a cup of coffee and you will regain your smile and for some of you it takes one small thing as like dropping your keys and you drop your attitude that's why you must understand one thing if you're 20 or 15 your feelings are like a net you have to control them but don't get yourself into them because once you do satan will control you the way he wants to control you satan cannot control you if you are ruled by the word of god it doesn't mean he cannot attack you i'm not saying he cannot influence you i'm not saying he's not gonna try to control you but what i'm saying he will not have a grip on your life when you are standing in the boat and in the confidence god said it and then settles it only then you can control your feelings people many times say i cannot control my feelings the only place you cannot control your feelings is the place if you're not in a boat of god's word now the story that a love from the bible is the story of jesus standing at the tomb of lazarus and this picture is actually the actual tomb from jerusalem and in this story we see jesus facing the tomb and we know that lazarus is dead lazarus is gone it's been it's been few days already and what i love about jesus is that jesus faces the tomb and jesus weeps so he feels the death he feels the grave and he feels so much that he weeps he groans yet after all of it is done the bible says he opened his mouth and he said lazarus come out Jesus felt on the level of death but never thought on the level of death sometimes we feel like i have to think on the level of my feelings you don't you can serve divorce papers to your feelings and your thoughts you can tell your feelings you can fluctuate but my thoughts will come from my faith you can have tears like prophet tibijashua says that a man of faith is swallow his tears but he will describe the taste of honey and man of faith is not someone who has no bad feelings it's not someone who doesn't feel fear or who doesn't feel doubt or who doesn't feel confusion sometimes who doesn't feel hard things he might even feel it to the degree the tears are rolling down his eyes but he never thinks on the level of his tears he never thinks on the level of his feelings he never thinks on the level of his paycheck he never thinks on the level of doctor's report he thinks higher than his feelings and that's why he's able to speak to the lazarus as the lazarus come out why because i feel down i think up i feel death but i think life i feel grave but i think resurrection and what you think is what you're gonna have in your life as men think of so is he the bible says give yourself permission to feel on one level without coming down to that level give yourself permission to weep without complaining to weep and yet to say let the weak say i am strong to have a minimal pain job and barely making buy and yet to say i am blessed i may be feeling on the level of poverty but i think on the level of prosperity i may be feeling on the level of sickness but i think on the level by the stripes of jesus i am healed i may be feeling on the level of i am not accepted i am not loved i feel afraid abandoned but i think on the level i am accepted in the beloved and god is on my side and he never leaves my side for the glory of god jesus teaches me a lesson that i can feel but i don't have to think like i feel because i have been through situations like you and i've realized how quickly my feelings shift from depression to celebration how quickly my feelings jump from celebration to despair and therefore it will be foolish for me to jump into the net of my feelings that will entrap me and leave me as a prey to the demons and the devils of depression my jesus teaches me it's okay to weep as long as you don't think on the level of your tears as long as you think like paul says in the verse that we read in in romance where he says think according to your faith not according to your feelings can somebody say amen and that's what the lord teaches us and that's what we see from the example of jesus is that our life will change if we don't think on the level of our feelings it's important to understand is that a spiritual person is not someone who doesn't have bad feelings it's someone who's not ruled by bad feelings and a sensual person is not someone who doesn't have faith it's someone who's not ruled by their faith i think it's that that example of the train where the first comes the fact then comes the faith and then comes the feeling a spiritual person is not ruled by his feelings but he has them if you think that when you have fear that means you don't have faith you're not right faith is not when you don't have fear it's when the fear doesn't have you and the opportunity to one young man to show me a video when last weekend he overcame his fear he jumped from the plane and he showed me the video and asked him were you afraid he said of course i was like do you have fear of heights he's like who doesn't i'm like see the difference between you and me is that you have a fear of heights fear of heights have me and i'm like there is no way in this god's world that i'm jumping from the plane the only promise i have from the bible is i'm going to be jumping up in rapture but i am not dropping down every person who jumped from the plane this weekend asked them did they have fear of course they did but the difference between them is this is the fear did not have them they had the feeling but they acted on something else and me it's not that i don't have the courage because i've been through some a lot of other things that are a lot worse than jumping from the plane it's just i don't act on that courage and i refuse to act on the courage for safety's sake and for other things amen take your notes let's write down point number two holy spirit moves and the tracks of our thoughts holy spirit moves and the tracks of our thoughts so we mentioned that god doesn't want us to think on the level of our feelings god doesn't want us to be entrapped by our feelings god wants us to think by faith holy spirit moves by the tracks of our thoughts holy spirit is like a train he's like a train i'll just use an example like a train your heart is like a train station but your thoughts are the tracks that he uses to move upon in your life if in your heart there is no right thoughts holy spirit cannot operate in your life and therefore apostle paul is saying make sure that you have thoughts coming from your spirit not thoughts constantly being derailed and broken by your feelings or your circumstances i remember meeting with the young man last week and he had a very has a very hard job and he doesn't pay a lot and asked him what is your dream job and he mentioned to me the dream job the job he has right now is nothing even close to the dream it's very difficult very hard and it's a minimal paying job i asked him a question i said are you allowed to listen to teachings or like lessons or college lessons on your job does it interfere with your job to listen to something uh through your earphones he said no it doesn't i said do you listen to anything he said yes i'm like let me guess music he's like yes and this is what i told him i said your life will not change when you feel better your life will only change when you think better i'm like you cannot just music is good but if you only listen to music what it does is it gives you an emotion to last through your hard day but it will not change your career in five years but when you take some lessons or you take some teaching you take and you change your thoughts and you think higher than your job in a matter of years you will come up to the level of your thoughts he says pastor i want to do that i got him his phone we downloaded the app a podcast i said what is your dream job and he mentioned his dream job i went on itunes and i found classes and i said i know you cannot afford to go to college but you can take your college into your work right now every single day people with you will look at you and they're jamming to music and that's why they'll work at that job till they die you on the other hand it's jamming to lessons and you are moving your mind higher to where your job is and it's a matter of time and your life will catch up to the level of your thinking why because your thinking is the track through which the holy spirit travels upon holy spirit cannot take you to a place that he doesn't first bring your mind to and he says yes i want to diversify i want to have less i want to listen to sermons on marriage i want to listen to sermons that has to do with helping me with my career and honestly there is no possible way right now that he can get out of that situation but holy spirit knows how to connect people whose mind has been elevated to the places that are good for them because somebody say amen the example that i had is um this wonderful person who worked as a as a janitor for 20 something years in this elementary school his parents were janitors and because they divorced he could not go to college the parents had to support the siblings and he had to work from an early age and he started to work as a janitor and there's nothing wrong with working as a janitor but if you are in this country and you speak english and you're a young person it's good to start as a janitor but it's not good when you live work all your life as a janitor and you're able to speak english and you're able to reason and you're able to get a better job and he worked there as a janitor for over 20 years in this elementary school until one day the principal noticed him and he said listen i know that right now you're picking up papers but you know that you can actually write papers one day he said but the only way you will not work as a janitor but you will move up is when you change how you think he said you have to get unlike classes because you can't quit your job right now to go to school start getting classes and he started to enroll himself into school and start getting his associates degree sometimes sleeping three four hours a day just so he can lift his mind above working as a janitor coming back to the same job cleaning the floors doing everything but at night lifting his mind above his situation and this went on for a few years and then he got his bachelors and his situation immediately changed after a few years he went and started to be a teacher in the very school he was a janitor in and then he went on and said you know what i love being a teacher but i want to go higher and he got a master's degree and today he is a principal of the very same school he worked as a janitor for 20 something years my friend the bible says that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind which means this if your mind is changed your life will be i want to encourage you right now do not be discouraged by your situation in your situation i want you to feed yourself with the proper material feed your faith feed your thought life and think on a different level than your feelings and your circumstances and you will see in a matter of a short time your life will line up to the level of your thinking if you get a miracle from god you get a big bonus you get you know a beautiful home but your thinking is always on poor broke buster disgusted nobody loves me nobody cares god doesn't care about me i'm just nobody guess what happens in the matter of time your life will come down to your thinking where the man goes where the mind goes the man will follow amen i want you to write down point number three actually before that prophet tibijash said the following thought that was very encouraging he said to the extent that we think the thoughts of god we will walk in the power of god means that the thoughts of a believer are the tracks upon which holy spirit travels upon it's as though to say that you cannot see god change your situation until you don't allow god to change your mind and to change your thoughts if you don't allow god's word to change your thoughts if you don't listen to podcasts if you don't listen to testimonies and miracles so that your mind thinks different god's power cannot be unleashed to cause you live different when you think different you will live different and sometimes you need to surround yourself with people who think on a different level than you and they will cause you to feel uncomfortable they will cause you to feel out of place they will cause you to feel not in your own skin not in your own vibe why because they think on a level that is so different for you but when you hang out around eagles for a while you realize you got some wings and maybe you can fly amen i remember when i wanted to buy a new car at 21 and i met around leo and leo was thinking on a level that i didn't even think people think on that level and he said vlad don't buy a new car he said buy a rental property and let the rental property buy you a new car i said that's crazy rental property what if people will like not pay rent and put cement in a basement or cement in a toilet i'm like and and i was surrounded with myself constantly with what's not gonna happen what's not gonna happen what's not gonna happen and leo said listen you cannot be like that you can surround yourself with what's not gonna happen you gotta surround yourself with what could happen and he started to mess with my thinking i came back to my parents and my parents were like you vlad you're crazy you and leo are crazy and honestly and with the help of my dad i went crazy and my thinking was raised up and instead of getting a new car i got a rental that paid for the new car and then i started to think on the higher level instead of just getting new rims and a new car i think on the level of where can this money make more money why because i was hanging out with a person who wasn't thinking on the level i was thinking he was thinking higher and it's interesting that when you change the way you think things just begin to rearrange in your life god's power is released when god starts to comprehend it pastor vladimir montan said the following also is the holy spirit cannot work in your life by passing your mind holy spirit will first inflict he will first change your mind and then he will change your life can somebody say amen and point three if you're taking notes we're gonna finish on this point is that you cannot solve the problem with the same mind with which you created it you cannot solve the problem with the same mind with which you created it we must understand that when you are in a certain situation for a long time whether it's dead its sickness a curse addiction you begin to think like that you may be not in the beginning but after a while you begin to think like that it's the story we like to repeat in our church when they took few millionaires and they made them homeless just to see what's gonna happen in few years with these millionaires and they took few homeless men and they made the millionaires by giving them a million and in a matter of few years the millionaires who became homeless became millionaires again and the homeless who became millionaires became homeless again and they came to the conclusion that being a millionaire has very little to do with money it all has to do with your mind and being a homeless person actually has very little to do with not having a job it all has to do with how you think and if you talk to a person who is homeless many times you will see they didn't start thinking homeless but after time to cope with pain to cope with life and disappointment you develop a mindset with which capitalizes your situation and you're stuck in that situation and that's why you need a church that's why you need podcasts that's why you need the bible that's why you need testimonies why not so that your life can change so that your mind can be free to be on a level that your life is not so that your life can pick up to the level of your mind and somebody say amen and even if you lose it one day even if one day you know like uh what's what's the guy that won bankrupt uh Donald Trump who won bankrupt like eight times or six times many times he's still a billionaire i mean he doesn't because why you don't lose the lessons you learned your mind is on a different level and your money drops so low but it's a matter of time and it picks up he doesn't think like a poor person and that's why he will not be a poor person i want to challenge you today not to think like a sick person when you're sick don't think like a poor person when you are poor don't think like a weak person when you feel weak don't think like a person who's defeated when you feel defeated when life is hard don't think on that level think on a higher level you are seated with christ in the heavenly places listen to the testimony this week of a lady that really inspired me and she had seizures an epilepsy since the age of two she was born healthy but at the age of two she was taken a picture on a horse and the camera flashed spoke to horse at the horse took off and dropped her at the high speed and she had a brain damage and because of this damage she started to have epilepsy she started to have this epilepsy on just every other day until the age of 13 and at the age of 13 they went to another level because of hormonal change in her body and she started to have a very big and strong epilepsy once a day and they were so huge that it caused her to be labeled with names that you don't want to even know in school they made fun of her she had no friends and she was convinced inside of her and her life is over they decided to do a surgery where they will remove certain part of her brain to ease the attacks of epilepsy during the surgery she had a stroke and even worse things happened to her and her life just started to go down and down and she tried to commit suicide twice by overdosing on pills and once by cutting her wrists but somebody rescued her until one day she was because she lived with her parents she was not able to socialize she would watch tv but she didn't watch any tv she watched christian tv now you might say you have epilepsy you had a stroke you have no life it's not your fault that at the age of two you fell from a horse i mean if anybody has a reason to just simply kill themselves and just be over it will be her but she decided that you know what i cannot change the epilepsy but maybe i can change my thinking she started to watch a christian tv and then this particular channel that she was watching a lady gave a word of knowledge and she said there is a lady that's sitting on the couch and you have a brain damage through an accident that happened with the horse she mentioned the horse the moment the lady mentioned the horse has just just this goosebumps went over her back and she says open up he lifted her hand she says i am healed i am healed i am healed and for 30 days there was no epilepsy but she was so happy and relieved until on 30th day she had the worst epilepsy she's ever had in her life but during this time this was different epilepsy because when the epilepsy came and she was shivering and shaking in the kitchen for the first time in her life she fought back in her mind and she said to that epilepsy in her own thinking i am healed and you're not can i come back to this body again because she's sitting on the couch she didn't just receive a healing she received a new mind she started to think not no longer on the level of cutting my wrists and the level of i had a stroke and the level nobody loves me and i have epilepsy but she started to think on the level that by his stripes i am healed and it was so convincing that in the middle of her epilepsy she started to fight back and said this is not my portion it's been seven years and she never had an epilepsy again today she can drive today she can do everything by herself like a normal person she's unrecognizable and the effects of stroke are completely vanished from her body why was it luck no even when the sickness came back it was confronted with a mind that's been renewed i'm gonna leave you with this verse it says in roman chapter 12 verse 2 do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind be transformed god's saying you can be somebody say transformed somebody say i can be transformed when my mind is renewed