I believe there is untapped potential sitting inside every person in this room and every person listening online. God wants to do a big thing in your life and through your life.
He’s just waiting on you to listen to His step-by-step instruction and simply believe that there are no limits to what He can do in your life.
And you’re right. If we are just talking about you, or me, there are major limitations when we do things on our own. But when we realize that Jesus is doing this with us, it changes everything.
Let’s take a look at our core scripture here at NoLimits Church.
Ephesians 3:20 NLT - Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.
Speaking of thinking, this message is all about mindset. Because upgrading your mindset is key to taking the limits off.
Do you ever find yourself thinking things like:
Or maybe you’ve caught yourself pretending to be someone else because you’re afraid if they see the real you, they’ll be disappointed. I know I’ve done it.
Let me ask you this. When you hear stories of other people’s success, what are your initial thoughts?
Beth and I were gone this past Sunday because we went to a real estate investing conference in Oklahoma City.
We believe that God wants to do big things with our income so our prayer for the past several months has been, “How? How do we fulfill the big vision that you’ve put before us?”
Our minds and ears have been open and through a chain of small steps of obedience, we’ve been led to real estate investing. And here’s what I mean by small steps.
First, there was a subtle leading to load audio from a recent conference I went to on my phone. I don’t like to spend my time on things like this but I knew it was important, so I did it.
Second, I was led to listen to this audio while on a plane last month headed to another conference for one of my clients. Little did I know, I listened to two hours worth of content to hear one line: “Dave Ramsey is where you start learning how to manage money, and Robert Kiyosaki is where you go to learn how to put your money to work for you.”
I wrote down Robert’s name so I could research it when I got off the plane, which I did, but it really wasn’t that amazing of experience. I just decided I’d read one of his books again, Rich Dad Poor Dad, sometime in the future.
Then, a few days later, I received a marketing email from Robert about a free class his team was doing in Tulsa about real estate. I get a lot of emails and all the promotional emails are bulked together. Usually I just delete them so I can get to the important stuff, but this one caught my attention due to the previous chain of events.
So, Beth and I went to the free class which led to us going to Oklahoma City last weekend for a 3-day conference on real estate which led to us enrolling in a full blown course on real estate investing.
This is what I’m talking about when I say God is just waiting for us to listen and act on the step-by-step instructions He is laying out before us.
When desiring to be led by the Lord, we start looking for some extravagant instruction - for amazing secrets to be revealed. But most times, it’s a simple instruction, like:
At the conference we were at last weekend, we were being taught by a lady who has been in real estate for more than 15 years. And considering she was the one teaching, she had obviously had success.
As she would share stories about some of the deals she had done in real estate over the years, I had an inner struggle going on.
“That’s not real. Even if it did happen to her, it’s not going to happen to me. She must just be making up these stories to take advantage of me.”
Even though these thoughts kept popping up throughout the weekend, I did a pretty good job shutting them down. But there was still an undercurrent of disbelief in what she was saying.
After the conference, I was reflecting on this inner struggle and had an aha moment. I realized that if I got up in front of a crowd and shared my story of finding success through blogging, everyone else would probably have the same inner struggle going on. Yet, I know for sure that my story is 100% true.
You see, in 2012 I started a blog called Collaborate Worship. Basically, I just wanted a place to document my journey as a worship leader. So I wrote about leadership techniques that were working and also wrote a lot about how to make things sound better at church.
I blogged for three years, almost every week, without making a dime. Then, in 2015 I managed to make just under $2,000 for the year which still wasn’t enough to cover my monthly expenses for software and such.
But in 2016, I managed to make $8,000 more than I spent on the blog. That’s a pretty big increase from a loss the previous year to an $8,000 profit.
Then in 2017 I profited a full-time income from the blog. And get this, it was more than Beth was making working at the bank full-time.
This wasn’t even my full time gig. It was a side hustle. And this year, it continues to grow.
How many of you just listened to my story and had an inner struggle with the things we talked about earlier. Maybe you think it’s too good to be true. Or maybe you think that can only happen to Kade.
Regardless of whether you had those thoughts or not, it is time to upgrade your thinking. It’s time to take the limits off what God wants to do in you and through you.
It’s time to let God’s power work in us to accomplish infinity more than we could even think to ask for.
To do this, let’s reveal 5 things that are holding us back.
Philippians 4:13 NLT - I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.
This was written by the Apostle Paul. And I don’t know if you read much of his story in the Bible, but his life was far from perfect. He was beat up as least eight times. He was even stoned and left for dead.
He was shipwrecked three times! This reminds me of the movie Cast Away. On top of all of this, he was stolen from and even put in prison. Let’s just say we probably wouldn’t want his life.
If Paul can say, “I can do everything through Christ” then so can you. Because your not meant to live life in your own strength. Jesus wants you to pull your strength from Him.
If your afraid of failure, get out of your own strength and into His strength. Change your thinking from “If I try I’ll fail” to “When I partner with Jesus, failure is not an option.”
And, remember this. Just because something doesn’t work out doesn’t mean it was a failure. You just found something that doesn’t work. The only way you can fail is to give up.
Instead of giving up, see setbacks as a learning experience and keep moving forward, partnering with Jesus along the way.
1 Corinthians 13:7 AMPC - Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
Assuming other’s intentions, why they said or did something, is one of the most frequent ways we withhold love from others.
Maybe someone looked at you wrong and you assumed they were mad at you, when really they were just in deep thought about something else.
Or, maybe you need help with something, like cleaning up around the house, but instead of asking you just assume they don’t want to help and you get mad.
The problem with assuming intentions is that it puts a wedge between us and the other person. And for God’s power to accomplish infinite things in your life, it’s essential to walk in love.
One reason is because God is going to also use others to accomplish things in your life. But, more importantly, He is going to use you to accomplish things in other people's lives. And assuming intentions blocks that from happening.
When you catch yourself assuming the worst, turn it around and instead assume the best. For example, assume they want to help you but just don’t know you need help. So, ask them with a smile.
Have you ever noticed how life tends to be a comparison game? When someone asks what you do for a living, in most cases, they just want to figure out if they have a better job than you or not.
The most intense game of comparison revolves around parents talking about their kids. “My kids plays football. Well, my kid makes straight A’s.” “My baby started crawling at 6 months, has your’s started yet?”
I Thessalonians 4:11 NKJV - ...aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands.
This is explaining a life where we don’t measure ourselves by other people. Because, when we’re looking at someone else’s life, we limit what God wants to do in our life.
I don’t care if they live in a house 10x the size of yours, or if they are a successful business owner, or doctor, or multi-millionaire. Don’t allow yourself to feel inferior around those who you think are better than you.
On the flip side, don’t even entertain the thought that you are better than someone else. There’s always going to be someone who has less that you or is missing a skill that you have. But, you are not better than them.
We are all on our own journey with God and it’s okay that it doesn’t look the same. We have to trust that God’s power is working in us not to become someone else, but to accomplish infinitely more in our own life.
The comparison trap stops with us.
Remember the last time you messed up big time? And you just know that you really disappointed God and you’re not sure He’s over it. Because you sure aren’t.
Well, check this out.
Romans 8:1-2 NLT - So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
Where we get stuck is the ‘no condemnation’ part. Because it’s not until we understand this, that we are able to live through the power of the Holy Spirit, which is what frees us from sin.
Spoiler alert: You are incapable of freeing yourself from sin. There is no amount of willpower that can keep you 100% out of trouble.
We get caught in a cycle of making a mistake, spending a few days or weeks feeling bad about what we did, making the mistake again, and the vicious cycle continues.
The devil tricks us into thinking that living in regret somehow pays for our sin. So we live our life in condemnation (aka regret) and never experience the power of the Holy Spirit. Which means we don’t get to the ‘free from sin’ part.
Our job is to separate ourselves from our sin. My identity is not in what I do. Then, go directly to God and thank Him for the forgiveness that was already there and move on. Leave the sin and regret behind.
You are not doing God a favor by feeling bad about yourself. Your only limiting what He wants to do in your life. So, don’t waste one moment in regret.
1 John 4:18 NLT - Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.
We we understand God loves us, I mean when we really understand it, we walk through life with a confidence we couldn’t gain otherwise.
You see, if we are walking around in fear - fear of failure, fear of other people, fear of what the future holds - it’s an indication that we do not yet fully understand God’s love.
And to simplify what we talked about today, it all comes down to this one thing. Because when we understand God’s amazing love for us, all limitations begin to fall off.
We no longer have to prove ourselves to others. We don’t waste time in regret because we know God’s already forgiven all of our mistakes. We don’t try to live someone else’s life because we trust God’s plan for our life.
God’s love is where it’s at. And the only way to live a limitless life in Jesus is to really understand it and live in it.
So I have one next step for you. To take the limits off, all you need to do is invest time to understand God’s love.
Study the scriptures, spend time in prayer, and quiet your mind before the Lord so He can pour His love in you.
