Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): You've tuned in to the Power Walk Ministries broadcast. We're so glad to have you join us. Through this broadcast, Reverend Paul Cannings brings clear and practical applications of biblical principles for our everyday lives. We're on message five of a series titled God at Work. How did the apostle Paul do it? He was persecuted and suffered so much, and yet he remained faithful, bringing us a good portion of God's word from prison. So what's the answer? Let's listen as Dr. Cannings shares with us through the message titled The Mind to Lose.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Has life ever gotten the best of you sort of even when you're praying, your mind is everywhere? It's not sober. It's drunk with worry. It's drunk with anxiety, trying to find solutions when you have run out of ideas. Just holding the mind together sometimes becomes a job when it shouldn't be. You you start to find this as you get into chapter two, all the different things that Timothy was dealing with. Also in 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 12 on, he's being challenged because he's young. Not everybody believes what he's doing, and he has to work his way through that.

That's why you said teach those who believe. In other words, the ones who are committed to the process, Timothy, focus on them. And then he has people arguing and people seem to be so godly in the church here in 2 Timothy chapter 3, but they persecuting him, beating him down. So Timothy is trying to maintain his mind while Paul is also dealing with his struggles. You know, he's dealing with the fact that he's cold and needs his cloak cuz he's in a prison in a dungeon most likely. He's being accused of things he hasn't done.

He's got people turned against him in chapter 4. So Paul is dealing with all of this, but his mind is sound as he comes to the end of his ministries. He's not been poured out like a drink offering. So Paul has been through so much that his ministry now is I fought the good fight. How does he maintain that? We've been dealing with this all week, and I pray that if you have listened for the first time today that you get this series so that we learn to live in the power of God. The world is not going to get any better.

Sometimes the world has a way of reminding us how weak we are and how much we need God. People pray when there's a storm that wipe out stuff that don't tend to come to prayer meeting when things are good cuz we tend to allow the world and different things, amenities that the worlds provide to make us feel a sense of confidence, a sense of security. But we are so weak in one little storm, we have nothing. So how do we maintain a sound mind as this thing is going to get worse? And we could be just as timid as Timothy.

God is always at work. That's what he's trying to tell him first, and we dealt with that. And he did not give us a spirit of fear. God is the subject in this whole thing. He's the subject of this whole verse. What he's saying that he is not the direct object of this verse is that he's not given us a spirit, meaning our spirit, our feelings, our insecurities didn't come from him. Then he says what we possess, what God is not trying to get us to gain. When he talks about power and love and sound mind, he's saying no, it's in the genitive.

We possess this. We already possess power because Ephesians the same writer chapter 3 verse 14 through 16 says the Holy Spirit lives with in our enemy. He says in chapter 1 verse 3 to 4 he all of the Holy Spirit has been poured into us. He writes to Titus and he says he's been poured into us. We have all of the Holy Spirit. We don't have some of them. So we possess this. We possess love because when you poured in the Holy Spirit is the very nature of God and God is love, guess what we have?

Love. We possess this. That's why the same writer would say we need to work our salvation of what we've been delivered from, salvation. We must now put in the work to get all we already have inside of us coming out of us so that we no longer live. It is Christ that lives in me. The life I now live, I live by faith in the son of God. I don't live for myself anymore. I have died. This is the journey he's driving Timothy too that even though he's a pastor, he's been well trained by his mother, his grandmother, by Paul.

But he's saying man, when the storm hits you, you end up different than me. I find that I can do all things through Christ. I'm more than a conqueror. You end up timid and wanting to quit ministry. So we got to talk about how you maintain a sound mind. This is something you possess, Timothy. That's not something you are gaining as you learn to do it. This is something that you're working out because it's already there. That's what it's saying and how the Greek in this verse works itself out. So we don't lack a sound mind.

We have it available to us. It is the first thing we will find in the fact that we possessed this is is really driving us to self-discipline. This whole concept of being sound, strong, courageous is what he's after here. Is that Timothy, you don't have to be timid, you could be courageous. So in other words, like he would tell Joshua, Joshua, meditate on my word day and night so that you will be courageous and so you don't have to be terrified. Joshua chapter 1 verse 5 through verse 9. You don't have to be terrified because you're taking Moses's place.

You got giants and a thick wall in front of you and the Jordan is at flood stage. Don't be terrified. This is what you do. You address yourself to the power. One of the aspects of the power, it's the word. Meditate on it day and night. And David would say be like a tree planted by rivers of waters. This is essential. Renew the mind so you could transform your life so you could do his perfect will. He's after that, the mind, the will, the person. He's dealt with power. So when he comes to sound mind, talking about discipline and developing a biblical discipline towards issues, it comes back to the power which its source is the word of God.

I can't run at 70 miles an hour, but my car can. My car can. It now when I get in, it's not like I have to put the engine in and get the transmission. No, no, no, no. I just press the button, the brakes and the button, and the car starts. Put it in drive and I experience the power. Now I like cars with some power in that, you know. I got a eight cylinder, so it moves. So when I take off, it's doing things that it already possesses the ability to do. All I do is activate what is already there.

But I have to know what to do. I have to read a driver's book. I have to pass an exam. I have to learn how to drive. I have to practice how to drive and and then I have to act like I know how to drive. I I have to go through the process of obeying the laws on the street, and I have to go through the process of knowing how to care for the car. I got to change the oil. I have to flush the transmission from time to time. In spite of all that the car is, I still have to function with a mindset towards the car in order to experience all that the car is and to be productive while I'm driving the car so I don't hurt anybody else.

And so it comes down to this sound mind. If I make bad decisions, I can hurt somebody, especially in a powerful vehicle like that. Seriously hurt them since it's a SUV. So I can hurt other people if I'm not sound mind. I don't make right decisions as I experience the power that is around me. That's literally how he's functioning. Paul is saying hey, I understand they going to cut my head off. But I know that the journey is done. If the way that God chooses for me to go out in this journey, then okay, that's that is how he chooses to do it.

But I know that I have accomplished everything I need to accomplish and I know that I'm going to die one day and I know that when I die, there is gain because I've ran my race. I have pressed towards the mark. I have done what he's called for me to do. I was poured out as a drink offering, but I know I'm finished the course of it. This is the way he chooses to take me. They're not hurting me. The optics say that they're hurting me. But the thing that God is saying loud is that you have something to gain.

And since Paul went to the third heavens, he know what that looks like up there before he even started this race. So do what you got to do. He maintained the sound mind. So sound mind comes because of a commitment to a disciplined life in my obedience to God's word. And that's why it comes out like courage in the case of Joshua because no matter what's taking place, my obedience to God and my discipline to be obedient to God is what's driving the process. So to everybody you're courageous, but to the person I'm just obeying God.

I'm doing what he's saying. I'm surrendering my life to him and doing everything he's telling me to do as I live in the power of the Holy Spirit. So technically it is not that I am courageous, it is that I am obedient. That's the discipline he's talking about that leads to this courageous mindset, that leads to me being efficient in how I function for the will of God and being productive for God. And that's why it ends up being sober thoughts. Peter would say maintain sobriety in your spiritual walk with God. Don't let the struggles of life make you drunk with worry and stress like Paul would say be anxious for nothing.

You can pray because you have a mediator who is the Christ, the son of the living God sitting right at the right hand of the Father. And if we don't even know how to pray, the spirit prays the very groans of our heart. So pray. You have direct access to the person who starts this verse off, God. It's better to be self-disciplined, therefore end up courageous and therefore to everybody strong and productive and efficient than to let all these things so corrupt us that it ends up destroying us in trouble times rather than experience the activity of God.

Understand God may never change your circumstance. He may never make that husband do this or that wife do that. He may never bring your husband or a wife. Your children may never become what you taught that they're going to become when you raise them. This may not happen. There's times in our lives when things don't change, but God changes us to experience him at a whole not a level that makes us never lose our joy, never lose our peace, never find such a weakness that we can't trust him, walk in him, lean on him, and find strength in him.

As Paul would say, we're troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We're perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus's sake that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. Now folks, it's not what you face, it's what you face it with. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): All of the Holy Spirit has been poured into us. And friends, this is the Holy Spirit of God Almighty in us. We have the power, courage, strength to face life just as Paul did. And now we trust that this series has been a blessing to you so far. For a copy of this series, please visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. That's powerwalkministries.org. You're also welcome to call us at 281 260 7402. That's 281 260 7402.

Dr. Paul Cannings: You know, I had someone walk up to me and said, hey, you so blessed me when I listen to the station and feed off the word that God has placed through you. Oh, that means so much. I had a person say to me, hey, you saved my marriage. I was really going to walk out on my wife. You saved my marriage. Oh, man, that moved me to keep pressing on. I pray folks that you would support our ministry and become a part of it and share with us and the resources that we have cuz that goes to the support of this ministry.

Pray for us, please. Sincerely mean that. Pray for us. You share the word with other people and that you will become a partner, regular partner with us. All you have to do is go to our website, powerwalkministries.org and press the donate button, and it would explain in there how you could become a powerwalk partner. God bless you. It's been a blessing serving you.

Guest (Male): Once again, our web address is powerwalkministries.org. Our mailing address is PO Box 920 517 Houston, Texas 77092. And if you live in the Houston area and you don't have a church home, you're welcome to visit Reverend Cannings in his congregation at Living Word Fellowship Church. It's located at 7350 TC Jester Boulevard in Houston. And as we leave you, keep in mind it's not what you're facing in your life today that matters, but who you are facing it with.