Making A Difference Through Mentorship

Psalm 102: 13, “Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come.”Time is generally defined in the original Greek as “Chronos” and “Kairos”. Chronos represents a chronological time calculated in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.

“Kairos” represents a God-appointed time when something is to occur. “Kairos” generally denotes God’s divine intervention in your life to accelerate or bring to pass some occurrence or event on your behalf. It is an unplanned, unexpected, and unscheduled moment in your life when God decides to bless or favor you according to His sovereign will.

Favor is an uncommon blessing or breakthrough God Himself has orchestrated and ordained for your life. The set time of God’s favor positions us for success and transcends any and all barriers erected by people. Whether they may be racial, social, cultural, financial, relational or even generational barriers. God’s favor rises above them all. The Set Time of Favor has come for us as God's people!

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This podcast was previously recorded in January 2021. On New Year's Eve I shared with you a podcast entitled In 2023 The Key is God's Sovereignty and it's your faith that unlocks the door. As we begin 2023 part of God's sovereignty includes overcoming all of the things that would try and hinder us from receiving God's favor and blessings on our lives this year.

God says in Jeremiah 29: 11, “I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you hope and unexpected end.” God's expected end for you and for me is we think more like God thinks and that we develop the mindset of an overcomer knowing that our sovereign God’s will covers us every day of our lives and we are more than conquerors!

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God’s sovereignty is the perfect exercise of his power, wisdom, and goodness in all things and for all time. The Common English Bible Version of 1 Chronicles 29:11 speaking of God’s sovereignty David declares, “Your power is great, and your glory is seen everywhere in heaven and on earth. You are the king of the entire world.”

To say that God is sovereign we mean the supremacy of God, the kingship of God further to declare that God is sovereign is to say as Daniel declared in the 4th chapter and 35th verse in the Common English Bible, “All of earth’s inhabitants are nothing in comparison. The Most High does whatever he wants with heaven’s forces and with earth’s inhabitants. No one can contain his power or say to him, ‘What do you think you are doing?”

Psalm 115:3 further declares, “our God is in heaven, and He does whatever He pleases.” Job says in chapter 42 and the 2nd verse, “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

Although there were hardships, difficulties, uncertainties, heartache, and heartbreak in 2022 you're still here. You're still standing! And "The Key in 2023 is God's Sovereignty!"

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Christmas is the celebration and beginning of new life, a spiritual life for mankind born of the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:22-23.  “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

The name Immanuel speaks to the fact that God has established His guiding and protecting presence with us as His people. Matthew, understanding the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, writes and delivers his inspired revelation: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’)” (Matthew 1:22–23).

In Jesus, as Immanuel, God walked with us and talked with us as He did with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Christ’s arrival showed all humanity that God is faithful to fulfill His promises.

Jesus is Immanuel. He is not a partial revelation of God with us; Jesus is God with us in all His fullness: ” (Colossians 2:9, NLT). “For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body Jesus left the glories of heaven and took on the form of a servant so that He could identify with us in our day-to-day human struggles.”

Our fellowship with Immanuel, God with us grants us the ability to relate to Him and talk and share with Him. Knowing that as Immanuel, God with us, He walks with us throughout the day, looking after and caring for us where we can cast all our cares and our problems upon Him. Trusting Him as Immanuel, God with us to help us in meeting our needs. Asking him for strength to conquer the trials and temptations of life. Further knowing that as Immanuel, God with us, He constantly gives us life. A life that is full of love, joy, and peace (John 10:10).

In good times and bad, in tragedy and triumph, the Purpose of Christmas is for Immanuel, God to be with us!

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Jesus sets an example for us by Living An Uncomplicated Life. In fact, in Matthew 22, Jesus provides us with the most important aspects of life when he says that we are to “love God and love our neighbor as ourselves” (verses 37-39).

Over the course of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels, Jesus travels. A lot! As he traveled to spread the gospel, to teach and heal, he lived a very uncomplicated lifestyle. He ate and stayed at other people’s homes and didn’t take much with him.

The life that Jesus lived focused on his ministry, relationships with others, sharing the good news, serving others, taking care of his health by resting when necessary, and spending time in prayer. All of these things have come together to form the bedrock of Living an Uncomplicated Life.

Dr. Gregory L. Cruell

God Thinkers (Isaiah 55:8-9)

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Balance may be defined as any set of qualities or attributes that leads to harmony or evenness. If you balance one thing or quality against another, you consider and value there importance equally. 1 Corinthians 15:46 in the Amplified Classic Translation declares, "But it is not the spiritual life which came first, but the physical and then the spiritual. Many are well-versed in the spiritual aspect of living that Paul addresses in this verse, but there is an imbalance concerning the natural aspect of life.

An imbalance is a situation in which two things that should be equal are not. If we describe a situation as imbalanced, what we mean is that “the elements that should be balanced are no longer evenly weighted, arranged, or valued.”

Therefore, A Balanced Mind is awake, alert and aware of imbalance when it shows up and what to do to restore balance.

Developing the skillset and mindset of A Balanced Mind incorporates the truth of Romans 12:2 in the New Living Translation, "Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

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In today’s podcast, we want to discuss principles and precepts for Battling Your Mind. There is a series of video games entitled Battlefield. In this game, there are tanks, battleships, and airplanes. Rockets and bombs exploding, machine guns firing, hand-to-hand combat… the game was created to simulate the realities of a battlefield where you must fight for your survival against a host of enemy soldiers.

Battling your mind is not a game. It is a reality that all of us are confronted with. Jesus himself in the garden of Gethsemane had to battle with His mind. The night before Jesus Christ was crucified, He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke, a physician, recorded that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood: “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

Agony is defined as a violent, intense, extreme struggle displaying both physical or emotional pain. The human experience consists of our thoughts and emotions that influence our behavior. There will always be some things that cause us to struggle or cause some sort of emotional distress, this is all a part of the battle for our minds.  Jesus, the Son of God was battling His mind; which consisted of His thoughts and emotions that influenced the reality of agony that He experienced in Gethsemane. The struggle is real.

The key to Jesus victory over His thoughts and emotions that impacted and influenced His body (sweat like great drops of blood) was His prayer...."Not my will, but Thy will be done." This is how we gain victory in Battling Our Mind.

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When we talk about a study, it is the act of making an effort to learn. Investing time discovering information about a particular thing or investigating a subject. The Living Bible translates 2 Timothy 2:15 as, “Work hard so God can say to you, "Well done." Be a good workman, one who does not need to be ashamed when God examines your work. Know what His Word says and means.”

Even as positive, Christ-centered people, it is inevitable that negative experiences producing negative thoughts are going to occur. We cannot stop negative thoughts from coming into our minds, but we can overcome them. Overcome may be defined as the ability “to rise above a conflict; to defeat or prevail over, “to gain control of consistently.  When we say something is negative it is characterized by “having the quality of something harmful, damaging, and unfavorable.” The term negative also carries the meaning of “being pessimistic; that which hinders and neutralizes progress.” 

John 10:10, Jesus tells us in the Passion Translation of this passage…“The thief has only one thing in mind—he wants to steal, slaughter, and destroy. But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect—life in its fullness until you overflow! This is God's desire for us. To live life until life itself overflows! In this study, let's "work hard knowing what God's Word says" (2 Timothy 2:15) and means as we overcome negative thoughts and experiences!

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At some time in your life, you have undoubtedly heard the theme of today's podcast. However, I would like to add to today's theme that most of us don't even think about how we think or what we think because we simply think!  And what we think influences and impacts our emotions and what we do.

The Bible reminds us in Proverbs 23:7, "As a man or a woman thinks, that is who we really are...” In addition to Proverbs 23:7, God says, in essence, to Isaiah, we've got a problem. You don't think like I think.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Neuroscientists and neuropsychologists tell us that we have anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day and half of them are negative. It is important to know and understand you don't have to be a negative person to have negative thoughts.

Negative experiences are going to produce negative thoughts. relationship struggles, the death of a loved one, a business that you created and established that fails, money issues, family issues, and the list goes on and on.

The aim of today's podcast is to review principles and precepts of how we can learn to THINK MORE LIKE GOD THINKS.

As we do so, God equips us to overcome negative thoughts that only come to hinder, harm, harass and keep us from God's promise of John 10:10 in the Passion Translation. "But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect--life in its fullness until you overflow!" YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK.

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To be sober-minded means to possess good judgment, wisdom, and the ability to be level-headed in times of stress or difficulties. A sober mind also means "a sound mind and a sane mind" in a sometimes insane world! This podcast focuses on practical principles that empower us to have and keep a sober mind, no matter what we may encounter—further enabling us to "Think Like God Thinks" (Isaiah 55:8-9).

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