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15. Winning the Battle in Your Mind: How Joy Destroys Discouragement · Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit

• 0:00
  Speaker A: It's the Holy Spirit's work in us and I love that it says in believing that's the key to the verse. It's all about our beliefs. What are we believing? Are my beliefs leading me to joy and peace and hope? Or are my beliefs leading me to discouragement, sorrow, depression, just feeling bad about myself, feeling hopeless about a situation? And so that verse just gives us grace to evaluate our beliefs. Is this belief serving me? What am I believing about myself, about God, about other people? My circumstances evaluate? That is my belief leading me to joy, peace and hope. If it is not, we need a new belief. Let's get a better belief. Because he's the God of hope. And the power of the Holy Spirit empowers us to live in joy, peace and hope. Welcome to Believe and Become Spirit Led breakthrough for transformation that lasts.
• 1:00
  Speaker B: We're Josh and Karina Grieger, authors, speakers and freedom coaches who help Christians like you break free from anxiety, burnout and spiritual frustration by renewing your mind and walking in truth.
• 1:12
  Speaker A: If you're hungry for real, lasting change and ready to grow in identity, peace and purpose, you're in the right place.
• 1:20
  Speaker B: Let's believe what God says and become who he created us to be.
• 1:24
  Speaker A: Foreign welcome back to the Believe and Become podcast. We're so glad that you're tuning in with us today. Today we're going to be talking about joy and how important that is in our process of renewing our minds and being transformed. This is so important that we hold on to joy as always. If you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us. Give us a rating Leave a review Share it with a friend that needs to hear this message of hope and transformation. What God wants to do in your life. So we're talking about joy, which is actually the fifth step in our mind renewal process. So just to recap, the first step is to identify the lies. The second step is going to be breaking up with those lies. Three is discovering the truth. 1. What does God say about those lies? And in place of them, fourth is renewing your mind with the truth. And then the fifth is to celebrate what God has done. Yeah, so important because Nehemiah 8:10 says the joy of the Lord is your strength. So we need strength to renew our minds. So we need to cultivate joy in our lives. Yeah, it's not something that just automatically happens.
• 2:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's good.
• 2:41
  Speaker A: It's something that we need to be intentional about, but it's also not necessarily something that we just put on our to do list. Or sometimes it can feel Like a burden. Oh, my gosh. Now I have to be joyful. Right. And something like it feels like really having to work hard on it. I think there's a better way.
• 2:59
  Speaker B: I think we often believe that either you're a joyful person or you're not. Like, we think it's a personality trait. Right. Like, we think, well, that person's just naturally a happy person. They're always smiling or they're always more upbeat. And I'm just not like that. That's not how God made me.
• 3:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 3:16
  Speaker B: But if the joy of the Lord is our strength, then that is something that I need in my life to be able to go through the things that happen in life, because life happens. And so it's important for us to realize that joy is not necessarily being happy all the time. That joy is something that we can cultivate, but it's also part of being connected to God. God is a joyful God. And the fruit of the Spirit is joy. Right. It's a big part of what we get when we get him. And so recognizing that we have the opportunity to be joyful simply because we are attached to God, I think is really important. Like you, like you said, it's not something I have to muster, but it is something that I have to partner with.
• 4:04
  Speaker A: I love that. It's. It's a fruit of the spirit. So trees don't work to produce fruit. It's just a byproduct. It's our. It's a byproduct of our connection to the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives. But also throughout life, we decide what we get to partner with.
• 4:20
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 4:21
  Speaker A: And so if we're partnering with discouragement, oh, my gosh, I'm stuck in this situation. It's never going to change, never going to get better. God's not doing anything. Just feels like spinning my wheels. That's not gonna lead you to being joyful in the Lord. That's gonna lead to more discouragement. So we get more of what we focus on. So if we're focusing on the negative, that's what's gonna increase in our lives. Yeah. If we're focusing on what God is doing and his promises to us, that is going to result in more joy in our lives.
• 4:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it's important that as we go through the mind renewal process, as we uncover lies, that we be covered with joy. It's important that we see this process as a good thing, that we recognize God is doing a good work in us. And there has to be joy. In there to continue to move forward. Because it can seem really daunting when you start to realize everything I've ever believed is a lie. Right. Especially like in church or in your religious view of things in your, in your family and whatever, there's big areas that you're like, actually, my family doesn't hate me or my life doesn't suck or all of these things. You start to go, oh my gosh, I've been living out of a place of believing lies. I want to change my circumstances, but first I have to change everything I believe.
• 5:45
  Speaker A: Right.
• 5:46
  Speaker B: That's a scary place to be. And even if it's not, even if it's just 10%, it's still a big deal to go in and dig up lies. And so it's so important that all through that process, we are just covered with the joy of the Lord, that we have the strength that we need to walk through this process.
• 6:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, we need his joy so badly when we're trying to go through this transformation process. So let's talk a little bit about joy versus the religious mindset. Mm. And I know this could be a hot button topic for people. Right. Because we think about depends on your definition of what religion is. So we're here in this, we're defining religious mindset as I'm striving to reach God, I'm striving to get gain his approval. And a religious mindset can only be joyful when we achieve perfection. So basically never. Because we can't, we can't be perfect on our own. Only Jesus makes us perfect. Yeah, we're made perfect through him and through his sacrifice. And so really that's not what God has called us to do.
• 6:52
  Speaker B: Right.
• 6:52
  Speaker A: Right. We already have acceptance from him because of Jesus. And so we want to move out of our relationship with him. And then that, that is what allows us to experience the joy of the Lord. Because in a family or relationship mindset versus a religious mindset, families celebrate progress. When your two year old is learning to walk, you celebrate every step that he takes. You don't say, oh my gosh, he kept falling down. What's wrong with my kid?
• 7:21
  Speaker B: He fell down 56 times today and he only took four steps. He's never going to walk, which is how that.
• 7:26
  Speaker A: But that's how we treat ourselves so many times. Like, oh, I can't believe I messed up again.
• 7:31
  Speaker B: Right? I'm not good enough. I'm never going to do this. This is too hard.
• 7:37
  Speaker A: Right. And we beat ourselves up for all the little mistakes that we make when God is way less worried about those mistakes. He gets really excited whenever we take a step with him. Just like, oh, my gosh, the baby took a step today. Yes. Here's the video. The family gets really excited. And that is God.
• 7:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, He.
• 7:55
  Speaker A: He's looking down, saying, oh, that's my child. Look at what they just did. I am so excited.
• 8:00
  Speaker B: And I think you can really see a clear picture of the religious mindset versus the family relationship. Joy mindset. When you look at the religious leaders of Jesus Day, you know, you look at the questions that they would ask him, like, why are you out partying with the sinners? Right. They're so concerned about appearances. I mean, you can, like, literally, you can read some of these passages and see the sour looks on their faces, right? You can. You can practically visualize it with the way that they question him, the things that they ask. And. And then there's Jesus that. Who is out having fun with people and living life and. And being a real person. You know, not worried about every little mistake or following every last letter of the law, but really living in the fullness of relationship with the Father. And so I think it's really clear in the New Testament that you can see that religious mindset is following the perfect letter of the law, trying to do every single thing so that you can be good enough for God. Versus I'm in relationship with God, and I get to do life with him, and I get to celebrate my progress, the places that I am doing better than I did before. And I love that Jesus gives us permission to just kind of be real people. And he actually is able to reach more people than the religious leaders because they're people that they would never talk to or come into contact with because of their religiousness, which I think is really interesting. And James 1, 2 through 4 is this beautiful passage that starts with these words. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, and it's one of those things where it feels like an. An oxymoron, right? Consider joy in trials. Like, joy and trials don't really go together in our minds, but when we celebrate the progress that we're making in the trial, we. We're constantly looking at, like, I can't wait to get out of the trial. But in reality, I think God is more concerned with how we're living through the trial, what we're learning in the trial, how we're growing, how we're becoming who he made us to be. And so there's joy in that journey. There's joy in that place. Of, this is hard, but it's good hard because it is unto a purpose. And so we can celebrate that God is doing something good inside of us, even if it feels hard on the outside.
• 10:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. One of my favorite declarations is to say, I celebrate progress, not perfection.
• 10:31
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 10:31
  Speaker A: In fact, why don't you just say that right now? I celebrate progress, not perfection.
• 10:35
  Speaker B: I celebrate progress, not perfection.
• 10:38
  Speaker A: Because that just breaks the power of perfectionism. I know I struggled with that for many years of just feeling like I had to do everything right. I had to do everything perfectly or else I. I could just only focus on the mistakes or the little imperfection. Like, maybe I did a great job. I got. But I got the 1Aminus or something, you know, or, you know, I. I got a 98 on the test, but I missed two. You know, you missed two points. You know, I can't believe I missed the two points. And then you beat yourself up over that. And that leads to just a joyless life of never measuring up. I'm never, I'm never good enough.
• 11:14
  Speaker B: And I remember several times where we had spent hours and days and weeks and probably months preparing a program for church or, you know, we poured a lot of time and effort into a Christmas program, an Easter program, whatever it was, and we finally got through it. And it was like, oh, it's done, and it was great. And. And then you would be like, but there's one thing. But this thing, this part didn't go well. Or that one part, or I wish I would have done it, was always like, I wish I would have done this better instead of, like, look at what we've accomplished. And I don't think that's a religious mindset, but that is a perfectionist mindset. Right. And I think that those two are pretty closely linked, the religious mindset and the perfectionist. And if we're expecting perfection, you can't really be happy.
• 11:59
  Speaker A: No.
• 11:59
  Speaker B: Because like you said, we're never gonna get there. Jesus will take us home.
• 12:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. It doesn't mean that we don't strive for excellence.
• 12:06
  Speaker B: Right.
• 12:06
  Speaker A: But excellence is still okay if it's not perfect. Right. But it's just a lie of the enemy. Like, absolutely. Oh, you're never going to be good enough, or you need to focus on all the negative things.
• 12:18
  Speaker B: Well, it's almost like you could almost call it, like, it's discernment or it's wisdom, because I'm trying to improve. I want to become better. And so I'm always looking for the Things that I didn't do well so that I can do them better next time. Which is good to an extent. But you have to be able to appreciate the good things first and foremost and then say, okay, how can I take it higher? Right. How can I be better next time? How can I, what can I do differently to make this a better outcome? But I think that you have to have that, like, recognition of, here's what I did great. Here's what was really good about what just happened. And even with our kids, that has been something that we're, we work on telling them what they're doing. Good. So that we're not always just like, oh, this is, you have to do this better, raise your grades or you didn't clean this well enough or whatever it might be.
• 13:08
  Speaker A: The vast majority of what we're doing should be celebrating what we're doing.
• 13:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:13
  Speaker A: And that, you know, I did a good job. Yeah. And one of the best things you can possibly do to break this off is just ask God. Yeah. What did you think of that? Yeah. If you spoke to a group or you shared the gospel and they didn't, they say no, they rejected Jesus. You know, that's so hard. Just ask God, what did you think about that when I shared your love? And he has never said that he was not happy with what I did. He's always like, oh my gosh, that was amazing.
• 13:42
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:42
  Speaker A: I'm so proud of how you took that risk with me. You shared my love with somebody. He's not out with the microscope looking at, oh, that wasn't perfect. That's. That is something that we're picking up from a religious mindset or perfectionism, cultural kind of thing. And so we just break that off of you right now. In Jesus name. There's no reason that you have to live trying to be perfect because that is just killing your joy and it's robbing you of what God has for you. So we just release the grace of God for you to move in relationship with him and just to feel, feel the pleasure of the Father over you every single day of your life as you're going to work, you're taking care of the kids, whatever it is that you're doing in your regular day to day. God is just so pleased with you as you do it with the heart to love him.
• 14:32
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I also see that he wants to bring joy into some memories of things where you feel like you really messed up or you just didn't measure up. I feel like he wants to go there with you and show you how proud of you he is and to show you all the things that you did right. And so, yeah, we just release the grace right now for you to spend that time with him, to hear his pleasure over you and hear how he delights in you. Like Zephaniah 3:17. He rejoices over you with singing that verse. Actually, it depicts God as dancing wildly over you. He's really excited about you and he loves to delight in you. So I just see him doing that right now, rejoicing in you and over you, even over the areas where you have felt inadequate or like you haven't lived up. He is saying, well done, good job. Look at my kid. He took a step. Look at my daughter. She said her first word. He's so excited about you and who you are in him.
• 15:36
  Speaker A: So good. Romans 15:13. Let's move on to that. It says, now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is a powerful verse right there.
• 15:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 15:52
  Speaker A: God of hope, all joy, peace, abounding in hope. God is. He's really good.
• 15:58
  Speaker B: He's like above and beyond.
• 15:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, it kind of blows your mind as you read it. There's so many over the top things about joy and peace and hope. That's his promise to us. Yeah, he's the God of hope. He promises he's going to fill us with all joy and peace in believing and we're going to abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit's work in us. And I love that it says in believing. That's the key to the verse. It's all about our beliefs. What are we believing? Are my beliefs leading me to joy and peace and hope? Or are my beliefs leading me to discouragement, sorrow, depression, feeling bad about myself, feeling hopeless about a situation. And so that verse just gives us grace to evaluate our beliefs. Is this belief serving me? What am I believing? About myself, about God, about other people my circumstances evaluate? That is my belief leading me to joy, peace and hope. If it is not, we need a new belief. Let's get a better belief. Because he's the God of hope. And the power of the Holy Spirit empowers us to live in joy, peace and hope.
• 17:07
  Speaker B: Well, and I. I think you could also read this like, as you believe in him, you become full of hope and joy. We become who. Who we're supposed to be and, and live the life we're supposed to Live as we believe him, Believe in him, also believe him. Believe the things that he said over us. Believe the things that he wants to do through us. Believe the words that he has spoken. And I think that's really important. As we believe him, then we can walk it out. We can become who he made us to be.
• 17:38
  Speaker A: So we want to talk a little bit about our journey with joy. It has felt, at times hard, like, another thing that I got to work on.
• 17:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:47
  Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I'm not joyful, but I'm supposed to be. I got to stir it up. I got to work it up. And I liked what you said earlier about, oh, it's just not my personality.
• 17:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:58
  Speaker A: And so there's this delicate balance of we have to be intentional to cultivate joy, but also we're not working it up. It's not striving. Oh, my gosh, I have to be joyful now. And it's not like. It's not like God has put this on us as a burden.
• 18:13
  Speaker B: Right.
• 18:13
  Speaker A: Joy is not supposed to be a burden, but it can feel like that.
• 18:16
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:17
  Speaker A: So many times it's like, oh, my gosh. I just. I'm feeling really discouraged. Or it's not. It's not necessarily. I'm not experiencing the emotion of joy. And then when you don't have the emotion, it feels like I'm being. Being fake or whatever to actually rejoice. We can tell ourselves to rejoice.
• 18:35
  Speaker B: And there's so many times in the Psalms where you see David talking to his soul. He'll say, why are you so downcast, oh, my soul? And he'll say, rejoice in the Lord. Shout to the Lord. There are keys in the Word to help us to move into a place of greater joy if we will take them. Because I think that when you don't feel joyful, it's hard to act joyful.
• 18:58
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker B: Or you feel like you're acting joyful, not feel you're not truly being joyful. But I think that when we recognize I am body, soul, and spirit, and my soul doesn't always want to come into alignment with my spirit. My spirit is always connected to Holy Spirit, therefore I always have joy. I have to speak to my soul. I have to say, soul, you don't get to be in charge today. I am connected to the Holy Spirit, and I will walk in the fullness of that relationship. And so I choose joy today, even if the. My circumstance doesn't feel like a circumstance where I should have joy, I'm going to rejoice in the things that I know that God is doing. So what is the, what is the thing that God is doing in this process? Where I can see his hand, Where I can see. I'm getting better at this. I am learning this really important lesson. Right. It might not feel exciting or happy, but it's something that we get to practice as we grow in him, that eventually it does become how you feel about a situation when something happens and you get to go, oh, this is exciting. God is doing something. You get to go, wow. And then you're. My gosh. I didn't, I didn't react with discouragement. I actually, that was a truly joy filled response because I see that God's at work. And so I think that's really cool that we get to direct our emotions as we direct our responses. Then we start to produce it naturally as we partner with the Holy Spirit.
• 20:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. In the Psalms it says, this is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice, I will choose. Yes, I will use my will to rejoice. And I just remember years of just feeling really discouraged, like our situation's never going to change. I'm never going to fulfill my calling. The destiny that I, I felt like God had for me, the calling that he put on my life. I was like, it's just never going to happen. I'm just going to be stuck here forever.
• 20:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 20:58
  Speaker A: Doing the same thing that I've been doing forever. And that got really discouraging. But I kept renewing my mind with the lie. It's a lie. It's never going to change. God's not doing it.
• 21:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 21:09
  Speaker A: And a lot of us will just sit and wait. I'm waiting on God to do something. He's going to do it. Which sometimes we need to do. But sometimes we need to take a step and say, okay, God, what are you calling me to do today? And I'm going to do that. Take that first step. And as we start to move in what God has already given us or promised us or told us, then we start to get clarity about our calling. Then we start to see, okay, I'm just partnering with what God is doing. My focus shifts from what he's not doing to what he is doing. And that makes a huge change. It made a huge change in the joy in my life.
• 21:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's really good. And I think when you look at passages like Philippians 4, rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice first. Thessalonians 5, 17, rejoice always pray without ceasing. You see this consistent, almost like prescription for pretty much everything in life. Rejoice in the Lord always is pretty clear. Always means always. Right? Like it's not like, rejoice in the Lord sometimes when things are going good, or rejoice in the Lord in the specific circumstance. No, Joyce, in the Lord always in all things. And then once again, first Thessalonians, rejoice always. So in every situation we face, we can rejoice. And I like how Pastor Bill Johnson breaks down 1 Thessalonians 5:17, because it says, rejoice always. Pray without ceasing, and everything give thanks. And he says this is a prescription for the whole person. So there's this body, soul and spirit aspect to it that we rejoice with our body, then we pray with our spirit and our soul gives thanks. And it's the exact same prescription as Philippians 4, the passage of 6 and 7 which says, Rejoice in the Lord always. But then it says, in everything, give thanks by prayer and supplication. So you see this exact same pattern of rejoicing, praying and giving thanks. And as we do that, then it just becomes part of how we respond. Just like I just said it, it becomes an overflow of our relationship with God because we're rejoicing in what he's doing. We're getting our body into it. Right. We're jumping up and down, we're clapping, we're celebrating. Which is maybe something we only do at church on Sunday sometimes. But this is one of the ways I'm trying to incorporate joy I'm working on when I see God doing something. Clapping, thank you, God. Thank you so much for what you're doing in this situation. Or, you know, jumping up and down, Woohoo, look what God is doing. I'm so excited. Right. And so celebrating what I'm seeing Him do and bringing my body. We've talked about when you bring your body into a declaration, it changes the way that your brain receives information. It's the same thing when we involve our whole self in the process of rejoicing. Then I'm not working up the joy. You're rewiring those pathways. Right. And your body is telling your soul, hey, let's get excited. Because God's doing something good that's so good.
• 24:08
  Speaker A: Even in the midst of a difficult circumstance, you can always remember what God has done.
• 24:13
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 24:14
  Speaker A: Just encourage yourself with your testimony. Yes. Or even somebody else's testimony. Think back. I remind myself what God has done, how he delivered me from being discouraged, how he took me out of just being stuck into freedom. And just think throughout your life, God is so faithful and encourage yourself with what he's done. And that is a way to stir up joy. When you don't feel it, you can go, well, I can remember what God has done. It's really powerful. Just encouraging yourself with God's promises in his word. Write down the ones that speak to you. It's oh, I love that verse. Meditate on those and remind yourself, recall all those things that he's promised to you, words that he's spoken to you directly. If you've received prophetic words that really spoke to your spirit and say, I'm going to remind myself of what God has said to me. That is a powerful way to stir up joy in your life. And this idea of focusing on what God is doing, not what he's not doing is so key. That is something that has helped me so much. Because if it's like, wow, I wish God would do this, or I've been praying about this one thing and it just doesn't feel like anything is moving. That is an a cycle of just being upset with God and being discouraged that he's not doing what you want him to do. Yeah, well, newsflash doesn't actually work for us. Although he's. He cares so much about our circumstances in our day to day lives, like he really, really does. But he also knows what's best for us. We don't. And so we might have a plan of what we think God should be doing. God, you're just not doing what I think you should be doing right now. He said, well, you're now ready for that. But if we spend the time to just, I mean, it doesn't even take long. Spend a few minutes per day going, oh, what did God do today? I had a really good conversation with my friend or my kid made a new friend at school or did a great job on, you know, their test, their test or whatever it is. Something bad happened, but I was only discouraged for half an hour instead of a month. You know, whatever it is, that's huge. And then write that down and just, I love having a list of all the things that God is doing that I'm thankful for. And just going through those every day and reminding myself, remember when God did this? When he said that you can't help but get excited about what God is doing when you're just meditating and living in all those things that he's doing. It will change the way that you think it will change your emotions? Yeah, I have a book of declarations that I found them in different places or it was things I've learned or God has spoken to me and I just love to go through those. And if, if I'm feeling heavy, like discouraged, or life's not going the way I want it to or I wish it would, I just like to spend however long it takes reading those out loud. And that it shifts the atmosphere, shifts my mindset, it shifts the way I feel. It shifts everything. And that has been hugely helpful for me to just get out of discouragement on a daily basis because it just happens. Yeah. I don't think that there's anything necessarily wrong with that. Like we're not going to all live in a completely euphoric state all the time. That's not. God doesn't want us to stay stuck there. And just being intentional with your words, with what you're renewing your mind with is huge.
• 27:45
  Speaker B: It's huge. Well, we are having a great discussion about joy and I think we're gonna continue it in the next episode. But for now we would like to say thank you for spending this time with us. Thank you for investing in your own well being, in becoming who God created you to be. We so appreciate your time and your attention and we would love if you would rate and review this episode and share it with a friend who needs to be reminded that the joy of the Lord is their strength.
• 28:16
  Speaker A: If you feel stuck in discouragement, you feel like you can't get out of that endless loop of just feeling bad about how life is going, we have a coaching program. We love working one on one with people to help them overcome self limiting beliefs, cycles of negativity, and to step into the abundance that God promises us into this joy that we've been talking about. We have tools that we work with our clients to help them uncover lies that they're believing to really release the power of God's truth in their everyday lives. So check that out. We have a website, joshandkarina.com coach coaching. The links are in the show notes. Check that out and we'd love to hear from you. Schedule a free 25 minute consultation with us. We'll chat with you about what we could possibly help you with. So thanks for listening.
• 29:05
  Speaker B: Bye.