Latest / Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit / 21. Want Breakthrough? Start with Thanksgiving in the Battle

Transcript

21. Want Breakthrough? Start with Thanksgiving in the Battle · Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Well, Happy Thanksgiving. This episode will be released on Thanksgiving Day here in the US So we thought we would dedicate an entire episode to gratitude. Today we'll be discussing why Thanksgiving is so important. How it benefits not only your body, but your soul and your spirit too. And if you stick around till the end, we're going to share our top tips for regularly practicing gratitude. This is going to be a good one.
• 0:26
  Speaker B: If you're tired of leading others while secretly battling doubt, discouragement and mental warfare.
• 0:31
  Speaker A: And you want practical tools to renew your mind and walk boldly in your.
• 0:35
  Speaker B: Calling as a leader, you're in the right place. Welcome to Believe and Become.
• 0:39
  Speaker A: We're Josh and Karina, your spirit filled coaches, here to help you overcome those limiting beliefs and lead others confidently.
• 0:46
  Speaker B: If you're ready to hear God's voice more clearly, to step into your purpose and find joy and strength in the.
• 0:51
  Speaker A: Everyday silence, those Bible app reminders judging you from your lock screen and let's jump in.
• 1:00
  Speaker B: Foreign. Hey friend, before we get started, we've got a quick invite for you. If you're a spirit filled Christian in leadership who's been caring a lot lately, maybe you're tired, overthinking or wondering how to find your next breakthrough, we'd love to help. Sign up for a free 25 minute transformation session where we'll help you get clarity and create a practical plan to move forward in peace. You'll also learn about our one on one coaching program designed to help you renew your mind and and lead from presence instead of pressure. Just head to joshandkarina.com coaching that's J O S H A n d c o R-I-A.com coaching to book your session. Now let's dive in. Welcome back to the podcast. We're so excited that you're here with us. I am excited for this episode. It's going to be so good. This is one thing that if you put it into practice in your life, that will change your life. Take it from us. If you activate gratitude in your life, if you it will change your life.
• 2:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:00
  Speaker B: We're so excited to share.
• 2:02
  Speaker A: And not only that, but it's easy. It's free. You can do it right now. I mean it's, it's just kind of amazing.
• 2:08
  Speaker B: It really is. So we want to, we're going to talk about three basic things here. What the Bible has to say about Thanksgiving, some of the health benefits of gratitude, how gratitude actually rewires your brain. Wow, that's amazing. And then if you stick around to the END. We'll give you our top practical tips for how to implement gratitude in your everyday life. So let's get started.
• 2:31
  Speaker A: All right, here we go. So what does the Bible have to say about Thanksgiving? I think this is a really great question, and if you've read your Bible at any length, you've probably come across something about gratitude or Thanksgiving. I believe that gratitude is one of our best weapons in spiritual warfare. What do you think?
• 2:50
  Speaker B: Absolutely. I was just praying this week. We led worship for a Thanksgiving service on Sunday and just praying into the service, and the Lord said that gratitude is our number one spiritual warfare, that it defeats the plans of the enemy in our lives as we shift our thinking from, oh my gosh, what isn't happening in my life, what I'm worried about, what I'm anxious about, to what God is doing. God, I'm just so thankful for all that you're doing in my family. Thank you that you are constantly pursuing us. Thank you that you are pouring your blessings out on us as you shift your mindset from what's not happening to what God is doing that completely obliterates the lies and the schemes of the enemy. It is so powerful and it works every time.
• 3:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's so good. And we talk about how most of their spiritual warfare is coming against the strongholds that are already built in our mind. And so if we can implement Thanksgiving as a weapon, as a tool to tear down negative strongholds, it is so powerful and it works so effectively.
• 3:51
  Speaker B: That's so good. 1 Thessalonians 5, 18 says, Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, Doctor. God gives us his prescription in this verse. This is the will of God.
• 4:06
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker B: Give thanks in all circumstances, not just sometimes or when things are going good, when you feel like it, but all the time. Give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. This verse and the two before it give us basically God's recipe for a happy and successful life.
• 4:24
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 4:24
  Speaker B: Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances.
• 4:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's so good. Philippians 4, 6, and 7 says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This idea of thanksgiving coming alongside peace is so huge that as we pray, as we bring the things that are causing anxiety in our lives before God and we begin to thank him for what he is doing. Thank him for the answer that's on the way. Thank him for the things that we can see, that we can be grateful for. That actually brings peace, peace to our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. It's so beautiful. And it's just another really clear example of that spiritual warfare that's taking place.
• 5:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. If you want more peace, if you want a guard on your heart and your mind. I know I do. This is it. God says, just present your request to me with Thanksgiving. And I love that we're going to talk about it more, but it's so powerful when we give God our prayer requests and then we immediately shift into Thanksgiving, we say, thank you, God, that the answer is well.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: And I think you can even incorporate Thanksgiving into the petition. Right. Like, it doesn't have to be like, here's my laundry list of things. But yeah, thank you that you're taking care of it. We can thank him as we request. God, thank you that you already. The answer's already on the way. Thank you that you already know the problem. And I don't have to lay out all the details before you, but I can thank you for the outcome and for the way that you're going to come through. I can't wait to see what you're going to do in this area.
• 6:01
  Speaker B: So good. Colossians 3:15 says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body, you are called to peace and be thankful. Yeah. I love this. Another verse that links this idea of gratitude, the peace of Christ, and how that really, it impacts our hearts. And this, in this verse, it actually impacts the entire body of Christ.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 6:25
  Speaker B: As we move into gratitude, we release peace in our lives and in our church, in everyone around us, our families. Gratitude is a powerful, powerful weapon that the Lord has given us to just see his kingdom come on earth. It's so good.
• 6:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. So that's what the Bible says about Thanksgiving. Let's talk about how gratitude affects our health, because I think we can see. We can pretty clearly see what. When we're thankful, that affects our spiritual condition, our spiritual health, but how does it affect our physical health? I think this is really cool.
• 7:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. So one of the main benefits of gratitude is that it reduces depression and anxiety. There's been many studies done that link higher levels of gratitude with lower levels of being anxious and suffering from depression. As people increase our gratitude, those things go away. And the reason that that works is because it actually combats negative thinking patterns. So much of depression, anxiety comes from. We're rehearsing the same negative thoughts over and over. We're stuck in a negative pattern of thinking. And so one of the things that has worked best for me for anxiety is actually just to cultivate gratitude. Yeah. To spend time intentionally just thinking about your life and all the good things that God has done is doing in you and your family, in your community, as you do that, those. It breaks those negative cycles of thinking and releases you into positive cycles of thinking.
• 7:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 7:55
  Speaker B: It's incredible is how he's designed us and this tool that he's given us. It's so powerful.
• 8:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. And gratitude also supports your heart health. I thought this was so interesting and really cool. Practicing gratitude actually lowers your blood pressure. It brings your breathing into a synchronized pattern with your heartbeat and calms your nervous system, supporting your heart health. How important is your heart health? Right. There are so many things we can do. We can exercise, we can eat healthy, all of these things. But just practicing gratitude actually reduces your blood pressure. It reduces that high workload for your heart. It's just so amazing how God created our bodies to function in cooperation with the prescription that he has given us in his word.
• 8:42
  Speaker B: I love that. I love it when science catches up to his wisdom for us. The other. Another benefit of gratitude is that it actually reduces stress in our bodies and it improves our immune system function. And what this does is gratitude actually activates our sympathetic nervous system, which is the. Our rest and relax response. Instead of the fight or flight. That's the one that gets us worked up, releases cortisol in our system and gets us all stressed up. This is the other one, the sympathetic one. As we're even. It's the same way as if you do nose breathing, calm breathing, meditation, meditation that actually activates the rest and relax part of our nervous system. It's actually, if you feeling stressed out, just shift into gratitude completely changes the way you think and you'll actually feel that in your body.
• 9:34
  Speaker A: I think too, too often we are stuck in, like you said, these cycles of negative thinking about situations that may be negative situations. Maybe there's a health diagnosis or a relationship that is being strained. And so we feel like there's only negative things to think about. But really what we can do is stop and say, what can I be thankful for right now? Am I breathing? Do I have, you know, somebody by my side? Is the Holy Spirit with me? There's so much that we can be grateful for. And so when we stop that fight or flight and we say, okay, what can I be thankful for? It actually brings us to the present moment, it begins to calm our body down. And we have this really quick and simple fix for that heightened emotional response.
• 10:20
  Speaker B: And the other thing that gratitude will do is improve your sleep. Who wants to sleep better? Oh, pick me. I do. That's for sure. We all can use better sleep. And the reason that I think that this works is because. Especially if right before you go to bed, you just enter into Thanksgiving.
• 10:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:37
  Speaker B: Thank you, God, for all you're doing in my life. Thank you that that thing that I was really worked up about didn't happen. Thank you that we're healthy. Thank you that we have everything that we need. As you activate that right. As you're going to sleep, it gives your brain something to work on. Yeah. While you're sleeping. Because our brains actually do a lot of processing throughout the night there. Our brain is constantly active, working. It's organizing all of our thoughts, all of our memories as we're sleeping. And so if you go to bed thinking about, oh my gosh, what about that bill I need to pay or, you know, whatever it is that you're worried about, what that thing about my kids gonna. I'm worried about that. That's what your brain will work on all night. And so you're not going to sleep well and you're going to wake up stressed and anxious and frazzled.
• 11:20
  Speaker A: Well, and I think your brain is trying to fix the problems. Right. Our brains are solution oriented. And so if we give it a problem to work on as we go to sleep, some people will think, well, maybe I'll wake up with the answer, which maybe you will. But entering into Thanksgiving releases the peace. And then we can have Holy Spirit answer instead of just something that our brains came up with overnight. Right. This gives us just the peace of God. And as we. Thanksgiving is connected to peace. Thanksgiving brings us into God's presence. Psalm 100 says, Enter his gates with thanksgiving. And so as we begin to be grateful and thankful, that invites God's presence. And who doesn't want to sleep in God's presence? I mean, that's going to improve your sleep immediately.
• 12:00
  Speaker B: Oh, I love that. It's so good. And it works. Yeah. Okay, so those are some of the health benefits of gratitude. Did you know that gratitude actually rewires your brain? It will change the physical structures in your brain.
• 12:15
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 12:15
  Speaker B: That is crazy.
• 12:16
  Speaker A: It's crazy.
• 12:17
  Speaker B: God knows how we're created and he knows what we need. And he put all that wisdom into his word for us, you know, even before science understood any of this. Yes, but it's wild to me. So gratitude actually activates the key regions of our brains that are involved in emotional awareness and processing rewards. That is so cool. And so it's going to actually, as we're thankful, it's makes us more aware of our own emotions, and then it activates that reward center part of our brain. Because our brains actually don't know whether or not something's happening if we're just imagining it. Because you can imagine something bad, you get to rehearse it. Your brain thinks that that's happening again, so you're actually just reinforcing those negative structures in your brain. But it's the same thing when you think about something good and you're grateful for it, grateful for what God's done. You're rehearsing and reliving those good things in your life, and that will actually build new structures in your brain that cause automatic thinking where instead of something happens, I can either automatically go to negative bad things are going to happen, or actually in the past, God's worked us all out for me. And so you automatically go to the good. But you get the choice of how you want to structure your brain, and you can intentionally rewire your brain. Just like Romans 12:2 says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
• 13:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's so good. And that rewards processing center, I love that. It's kind of like a little, you know, place in your brain where there's little people working on processing your rewards that actually helps to create feelings of happiness and contentment. So that's what that means. As you activate that reward center in your brain, then your feelings come into alignment with that. You begin to feel happier, begin to feel more content. And so that's going to shift your attitude in general, not necessarily just in that moment, but as you create new structures in your brain, then you're going to look for things to be grateful for, and then you're going to be happier and more content as you go along. So that's really cool. We already talked about how it regulates your sympathetic nervous system, but that, again, is rewiring your brain, because instead of going to the fight or flight, your brain is going to automatically go to the rest and relax, just like you talked about.
• 14:27
  Speaker B: It's so good. And I love that God's given us this tool. You want a new brain, you can have it.
• 14:32
  Speaker A: That's crazy.
• 14:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is crazy. You just have to renew your mind with gratitude. Yeah. So let's move on to some of our practical ways to practice gratitude. One of the main Ones is to have a gratitude journal. And this is something that I've done, especially when I was struggling with anxiety, is to sit down every single day and force yourself to think of three things that you're thankful for. For. Yeah. And actually write those down. And then every day, go back and reread through your whole list of everything you've written and add three more. And as you do that, it starts out, it's hard, especially if you're deep in feeling discouraged, if you're feeling depressed or anxious, it can be really hard to think of a few things that you are thankful for. But if you really force yourself, you can do it. And then it gets easier and easier and easier every single day to where you have way more than three things. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, God is doing so many good things. Totally changes your perspective online. And one of the keys is to make it as specific as possible so you can say, I'm thankful for my family, which maybe on the day 1, 2, 3 is okay, but it's better to. To make that more specific about, oh, my gosh, I'm really grateful that my kids love each other, that my spouse is so supportive of me. Make it as specific as you can. Karina did something for me, Took it off my to do list. Right. Make it as specific as you can. Yeah.
• 15:57
  Speaker A: And I think that really forces you to focus on the good things instead of the bad things. Right. It forces you to look at maybe a person in your life who does irritate you, make your life harder, whatever, but you can find something in them to be grateful for. And I think that's really important because that's really what Thanksgiving is doing, is it's honing in on what is the good part. And that forces our brain to stop looking at all the bad stuff and start looking at the positive things. It's so important. And then one of my favorite ways is to add thank you to your declarations. So we love doing declarations. We've talked about it a lot. And declarations aren't necessarily just positive thinking, but it's biblical optimism. And so we're looking to take what the word says, take the promises of God, and begin to declare those over ourselves. But if I can add thank you to that, I'm actually doing two things at one time. I'm taking. It's a twofer. I'm taking my brain to that positive place, doing all these things we just talked about, and then at the same time declaring the promises of God and the truth of his word over my Life. So thank you that today is going to be the best day yet. Thank you that there that I will thrive no matter what happens. Thank you that even if the worst happens, God, you are going to work it out and I'm going to be okay. And so when you add thank you to your declarations, it's. You're really doubly reinforcing it.
• 17:24
  Speaker B: Double portion, double portion. So good. Another thing that I like to do is to shift my prayers from just prayer requests to Thanksgiving. Yeah. And so we talked a little bit about this at the beginning. But just to go into more detail, once we give our request to God, you have the tracking number. It's like when you order something from Amazon, you don't place the order and then go, oh, my gosh, I don't know if it's coming. Should I order a new one? I'm freaking out. No, you don't have to do that because you get the tracking number, it's in the mail, it's on the way. And that's the same way when we pray, God immediately answers, starts answering those prayers. He dispatches his angels on your behalf. And that's the thing that I love to do, is like, okay, I prayed about this one time, this situation with my child, whatever it is, your finances, whatever you're dealing with, and then move immediately into Thanksgiving. Thank you, God, that you're working that situation out. Thank you that you're providing for my every need. By. Every need, by your glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Thank you, God. Thank you that you're continually moving on my behalf. Thank you that that prayer is being answered right now.
• 18:30
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:30
  Speaker B: And that just totally changes your perspective from. I have a list of things that God is not doing. To my gosh. I actually have. The answer is on its way. Yeah. Thank you, God, that you're actively working in this situation. It increases your faith to know that he is actually moving on your behalf. Answer is coming.
• 18:50
  Speaker A: I have a great verse. Isaiah 65:24 says, for they call, I will answer. And while they are yet speaking, I will hear. I love that God already knows our needs. He already knows what we are going to ask before the words are even on our lips. He is already answering and he's already listening to our hearts cry. I think that's so beautiful. And then Isaiah 30:18 says, the Lord waits to be gracious to you, therefore he will rise up to show you mercy. He's waiting to answer your prayer request. It's so cool.
• 19:24
  Speaker B: And then one more.
• 19:25
  Speaker A: Isaiah 58, 9 says, when you Pray. I will answer you when you call. I will respond. So we have a guarantee in the Word that God is answering our prayers when they come off of our lips. So when you feel like, I've been praying about this and I have to keep praying, otherwise God's not gonna answer, you know, if I give up or whatever. No, he has already answered. He has already sent his angels to do the thing that you have asked him to do. He is already moving on your behalf. And like Josh just said, you have the tracking number. It's right there in the Word. You have his promises to guarantee his response. And, oh, that is so powerful when you connect your faith to the prayers that you're praying.
• 20:06
  Speaker B: And right now, I feel the grace of God coming upon you. Just to enter into gratitude in a powerful way. And to experiment, just experiment for a couple days over the weekend, decide, okay, I'm going to activate gratitude in my life. I'm going to increase my Thanksgiving 10 times and just see if that doesn't change the way that you feel, change the way that you think, change the way that your body feels. Yeah. Because you're going to start to reap those benefits almost right away. Yeah, definitely. In our thinking and in our relationship with God. And God is doing that right now in you. He's giving you the ability to see life differently. Yeah. Because of your gratitude to him for all that he's doing. Yeah.
• 20:48
  Speaker A: That's amazing. So, just to recap, today we really wanted to dig into things, and so we want to remind you that Thanksgiving shifts us into peace. It is one of our strongest weapons in spiritual warfare. Gratitude creates healthier bodies and rewires your brain. And just some simple ways of practicing gratitude. Get out a journal. Write gratitude journal on it, and just begin to write down three things every day. Add thank you to the declarations you're already making. Shift your prayers from just a request to God, thank you that the answer is on the way. And a bonus, whenever you're saying thank you, be specific. When you hear yourself say, oh, thanks. Wait, stop. What am I thankful for? And then tell the person, thank you that you got me water and I didn't have to get up and get it. Be really specific. Thank you that you're serving me. That makes me feel really special and loved. So, yeah, this has been such a good episode.
• 21:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's been fun. If you give it a chance, it will change your Life. Yeah. It's 100% guarantee. You can take it to the bank. It's all throughout God's word constantly. We just highlighted a few of the verses, but there are so many more where God talks about gratitude. Look up gratitude and thankfulness throughout the Bible and read those verses. Let them wash over you. It will just change your perspective on life. It's so powerful. So we love you all and we are so glad that you spent time with us. We're excited to hear what God is doing in your life. If you have a testimony of what gratitude has done in your life, send it to us. Email us at infojosh and karina.com and we would love to hear that.
• 22:23
  Speaker A: Happy Thanksgiving.
• 22:23
  Speaker B: Happy Thanksgiving.
• 22:30
  Speaker A: Hey friend. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds to share this podcast with someone who may need encouragement or practical tools for fighting their battle?
• 22:40
  Speaker B: Then rate and review this podcast. Help us spread the message of transformation far and wide.
• 22:46
  Speaker A: All right, time to walk back into the noise with peace purpose and maybe a tiny bit of caffeine.
• 22:51
  Speaker B: We'll meet you back next Thursday for another episode. Bye.