If it's fire, it's got to look like fire, feel like fire, smell like fire or something.
Well, welcome to another Raising Home Fire Secret Place Training session.
Hope you really enjoy this session, and I hope that this results in you knowing God
in a deeper and more personal and more connected way.
Hey guys, welcome to another Secret Place Training session.
I want to talk to you about something today, something that I practice in my personal prayer
life that has dramatically blessed me and that has caused me to grow really so much
depth in terms of my connection with the Lord and my connection, my personal connection
with God and prayer.
What I want to talk to you about today is the practice of thankfulness, setting memory
stones and enlarging the influence of God and the influence of the kingdom of God in
your life.
I want to begin by just reading a psalm, Psalm 69 verse 30, not a whole psalm, just a verse
from a psalm.
Psalm 69 verse 30, something that King David wrote.
He said this, I will praise the name of God with a song and I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
That word magnify literally means to enlarge or to make bigger or to make more powerful.
What David is, what King David is implying here is that when we neglect the practice
of thankfulness, we actually decrease the power of God in our lives.
We don't make God less powerful, but we decrease the influence of God's power in our lives.
We decrease the size of God in our lives and we decrease the influence of God and his kingdom
in our lives.
When we engage in the practices of thankfulness, we actually enlarge the kingdom of God, the
influence of God, the reality of God, the presence of God, and we grow what God is doing
in our lives.
The activity and the influence of God gets deeper and wider in us and over us.
This is a really powerful thing, the practice of thankfulness.
I want to take that a step further and talk about the setting of memory stones.
I want to share just something that happened in my life a few years back.
I went through about 18 months that were really, really tough.
I know we all go through hard times in our lives sometimes, and sometimes when we go
through hard times, I don't know, for me, it was at least easy to neglect the practice
of thankfulness.
I started to get kind of bogged down with some of the negative things that were happening
and I forgot to be thankful for the many, many, many, many amazing and good things that
were gifts to me and that were happening in my life and gifts from the Lord.
I remember about 18 months down the journey, it felt like a night season for me.
It felt like there was just no light around.
It was just night around, and it felt like a dark season.
I was kind of in this space of waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for the season to
change, waiting for the corner to be turned into the next season of my life.
I was ready for that dark season to be over and to step into the new.
I remember being in my lounge, I remember worshiping the Lord and praying.
I was listening to an album by the band House Fires.
It was a song that I hadn't heard before at the time, the song called Life is a Gift.
The singer started singing these words, My life is a gift from heaven.
Every breath is something you've given.
My life is a gift from heaven.
Every breath is something you've given.
As I started singing those words along to the song, I started to realize, man, every
breath that I'm breathing right now is something I'm not entitled to.
I don't deserve it.
I'm not owed it.
God doesn't need to give it to me.
He's not required to give it to me, but it's a free gift from heaven.
It's a free gift from a loving Father.
That started me off on this tangent of starting to realize that every good thing, every blade
of grass I get the opportunity to cast my eyes upon, every amazing conversation I've
had with my kids, every time I've got to kiss them goodnight, every time I've had the privilege
of a mind that is functioning well, and I've been able to use that mind to think about
just my wonderful children, my wife, or just the pleasure of life and of knowing God.
I started to just think about all these things that I was grateful for.
I started to realize, man, I'm not entitled to any single one of them.
They're all a gift from heaven.
They're all a gift from God.
This gratitude started to rise up within me, and I just went into this wild time of thankfulness.
I just went into this wild time of thankfulness.
I was thanking the Lord for everything that was coming to my mind.
I started to realize the manifest presence of God is coming over me.
Thankfulness is ushering in the presence of God and the kingdom of God into my living
room right now, around my life right now.
And the season, in that exact moment, my season changed.
I went from night to light.
I went from dark to day.
It was as if, not physically, but in the Spirit, it was as if that's the moment that the sun
rose.
That's the moment that I went into a new season in my life.
That was the moment I turned the corner.
That was the moment that everything changed for me.
And in that moment, I realized again, and I was reminded by the Lord, of the extreme
value of thankfulness and of the consequences that happen in a person's life when we neglect
to be thankful.
And I realized that over the 18 months, I hadn't been practicing as much as usual my
practices of thankfulness.
So I re-engaged in these practices of thankfulness.
And like I said, I'm going to talk to you in a moment about the setting of memory stones.
And everything shifted from that moment on.
Another amazing Psalm that I want to read to you is Psalm 78.
And we'll start in verse 40 to 42.
I'm reading the NASB version, but I'm going to also mention the New King James version.
How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert.
I had just gone through a desert season.
I had just gone through a wilderness season.
Again and again, they tempted God and pained the Holy One of Israel.
The New King James version says, limited the Holy One of Israel, which I think is probably
more accurate in this particular context, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
They did.
And how did they do that?
How were they paining?
How were they limiting?
How are they tempting God?
This is how.
They did not remember his power the day when he redeemed them from the adversary.
And this is the truth.
This is the truth, is that when we neglect the practice of thankfulness, we limit the
power of God.
When we neglect the practice of thankfulness, it brings pain to God's heart because he loses
a level of influence in our lives.
That sets us in a direction that is often not a good direction.
Here's something that's true, a principle that has helped me and that I pray helps you.
What you put your attention on, you agree with.
What you agree with, you empower.
And what you empower manifests in your life.
I'll say that again.
It's a really powerful principle.
What you put your attention on, you agree with.
What you agree with, you empower.
And what you empower manifests in your life.
Selah.
One of the things I do, as I said, is I practice the practice of thankfulness.
And one of the ways I do that is I have a practice of setting memory stones.
We each get to decide how our story is told, first of all, to ourselves, and secondly,
to others.
We get to choose what reference points and what marker points we hammer in to things
that we've experienced in the past in order to be reference points for us for the future.
And one of the ways I do this as well is both in my personal life and also when I'm leading
teams overseas, mission teams and things like that, ministry teams, is that whenever I'm
leading a team, we always do a debrief at the end of each day.
And in that debrief, we always do some certain things.
Some of the things we do is we go through and we talk about the stuff that was challenging,
difficult, disappointing, hard.
We never neglect to talk about that.
We're always open to talking about that.
We never want to be sweeping that under the rug.
We want to deal with that head on.
So we always have a moment where people can go around and share what was challenging,
what was hard, and they're going to share their hearts vulnerably and honestly, and
we value that time.
And we process that and we go through that, and then we say, okay, if we finish it, we're
done, finished, good.
If it still needs to be talked about, maybe we'll carry the conversation on the next day
or the next time we meet, but that's done.
Then we always end on this.
We always end on what's a celebration point for you, what's a thankfulness point for you,
what are you stoked on, what is a victory for you, what is something that you overcame,
what's a breakthrough for you from today?
And we go around the group and the group always shares something that was a breakthrough,
something that was amazing, a testimony, something that God did, something that they witnessed,
something that happened, an amazing experience they had.
And what I say at the end of the day,
at time as I say, okay, guys, we've just talked about the stuff we found hard and we've talked
about the stuff we found amazing.
What we're going to do is we're not going to hammer our tent pegs in.
We're not going to put our anchors down into the negative.
We acknowledge that that happened, but that's not where we're sitting our reference point.
That's not where we're sitting our marker point for how we're going to tell the story
of our lives.
What we're going to do is we're going to hammer our pegs in.
We're going to put our anchors down.
We're going to set our memory stones on the goodness of God, on the victories of God,
on the breakthroughs of God, and on the things that we're thankful for.
They are going to be our reference points.
When we go to tell the story, we're going to refer back not to the negative stuff, but
we're going to refer back.
We're not denying that the negative stuff happened.
We're not sweeping it under the rug, but we're referring back primarily to the goodness of
God.
That's how our story is going to be told.
At the end of most years, what I often do, well, pretty much what I always do, is I go
through a time of just reflecting upon the year that I've just lived.
I sit down with the Lord, and I just have a prayer time, and me and God talk about and
reflect upon and review the year that I've just had with Him.
At the end of most of those years, I can do two things.
The first thing I can do is I can look back, and I can say, man, I have evidence that that
was a really, really, really, really, really, really, really bad year.
Look, I can look at this.
I can look at this.
This happened, this happened, this happened, and this happened.
And that's evidence that I had a horrible year.
And the other thing that I can do is this, is I can look back on my year and I can find
concrete, solid, firm evidence that it was an amazing, glorious, if not the best year
of my life.
I can look back.
Man, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that,
and look at that.
That is amazing.
This has been one of the best years of my life.
I can do both things.
And I get to choose where I set my memory stones up.
I get to choose what reference points I put in my past that are references for me telling
my story into the future.
And what I choose to do is I always choose to hammer my tent pegs in and to set my memory
stones up upon the ground of the goodness of God, on what God has done, on what God
is doing, on the blessings that I've received, and on the things that I'm grateful and thankful
for.
Because as you do that, you grow the influence and power of God and reality and manifestation
of God in your life.
Whatever you put your attention on, you agree with, whatever you agree with, you empower,
and whatever you empower manifests in your life.
Setting your memories and setting your memory stones in the right place of your past sets
you up to be thankful.
And thankfulness, when it's practiced and setting memory stones up, allows you to practice
it in a deeper and more expressive way.
When you practice thankfulness, the kingdom of God and the influence of God and the manifestation
of God gets bigger over your life.
So I want to encourage you, choose how you will tell your story.
Choose the reference points that you put in place, and start to think about some things
you can do, and some ways that you can practice thankfulness in your life, and the setting
of memory stones as a part of your prayer life.
What we're going to do now is we're going to go into an activation time, and we're going
to activate on thankfulness, and we're going to activate on setting memory stones.
So God bless you.
What about this baptism of fire thing?
What does that mean?
Because like, if it's fire, it's got to look like fire, feel like fire, smell like fire.
Well I hope you enjoyed that session.
Right now we're going to go into a time of activation, where we take what's been taught
in the session, and lead you through an activation that will take what's been taught, and bring
you into the experience of that.
We're going to begin a practice of thankfulness.
This is something you could apply to your own personal prayer life.
There's many ways to practice thankfulness, and this is one of them.
I want to encourage you, whatever you do, find a way that you can practice thankfulness
on a daily basis in your own prayer life.
For now, this is the activation.
What I want you to do, is I want you to find some space, and I want you to write down.
This is a thankfulness challenge for you.
I want you to get a pen and paper, or a file on your iPhone, or iPad, or computer, or some
way of writing this down.
I want you to write down 78, why 78?
Because we just read Psalm 78.
I want you to write down 78 things that you are thankful for.
78 things that you're thankful for.
Take a couple of minutes, where you might need more than a couple of minutes.
a couple, you might need 10 or so minutes
to write down 78 things that you're thankful for.
Awesome, now you've written those 78 things.
Thanks for doing that.
I want you just to read through that list,
and I just want you to spend some time
just pointing that thankfulness,
pointing that gratitude towards God,
pointing that gratitude towards the Lord
and saying, God, thank you.
I didn't deserve, I wasn't owed,
and I wasn't entitled to any of these things,
but all of these were beautiful gifts
from an extravagant Father.
Thank you, and I just want you to just take a moment
just to be thankful for what's on your list.
Awesome, and the last thing that I'm gonna ask you to do
is I'm gonna ask you to look through that list,
and if there is anything on your list
that is a moment from the past,
something that you're thankful for
that's happened to you in the past,
something that God's done in your life,
something that is a breakthrough moment for you
that's happened already,
then what I wanna encourage you to do
is I want to encourage you to just highlight
at least three or four of those moments
that are on your list right there.
If there's no moments on your list
or things that have happened,
then just think about what some of those things might be,
and I want you to take three or four,
and what I want you to do is I want you to set them
as memory stones in your life,
and to do that, what I'm gonna ask you to do
is some homework.
Once you've highlighted those things,
I want you to take those three or four things
that God has done in the past that you're thankful for,
those breakthrough moments, those moments of victory,
those moments of, man, I'm so grateful
that God you did that in my life,
and I want you to take those,
and I want you to write them in a separate list,
a short list, three or four,
and for the next week,
I want you to write over those four things
with thankfulness.
I want you to take those four things,
and I just want you to start to replay them in your mind,
replay them in your heart,
replay them in your prayer life,
and point the thankfulness and gratitude towards the Lord,
and just see what that does in your life.
It does amazing things.
All right, God bless you,
and we'll see you next week.
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