Okay, well, welcome.
This is the first of a brand new series, something that's been on my mind and heart for, gosh,
maybe a year, maybe longer.
Ever since the first time, I read Don Miguel Luis's book called The Four Agreements, and
I thought, ooh, this would be such a fun one to do a Bible study on, and I've since gone
on and read it many times, and on my trip here last week, I listened to it on audio,
and I says, you know, this has just got to be the next study, because I've titled it
The Four Agreements, A Biblical Perspective, Discovering the Secrets to Transformation.
And today, in this first part of the study, we're just going to lay a strong foundation,
understanding what are the four agreements, and where are we going with this study, and
what it can do for you.
I know for me, these four agreements and understanding them have just changed everything.
It removes a tremendous amount of conflict, it gives a tremendous amount of peace, it
helps you understand things that people do.
It's phenomenal in family, it's phenomenal in business, it's just, to me, they're just
some powerful biblical principles that I thought would be amazing to start our new series.
So let's begin with prayer.
Father, we just thank you for being able to come together for this study, and we just
ask, Holy Spirit, you are our teacher, you are our guide, you guide us into all truth,
and so we just ask you to open our spiritual senses, and allow us to take and glean from
this what it is that you have for us to go into the next season of our life.
You've told us that you've created us to go from glory to glory, and I ask that this
will be part of that, of just living the fullness, the abundant life that you've promised.
So Holy Spirit, be our teacher, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart
be pleasing in your sight, in Jesus' name, amen.
Welcome to the call, a couple more of you have just been pinging in, who just joined
us?
This is Judy.
Hey, Judy, great, glad you're on the line, who else just joined us?
You're probably on mute, but, and by the way, please, all of you, do mute unless you're
wanting to say something, just so all background noise doesn't get on the recording.
Okay, so this is the first of the series in the four agreements of biblical perspective,
discovering the secret to transformation.
And anytime I talk about transformation, I can't help but begin in Romans chapter 12,
kind of a very famous verse on transformation.
So if you have your Bibles or your phone apps for the Bible or whatever, if someone could
read and begin this study straight out of Romans 12, I'd like to read the first three
verses.
If you have the amplified version, that's usually what I read from.
So Romans 12, verses 1 through 3, when we're talking about being transformed, about having
a transformation experience.
So if someone could please read that.
We're at Romans 12, verses 1 through 3.
Somebody have that?
Good morning, Cindy.
We are beginning the four agreements of biblical perspective to transformation, and we're in
Romans chapter 12, verses 1 through 3, if someone could read that.
No readers this morning?
All right, I'll start on this one.
And you guys have Scripture near you, so you can jump in and read.
Romans 12, verses 1 through 3 says this, I appeal to you, therefore.
He's actually making an appeal to every one of us.
I appeal to you.
And in fact, he wanted to make it so strong how important this appeal is, he said, I appeal
to you.
I beg of you, in view of all the mercies of God.
So when you understand just the incredible mercies of God,
the fact that we are alive and we're breathing
and we have our faculties about us
and we have all the potential of life in front of us.
He's basically saying that,
just know in everything that God has given you.
He says, I appeal to you therefore, brethren,
and beg of you in view of all the mercies of God
to make a decisive dedication of your bodies,
presenting all your members and faculties.
So I would say just presenting everything,
spirit, soul, and body as a living sacrifice,
holy, devoted, consecrated, pleasing to God,
which is your reasonable, your rational,
intelligent service and spiritual worship.
So he's talking about just take yourself in your life
while you're still alive, a sacrifice we think of killing,
killing an animal or killing something
with sacrifice biblically there,
but he's saying be a living sacrifice.
It's a living dedication.
Make a dedication of your spirit, soul, and body
in light of everything that God has given you,
dedicate yourself to him.
And he goes on to explain what he means by that in verse two
by saying, don't be conformed to this world, to this age.
The Amplified says fashioned after and adapted
to its external superficial customs.
If you read this word conformed,
it's kind of, if you think of a Jell-O mold,
when you pour the liquid Jell-O into a mold
and then you put it in the refrigerator
and you let it harden,
and then you turn the mold over onto a plate,
it is now taken on the shape of the mold.
And there's Christmas ones,
there's all different Easter ones
and all that kind of stuff.
You've got these Jell-O molds that the liquid molds itself
and shapes itself according to the mold.
Well, he's talking about that with your life.
He's saying your life is being molded and shaped.
You're pouring it into something.
You're taking on the image of something.
And he's saying, don't let it be
after the superficial customs all around you.
So a lot of us have been shaped by the superficial customs.
And this is what the Four Agreements deals with.
We've been shaped by the superficial customs
of the traditions of man,
of the belief systems that were passed on to you.
Most of them, before we had any say so about
or even had a chance to rationally think
about what things we've adopted,
what belief systems we have adopted,
what belief systems were patterning our life,
they're still governing us.
Things that happened when we were two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight years old,
that got poured into us that were the customs
of our family, of our churches,
of our country, of our nationality,
all of these things, we just took it on
and we became conformed to them.
And most of them we've never even thought about.
And we've never thought about if they're biblical
and we've never thought about if they're healthy for us
and we're still living and operating.
Your finances are determined by the shaping
that happened to you.
The view you took on about money,
somewhere between ages six and eight, typically,
that's still shaping how you do your finances
for most of you, unless you've broken out of that pattern.
How you view relationships, how you view love,
how you view the security of the world,
how you view God, all these things,
we were poured into that jello mold.
In Romans 12 here, he's saying,
don't be conformed to this world.
Don't be fashioned after and adapted
to its external superficial customs,
but, you can circle that, but,
but be transformed.
He's talking here about the potential of taking.
You were poured into a mold.
You picked up the belief systems of your family,
your church, all of that, your government,
all of that, your nationality.
He's saying you can be transformed.
You can be changed from that mold
by, and here's how change happens,
the entire renewal of your mind.
So when we talk about the four agreements in this session,
it's about renewing your mind.
It's about new ideas.
It's about new attitudes.
And in that process, it says you may prove.
This is where you're gonna prove for yourself.
He says, so you may prove for yourself.
This is time to find out which belief systems,
which agreements that you've made are really for your good.
Which belief systems that you're holding onto
are serving you, and which ones are really outdated
and maybe aren't serving you so well.
And by the way, these belief systems, these agreements, have nothing to do with the Word of God.
They have nothing to do with truth.
They're just simply things that we've come into agreement with in our life.
They've become our personality.
They've become who we are.
We're operating by them.
And most of us have never even thought about these things.
And yet, we've come into agreement.
And this is why, in Prosper and All Things, for me, is I get to experience the beautiful transformation.
And I see people be completely transformed.
And as a result, everything changes.
Their finances change, their health change, their relationship change.
It begins with awareness.
And it begins with awareness, first of all, what jello mold did you pour yourself into?
What agreements have you been hanging on to?
What have you been belief systems have you been basing on your life?
And are they serving you?
You know, Byron Katie, in her book, she asks the question all the time.
When things come, she says, is this true?
See, we don't stop to ask the things that we believed if they're true.
She says, is this true?
And by the way, how can you know it's true?
And let's say that the answer is yes, it's true.
The next question is, what would your life be like if you didn't hold on to this belief?
What would happen if you let go of this belief?
So let's say one of those molds that you picked up from childhood is, you just can't do anything right.
Maybe your parents spoke that over you.
We're going to talk about the power of words.
And maybe they say, can you not do anything right?
Why can't you get it right?
Maybe you picked up that belief system and you've gone all your life saying, you know, I just can't do things right.
Well, Byron Katie would say, is that true?
Is it really true that you can't do anything right?
I mean, anything? You've never done anything. Is it really true?
And you might probably with both belief systems say, well, no, I guess it's not totally true, especially all the time.
And then she asked the question, what would happen if you let go of that belief?
Well, what we're talking about today with the four agreements and in this series is really that.
There's a whole lot of belief systems you've held on to that are no longer serving you.
In fact, they're keeping you in bondage.
They're keeping you unhappy.
They're keeping you unhealthy physically.
They're keeping you unhealthy financially, not having the resources.
They're keeping you unhealthy emotionally.
They're keeping you unhealthy in a lot of relationships.
A lot of you are holding on to belief systems that no longer serve you.
And that's what this Romans 12 is talking about.
Don't be conformed to this world.
Don't just jump into this mold that the world says you have to have,
but instead be transformed by the entire renewal of your mind.
And it says by new ideas, new attitudes, it's time for some new ideas,
some fresh ideas, some fresh revelations,
some fresh attitudes so that you can prove for yourself.
From now on you could begin making agreements that you've decided you want to have and prove for yourself.
What is good? And what is acceptable?
And what is the perfect will of God?
What is perfect in his sight for you?
And it goes on in verse 3 says for this grace,
this unmerited favor of God that we have,
he warns everyone don't estimate and think of yourself more highly than you than you ought.
It talks about in the Amplified. It says not having an exaggerated opinion of your own importance.
Now one of the four agreements is not taking things personally
and he talks about this idea of self-importance that we just think that whatever our world is,
that's everybody else's world.
It's an exaggerated sense of self-importance that whatever someone's saying to you or doing,
they're doing because of you, that you are the center of your universe.
And in Romans 12 here, he's talking about not having an exaggerated opinion of your own importance,
but instead rate these things with sober judgment,
according to the faith that God has given you.
God's given us various degrees of faith.
And so this kind of opens this Romans 12.
I encourage you to read that chapter
and it really sets the stage for what we're talking about here with the four agreements.
And so today with the four agreements, I'd like to lay a little foundation.
And then we will spend a couple of weeks on each agreement as we work through this series.
But let me ask of you, and you can unmute yourself for discussion right now, how many
of you have read the four agreements, and if so, how long ago, what are your thoughts?
So let me just hear from you so I know what platform, what foundation we're starting with.
How many of you have read the four agreements?
Just say your name and say, yes, I've read it, and how long ago, what it's done for you.
Or no, I haven't read it.
This is Dwayne.
I read it about maybe six or seven years ago.
All right.
And do you remember any of it?
Oh, yeah.
I've got an audio, so I've listened to it since then.
Okay.
Simple, but very profound.
Simple and profound.
That's good, Dwayne.
And I've already read it, I don't know, six, seven times, and hearing it again, listening
to it on this trip, I said, this is the most simple, but most profound truth that I've
heard in a long time.
So that's a good description.
I felt the same way.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
Anyone else has read the four agreements?
Are you there?
This is much more fun if we're interactive.
Come on, guys.
Have you read the four...
A long time ago.
Huh?
A long time ago.
So this is a good refresher.
Okay.
Awesome.
Anybody else?
Anybody's read the four agreements?
If you haven't, that helps me too.
Just say, no, I haven't read it.
I'd love to hear.
There's a bunch of you on the call.
So just pipe in real quick and just say yes or no.
No, never read it.
Okay.
Me neither.
Okay.
Awesome.
So that'll be a fresh start.
Awesome.
Anybody else?
Okay.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
No.
Nope.
Oh.
I'm gonna lay in.
Okay.
No, you have not read it?
I don't know.
I read it as we did, but I don't remember, so I'd say no for me.
Yes for her.
Okay.
Awesome.
All right.
Good.
What?
Okay.
All right.
Well, let me lay a good foundation then, for those of you, it seems like it's been a while
and for others, you haven't, so this is gonna be real fun.
So the first thing that I wanna lay the foundation, I desire to lay the foundation is how are
beliefs formed?
How did you form the beliefs that you're holding onto?
And this is where he starts in his introduction.
He talks about how we get our belief systems, how we even believe what we believe.
I mean, have you ever thought about that?
Why do you believe what you believe?
And you can take this both as far as societal and how you're raised, and there's actually,
there's a book called The Biology of Belief.
There's actually a whole biology that happens in your body for your belief systems as well,
which is very profound.
But our beliefs, the way that he presents it in this book, begin first of all with attention,
with attention.
And I want you to think about this because if you understand how your beliefs are formed,
you can understand how to change them and you can understand how to form new beliefs.
If you understand the recipe for baking a dozen cookies, as I always say, you can bake
12 dozen cookies.
So when you understand how it is that you came to believe what you believe, then you
can also make a choice in that awareness to change those beliefs.
And this is why many, many times in the book of Proverbs in scripture, which is written
by Solomon and has so much wisdom, many times you'll see the words, pay attention, pay attention
to what I'm about to say.
Well, belief begins with what we pay attention to.
This is part of being human that we can choose to pay attention.
There's thousands and thousands and millions of things going on all around you every moment.
Things are happening all around you and yet we can't take it all in.
It's being going into the subconscious, but consciously we can only focus on a few things
and that's what we choose to put our attention on.
And so this whole idea of our beliefs being formed started first with our parents or caregivers
who raised.
us and they hooked our attention, is the wording that Don Miguel uses, they hooked our attention.
And he actually calls it human domestication.
He talks about that we're domesticated actually, the way that we are raised, we're domesticated
like we domesticate a cat or a dog.
And in this domestication, we learned how to live.
We learned how to dream.
We learned how to think.
We began to create a belief system.
And like I said, a belief system about finances, about relationships, about marriage, about
God, and most of us are still holding on to that belief system.
If you've not spent a lot of time in personal development, not given a lot of awareness,
you haven't really given it much thought.
In other words, you haven't thought about your thoughts.
You haven't thought about what it is that you're thinking and what are your predominance
thoughts.
In fact, the majority of people don't even think that we can change our thoughts.
We think our thoughts are something that just happened to us and we just have to succumb
to them.
But that's not the case.
We can become conscious.
We can become aware of our thoughts and in that process, we can begin to change them.
And this is why the Bible scripture says, take every thought captive.
The fact of the matter is thoughts are not meant to run wild.
And the fact of the matter is either you're controlling your thoughts or your thoughts
are controlling you.
And most people, their thoughts are just wild and controlling them and we haven't given
thoughts to our thoughts.
Bob Proctor has said, we don't have a problem with an undisciplined life.
Most of us have a fairly disciplined life.
We're not just unruly out there, but we do have a problem with an undisciplined mind.
And the fact of the matter is the thoughts that you're holding onto are producing your
external reality.
And the more that you become aware of that, the more you realize the importance of what
thoughts are you holding onto?
What thoughts are running your life?
And we become much more conscious thinking about our thoughts.
In fact, as you attend the Prosper in All Things workshops, I take you through the level
of awareness of levels of awareness and how change happens.
You see, for many of us, we operate in what I call unconscious incompetence.
In other words, whatever area of your life is kind of what you don't know, you don't
know what you don't know.
And so it may be about health, it may be about money, it may be about relationships, but
you're just going on these belief systems that you inherited, that your parents hooked
you into, and unconsciously, you're still living your beliefs about money or your beliefs
about God or whatever.
You're still living this belief system unconsciously, and so you're very incompetent to change it.
So you kind of begin with you don't know what you don't know, unconscious incompetence.
And then what happens is with awareness.
You might attend a workshop like the two I have this Friday, Meet Dr. God, that really
helps you become conscious about your health, or the afternoon one on Friday, Think, Feel
and Speak your way to health and prosperity.
That's where you begin to understand the mind, heart, mouth connection to what you're experiencing.
And so as you're sitting there and you're getting all these truths and they're coming
to you, what happens is you increase your awareness, and so you move from unconscious
to conscious incompetence.
In other words, now you know what you don't know.
You say, I had no idea how my emotions, each emotion has a corresponding neuropeptide that
is reaching every cell in my body and changing my health.
For most people, they're totally unaware, and then they learn this science of, for example,
psychoneuroimmunology or whatever.
They learn this, and now they become conscious of it.
They're still incompetent.
They're not knowing how to control their feelings.
They're not understanding how to make change in their health, but they're aware now.
It's conscious incompetence.
Well then what begins to happen is you begin to apply these things that are taught, and
as we teach this series about the four agreements, you become conscious of the four agreements,
and you become aware of how you did make these agreements and how you can change and have
these new agreements that better serve you, better manifest in your life those things
that you desire, and so now you become conscious competence, which means you're...
aware, but you're becoming competent in it, but it's a decision. It's a moment by moment
decision to take control of your thoughts, to hold on to these agreements. I often use
the analogy of learning to drive a stick shift car. You know, first you didn't even know
what you knew. You didn't know which pedal was the brake and which was the gas and which
gear was where. Was it forward? Was it backward? You were unconscious incompetence. Then you
had some driving lessons and you became conscious incompetence. In other words, you knew what
our first gear was, but I'll tell you, you went to do the gas and the clutch and you
were bouncing all over and rolling down the hill and stalling the car and all of that.
So you were aware, but you still didn't have the competence. Then you began to be conscious
competence where you could consciously think about putting it into first gear, putting
your foot on the gas, releasing the clutch and be able to get by and be able to drive
without stalling the car constantly, without jerking. And so you became conscious competence.
Well, you did that long enough and pretty soon you didn't even have to think about it.
You could just get in the car and you could shift through all four gears, fifth gear if
it had it, and you could be talking on the phone or thinking in something else. And now
you were operating in unconscious competence. You were competent in driving a stick shift
car and it didn't require your constant conscious effort.
This is how change happens. This is the four stages of awareness that allow you to be transformed.
Well, the same thing's going to happen as we talk about these four agreements. Most
of you probably aren't even aware of these agreements. You're going to become aware of
them. And so you're going to move from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence where
you're going to go, oh wow, there it is again. I just did that agreement. Oh no, I just took
something personally. I just made an assumption. So you start to become aware so that now you're
making choices every day, that these four agreements have the potential to totally turn
around your health, your finances, your relationships, your peace of mind, the quality of life that
you're wanting to go into to the point that ultimately the goal is to have it be unconscious
competence.
So how these beliefs form through this domestication process where you were taught how to dream,
you were taught how to live, you were taught what to think. And this was done with a series
for most of us of rewards and punishments in the same way that you train a dog. I don't
know for you, if you were, if you had an assortment of ways that you were taught what
was okay and what was not okay. You know, your mom might have had some fine china sitting
out on a table or there may have been some musical instruments around your house or there
may have been some things that were off limits, excuse me, that you learned very quickly as
you went over there kind of mindlessly exploring. It's like, wow, this is a bright shiny object
or this has a lot of noise and you walked over and you went to touch it and perhaps
you got your hand slapped and you were told, no, don't touch. I know I was, I would get
my hand slapped and you learn very quickly that there was pain associated with touching
that thing. And in fact, if you were a little bit stubborn in your makeup, you might have
tested that a number of times and the pain, the harshness of voice that said, no, might
have gotten stronger or perhaps it was an issue a little bit more serious than touching,
you know, a piece of china you were taught. Perhaps, usually, you know, for your best
interest, your parents did it thinking that they were teaching you what they knew and
what they thought was best and they didn't want you running out into the freeway. So
when you got near the road, you'd get swooped up really quick, you'd take off running with
oblivion, you'd be picked up and you might get a big old swat across your diapered butt.
But it got more serious as this domestication process happened. For me, my dad used the
belt and I was very soft-spirited so it didn't take too many times of that to get me to conform.
You know, I got to the place, maybe some of you girls were like that, where all he
had to do was look like he was unbuckling his belt. I knew I crossed a line and I better
shape up and I better change real fast. So we were domesticated. But we're also domesticated
with the tone of voice that's used to teach us what to believe. Maybe it's the look. Maybe
some of you had parents that all they had to do was give you the look and you knew you
better change what you were doing and you better change it fast. Maybe some of you.
Maybe some of you it was with words and maybe some of them were more subtle. You were taught
that you were a good girl or a bad girl.
When you did what you were supposed to do, you rinsed your dishes in the sink,
oh what a good girl, or you said please and thank you, what a good boy, you know,
and if you were not, you were very naughty, you were a bad girl, you were a
bad boy, and so this system of rewards and punishment and often it
involves the giving or the withdrawing of love. You see, I learned that if I
could get straight A's, that would warrant a smile on my parents, it would
warrant hugs, it would warrant those things that I perceived as love, and if I
got a C on my report card, there would be a scowl, there would be a change of the
voice, what is this C right here? There could be taking away of privileges,
there could be a withdrawal of love. So do you understand that the first thing
that had to happen is your parents hooked your attention and they began to
domesticate you and they began to teach you what to believe, how to live, what was
good and what was not good and what was bad, and do you
understand that you bought into this before you had a chance to have a
filtering system and sort it out to decide that no, you weren't really a bad
girl, or you weren't really a good girl based on what you do, and yet some of us
grew up our whole life trying real hard to be a good girl, and this whole system
of hooking your attention is not necessarily based on truth, and it's not,
this is why I'm doing a biblical perspective, it's not necessarily based
on the Word of God. If you have your Bibles open, I want you to see how this
happens in Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7. If you turn to Mark chapter 7, I'd
like you to see this played out in what Jesus had to say. Mark chapter 7 and
verse 3. Could someone go ahead and grab a hold of that and read it, and I'll
tell you when to stop. Mark chapter 7 verses 3, 4, 5. We're going to see this
being played out in a religious circle at the time of Jesus. Could someone read
that for me?
Okay, that's good. Was that the end of verse 5? Okay, so here you have a
tradition that was passed on on the Pharisees, thank you for reading that, and
so you have this tradition, and you know, you would wash your hands, you'd
start at the elbows, and you'd let the water run down. There was a ceremonial
way of washing, there was a ceremonial way of washing what you ate out of and
what you drank, and I'll tell you what, if you didn't do that, you were
unclean. So here was this tradition, this belief system that was passed on. Now
here's what happens. We begin to associate this attention that we've
created this belief system, and now we begin to attach judgment to it. So if
someone around us, we judge others, are they doing what it is that we were
taught? Are they being a good boy or a good girl? In this case, you see the
Pharisees questioning Jesus's disciples, and they're saying, why are you not
disciples ordering their way of living according to the tradition that was
handed down to us? Why are they eating with hands that are unwashed and
ceremonially not purified? So what begins to happen when others, and you
run into them, and they're doing something different, their skirt is a
different length than your skirt, their hair is a different length than your
hair, you know, whatever it is, the traditions, these belief systems, they're
doing things differently than you've done, and now you've got a little bit of
a conflict. That's how we come to judge other people, and we judge them as being
good or bad, or we judge them as being religious or not being religious, or we
judge them as being holy or not being holy. Do you understand? We begin to place
judgment on these belief systems that we were domesticated to believe,
without even questioning them.
and worse yet worse I mean judging others is bad enough but worse yet we
create a judgment system on ourselves and now we have an internal judge that
is always judging ourselves and always criticizing ourselves and what happens
is we begin to establish a pattern of perfection now I don't know how many of
you bought into this I did I made some decisions that cost me a lot in this
idea of this internal judge and this internal perfection you see I came from
a very dysfunctional family and I saw all kinds of violence and alcoholism and
drug abuse and I saw all kinds of craziness and disrespect and dishonor
and I made some little internal decisions as I got hooked into seeing
these things and I made a decision that I would never raise my kids that way and
I would never have that kind of marriage and even about money my parents were
very wealthy so I decided in my little eight-year-old six-year-old
subconscious mind that I didn't want any money that money was evil and that it
brought this kind of craziness in the lifestyle well I would long go on living
those belief systems without questioning them and not understanding why I could
never have money not understanding no matter how I work that something would
happen in some circumstance and I'd always find myself without the resources
that I needed and it wasn't until I became aware of these inner vows that I
had taken these agreements that I had made that kept money far from me and see
the fact of the matter is we've all made thousands of these agreements and we
judge others by our agreements and we judge ourselves by these agreements and
now you get into self-condemnation you get into self-rejection you begin to
condemn and reject yourself well depending on the strength of how much
you're rejecting yourself it'll translate into serious health issues
think about them one of the most common health issues that we face in our day
they are auto immune disorders auto means self immune system your immune
system it's where your immune system begins to attack itself and so we have
these auto immune disorders where the immune system attacks itself well you
have to ask yourself is that just random does the body just begin to
attack itself is that is that normal we assume that somehow yep it's normal
people get autoimmune that's just one of those things just like people just get
cancer well what you'll begin to understand as you rise in level of
awareness of consciousness you'll understand that all your health
conditions are directly tied that's the whole new science of psycho neuro
immunology psycho your thoughts your belief systems neuro connected your
brain what you're holding on to to your immune system and originally it was
going to be called psycho neuro endocrinology meaning that your thoughts
are determining what's going on in your body and having a direct manifestation
and you can find depending what health challenge that you're experiencing based
on what belief system that you're holding on to and so this is what what
begins to happen well if part of your belief system has been self criticism
you're going to see issues around your kidneys and if that self criticism that
self loathing is so strong where you're attacking yourself so strongly you're
going to see it turned into an autoimmune disorder where your body buys
into your own self loathing and begins to attack itself and anyway those are
things of course I teach in God health in me and in the upcoming health and
prosperity program so I won't get into that here but my point is that I want
you to get out of this is our parents hooked our attention we believed it and
the minute that you believe it it became part of your reality and it moved on to
become your belief system your personality your traditions and so here
you see this of the Pharisees saying hey how come your disciples are not doing it
and as you go down that chapter a little further Jesus starts questioning their
belief system and their traditions and in verse 8 he says you know you
disregarded and you give up and you depart from the commandments of God and
you cling to the traditions of men so in other words the tradition
even within, these were religious traditions. These were in church, if you
will. These were in the synagogue. Not all the traditions that you picked up in
your church and in your religion line up with the true Word of God and Jesus said
it right here. He's talking to the Pharisees, the religious leaders. These
were not, you know, pagan, heathen, whatever out there that were non-believers.
He's talking to the people who were raised up in a religious belief system
and he's saying, you know what, you've left God's way of thinking and you're
clinging instead to the traditions of men and the Amplified says you're
keeping it carefully, you're keeping it faithfully. Some of you have put some
agreements on yourself, you put some rules on yourself that God never put on
you and this is what he's saying and in verse 9 he says, you know, you have a fine
way of rejecting and this is interesting in the Amplified, thus thwarting and
nullifying, doing away with the commandments of God. He's got a real
fine way of making null the Word of God, null and void the Word of God in order
to keep your own traditions. The Amplified says your own human
regulations. In other words, they were taking not what God thought, they were
teaching it as what God thought, they were teaching it as what was holy, they
had a judgment system that they judged themselves and they judged others by if
they did this, they were judging themselves, they were judging
others and Jesus is here, the Son of God going, guess what, this is really not
God's idea, this is your own traditions of men. You got hooked into this
domestication and you were taught that this is what it's about when in fact he
now wants to take him to the real issue which he always does, what's the issues
of the heart and in verse 13 he says you are nullifying and making void, making no
effect the authority of the Word of God through your tradition and the
domestication continues, he says, which you in turn hand on and many of these
things you are doing. I wonder as we go through this 12-week series if you'll
discover what belief systems that you're holding on to, what thoughts about
yourselves, about life, about God, about health, about money, what belief systems
have you been holding on to that maybe are outdated, that have nothing to do
with God, you call it God, that are keeping you from living the abundant
life, which one of these belief systems no longer serve you, which ones are
keeping you from your joy, which ones are keeping you from your financial
abundance, which ones are keeping you from fully living and fully experiencing
everything that God designed you to live, that's a question to really think about
and he calls to them now and he makes a little mental shift, he says there's many
of these things you're doing and in verse 14 he calls to the people and he
says listen to me all of you, now he's hooking attention, see we said belief
systems begin with attention, he says listen to me saying pay attention, all of
you, get wisdom, pay attention, think about what you're thinking about and he
says I'm going to tell you a little different paradigm, we're going to do a
little paradigm shift right here, they were talking about food, they were
talking about being unclean because they didn't wash their hands, he says I'm
going to give you a little paradigm, there's not even one thing outside of a
man which by going into him can pollute and defile him, he's saying you're
talking about being defiled because you didn't wash your hands, you're looking
at rules, you're looking at regulations, you're looking at traditions, this is the
problem that most people have with religion, see the word religion, people
will come up to me when they find out I teach Bible-based spiritual equipping
and they say well I'm not religious and I go good, I'm not either, you see
Jesus had the most trouble with religious people, do you know the word
religion, it means back to bondage, religion is bondage, Jesus and it was not
about religion, he was about relationship, he was about love, he was about loving
God, loving yourself, loving others, he was about freedom, he was about abundance, he
was about you being the best version of you, he was about, he would tell you
peace, he was about peace, he says I come to give you peace, peace that passes all
understanding, he was about joy, how many religious people do you know that
experiencing joy, he said I came that you might have joy and you might have it to
the fullest, he was about abundance, he said I came that you might have life and
have it to the overflow, to have it to the overflow.
have abundant life. How many religious people are walking in abundance? You see there's something
wrong if what he said he came to give and the founder of the of the religion say Christianity
and and you're not seeing that in life something's wrong. Well we've taken on these agreements is
what's wrong and and and so here he's saying look it's not what's going into you that's
making you unclean you've put on some rules that aren't even God's ideas you made your own rules.
If you look at the history as as God started in scripture talking to us about having a day of rest
having a sabbath day of rest uh they had gotten it so far that what you could eat and what you
couldn't eat how many steps you could take whether you could light a fire or not whether you could
rescue a sheep that was in a ditch they had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of rules
of how to keep what was supposed to be rest it was no longer rest it became how many rules
do you understand we've we've taken on these agreements and they've stolen our joy they've
stolen our prosperity they've stolen our health and so he says in verse 15 there's not even one
thing outside of man that can go into him and pollute and defile him but it's the things that
come out of a man that defile him and make him unhallowed and unclean and he goes on to talk
about the heart about out of the heart flows the abundance of life out of the heart flows what the
mouth speaks out of the heart are the issues of life and so what begins to happen is you get a
deeper understanding you stop getting into the external legalism of regulations and of judging
yourself and of condemning yourself and making yourself sick and stressed and robbing your joy
and you begin to get to the heart of the issue and that begins by understanding what agreements
you've made and having the courage to break some of those agreements that no longer serve you
and this book talks about four new agreements that by keeping these four new agreements you can
completely be transformed and change your entire life and bring back that peace love joy and things
that you're looking for so how many of you does that get exciting to think about maybe removing
some of those things that have been stealing your joy and maybe bringing back some of those things
that allow you to manifest your goals dreams and desires and live the abundant life that you were
created to live being the best version of you how many of you listening to this does that sound like
something that you're interested in for this series
yes it's good
just realizing that this single change could could make this i'm i'm looking at a bumper
sticker that someone gave me and it says the next four hours of your life will be the greatest
hours of your entire life now i've changed it to read will be the greatest hours of your life so
far and i read this every new four hours and i can make a conscious choice that the next four
hours are going to be the best ever that today is going to be a great day that my life is going to
be a great life and so that's what this that's what this study is really about it's about
transformation it's about the abundant life so we have this this agreement that we make this is
how the belief is formed we have this agreement and as soon as we come into agreement with it
we believe it and we believe it to be truth we believe it to be who we are we believe it to be
you know the way of life we believe the way to live to dream etc and the more that this happens
it translates into our faith you see faith is simply just believing unconditionally
and so we have all of these agreements job 31 one you see an example of this agreement he says
i in job 31 verse 1 he says i dictated a covenant a covenant is an agreement he says i dictated an
agreement to my eyes and so he made a decision of what his eyes could could look on and he said
how then could i look lustfully upon a girl so in this particular case it's just an example i just
pulled out of the bible you could do the concordance and look up the word agreement it's powerful all
the way through but he basically made an agreement with his eyes that he wouldn't look lustfully on a
girl which you know we would probably all agree is is is healthy right but the point is we're making
these agreements all the time and matthew 18 in matthew 18 jesus gets in and starts talking about
the power of agreement what it is that we agree and how much it shapes our life so in matthew
18 verse 18, he goes on to tell you the power that you have. I don't think most
of us realize as human beings made in the image of God, in the likeness of God,
with the power of life and death in our tongue, with the same spirit that raised
Christ from dead in us, I don't think most of us realize just how much power
we have. In fact, part of what we're going to be learning in this series is how much
power we have and how much power we've given away. And so he begins to talk
about the level of power that we have as human beings and he goes on to say,
truly I tell you, whatever you forbid and declare to be improper and unlawful on
earth must be what's already forbidden in heaven. Whatever you permit and
declare proper and lawful on earth must be what's already permitted in heaven. In
other words, you are so powerful, you are forbidding and declaring things and
you're making them unlawful and you're permitting and you're declaring proper
and lawful things, make sure that it's in agreement with heaven. The
declarations you're making in your body, make sure it's in agreement with heaven.
You see, in heaven there's no sickness in heaven. So very often when I'm praying
over someone, I will pray that every cell in their body, every muscle, every
ligament, every fiber, every tissue comes into alignment with the kingdom of God.
You see, it's bringing your thinking, your belief systems into alignment with what
truth is, bring them into alignment with the kingdom of God. And this is
what Jesus is saying here. He's saying, make sure what you're declaring to be
good is truly what God declares to be good and what you're declaring to be bad
and unlawful, make sure that that's what God is declaring. Because we just saw a
conflict here with Jesus and the Pharisees. What they were declaring to be
bad and unlawful, Jesus was going, man, this is your own tradition. This isn't the
word of God. You picked up some belief systems here that are no longer
serving. That's not the issue. You don't understand what's making you unclean.
You're kind of clueless. And he's saying here, hey, you know what, make sure
whatever you're forbidding and declaring to be improper, make sure it really is
forbidden in the kingdom of God. And make sure that what you are declaring proper
and lawful, make sure it's also. And in verse 19, he says, again, I tell you,
pay attention. If two of you on earth agree, here's the power of agreement.
This is one of the laws of the universe, the power of agreement. If two of you
agree, if you harmonize and you make a symphony together about anything that you
ask, it will come to pass and it will be done. You create a belief system and you
come into agreement, you're going to manifest it and it's going to be your
life. So if you come into the agreement that someone told you you're fat and you
come into agreement and you say, I'm fat, now two or more agree, now it's going to
manifest in your life. You come into agreement that money is the root of all
evil and that you shouldn't have any, and you've come into agree that, you're going
to manifest that and you're never going to have any money. So be careful what
you're coming into agreement with. The power of agreement is how your life is
being shaped right now. Who or what are you agreeing with? You know, I've shared
with you a story of Walter in Kansas City and he went to the doctor. Here's an
example of the power of agreement and whether you choose, you have the ability
to choose to come into agreement with something or not come into agreement if
you're conscious. If you're asleep, you're just coming into agreement with
everything that is told to you. If you're asleep, you're going to turn on the TV
and it's going to tell you it's flu season. You're going to come
into agreement that it's flu season. You're going to march down, you're going to
see a sign at the grocery store that says, get your flu shot now and you're
going to come into agreement. You're going to walk over and get a flu shot, never
knowing if it's safe, effective and if it was even flu season and if there was
such a thing and what's really causing the flu. Do you understand? You're
coming into agreement all day, every day with things and they're shaping the
course of your life and so that's called being asleep and so the idea is to rise
in consciousness that you're awake and even realizing what you're coming into
agreement. Who or what are you agreeing with? So Walter goes into the doctor's
office and the doctor points out a wheelchair and says, Walter, that's where
you're headed. Your arthritis is very severe. You need to put down your paint
brush. He was a painter and you need to start making preparation in your home
and the way you set up life because this is where you're going right now.
You're going into that wheelchair. Well there's an authority figure who went to
school for many, many years who knows his profession as a doctor and you get to
choose to come in agreement and says, my doctor says, my doctor says I have cancer.
My doctor even tells you how long you're going to live. My doctor tells me I have
six weeks to live. My doctor tells me I'm incurable. I'm curious, are you going to come
into agreement with that? Is that going to be your reality that you manifest? Well, Walter
was a little bit different. He walked out that day and he stepped outside the doctor's
office and he says, Lord, I've heard the doctor's report. Now what do you say? That's called
a conscious, a conscious man, a man who's choosing to take his belief systems and only
come into agreement with that which God tells him to come into agreement with. Well, that
would have tremendous consequences. It would manifest in his life very differently. You
see, had he come into agreement with the doctor, an entire belief system would have begun to
shape his emotions, his feelings, the way he viewed everything, and had he come into
agreement with that doctor, he would probably be in a wheelchair right now. He chose to
come out of agreement and use his power of agreement in a totally different way and say,
you know what, God, what's the truth here? Who should I come into agreement with? And
God said, you know what, you're going to meet people that you don't know yet and they have
an answer for you. And he ended up meeting us. We ended up sharing our nutritional supplement
Enterprime with him and he had a total turnaround in his health because he chose to come into
agreement with something else. So Jesus is saying here, I'll tell you what, if two of
you agree, whatever it is, when you agree, it's going to be done. That is your power.
Do you understand the power you have of being a human that you can come into agreement things
and manifest them in your life? Do you even know how much power you have? Do you know
how much power you're giving away? Because this is how God made you in the image of God.
And so what happens is we make these agreements and then we begin to judge. We begin to judge
ourselves. We began to judge others. And you can read about that in Romans 2 too. Well,
let me just read a little quote from the four agreements that Don Miguel says. This is what
he says. He says, there are thousands of agreements you have made with yourself, with other people,
with your dream of life, with God, with society, with your parents, with your spouse, with
your children. So there's thousands of these agreements. I pray over these next 12 weeks
that you'll ask God to open your eyes. In fact, I just pray that right now. Lord, in
the name of Jesus, I ask that you open our eyes to the agreements that we've been holding
on to, perhaps even unconsciously. I ask that this will be a 12 weeks of awareness
that we begin to look at every single belief system that we have and begin to see, does
this really what we should be in agreement with? Is it manifesting the life we want?
Is it truly from God? Is it even truth? Or have we unconsciously bought into these thousands
of agreements that are shaping our lives? Did you buy into the agreement that you'll
never have any money? Did you buy into an agreement that everyone in your family has
heart disease and you're going to have heart disease? Did you buy into agreement that addiction
runs in your family and that you too are going to struggle with addiction and that you can't
take a drink because you're going to be an alcoholic? What agreements? Did you buy into
agreement of aging? Did you buy into agreement that your sickness is normal? Did you buy
into agreement that you're supposed to be on, you know, whatever it is, what agreements
did you buy into? Because this says, Don Miguel says, there's thousands of agreements you've
made with yourself, with other people, with your dream of life, with God, with society,
with your parents, with your spouse, with your children. And it says, but the most important
agreements are the ones you've made with yourself. You see in these agreements, you tell yourself
who you are, what you feel, what you believe and how to behave. The result, see we live
in a cause and effect world, the result. Your results right now that you're experiencing
are based on these agreements of what to believe, how to behave, what to feel. That's your life.
If you do not like the way your life is right now, if you do not like your finances, if
you do not like your health, if you do not like your relationships, if you do not like
your peace of mind, understand that we live in a cause and effect world and begin to go
back and say, what agreements did I make with myself? What belief systems am I holding onto
that got me here? You now have the power for transformation by having the courage to look
at these things and change some of these things. The result...
what you call your personality. When you say well that's just the way I am, you've
come into agreement with this and you've made a decision about who and what you
are and what your personality is. He goes on to say in these agreements you say
this is what I am, this is what I believe, this is what I can do, I can do certain
things and some things I cannot do. We decide this is reality, that's fantasy,
this is possible, that's impossible. Do you understand how we began to shape our
entire existence based on these agreements? Now he goes on to say one
single agreement is not such a problem but we've made many many agreements that
make us suffer, we've made agreements that make us fail in life. He says if you
want to live a life of joy and fulfillment you're going to have to
find the courage to break those agreements that are fear-based and claim
your personal power. Do you remember that we just got done a series the last 12
weeks was on supernatural living and it was on moving away from fear-based
living and moving toward love-based living. You see everything you're doing,
everything you're thinking is either fear-based or it's love-based and part
of consciousness, part of awareness is looking at every belief system, every
thought that you're having and saying is this fear-based or is this love-based?
And so he goes on to say right here he says one single agreement is not such a
problem but we have many agreements that make us suffer, that make us fail in life.
He says if you want to live a life of joy and fulfillment you have to find the
courage, this is going to take courage, it's going to take courage, you have to
find the courage to break those agreements that are fear-based and claim
your personal power. The agreements that come from fear require us to expend a
lot of energy. Some of you are real tired, some of you have been dealing with a lot
of fatigue. This Friday when I teach meet Dr. God I'm going to teach you all the
things that lead to energy drain, all the energy leaks, all the things that make
you tired so that you can change those things and begin to take your energy
back and he's talking about that here. He's saying the agreements that come
from fear requires to expend a lot of energy. They're taking your energy, they're
robbing you of your energy, you wonder why you're so tired, this is one of the
reasons. But the agreements that come from love help us to conserve energy and
even gain energy. You see when your agreements are love-based you're going
to be fired up, you're going to be passionate, you're going to have a
whole new energy about life, a whole new excitement about life that you can't
wait to get up, you can't wait to experience your day. Every day becomes a
holiday, every day becomes Christmas, like this bumper sticker, the next four
hours of your life become the greatest four hours of your entire life and this
is all by choice, this is all by choice. So the agreements that come from fear
expend a lot of energy, the agreements that come from love help us to conserve
energy and even gain energy. He says each of us is born with a certain amount of
personal power that we rebuild every day after we rest. So you have power, you have
personal power and you're either claiming it and rebuilding it or you're
giving it away. Who are you giving your power to? Are you giving away your power
to belief systems that aren't even based on truth, they're not based on the
kingdom of God and they're not serving you and you're not hurting and they're
hurting you and you're still holding on to them. He goes on to say unfortunately
we spend all our personal power first to create these agreements and then to keep
these agreements and our personal power is dissipated by all the agreements we
have created and the result is that we feel powerless. How many people do you
know right now that feel powerless? They have no idea how to change, there's a
sense of despair, there's a sense of hopelessness. Why do you think we have
such an epidemic of depression? Why do we have this experience when we have
everything we need to have this incredible joy-filled, passion-filled,
energy-filled, abundant life? Why do we feel powerless?
Because we've given away our power by the agreements that we've made.
So you can see why I'm so excited to teach this study.
You can see why I'm calling it really the secret to transformation.
Because when you become aware of the agreements you've made,
you break those agreements.
You come into new agreements that better serve you,
then you totally transform your life.
We're back to Romans 12, 2 of not being conformed to the traditions of men,
but being transformed, not being conformed,
but being transformed by the renewing of your mind.
It's time to have courage to renew your mind.
It's time to have courage to decide if the belief systems that you're holding
onto, the agreements that you've made, if they're still serving you anymore.
Okay, so what are the four agreements we're going to be covering over the next
12 weeks?
The four agreements are this.
The four agreements are number one, be impeccable with your word.
Be impeccable with your word.
That's the first agreement, be impeccable with your word.
The second agreement, we're going to go through these and really dissect them and
get the biblical perspective on them and some stories and some applications.
The second one is don't take anything personally.
The second agreement is don't take anything personally.
Don't take anything personally.
Okay, thank you, Christine.
By the way, you guys can text me comments, and I'm glad that you feel that this
study is just for you, because I thought it was just for me too.
I only teach that which I need to learn, so thank you for that comment.
Okay, so the second agreement is don't take anything personally.
The third agreement is don't make assumptions.
Don't make assumptions.
This is so big, my gosh, I get myself caught in this all the time.
The assumptions we make cause so much drama and so much pain.
And it's nothing what you think.
Half of the assumptions we make are not even based on truth.
And once the truth comes, you feel so stupid and you realize, my gosh,
that was all a story that I wrote in my head.
I just wrote a novel, and it had nothing to do with truth,
had nothing to do with God.
But it caused me an enormous amount of stress and pain and exhaustion and
confusion and all kinds of stuff, and it was all based on an assumption.
So the third agreement is don't make assumptions.
The fourth agreement is always do your best.
Always do your best.
So these are the four agreements that we're gonna go through.
Be impeccable with your word, don't take anything personally,
don't make assumptions, always do your best.
You're gonna find out that these four agreements just about cover everything.
That if we can just stick to these four agreements,
our life will completely transform.
So as we kind of launch into be impeccable with your word,
this is where we're gonna start.
And this is where we're going to really begin our study and
spend the next few weeks on.
Those of you that have been around me any length of time know I'm
super big on what we say.
I believe our words is what manifests our harvest.
It's what manifests our future.
I believe we are constantly creating.
If you look up the definition on be impeccable with your word,
first of all impeccable is not a word we use that often.
So I like to get definitions talking about our words.
So impeccable actually is originally a theological word, believe it or not.
M, whenever you see M in front of something, it means not.
If you say impossible, the M means not, not possible.
And so in this case, impeccable, it means not peckable.
Well, peckable, interestingly enough,
comes from the Latin word pecare, P-E-C-C-A-R-E, which means to sin.
So being impeccable means not sinning.
So being impeccable with your words means not sinning with your words.
Interesting to think about that being the first agreement.
And it's interesting that he chooses to start with the word.
And he quotes, this is what he says, he says, why your word?
Don Miguel Luis says, why your word?
He says, your word is the power that you have to create.
See, understand that you are made in the image of God, your co-creator.
You're creating your life every moment.
And your word is the power that you have to create.
The entire universe was created by the power of words.
God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And once Adam and Eve were on the scene,
the first thing he did is he began
to teach Adam about the power of words.
He had him name everything that he could see.
He takes him out in the Garden of Eden and says, OK, Adam,
what are you going to call that?
What are you going to call that?
He begins to teach him to pay attention
to his words and the power.
And so he says, your word is the power you have to create.
Your word is the gift that comes directly from God.
Of course, Jesus is called the word.
In John 1, it says, in the beginning was the word.
And the word was God.
The word was with God.
So all things are created by his word.
We begin to see the power of the word.
And he says, through the word, you
express your creative power.
It is through the word that you manifest anything.
Well, there's a few verses on this
to lay the foundation of where we're going.
One of my favorites is Proverbs 18.
Proverbs 18, beginning in verse 20 and 21.
And Proverbs 18, 20, and 21 says,
a man's self shall be filled with the fruit of his mouth.
So your life is filled with fruit.
And that fruit comes from your mouth.
So if you don't like the fruit of how you're living,
we need to go back and look at your words.
And are you being impeccable with your words?
He says, if you say all the time, walk around all day long,
I'm sick and tired, guess what you're going to be.
I'm sick and tired of this.
I'm sick and tired of that.
Guess what you're going to be.
If you walk around all day saying, I'm broke,
guess what you're going to be.
This is the origin of dis-ease, what we're thinking,
what we're feeling, and what we're speaking over ourselves.
So Proverbs 18 says, a man's self
shall be filled with the fruit of his mouth.
And with the consequence of his words,
he must be satisfied, whether good or evil.
So your words have fruit, and scripture
says you need to be satisfied with the consequence
of your words.
Words have consequences, and you get to be satisfied.
If you don't like the consequences, change the words.
You're speaking over yourself.
Change the words you're thinking.
It says you must be satisfied with the consequences
of your words, whether good or evil.
And then the famous scripture in verse 21, death and life
are in the power of the tongue.
And they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it,
for death or life.
You're either speaking death over yourself,
you're either speaking death over your children,
you're speaking death over your finances,
speaking death over your business,
you're speaking death over your body, or you're speaking life.
You're speaking life over your finances.
What do you speak when you pay bills?
What do you speak?
Do you write a big, happy, smiley face
and put a check in that bill and say, I thank you,
God, that I have the infinite purse of the spirit.
Money goes out, money comes back in.
I thank you that I have the resources
to be able to pay this.
I thank you that I have.
I mean, I don't have a TV, but let's just
say it was a TV bill.
I thank you that I can pay this cable bill to be
blessed to have the resources here.
I thank you that I can write this check to have this and that.
I mean, do you bless?
Do you bless your pocketbook?
Do you bless your wallet?
Do you bless your body?
Have you learned how to look in the mirror?
What do you do when you look at yourself?
Do you bless yourself, or do you speak death over yourself?
Do you bless your children?
Do you know there's a book called Blessing Your Spirit
by Arthur Burke?
This is a biblical principle of learning how to bless yourself,
learning how to bless your spirit.
You actually call your spirit into attention,
and you speak to it.
I was very privileged to be on the farm with Rhonda
that I've talked to you about in Missouri,
and to see these children that have come out
of sex trafficking and sexual abuse and all of that,
and to see them just new and just glowing and transformed.
And I was privileged to watch Rhonda send them off to school.
And she took one of the little girls,
and she said, can I bless your spirit before you go to school?
And I was so touched.
The little girl smiled and said yes and stood in front of her.
And she looked into her left eye,
which goes to the right part of your brain,
and into your spirit.
And she looked in her left eye, and she said her name.
And she said, I call your spirit into attention.
And she began to speak life into her spirit
about how her day was going to go.
And then sealed it and loved her and gave her a hug
and sent her off to school.
I thought, wow.
I mean, wow.
I just sat there.
They're just going, wow, what would have happened if someone would have blessed my spirit every
day before I went to school?
What would have happened if I looked in the mirror and blessed my spirit every single
morning?
How would my life be different if I called my own spirit into attention and blessed my
spirit?
What would happen if we did that to our loved ones?
And so it goes on to say there in Proverbs 18, 21, death and life are in the power of
your tongue and you indulge in it and you eat the fruit of it, either death or life.
You're either growing in life and godliness or you're growing in dis-ease and death.
And scripture says you get to choose.
Scripture says, choose you this day whom you'll serve.
I would conclude this by saying, choose you this day what you'll come into agreement with.
Choose you this day what you'll think.
Choose you this day what feelings you'll hold.
Choose you this day to be impeccable with your words.
A couple more verses you can write down and go do a search yourself in studying this week
before we come back next week.
Proverbs 12, 18.
Proverbs 12, 18 says, the tongue of the wise is health.
Proverbs 10, 19 and 20 says, in the multitude of words, transgression is not lacking, but
he who restrains his lips is prudent.
Colossians 4, 6 says, let your speech always be with grace.
I'm curious, does your speech have grace or is it harsh?
Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought
to answer every man.
Ephesians 4, 29 says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
You know, your computer can get corrupted, right?
It can get a virus.
So can your mouth.
So can your mind.
And it's saying, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which
is good to the use of edifying.
Your mouth is supposed to edify.
The word edify comes from the word edifice.
It's when we build a structure, it means to build up.
So let no corrupt communication, which tears down proceed out of your mouth, but that which
is good for edifying that it may minister grace to the hearer.
Your words can actually minister grace to the hearer, and that begins with yourself.
You hear yourself.
Your brain responds most powerfully to your own words.
Have some grace on yourself.
Minister grace to yourself, and as a natural result, you'll minister grace to others.
Well, Don Miguel in this book, The Four Agreements, says, now let us see what the word impeccability
means.
Impeccability means without sin.
Impeccable comes from the Latin peccatus, which means sin.
The M in impeccable means without.
So impeccable means without sin.
Religions talk about sin and sinners, but let's understand what it really means to sin.
A sin is anything you do which goes against your self.
Do you ever have something that you do that you just know you don't feel good, but you
do it anyway?
Or you don't desire to do, but you do it anyway?
Or you don't really believe, but you say it anyway?
This is an interesting perspective.
He says a sin is anything you do that goes against your self.
Everything you feel or believe or say that goes against your self is a sin.
You go against your self when you judge or blame your self for anything.
Being without sin is exactly the opposite.
Being impeccable is not going against your self.
When you're impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or
blame your self.
Something common sense, sin begins with rejection of your self.
Self rejection is the biggest sin that you commit.
Why?
Self rejection is not based on love.
It's based on fear.
And anything that's not love is sin, scripture says.
So self rejection is the biggest sin that you commit.
In religious terms, self rejection is a mortal sin which leads to death.
Impeccability, on the other hand, leads to life.
Being impeccable with your word is not using your word against yourself.
So that concludes today's study.
Leading us into the four agreements and being impeccable with our words.
We'll close out this call with a few comments.
I always like to get you involved.
So if you wanna share your aha, that always blesses everyone else.
What did you learn from this?
What jumped out at you?
What are you gonna do different?
What was your big aha today?
I'd love to hear you say that.
Good morning, my name is Tomi.
Oh, go ahead.
That's okay, go ahead.
This is Tomi.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for sharing.
I just will say that even as you were teaching, and again,
it could be familiar things that we've kind of heard before,
but to really go in depth and understand it.
But even as you were speaking, I just started working on myself immediately
because I realized that's one of the things that I would do is,
oh, you know, I'll get to it later.
Or you take notes and say, oh, I don't know.
As you were speaking, I began to just really think deeper and say,
you know what, let me get rid of this right now.
And I did.
So I'm mighty grateful for those disciplines that are working in me
of learning and hearing the right words
and immediately taking action instead of waiting.
I love that.
Thank you so much for sharing that, Tomi.
Great to have you on the line.
I was privileged yesterday to get to kind of mentor
and pour into a young man,
and I shared with him the things that I share with you guys in Prosper
and all things that the results we experience are based on three things.
They're based on our mindset, our skill set, and the actions that we take,
and that produces our results.
And so you want to change your results.
You're changing your mindset, which we've been talking about today.
If it was business or something, we're changing our skill set.
But none of it is relevant without action,
and so you took immediate action.
Congratulations on that.
None of this of what we're reading or talking about means anything if we don't apply it.
If there's no application, it's completely irrelevant if we put it off.
So that's great feedback.
Thank you.
Somebody else.
This is Judy.
I think it just points out how much power we have that we give away every day.
Isn't that amazing?
Isn't that amazing, Judy, to think about?
Most of us don't realize that God made us in His image,
and we have so much power.
And I had someone, when I first heard that phrase,
and they said, you know, why are you giving away your power?
You know, we do that.
When we believe lies, when we believe what others say about us,
when we allow it to stress us out or whatever,
we're literally giving away power that we have.
And when you begin to think about that,
you begin to conserve your personal power and not give it away so easily.
So, yeah, thank you, Judy.
That's powerful.
Anybody else?
I specifically took out certain words in my vocabulary
so that not to disparage myself.
Awesome.
Because of your talk this morning.
Awesome.
Well, that's an enormous leap.
That's huge.
And it's funny because there's the big obvious ones, you know,
in the first phase of removing words, you know.
It's like, you know, why did I do that?
Why am I so stupid?
You know, whatever it is.
You know, I'm broke or whatever.
We use these words.
But then there's the more subtle ones that we begin to learn.
And that's, you know, that's where I'm at.
You'll often hear me correct myself as I'm speaking
because I'm still struggling with this, still working through it.
And that is, I'll use the word want.
The word want, W-A-N-T.
Want means extreme lack.
So if you just say, I just want love or whatever,
you're basically declaring I just have an extreme lack of love.
I just want to be healthy.
So I've learned to change the word want to desire.
And so you'll hear me say that.
What I want to do, what I desire.
You hear me kind of self-correcting
because I'm moving into that conscious competence.
You know, I went from unconscious incompetence to conscious,
you know, competence where it's a decision of the will.
but there's there's all these words i mean if you look up the original word of nice
you know i used to say that i i'm nice or i want to play nice or whatever when you look at the
original word of nice uh it's not such a great word i no longer want to be nice and so it's
interesting how much power words have and and part of taking back our our our personal power
is taking back our vocabulary so that's great feedback thank you anybody else
any other ahas today
could you repeat the four uh assumptions because i was driving and i couldn't write them down
okay okay the yeah the four agreements are be impeccable with your word number one number two
don't take anything personally okay number three don't make assumptions
and number four always do your best and we will be breaking these down over the next 12 weeks
anybody else
okay then may the lord just bless you this week and uh may this study be relevant and applied
as you look at your words this week may you speak life over yourself and over others
may you enjoy the peace that passes all understanding may you be blessed in your
coming and in your going and may everything you put your hand to prosper in jesus name amen