So, we are on number four.
It's amazing how fast the time goes of this 12-week series, based on the book by Don Luis
Miguel, called The Four Agreements.
And I read this book, oh gosh, a year or two ago, and I've read it a number of times, and
then recently on a trip, I listened to it, and it's been in my heart each time I would
listen to do this from a biblical perspective.
He does it from a Toltec perspective, and there's just so much wisdom in these four
agreements.
I believe, I was kind of mentoring, coaching a young person yesterday, and I said, these
four agreements could really keep you from 95%, if not 100% of all relationship problems.
It's a huge statement, but just getting these four agreements can completely transform the
way you do life, the way you talk to yourself, the way you look at life, the way you interact
with your children, with your significant other, with your business colleagues, just
understanding this.
And the reason is, is in what Don calls the domestication process, the way that from the
time we were very young, our beliefs were formed, and the way we were taught to think,
and what we've been carrying as our beliefs, we've made thousands of agreements.
And most of them are unconscious.
You know, I had an agreement to not have any money.
I know that sounds so funny, but when you grew up in a background where money had so
much dysfunction around it, I had made an agreement when I was probably seven, eight
years old.
I didn't want anything to do with that.
Well, isn't it funny?
It wasn't until my late 20s that I discovered that agreement and reversed that agreement
and was able to have money.
Up to that point, I never, it would vanish.
And so we've got these thousands of agreements.
Now, to try to go through and discover and cancel thousands of agreements is a really
formidable task.
But the way that he has given, if we can make, if we can just make four new agreements, these
four agreements could cancel thousands and thousands of agreements that have been keeping
you in bondage.
He calls it keeping you in the dream of hell.
He talks about having heaven on earth, which of course Jesus did too, or hell on earth,
and we're creating that because of these agreements.
So I believe this is one of the more powerful studies that I've ever done.
I know I say that about all of them, and I get excited about all of them, and we have
our little joke that this is the best study ever.
But this is so strong that I have to say it's my favorite right now.
So let's start with prayer.
Father, I just ask that you open every one of our spiritual senses, open our eyes to
be able to see, like Paul prayed, open the eyes of our heart that we can truly see you,
see revelation, see truth.
Father, just open our eyes, open our spiritual ears to be able to hear what the Spirit is
saying to the church.
Just open our spiritual senses to perceive, to feel, to touch.
You told us to taste and see that you're good, to smell, to use all of our spiritual senses
as we do our natural senses, Lord, to hear what you're saying to us and to receive what
you're saying today.
Holy Spirit, you promised to guide us into all truth and show us things to come, so we
just ask that you will be our teacher, ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations
of my heart will be pleasing in your sight, and that all who are hearing, Lord, will receive
what they need to receive for today, Father, to be the best version of who they were created
to be, Father, to go forth and truly make a difference.
So we love you, we give this time to you, in Jesus' name, amen.
So we spent the first three weeks, we're going to spend about three weeks on each of the
agreements.
We spent the first three weeks in review, I know some of you are new, getting on today.
On the four agreements, we spent the first three weeks on the first of those agreements,
which is be impeccable with your word.
And the whole premise of this whole study, I've laid the foundation, comes from Romans
12, and it talks about not being conformed to this world or this age, all of its customs,
but being transformed, being changed, and it teaches you how transformation in this
verse happens in Romans 12.
How transformation happens, it happens by the entire renewal, re, do again, new, make
new your mind, renewal of your mind by its new ideals and new attitude.
Of course, I'm reading from the Amplified Version, which gives more depth into each
of the words.
And that lets you know so you can prove.
What is God's will for you? What's what's the good and acceptable and perfect in
his sight? So the key with all of this verse of this transformation is not
being conformed and to do that you have to understand how your beliefs are
formed, how what you are thinking and standing on and basing your life on, how
was it formed? And the fact is that there were people in authority, your parents,
your church, your teachers, etc. who hooked, as as Don Miguel puts it, hooked
your attention. He calls it domestication, the same way that we domesticate a cat
or a dog or whatever and that is they taught you what it meant to be a good
girl or a bad girl, what you were supposed to think, how to dream, how not
to dream, what to believe, what not to believe and it came complete with
rewards and and punishments and not necessarily as I showed in the last few
weeks and you're gonna want to go back and listen to these, not necessarily
based on truth and we saw this with Jesus. It was times that he literally
said they made null and void the Word of God. In other words, they completely made
null and void the truth because of this domestication and the belief systems
that they had and so it talked about how their traditions, their own human
regulations kept them from the truth. So these belief systems that we formed that
become our personal traditions, become our personal agreements, literally stand
between us and the truth. So the first step of getting out of this, the whole
nightmare of hell that he describes is awareness. Beginning to even realize what
belief systems, where did you get them and you've been holding on to them and
being willing to challenge your belief systems and say is this even based on
truth at all? Is it even in line with God's heart or did I pick up some things
that are far from God's will for me and I'm just defending it to no end, making
personal misery for myself and it's not even based on truth, it's not even based
on God's will. So you got your attention hooked but none of that mattered unless
you come into agreement with it. See, opinions of others or domestication or
any of this will have zero effect on you unless you agree with it. That's why
scripture talks so much about the power of agreement. See, as soon as you agree
and you believe it, you accept it into yourself, he talks about that hook
carrying poison and you accept that poison into yourself, you believe it, then
it becomes yours. Now the poison is yours as well and of course the more you
believe it, it can turn into faith which is believing unconditionally and
Jesus talked about that whenever two people agree, I mean it changes
everything, that's how things get done on earth and so out of this hooking, out of
this agreement then, entered in the judge, the internal judge and this internal
judge now began to judge everyone around us and judge ourselves around this
poison that got put into us that may not even be in our best interest, may not be
true, may not be serving us, probably isn't keeping us in this nightmare of
hell and this judge just goes to work and so we saw the Pharisees judging
Jesus because his group didn't wash his hands according to the tradition that
they had and that made him unclean and dirty and unworthy of sitting together
and all of the stuff, the belief system that had been in their brain and Jesus
said you're just making null and void the Word of God, you're adding all of
these extra regulations and rules and of course that's the problem that many
people have religion, all of these extra burdens and rules and dos and don'ts and
the freedom goes away and there's just an innate need in the human spirit to
have freedom so this internal judge now begins and Romans 2.2 talks about that,
that you begin to pass sentence on one another's and you condemn yourself. Oh I
could go on and on and on and on about the implications of this one, I'm just
even as recent as this weekend on well July 4th I began to realize the areas
that I was judging myself and the bondage that that keeps you in so being
willing to release this judgment and to break some of these old agreements and
to create these new agreements and so the first agreement was being impeccable
with your word and you remember that the definition of impeccable, just going
through a review for those of you that weren't on these first
three calls impeccable, impeccable means sin, it means not sinning with our
words and of course he talks about not using your words against yourself not
sinning against yourself that's big to be true to what you know to be true
inside of yourself and so we went through just the power of the word and
and from the very beginning in in scripture Genesis 1 everything began
with the word God said God said let there be light and there was light and
the whole series of God spoke creation into existence and then God blessing and
we talked about using our word for blessing or or for curses and and we
talked about our word helping us we're told to take dominion over our
environment and we talked about how our word allows us anytime you want to
master a subject just master the vocabulary of that subject when I was
homeschooling my kids I said you want to understand math mathematics learn the
language and you'll master it you want to understand whatever it is biology
learn the language and God knew that and so the first thing and Adam taking
dominion over his environment was to master the language and so right
immediately upon creation God got him involved speaking and got him involved
naming all of the living creatures that had been created and then we went
through the whole series on blessings and and curses and and the power of the
tongue and I won't go into that that was the first three weeks but that was what
we covered and we we ended in Psalms 15 who can who can be on God's holy hill
who can be in God's presence and it says the one who speaks and thinks the truth
in his heart so a lot of this is about controlling our thoughts and and
discovering what is truth and speaking that truth and then we ended with first
Corinthians 13 one that says if I can speak with the tongues of men and even
of angels but I have not love then I'm just a noisy gong or clanging cymbal so
love is the overriding thing that gives victory and all of this love never fails
love conquers all and so taking our words and washing them in love and being
sure they are impeccable and they are loving ourselves and they are loving
others so that was the first agreement be impeccable with your word today we're
going to launch into the second agreement which is so so so so so so big
and it is this don't take anything personally let me say it again don't do
not take anything whatsoever going on around you what others do what others
say what others think don't take anything personally this is the second
of the four agreements now to lay the foundation on this because we're going
to lay the foundation what does that mean to take personally and what is the
issue around taking it personally what is the results of that because we're we
reason from cause to effect so when you're having an effect you look back
what's the cause and so in this case we're going to reason from cause to
effect what if you are taking things personally what does that look like and
what are the results in your body what in your life in your health what are the
effects of taking things personally and then we're going to go through some
biblical examples of people real-life stories who took things personally or
did not take things personally and what were the results and you can begin to
have a level of awareness to look at your life over these next few weeks well
hopefully ongoing and begin to look at what it is to take things personally and
are you doing that and are you willing to let go of that for some freedom for
some bringing some some joy back into your life some peace back into your life
for removing these poisons these these nightmares of hell that he talks about
so to take things personally the first thing that happens just like we talked
about how beliefs are formed this book begins with a belief and the belief he
calls it personal importance personal importance so taking things personally
is based on the belief that whatever's happening around you whatever the other
person is saying or doing or whatever that it's about you
You ever heard the saying, it's not about me?
I think that whole saying originated in this, it's not about me.
It originated in stop taking things personally and thinking that everything is about you.
So to quote him in the book, The Four Agreements, under the chapter on taking things personally,
he says, personal importance or taking things personally is the maximum expression of selfishness.
Interesting.
So this taking things personally, he equates with selfishness.
Because we make the assumption that everything is about me.
And then he clarifies that, he says, nothing other people do is because of you.
Let that soak in for something, for a minute.
Nothing other people do is because of you.
It is because of themselves.
And this is what he says, all people live their own dream in their own mind.
They are completely different world than the one we live in.
So when we take something personally, he goes on to say, we make the assumption, which by
the way is coming up about not making assumptions.
We make the assumption that they know or understand what's in our world.
And we try to impose our world on their world.
So this idea of taking it personally is this idea that somehow they're in your head.
And that they understand your world, they understand your personal movie, your personal
book, your personal story that you're writing.
They're assuming that they understand, they know it even, that they're even aware of it.
And that they're in it.
And that they are basing what they do on your story.
And that is just simply an untruth, it's not based on truth.
So this whole thing begins with this personal importance of believing that it's all about
me, what they're doing.
The next thing that happens is you take offense.
You come into agreement with it and you take offense.
So when I looked at, okay, what does the Bible have to say?
What does scripture have to say about taking things personally?
The scripture kind of puts it in the context of taking offense.
And there's a lot in scripture about taking offense.
And so this idea of taking something personally or taking offense are very interrelated.
So if you're looking to do a word search, if you want to study scripture and go deeper
on this, you could begin to study about taking offense and the results.
It's the same thing as he uses taking things personally.
He goes on and he says, when you take things personally, then you feel offended.
And your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts.
Let me say that again, because I know some of you are still jumping on the line here.
When you take things personally, and we're in the second, all of you that jumped in a
little late on this, we're in the second of the four agreements about don't take things
personally.
And so we're addressing this both from his book, his Toltec perspective, and looking
at a Judeo-Christian model, looking at it from scripture.
And scripture links this with taking offense.
And so Don Miguel Rees in the book, The Four Agreements, goes on to say, when you take
things personally, then you feel offended.
See you begin with a thought, remember how things happen.
You begin with a thought, and this is about me, that's the thought.
Then you add a feeling.
In this case, the feeling is offended.
And that's going to produce a reaction.
And he says, and your reaction then is to defend your beliefs, defend your movie, defend
your story, and create conflict.
You want to see the origin of conflict.
It's when I have one movie, you have one movie, I expect you to understand my movie, I take
offense that you don't understand my movie, now I got to defend my movie, I got to try
to get you to believe like I believe, and now we've got conflict.
So he says, when you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction
is to defend your beliefs and create conflict.
So you make something big out of something so little, because you have a need to be right
and make everyone else wrong.
Your story is the true story in your mind.
And so you try hard to be right by giving them your own opinions.
And in the same way, whatever you feel and do, it's just a projection of your personal
dream, a reflection of you.
own agreements. And so he begins to explain that when someone says something
to him and he uses the example let's say that you just walking down the street
someone looks at you and says you are so fat. Now you can take that poison in and
you can to begin to agree and you can let that soak into you and say wow how
does he know man I must look really bad I shouldn't have left the house I bet
it's these clothes I'm wearing it really shows how fat I really am etc. etc. etc.
Teenage girls go through this all the time I mean adult women go through it
too but you know you begin to see how this poison comes in as you take it
personally you make it your belief system and etc. etc. But he talks about a
different way and he says I know he does you don't have to come in agreement with
it and you can realize that's their opinion nothing more it's simply their
opinion period and he says I know that you see the world with different eyes
with your eyes and you create an entire picture or movie in your mind and in
that picture you are the director you are the producer you are the main actor
or actress everyone else is secondary actor or actress it's your movie and the
way you see that movie is according to the agreements that you have made in
your life. See how powerful that is the first thing is just to begin to have an
awareness first of all and it takes a level of maturity but to have an
awareness that everybody's different everybody has their own agreements their
own movie their own story that they're writing their own story that they're
creating their own story that they're living and it really has nothing to do
with you and your story this will be the first step in you getting victory to
get to get freedom to not have everyone's opinion and everyone's burden
I want to just do a real quick sound check can you all hear me because I'm
hearing lots of pings getting on and off just give me a quick someone let me know
you can hear me okay okay thank you so okay all right perfect we just had some
people getting on and off okay so let's look at some examples of what this
looks like to take some of these things personally or to let them go and
and really you know this kind of combines two things the the power of the
spoken word and then the power of agreement to receive that spoken word
make it your own let that hook that poison get into you and then begin to
form a whole new reality around it that could be taking offense that could be
causing a tremendous amount of turmoil inside of yourself around it and
beginning to realize that you have choice you have choices when people give
you their opinions and everything is just that I mean one of the most
beautiful people I've seen model this is she's been such an influence in my life
over the last couple decades is dr. Arlene Taylor and she'll begin her own
statements she's very clear on it she'll always say whatever she says she'll say
in my brains opinion blah blah blah blah blah so she's so clear that what she's
speaking is not necessarily you know truth we like to think whatever we're
speaking is truth no it's our opinion okay it may not be based on truth as we
saw all the interactions with Jesus and the Pharisees and so she'll begin it's
my brains opinion or when people say stuff to her and they come at her she'll
say yeah I appreciate that that's your brains opinion and so having the freedom
first of all to realize that everything being spoken by the word does not need
to have the power that we give it of accepting it into our life coming into
agreement taking offense doing over it you know allowing it to shape us
sometimes for for life you know Don Miguel in this book he does the story he
tells the story of a woman that had a really really rough day at work or at
home or whatever but she had a rough rough day and her little cute little
girl wasn't part of that rough day and her little girl was just singing at the
top of her lungs just having a good time just singing happy in her own little
world and the mother had a splitting headache and when she couldn't take it
anymore she said will you just shut up you have an ugly
voice just shut up. Well do you know that little girl took that hook of poison that
was not based on truth, she didn't have an ugly voice, the mom had a headache and had
zero resistance to any noise, took it personally, received it, built a belief system and would
never sing again. Now I'm kind of conscious of that myself because you won't see me singing
loud in front of people because I've had that said about me and it shapes you forever.
You believe it and you no longer want to open your mouth in front of someone. It can begin
just in joking. When I taught in Korea for a couple of years, they actually have a name
for someone that's tone deaf, they call it umchi and they would joke and call me umchi
and from that point on as I was umchi, you're not going to see me. Leave me alone, no one's
around, I'll sing my heart out, I love to sing. Someone walk in the room and I'll just
be mouth and the words. See this stuff we carry with it long, long. I heard a very powerful
story in the women's networking that Stephanie shared with her group and I was like wow,
the power of this stuff. When she was a little girl, she was a little bubbly, dynamic, outgoing
little girl and she would talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and relatives would pay her to
keep quiet and do you know, she had the hardest time to ever stand in front of a group. She's
a dynamic public speaker now, she's overcome that. She started a women's networking group,
the tapestry, you know, but it's so funny how, you know, 30 years later, we're still
buying into those agreements, they're shaping us. So the power of the word and then the
power of allowing others opinions that are not necessarily based on truth in and hooking
us and we live by that. That's why Katie Byron in her book, Loving What Is, the first question
you begin to ask yourself about these beliefs is, is it true? You know, you're so fat, just
stop for a second and go, is it true? Is it really true? And then secondly, you know,
is this even serving me? We're holding on to belief systems with all our might, we're
defending them, we're speaking them, we're living them and all this stuff and they're
not true and they're not even serving us. And she asked the question, what would happen
if you no longer held on to that belief that's no longer serving you? What would happen if
you just let go of that belief? Well, chances are a whole lot of pain and stuff you've been
carrying around and heaviness, chances are by letting go of that, you'd enter into a
new level of freedom. So before I want to give a bunch of examples from scripture, but
before I do that, I want to open up the lines for a few minutes. I've been talking a long
time. I'd love to hear from you. Tell me what, what aha you got from this, what question
you got, what, what jumped out. This is a time to kind of come in and give me your feedback
on some of this. What's, what's jumping out for you?
Good morning. For me, what's jumping out is, I've always heard the term, once you're ascended,
you become ascended. Ooh, that's good. Say that, say that again, LaTanya, just so we
get it. That was good. Once you become offended, you become offensive. That's awesome. I've
never heard that. Thank you. I've never heard that. Oh, okay. You sound just like LaTanya.
Thank you. Okay. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate you clarifying that. See, see the
problem with assumptions. I just made one. You guys sound alike. Okay. Thank you. Thank
you. You guys are quick students. I tell you, I tell you, I can see why you're LaTanya's
friend. I picked that up right there. Love it. Love it. Good. I look forward to, to meeting
you. Have I met you? No, you haven't met me yet. Okay. I look forward to getting to know
you. And you said your name's Audrey? Audrey. Audrey Williams. Audrey. Well, thank you.
Thanks for joining the call and thanks for jumping in and sharing that. That's, that's
really powerful. Anyone else? Just ahas that... Before you move on, hold on one second. Yep.
Yep. When I was just saying, I've heard that statement before and I've said it to lots
of people. However, today I'm having an aha moment from what you're sharing and you're
just in a situation that everything is...
talking about relates to for me and I'm realizing, though I've said that statement many times,
that I'm in a position where I'm taking some things personally and it's really valid what
you said. I think everybody should think like me. So because of that, I really like this hotel
tour this morning because it's actually allowing me to apply what they're saying to me and not
just make that statement. I've been saying it for years and to be able to go back, I actually need
to go back and apologize to a group that I'm in because I've been taking things personally,
but thank you very much. Thank you for sharing that and I'll tell you that I've caught myself
doing this so much and when we start, like this is going to build line upon line upon line. It
all builds on each other because the first one being the power of your word or understanding
the power of b word period and then secondly taking it personally and when we tie it in a
few weeks about making assumptions because a lot of times what we take personally is because we
assume that what they did had a whole different meaning and I'm telling you I've gotten
called on this and since I've got this level of awareness, I've seen the assumption I've made that
were so far from what the other person was thinking or the intention of what other people
were thinking. I took it personally, thought they were made the assumption they were thinking
something else and hey I need you guys to push mute if you're not talking just because I'm
getting some feedback here, but I took it personally and it was based on an assumption
that what they did was even had anything remotely to do with me. It had nothing, they were like
thinking something totally different. It never even crossed their mind and so when you bring
all these things together you begin to understand where human drama comes from, where conflict comes
from, where all the stuff that we stew over and makes us not sleep at night and you know puts
all those negative you know neuropeptides flowing through our system and it's not even based on
truth, it's not even serving us, it's crazy. So thank you for sharing that. Anyone else?
What ahas are you having?
Brenda, this is Jennifer. I think what's interesting is that it doesn't have to necessarily be spoken
but you can take on little steps and never tell anyone. You know, our clients they really do build
into something that can be, you know, bigger than the original thing. If you had just taken the time
to clarify or to learn what people's true intent was, it would not have been such a big deal.
So there's, you know, you see a lot of internal conflict, especially on the website too, because we have no idea
and we've taken on all these personal little offenses that we don't even recognize are building.
So I thought that was pretty interesting. Yeah and that's so good and you know it doesn't
even have to have any exchange at words. Someone could be thinking something intense happening in
their own life. They might be looking at you, they might be looking right through you, it might appear
that they're giving you a certain look and in fact their mind's not even thinking about you. You're
not even in the equation, which is like true nine times out of ten, you're not even in the equation
and then you can take that whole thing and look at the way she's looking at me.
Who does she think she is to just judge me and look at me that way? Yada yada, you get, you form
your whole, like you make a movie, a whole story, you write a book and they were thinking something
totally different or you know I talked about that internal judgment and you know there's a song,
I think it's a song that's coming into my mind right now, about a woman being on the track.
Okay I thought I heard someone say something. Just go ahead and mute your phone if you don't
have a comment. Just go ahead and mute star six or hit your mute button because this gets on
the recorder. So there's this song where the woman is on the train and her kids are
are unruly and the other people are busy making judgment and why can't she control her kids and
what a lousy mother she is and blah blah blah. All this stuff goes on right, this internal talk
and then she finally speaks up and says please forgive my children, their daddy died last night
and so wow doesn't that just suddenly getting a moment of truth change everything
and doesn't it maybe activate love and compassion in us when we can get enough out of ourselves
that we're irritated by the kids running around, get enough out of our judgment of how we think
kids should be or whatever.
and get enough into I wonder what that woman's going through with those little
children and so all of this offense judgment you know all of this stuff
ties together and it is what what he talks about what keeps the nightmare of
hell on earth earth would be heaven on earth if we got rid of this stuff and it
simply is by having a level of awareness to even begin to think about what you're
thinking about and to really begin to realize the assumptions that we're
making and the things we're taking personally I'm telling you it's changed
my relationships I'm learning to ask questions I'm as I'm learning to say hey
this is what I'm feeling or this is what I'm perceiving is this true even is this
what you meant and that simple thing just changes everything they'll be like
heck no that never even crossed my mind you know and so it can it can create
so much freedom in relationships it can bring a level of maturity to
relationships and if we can teach our kids this young Wow how how much it
could change and I and I wonder all the conflict from from marital conflict to
worldwide conflict I think all of it could be eliminated 95 99 a hundred
percent could be eliminated by this whole idea of realizing everybody just
has their own movie their own opinions and we don't have to take personally
what that is anybody else before I go into some examples from scripture any
aha's I'm loving hearing from you guys
any other things that are just really jumping out at you on this idea of not
taking things personally yeah I hear you can you hear me can you all hear me can
someone give me a sound check and let me know you can hear me okay all right okay
thank you I'm gonna keep going let's look at some examples of taking things
personally not taking things personally passing this judgment writing our movie
turn to Luke chapter 10 Luke chapter 10 Luke chapter 10 and let's look at verses
38 through 40 it's a classic story many of you have probably read it about Mary
and Martha but it's just a great example of how we can get our little opinions in
the way here and so Luke chapter 10 and if you're new to this study just bring
your Bible or have it out uploaded you version is nice on your phones or your
computer you version because you can just type it in and it'll pop right up
and you can pick what version you want I usually read from the Amplified because
it's rich in defining the language so Luke chapter 10 verse 38 says now while
they were on their way it occurred that Jesus entered a certain village and a
woman named Martha received and welcomed him into her house so Jesus is
coming into Martha's house and and there's two sisters that's Martha and
this other sister is Mary and so in verse 39 it says and she had a sister
named Mary who seated herself at the Lord's feet and was listening to his
teaching so Mary is just going to just soak she's sitting at his feet he's a
rabbi he's a teacher he's a master she wants to get every word she wants to
capture it all so she's just gonna sit quietly at his feet and just listen as
he speaks well Martha that irritated so Martha in verse 40 it says interesting
in the Amplified version it says but Martha overly occupied and too busy I
don't know if that fits any of your description but overly occupied and too
busy was distracted with much serving so she's serving the people at her house
they've come into her home she's busy trying to have hospitality but she's so
distracted with that excuse me it says that she's overly occupied and too busy
and now the story the opinion starts going in her head and she's looking at
Mary who is sitting at Jesus feet soaking and she should have been
rejoicing that her sister was getting all this truth and sitting with the
master instead the story in her head is taking it personally why the heck is
Mary not helping me and why am I having to do this all by our myself and why is
she so what's the word not caring insensitive right
Needs why is she so selfish? Do you see how you can just start going down this road, right? And
So we see that that's what was going on in Martha's little agreement and dream because Martha comes up to Jesus in verse
40 and says Lord, is it nothing to you?
Okay, so she's gonna get him involved in her drama because isn't that what happens when we take something personally?
It's not enough for us to take offense. Usually offense needs friends. That's where all gossip starts
That's where all of this division starts because you got to get your belief system out
You got to get other people to agree with your belief system. You got to make yourself feel right about your belief system
So she's gonna try to rope Jesus into this whole drama. And so she begins with Lord. Is it nothing to you?
Are you not paying attention here? Do you not see what's going on? I want to rope you into my drama
Jesus is there teaching
Truth of the highest level infinite wisdom is being released in that room right now
infinite wisdom that had the power to transform and change their life forever is being
released right there and
It's being interrupted by this craziness right here. And she says is it nothing to you that my sister has left me?
There's an assumption that Mary left my sister has left me to serve alone
Woe is me here comes the drama. Here comes the martyr. How many of you know a martyr?
Woe is me here. I am doing this and doing that. No one appreciates me. No one's helping
I just have to do this by myself. Any of you know a few of these people. Are you one of these people?
Don't you know my sister's left me alone and then wants to get him involved in the drama tell her then
To help me to lend me a hand and do her part
So she has her own little
Assumptions here her own little personal drama and she tries to rope Jesus in well, Jesus is not going to get involved
He's not going to take this personally
He's gonna honor who they both are in verse 41. The Lord replies to her by saying Martha
Martha and he gets to the heart of it. He says you are
anxious and
troubled about many things
Now I want to ask you this is basically saying you got anxiety, baby
I'm gonna ask you where did that anxiety come from? Where did that low frequency emotion?
That's releasing neuropeptides to every cell in her body
Where did that come from?
Came from this whole belief system. It came from taking all this personally
It led the end result of taking it personally was anxiety
Martha Martha, you're anxious. You're troubled about many things and now he speaks the truth here comes infinite wisdom
He said there's need of
Only one. Oh, it says you are anxious and troubled about many things your head is spinning out of control
Basically saying you're anxious and troubled about many things
Verse 42. He says there's need of only one
or but a few things
Mary
Has chosen the good portion and it's not going to be taken away from her
So he's not going to get involved in the drama. He's not going to come into agreement
he's not going to
You know do this whole deal he's gonna let them both just be
He's gonna understand that Martha's gonna have to work through her anxieties. He's gonna call her awareness to it
So hopefully she can begin to aware of what what she's doing and he's gonna let Mary
Just be who Mary is. She was a worshiper. She was a lover. She needed to be still
Now we'll see this example again in
Matthew 26 if you go to Matthew, that's the first book of the New Testament Matthew 26 and
You'll see another example of this taking offense of putting our opinions on other people our
Internal judgment as to what people should do what they think why they should think like we think here you see it again
Isn't it cool that scripture is just like so real and the people are so real and by the way
I thought about this the other day when I was just kind of meditating a
Different way to study scripture. You may have studied many different ways
You may have studied by words or topics or Bible studies or whatever
But one way is to take every single person in scripture and assume that it's you
Because you are in that story in every single person
You are Moses. You are Mary. You are Abraham. You are Job. You are all of these people
So I've always said that scripture has a bunch of layers
And one of the layers, it's got, you know, wisdom and truth principles, but it's got all these metaphors.
Each of these people, besides being historical fact, are also very metaphorical of who you are.
See yourself in each of these characters. So you are Mary.
There's times that you just love to sit and soak and embrace those times.
You are Martha. There are times when you're troubled about way too many things,
none of them based on truth and none of them God's will for you.
So begin to see yourself in all of these people.
And so here is another example.
And so if you're there, Matthew 26, say Amen.
And I know you're on the same page here.
Matthew 26, if you're there, say Amen.
Nobody's there?
Stay with me, guys.
Okay. All right. So Matthew 26, beginning on verse 6, it says,
Jesus comes back to Bethany, and now he's in the house of Simon the leper.
And verse 7, a woman comes up to him with an alabaster flask with very precious perfume.
Here's your essential oils, by the way, that are always used in everything from anointing to spiritual to healing.
And so here you're going to see you've got a flask of essential oils.
She was carrying the prosper of that time, her little alabaster flask.
And she pours it on his head as he's sitting there reclining at the table.
They would eat kind of laying on their side, reclining.
You've seen it in movies maybe.
And she comes up and she takes her very expensive essential oil perfume,
and she pours it on his head as an act of love and worship and devotion.
Well, the disciples saw it, and they're not so excited about her act of love and devotion.
Here we see it. Here comes this whole idea of taking it personally.
In verse 8, it says they were indignant.
They were angry. They were frustrated.
The internal judge kicked in.
They had their own story of what should have happened with that perfume.
They were indignant saying, for what purpose is all this waste?
Do you see the two opinions right there?
The woman is giving her highest gift.
She's responding out of love.
She's pouring her very finest on the master, on her savior.
It's the ultimate act of devotion in her mind.
The disciple taking it personally, and some think the one who spoke this was Judas,
because you'll see the rest of the story.
He had other things on his mind, and his story, his agreement, were indignant.
And for them, it's waste.
So for one, it's love. For another, it's waste.
Do you see how the conflict comes in?
Now his story, this disciple, let's assume it's Judas.
His story says this perfume could have been sold for a large amount of money,
and the money given to the poor.
His brain's opinion is, take that.
Instead of wasting it, pouring it over Jesus' head, sell it.
Let's give the money and take care of the poor.
Do you see how this begins, these stories?
Now we've got issues, and offense is taken.
He's indignant, so he's taking offense.
And Jesus, because he's always fully conscious, he's very present,
he's operating in a very high level of awareness that he would like us to operate in.
Jesus, fully aware, fully conscious, fully present, says to them,
why do you bother the woman?
Why are you taking this personally?
This is not about you.
This was an intimate act between she and I.
It had nothing to do with you.
Your name was not in this story at all.
Why do you bother the woman?
Now he brings it to a whole different perspective.
She's done a noble.
The Amplified says a praiseworthy, a beautiful thing to me.
So Jesus sees it for what it is because he always sees the heart.
He always goes to the heart issue.
He saw the love at the bottom of it.
He said she does a praiseworthy, beautiful thing, a noble thing.
So while one's busy taking offense and calling it waste,
do you see how brain's opinions are so different?
Are you seeing this played out?
And he says, you always have the poor among you, but you're not always going to have me.
In verse 12, in pouring this perfume on my body,
she's done something to prepare me for my burial.
She was actually anointing me.
him whether she realized it or not it was part of the anointing process
preparing for her burial and you know what verse 13 it says I tell you
whenever this Gospels preached in the whole world what this woman has done
will be told also in memory of her she just did a legacy she just created a
legacy that would be spoken through all people all generations throughout the
world it was such a beautiful act of love such a noble deed that we're still
talking about it right here right now the one that someone else was taking
offense and judging and getting all ruffled up and getting their feathers
all ruffled their toga and a knot and it's gonna go down as a legacy forever
what a contrast between two brains opinions do you see this contrast let me
pause for a second let you kind of reflect on that and check in anyone
want to share what this story what jumped out at you
anyone want to want to step in for a second any ahas
yeah yep we just can't assume that we understand someone else's story or that
they understand ours and that will be the first step in freedom the freedom to
allow yourself to be and to begin to have the awareness to look and see what's
serving you and what's not serving you and what you need to let go this is the
first step of awareness you know I've shared the steps of transformation and
we start you know first with
I think I'm disconnected are you all with me I think I'm disconnected
ok I'm back I think the call got dropped I'm back I'm back can you hear me now
can you hear me
ok perfect call got dropped I guess I'm where was I what was the last thing I
said here
ok good we can't assume that we that we understand their story or they
understand ours and this is this is tremendous amount of freedom let me tell
you the freedom this is all about being renewed what I began this whole thing
being renewed by by being transformed by the renewing of your mind being
transformed by the renewing of your mind and this is the renewing this is the
making new your mind and so the making new of your mind is willing to look at
have awareness and look at every belief every opinion that you're holding on to
and make some decisions about if they're true and if they're serving you and
having the freedom and the willingness to release them and if they are true for
you and they are connected with who with your heart having the freedom to allow
yourself that without judgment of other people's opinions and likewise
understanding that you can't understand where they're coming from and giving
them the freedom to just be giving them the freedom to grow where they need to
grow and to grow in awareness and so this amount of freedom that allows you
to be and allows them to be it just it removes the drama removes the chaos it
removes the internal pain it just it is I can't begin to tell you and and in my
workshops I often go through the four levels of awareness that we progress
through to come to a high level of consciousness and and the first level of
awareness that we're at is unconscious incompetence so this when we're applying
it here it's that you don't know what you don't know and that is when people
just enter in and they're still oblivious to think that someone else's
story and mind and movie is different than their own they haven't even made
that and they just assume that others know what you're thinking and that
you know what they're thinking and it just is just based on this complete low
level of awareness. Okay. And causes so much conflict, so much drama,
unconscious incompetence. Well,
what I'm sharing today moves you into a level of conscious incompetence.
You may still enter into this judgment and taking offense.
You may not have mastered it,
but what happens is you start to be conscious of it. You start being aware.
Wow. You know what?
I just took something personally and who knows what that person was really
thinking and who knows if it's even based on truth.
Who knows if my belief system is based on truth.
Now you're entering into conscious incompetence.
And so then what will happen is you will move into conscious competence where
you are consciously starting to think about what you think about.
You're consciously starting to think about your belief systems and making
conscious choices to receive or accept, you know, or,
or reject. When people say things to you,
you're consciously aware that that's their brain's opinion and you're
consciously aware that you have a choice to come into agreement with that and
allow that to be part of you or to just dismiss it as saying, that's cool.
That's their opinion. It has nothing to do with me.
That's their brain's opinion.
And this freedom allows you to not have all of the anxiety and frustration and
anger and depending how much fear you have,
because if you have fear now these things lead to envy, jealousy,
anger, bitterness,
all of those other fear based emotions that are just going to shut your liver
down, cause dis-ease, make your life miserable,
steal your peace and joy and not allow you to operate in your highest potential.
So this is a big deal.
And so this conscious competence is where on a daily basis now you're living,
you're building your life by design and not by default.
And so you're beginning to make very conscious choices about which belief
systems you're going to come into agreement with and which ones you're going to
just live and let live and say that's their brain's opinion and be cool with it.
Let's look at a couple more examples before we close this out and then I've got
some important announcements at the end of what's going on.
Let's look at Judas.
Now we think Judas was the one that got upset about the alabaster box and we see
Judas here in Matthew 26 a little further down the road,
why he's thinking that and we see it in verse 20.
It's still evening.
They're still reclining at the table with the 12 disciples and as they're eating,
Jesus makes an announcement because he knows the heart.
He's prophetic.
He's operating by the Holy Spirit that we operate in to begin to try to get some
truth and remember that's the role of the Holy Spirit to guide you into all
truth.
And so he says solemnly,
I tell you one of you is going to betray me and they are exceedingly pained and
distressed and they're hurt at what he says.
Now this is another interesting response.
Don Miguel makes the point in there when you say you're hurting me or you are
hurting me that that's not based on truth,
that actually no one can hurt you.
They may be touching on previous woundings that you have in your past and so
you're experiencing that wounding coming back again,
but it's your choice.
They can't hurt you.
You choose.
But it says that they were pained,
they were distressed,
they were hurt by his words of saying someone is going to betray me.
Now if you knew that it wasn't you and you had no intention of betraying him,
you wouldn't need to take that personally.
You would probably say,
wow,
that's an interesting opinion.
I wonder who it is.
And you would just leave it far from you.
You would not come into agreement with it and take offense.
Like how could you say that?
Watch how you could play this out.
Jesus,
I have like I left my fishing business,
I left my construction business,
I left my source of income,
I left my family.
Do you have no idea what I've done for you?
I've given you everything I have.
I'm sitting here with you at the risk of being killed and being persecuted and
now you're going to say this about me.
I mean,
do you not have any appreciation?
Are you getting the drift where we can spin out of control?
And that's probably what happened there.
They started spinning because it says they were exceedingly pained,
distressed,
deeply hurt,
sorrowful.
And they began to say,
well,
it's not me.
Surely it can't be I,
can it?
See,
they had come into agreement.
The fact that they said,
can it?
And he replies and says,
the one that's going to dip his hand in the same dish with me is the one he's
going to let him know who it is.
It's Judas.
And,
but here's the thing that Jesus does.
Jesus doesn't take it personally.
He's in the room with the man who is posing to be one of his inner circle,
one of his inner circle.
sentiment 12 full-on knowing prophetically God had showed him that
this man's going to betray him and he's not going to take offense he's not going
to operate in fear he's not going to you know do any of these things he's going
to use these moments free from all of that drama as a teaching moment thinking
of their higher good he's going to use what he knows in what scripture talks
about edifying using our words to build up using our words to teach to instruct
to lift up so he's outside of his own drama he's not in his own fear that he's
about to be betrayed he's not in his own emotional in his own emotional stuff
he's not taking it personally he's going to use this as a teaching moment and he
says you know what the son of man is going just as it's written of him but
woe to the man by who the son of man is betrayed it would have been better
probably that he had not been born Judas the betrayer says surely it's not I
master and he said to him you've stated the fact and now they're eating Jesus
takes the bread he goes through a life lesson he shows how to give thanks he
asked them to bless it so he's teaching the power of blessing he breaks it he
begins to tell him about what he's going to do for them take eat this is my body
he does the cup drink it he's about to introduce the new covenant and he
introduces the the new covenant and talks about their future so he's so out
of himself right there and so not taking it personally that he can use
this as a teaching moment write down Proverbs 19 verse 11 Proverbs 19 verse
11 and that wisdom there from King Solomon says good sense makes a man
restrain his anger and it is his glory that's a high frequency right there it
is his glory to overlook a transgression or an offense it was to Jesus glory he
overlooked what he knew that was coming and used it as a teaching moment rather
than taking it personally it is to your glory to overlook your own personal
drama and see how you might minister to that person that is probably speaking
out of their own fear not probably they are speaking out of their own fear their
own past their own history their own trigger see I've gotten really good or
not really good I don't want to brag I've become more aware become more
conscious when I triggered something in someone and they're operating out of
their trigger and I've learned instead of taking it personally because I could
it could be a big old deal and this happened to me as recent as yesterday
when I triggered someone and they really went off and reacted and boy I could have
reacted and we could have had World War three but instead I simply chose not to
take it personally and I said you know you're you're responding that's a
trigger you're responding to your past and the fact of the matter is I have
nothing to do with that past I can't change that past I I wasn't part of
creating that past so what you're reacting to right now instead of
responding the difference between reacting and responding what you're
reacting to is your internal story your internal past has nothing to do with
what I'm really saying right now I'm not going to take that personally and
come into agreement with you and get into a disagreement with you and all of
that I'm going to overlook that that's your past that's your freedom and I'm
going to tell you what I meant and you see this is mature conversation this is
conscious conversation and it allows you to keep this nightmare of hell out of
your life and all the anxiety all the sleepless nights all the stress all the
damage you did to your liver all the separation of friends or loved ones or
whatever all of the stealing your peace and your joy can be ended by the simple
agreement of do not take any thing personally I'll give you another thing
you want to write down Matthew 11 and verse 5 and 6 Matthew 11 5 and 6 what I
want you to understand is that this offense
this taking things personally keeps you from seeing truth. Offense keeps you from
seeing truth. Jesus said in Matthew 11 the blind received their sight. He's
talking about what he did when people said who should we say who you are and
he said go back and tell John wants to know in prison who are you and he says
tell him that the blind received their sight. The lame walk the lepers are
cleansed by healing. The deaf hear. The dead are raised. The poor have good news.
The Gospels being preached. Let's just look at the fruit. Look at what's
happening with my life because they're busy getting into their own opinions
their own taking personal. Who is this guy? Is he a teacher? Is he God? Is he a
fake? Is he a prophet? Is he Elijah? Who the heck? All the brains
opinions are busy at it and he says let's just look at the works and he says
and blessed in verse six out that word means happy fortunate to be envied you
want to be blessed you want to be happy you want to be fortunate you want to be
envied is he who takes no offense at me and finds no cause for stumbling in and
through me is not hindered from seeing the truth you see offense it says is not
hindered from seeing the truth when you get in your own drama and you take
things personally you're hindered from seeing the truth your growth just
stopped your personal growth your rise in consciousness you're operating at a
higher level of frequency your ability to be up in the high frequency emotions
of love joy peace all of those completely got hindered because you took
offense that's the price that you pay so the freedom of not taking it personally
is to be able to do that finally in Matthew 13 and I'll close with this one
in Matthew 13 verses 56 through 58 people were taking offense at Jesus and
it kept away miracles do you want to live a supernatural life do you want to
live a miraculous because God you were built to it you were designed to live a
supernatural life you want to live a supernatural life you got to get this
thing down of not taking personally you can't live a supernatural life and hold
on to your offense it keeps you from the miraculous it keeps you from the
supernatural it's standing between you and your miracles and they start talking
to Jesus and they're judging him and they're getting their opinions in the
way and they're saying don't all his sisters live here who is this dude who
do you think he is where did this man get all this so they're gonna judge him
if he's credentialed enough who the heck he thinks he is is he proud is he
delusional is he whatever it is right they're gonna start taking offense and
it says that right there in verse 57 it says and they took offense at him they
took offense at Jesus they took offense at infinite love they took offense at
infinite wisdom can you imagine infinite love and infinite wisdom is right there
in their neighborhood right there knocking on their door right there ready
to bring all healing all revelation all truth all freedom all peace all joy it's
knocking on their door everything they've ever wanted everything that
they've ever hoped for everything that they've ever imagined what they've been
looking for the Messiah what they thought was the conquering king
everything they've been waiting for everything there were their religion
everything their truth was built on and they took offense they took offense at
infinite love and infinite wisdom they took offense and it says they were
repelled because negative energy repels what you desire it pushes it away it
keeps your miracle away it was not on God's side keeping their miracle away it
was not on God's side keeping their healing away it was not on God's side
keeping their peace and joy and love away they repelled it it says they were
repelled and hindered and caused to stumble because they took offense you
get that they were repelled they were hindered imagine you some of you have
been hindered from getting your blessing you have so much resistance going on
you're out of the flow things aren't flowing in your life you're stuck you're
hindered because of taking offense and Jesus understands it and he says a
prophets not with honor in his own house in his own country and it says something
so powerful in verse 58
He did not do many works of power there.
He couldn't perform miracles there.
There was people that left there today, that day, that still had their cancer and didn't
get healed and they were probably judging and saying, ah, he couldn't heal, he's not
the real deal, I still got my cancer.
There was people there that left that still didn't have the use of their legs, they were
still paralyzed.
It didn't need to be so, it didn't need to be their truth, they didn't need to miss their
healing, they walked away without their healing.
And what kept their healing away?
What kept their financial provision?
There was people there that left still not enough to buy their next meal, starving, when
they could have had access to all provision, the cattle on a thousand hills.
They left without their blessing.
And what was it that kept them from receiving their freedom?
What was it that kept them from receiving their healing?
What was it that kept them from receiving that abundance and their provision?
What was it?
Was it God?
Was it God not reaching out to mankind?
No, God had broken into mankind, infinite wisdom and infinite love and infinite provision
was standing in their midst and it says he couldn't do the works of power there because
of their unbelief, because of their lack of faith in his divine mission.
It was on their end.
You know the picture of revelation that says I stand at the door and knock and the picture
of the doorknob is on the inside.
It's not God, it's not the devil, it's not Obama, it's you that's got that door locked.
It's you standing between you and your provision, it's you standing between you and your healing.
It's you keeping you in anxiety, it's you keeping you having to be on anxiety meds or
depressant meds, it's you keeping yourself from having peace and joy.
It's not God doing this to you and it's not someone else doing it to you.
If you still think it's outside of yourself and you're saying well if my husband would
just change, if my wife would just change, if this guy would just get out, if my boss
would just, if you're still doing the if, you're taking it personally, you're taking
offense, you've given away your power, it's a major energy leak, you've given away your
freedom, your love, peace, joy.
You can take it back today.
You can take it back by understanding this simple agreement of do not take anything personally.
So I pray that blesses you.
I'm going to open for conversation.
I want to announce a couple of exciting things coming up.
So I bless all of you listening here online and for much time to come.
I bless you with the ability and the freedom to not take things personally in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Powerful.
I'll use that today in my meeting at 10.30.
I can apply it to my personal life and I can hardly wait to get on to the rest of your
stuff.
So thank you for today.
It was absolutely awesome.
Oh, thank you for saying that, Wendy.
What a blessing to know you're on the call.
I love you, girlfriend.
So glad you're on the call.
That's amazing.
Thank you for joining.
Thank you.
We'll be in touch, sweetie.
Thanks for joining.
Thank you.
All right.
Anybody else?
Brenda, you're amazing.
Oh, thank you, Greg.
God in all of us is amazing.
We're all amazing.
I appreciate you guys.
God bless you.
Thank you, Greg.
God bless you.
Thank you for being on this call.
Anybody else?
Hi, this is Karnia.
For me, the part that stood out was obviously studying the difference between hurt versus
offending, and being honest about someone did offend me.
I think it's really important to be honest about what's going on inside of me and in
my world, and not trying to reflect it or make it someone else's problem.
Wow.
Isn't that just huge, LaTanya?
Isn't that just amazing?
I mean, yes.
Yeah.
Because I really don't hurt you.
I mean, they just say something and it triggers something.
You need to be honest about what they're doing.
Yeah.
It triggers something inside of me.
This just gives a whole new level of freedom.
You stop thinking that people can hurt you.
This is the amazing thing, and I'm growing through all of this, so I'm only speaking
out of my own personal growth.
The biggest thing is we're so afraid of being hurt.
All of this is fear-based.
We're so afraid of being hurt that we now project.
Part of it is triggering your past, and then you take that trigger and that fear, and you
start applying it to the future, and you start saying, oh, man, this person's going to hurt
me.
A lot of times, we won't open our heart in relationship.
relationship so we never get to experience the beauty that God had for
that relationship for that season it might be a relationship for a day a
month a year a lifetime but we don't experience the beauty because we're
borrowing from that past we're attaching fear to it and now we're so worried that
they are going to hurt us that they even have the power to hurt us which they
don't unless we come into agreement and buy into that that we can no longer
enjoy the moment and the beauty it's like Jesus infinite wisdom infinite love
was right there in their midst and they couldn't enjoy it or receive the miracle
of it because they had too many fears attached to it and we do the same thing
in our relationships we miss the beauty of that moment that present that now
what that person could be bringing in their life the beauty of what that
relationship could be because they're borrowing the fear from the future this
is an area I'm trying to grow in awareness I can tell you personally so
we borrow we borrow that we take it from the past the trigger and we borrow it
into the future and it keeps us from enjoying the now anybody else and and
the funny thing is we can do nothing about any of that the past is gone we
can absolutely do nothing about it we can learn from it and that's it leave it
you can't change it you can't go back and we can do nothing about the future
Jesus said can you have one hair to your head can you add one inch to your height
by worrying absolutely not he said don't borrow trouble from tomorrow today has
enough of its own in other words he was saying you know stay in the now at
cartel you know the power of now stay in this moment if you stay in this
moment you're gonna remove the judgment the fear the taking the personal the
past triggers the future worry the low frequency past guilt shame beat yourself
up judgment the future low frequency emotions anxiety etc etc etc powerful
stuff yes thank you yep yep and many times people are are stuck there and
they can't even see who you are now you've changed you're totally different
and they still see you how they saw you you know you ever know a kid maybe you
know when he was 13 14 16 19 you knew a kid and then you don't see him and now
you see him when they're 20 something or they're 30 something and you really have
a hard time like seeing them because in your head they're still 16 you ever
experienced that it's just like a real life a real life example what we do to
all people all the time we think they're still the same as they were when
we knew him last week no you don't know what experience they went through last
week that caused them to evolve and go through transformation to be a totally
different person than they weren't last week and you're still trying to hold
them in last week that's good that's good that's good all right oh thank you
love you too Greg anyone else awesome who is this oh hi Tina great to have you
on the line thank you thank you for sharing that glad you're on the line
any anybody else
this is Judy hi Judy anybody else is on the line yeah I'm just checking in about
later on today I yes yeah the class is on later today okay
yeah thank you okay so I appreciate all of you and we will continue this next
week so write this on somewhere prominent write it where you're going to
see it on your car on your bathroom mirror on your refrigerator do not take
anything personally the second agreement it's been my joy to be with you that
concludes this call and we will see you
Next week. God bless you