Changing Your World Podcast with Creflo Dollar

Being conscious of our sins is not the way God wants us to live. By contrast, being aware of how God sees us in Christ—innocent and free—lets us focus on our righteousness. We are forgiven because Jesus has dealt with our sin. We are not what we do; bad behavior does not separate a person from God, but rather the sinful nature of a person before they get born again. Living under the law always creates gui...

What we focus on dramatically impacts the quality of our lives. An awareness of sin, and the shame and guilt it brings, comes from the knowledge of the law. It causes believers to see themselves as unworthy and condemned because of their failures, and makes them think they must work to get into heaven. By comparison, being aware that we are innocent comes from knowing that Jesus has redeemed us and made u...

The devil is always actively working to destroy us. One of the ways he makes inroads in our lives is by getting us to be more aware of our sins and shortcomings instead of our righteousness. God sees born-again believers as innocent and acquitted of all accusations the enemy has made against us. We must therefore be more conscious of what Jesus has done for us under grace than sin, and the shame and guilt...

An awareness of sin is Satan’s number one weapon to keep believers stagnant and paralyzed in one place. His strategy is to constantly remind us of our mistakes so that he can control us through guilt and shame. This spiritual paralysis is not a good place to be because being conscious of sin keeps us from receiving the liberty that Jesus gave us. The battle started in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ...

Deceiving ourselves comes with serious consequences. Telling ourselves a lie so often that we eventually believe it blinds us to the truth by producing a false view of our circumstances. Personally, it damages relationships and stunts our personal growth; in leadership, it leads to poor decision-making because leaders may overlook problems or crucial feedback. Failing to deal with self-deception keeps us ...

Deceiving ourselves trips us up on our spiritual walk. When we deceive ourselves, we are blind to the assumptions we make and think we are right when we are actually wrong. Much of this is delivered through the pulpit; wrong doctrine deceives us so that we do not see the truth of God’s love and grace. Our success in life hinges on knowing our true identity as His righteous children. God wants to show us t...

God has great plans for our lives, but those plans are blocked when we deceive ourselves. Deceiving ourselves makes us spiritually blind to the truth of a situation; this is something God wants to deliver us from. Self-deception springs from the fall of man in the garden of Eden, and our sinful nature that resulted from it. The devil works through this and tries to convince us that our identity is based o...

The most dangerous thing about self-deception is that when we are operating in it, we do not even know that we are being deceived. Failing to be true to what we believe is right causes us to rationalize and make excuses. Being true to our sense of what the right thing is relieves us from having to explain our actions; if we are false to our belief, then our excuses make the wrong thing that we are doing a...

To experience God’s best, it is important not to live in deception. This especially applies to us because believing the wrong thing causes us to deceive ourselves. Operating too long in deception can harden our hearts and lead us to believe a lie. We are all susceptible to this; God therefore wants to work with us to help us stop fooling ourselves. Letting Him guide us in this area keeps our spiritual eye...

One thing we can count on as Christians is that we will encounter trouble and tribulation. There is no escaping this; however, in the midst of the suffering, we must learn to depend on God as the one who brings us through it all. This helps us to navigate through all the stress that life throws at us. The very nature of His grace demands dependence on Him; grace from God, and our faith in Him, must become...

When we pray, we demonstrate our trust and reliance on God. Praying with the right motives does not involve loud wailing and constant repetition to impress others; it is our way of having a private conversation with Him. Prayer reminds us to always acknowledge God’s involvement in everything concerning our lives, and that we cannot live apart from Him. It requires our acknowledgement that we are helpless ...

As God’s children, our heavenly Father has made a commitment to take care of us. This extends not just to our finances, but to every other area of our lives as well. When we have a need, we do not have to strive or toil to take care of it ourselves; we can simply respond to God’s promise to handle it. This gives us peace and assurance that we can depend and rely on Him for everything. Trusting in God more...