Dharius Daniels - Talk Yourself Into It

All right, well listen, we’re in a series here on Sundays called «I Said So.» Today, I want to move into lesson two from the Gospel of John, chapter 15. Remember, every Sunday this year, when I teach, I’m only teaching from the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That’s my assignment this year, and I want to stay there.

John 15, verse 11: Listen to this. Are y’all ready? Y’all got big energy, huh? Okay, all right, here it is: Jesus said, «I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.» Listen to me: my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. As long as you only have your joy, you don’t have enough joy. Your joy will never be sufficient, so I need to give you my joy, which comes to you from a different source. Now, I just said it that way; let me share how they said it at the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Kill Michael, Mississippi: «This joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me, and the world can’t take it away.»

So, I want to talk from this subject: last week was «Talk That Talk,» and this week is simply «Talk Yourself Into It.» Sometimes, you’ve got to talk yourself into it. I was recently sitting in a training session for a mastermind group that I’m part of, and we began this year by releasing a word that we thought would be an area of focus for us. We’ve been discussing this word all year: «reimagined.» I gave us the charge and challenge to find a word consistent with what we’re reimagining. For me, I wanted to reimagine leadership. I knew this new season required new levels of skill, so I started making investments in that area.

Look at me: one of the most important investments you can ever make is the investment you make in yourself. Your willingness to invest in yourself in the present is an indication of what you truly believe about your future. If you really believe it’s going to rain, you build the ark. If you genuinely believe God’s getting ready to do exceedingly and abundantly above all you ask or think, then you actually get ready for it. Come on, are you hearing what I’m saying? Business owners, if you truly believe business is coming from the north, south, east, and west, and that you’re not going to have enough room to receive the clients, contracts, and opportunities, then you need to get ready for it. Am I making sense?

So, I’m in one of these mastermind groups, and the trainer was facilitating a session. He was discussing basic human psychology, and he said something incredibly insightful yet uniquely unsettling for me at the same time. I want you to catch this: it was unsettling for me not because I thought what he said was wrong, but because I suspected what he said might be right. Y’all want to know what he said? If you want to know, tell me in the chat or say «Tell me» in the room. This is what he said: «Guys, there’s one reason and one reason alone that people do something or don’t do something.»

Now, when he said that, I thought to myself, «That can’t be right.» He said, «No, no.» I thought that to myself, not to him. He insisted, «There’s one reason and one reason alone that people do or don’t do something.» I submitted; he is my senior. He is a genius—60 years old with decades of experience—so when he said this, it was powerful. He has more experience with people than I do, and he said, «There’s one reason and one reason alone that people do or don’t do something: because they feel like it.»

You see, when they do it, it’s because they feel like it, and if they don’t do it, it’s because they don’t feel like it. As I began to explore this concept, I thought, «Man, this aligns with my convictions from Scripture.» When I look at the activities of individuals who are examples for us to emulate in some ways, learning what to do, and in other ways, learning what not to do, I see that many engaged in numerous activities because they felt like it. Moses hit the rock instead of speaking to it because he felt like it. Peter denied Jesus three times because he didn’t feel like dealing with the persecution that came from being associated with Jesus. Judas betrayed Jesus because he felt—are y’all following me so far?

Listen, this trainer was not suggesting that we can’t have dominion over our feelings or that we don’t do things we feel like or don’t feel like doing. Watch this: he’s simply suggesting or articulating—inferring—that although it is God’s intention that feelings be indicators, they are often dictators driving people’s decisions. What he’s saying is this: feelings aren’t always the only factor, but more often than not, they’re the dominant factor contributing to the decisions that people make and the words that people speak. Am I making sense to you so far?

So, I believe this is one of the reasons the enemy is obsessed with the emotional realm because he understands the impact that the emotional realm has on…