Christ in the Center

1. Christ in the Center “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

2. What we hope to accomplish: • Practical ways to put Christ in the center of our lives allowing Him to create our “meaning.” • How to redefine our Sense of "Self” in “Him.” • More fully realizing His "Power" and His "Resourcefulness.” • Develop Healthy Relationships. • How to define "Time” in reference to the Eternal One. • Looking at the "World” knowing that “greater is He that is in us then is he that is in the world.” • Obtaining our "Higher Purpose” through Him.

3. 1. Meaning • How do we interpret something? • What we “hold in mind.” • What does it mean to us? • Is this meaning accurate? Useful? Productive? Healthy Empowering? • Does this meaning encourage love, compassion, joy, confidence, etc.?

4. Meaning determines: • Our concept of our “self.” • Our sense of power & resourcefulness. • Our ability to develop relationships. • Our view of the world we live in. • Our relationship with this thing called “time.” • Our sense of purpose and intention.

5. The Model Summarized: • What does that meaning say to you about: • Your concept of you as a person (Self Matrix)? • How you view yourself has having adequate or inadequate resources to live a productive life (Power/Resource Matrix)? • How you view your relationship to your past, your present and how you view your future (Time Matrix)? • How you relate to other people and how you allow them to exercise control if any over your life (Other Matrix)? • How you view the world you live in?  Is it a friendly or non-friendly place (World Matrix)? • How your higher purposes affect your life in each one of the above and how you view whether or not you are and can live out your higher purposes in life (Intentional/Purpose Matrix)?

6. “Meaning” is in the center and the “determinant of” the other Matrices.

7. From the Meaning we give, we create the other matrices.

8. Importance of Putting Christ in the “Center of our Lives”: • If it is true that “meaning” determines our way of thinking-feeling-behaving; • Then, if we can learn how to change meaning, we can change our thinking, feeling and behaving to that which doesn’t serve us to that which best serves us. • Christ makes it possible for us to totally change the meaning.

9. Christ in the Center “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

10. “Meaning” is about “Thinking.” • Proverbs 23:7 – “…as a man thinketh so is he.” • Romans 12:2 – “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

11. How do we think? • Mental Movies – pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes • We give meaning to our mental movies with words.

12. The structureof meaning.

13. We change meaning by: • Editing our movies • Changing how we talk to ourselves • Layering old unwanted meanings with the more powerful meanings given to us by the Lord →

15. Layering our minds with His thoughts

16. Self Power Time Others World purpose By changing the meaning, we can change the other six areas of our lives:

17. 2a. Self – Are you pleased? • With who you are? • With what you are? • What is your nature, purpose, destiny, value, etc.?

18. 2b. Which one(s) of your “selves” do you need to improve? • Self-Confidence • Self-esteem • Self-efficacy • Self-definition • Self-presentation • Social Self • Cultural Self • Career Self

19. By letting Christ be at the center, we create a “new Self.” • 2 Cor 5:17 Paul says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” • Knowing our position in Christ solves all identity issues. • I know who I am because I know Whose I am. • And, that is good enough!

20. “Clothe” ourselves with Christ – Romans 13:14 • “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” • Galatians 3:26-27 – “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

21. Let “Humility” part of the clothing • Philippians 2:3 – “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” • Luke 22:25b – “…the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.”

22. Let’s clothe ourselves in His Righteousness. • Proverbs 10:24 – “What the wicked dreads will overtake him; what the righteous desire will be granted.” • Romans 3:22 - This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”

23. Clothing ourselves with Christ

24. 3. The Power Matrix – • The sense of power or resourcefulness makes all the difference in the world between living with a weak response style or a weak one. • It’s the difference between learned helplessness and learned optimism. • A healthy Power Matrix enables us to affect change in our lives.

25. Power/Resource – Do you view yourself as resourceful? • The meanings you give to your ability to take effective action in the world • What can you do? • What skills can you develop? • What are your capabilities? • Can you cope with things? • Can you master yourself, run your own brain and plan your own future?

26. Power Matrix

27. Intentional/Outcome Frames • Can I handle this challenge? • Can I manage my own mind and emotions around these challenges? • Can I take effective action in the world and be successful with this challenge? • What can I do to fix this? • How can I control everything? • Can I find anyone to assist me in learning how to regain my power?

28. Attempt to Exercise Power – • I am going to try to control this? • I am going to try to control every word that comes out of my mouth. • I am going to control my behavior rather than my behavior controlling me. • I need to change. • I must not get back into that old unresourceful and powerless state.

29. Loss of control Frustration Lack of protection I can’t be enough. I am terrified of ___. I should be doing better. I have to do better. I cannot be resourceful. I have to do something. I have to get it done. I have given my power away. Etc. The Meaning Table

30. Learned Helplessness Personal Pervasive Permanent Learned Optimism Not Personal Not Pervasive Not Permanent Modeling Optimism - Seligman

31. Being in “Control” • What have we mapped in terms of our abilities, skills, potentials, capabilities, etc.? • Does it give us a sense of ability, power and control? • Do you have a sense of control in life, power over your own life, your own mind, body and emotions? • Do you feel like the driver of your own bus or a passenger in the back going for a ride? • How have you mapped the sense of “control?” • Did you grow up in an environment that was safe, secure, and that gradually allowed you to take more and more control over your life?

32. Scale of Emotions

33. Activating Power Matrix • Anything that challenges us activates it. • Create meaning frames which will validate the idea of being empowered. • Recognize our fallibility – stop focusing on what you can’t do. • Focus on what we care about. • Let go of past childhood limiting beliefs.

34. He is our “power.” • Phil 4:13 “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” • By letting Christ be center of our lives the gives me the Power and Resources (#3 Power) to live in this world successfully

35. He is our “resource.” • Acts 1:8“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” • When He commands He provides. • Micah 3:8 “But as for me, I am filled with power with the Spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might.”

36. God is with us – Joshua 1:1-5 “After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

38. 4. Time – What kind of relationship do you have with “time?” • Time is a “concept.” It isn’t “real.” • Do you have a positive relationship with time? • Do you live in the past, present or future? • How easily can you move from one time to another time? • Do you have enough time?

39. Time Orientation • Have you ever walked out the door of your home and stumbled on a hunk of “time”? • Time is another one of those concepts that begins as a process but we language it into a “thing” – a nominalization. • Therefore, time is not realoutside the realm of thought.

40. The Three Tenses of English • English has three basic tenses for “Time” – past, present and future. • From these we construct our concept of time by comparing events that have happened (past), with those that are now happening (present) and with those that will happen (future). • By being able to hold these mental constructs in mind and compare them, we construct time.

41. Where do you place your attention? It matters! • Where do you spend most of your time focusing your thinking – • The past ? • The present ? • The future ? • Most of us have a preference.

42. Time focus and emotional hurts • Most of our emotional issues are rooted in past hurts and most of them from childhood. • How to depress yourself – focus on the past but only the hurtful memories and associate into those memories.  • If you only focus on the good memories, it wont work.

43. Figure Past Focus

44. Dr John Burton – • “What would happen if we looked into our desired future to decide how to respond to our present?” • (As opposed to looking back to a hurtful past) • This would result in a person being outcome directed.

45. Anticipatory Anxiety • It is easy to look into the future and anticipate running the problem state that we have ran so many times before. • Be careful doing that or you will get labeled or diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder. • When going to the future, create hope !

46. Michael Hall about Time – • There’s an intelligence (or lack thereof) to our relationship to these temporal (time) concepts. • Healthy IQ and EQ relates to time in several ways: • Being able to live in the now with an eye on the future… • While using the past for learnings… • We have a great strategy for “time”.

47. Unresourceful Meaning Frames: • I am afraid my problem is permanent. • It has always been this way. No one can help me. • I am not making progress. It is useless. • I can’t live in the now with a past like I had. • My future will be filled with the same old pain as the past. Nothing changes.

48. By letting Christ be the center of our lives, we have a dynamic relationship with this concept called Time.(#4 Time).

49. He gives us Eternal Life. • John 3:16 • Romans 14:8 ““For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.”

50. Is “time” irrelevant? • Romans 8:18 , “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” • By being crucified with Christ, having our meaning from Him makes time irrelevant for we are in Him the timeless one.