Study Notes

I.      You can’t build a new image with the old one still standing

A.    Don’t build an altar to God next a Baal altar (Don’t put a clean diaper over a dirty one)

1.     Judges 6:1-16, 22-26, 7:3,12-16, 8:4-9,14-21

a.    6-7 years of poverty puts an image in you

b.    11-They usually thresh the wheat on threshing floors, but the Midianites would see that so he’s threshing it in a wine press to hide it---His image

c.     12-Mighty man of Valor is not his image, but God’s trying to put that in him

(1)      When that word comes forth it bumps into an old image

d.    15-He’s supposed to be the seed of Abraham (who defeated armies with 314 men and was abundantly rich), but he’s got the image of his “family”

(1)      The poor image came from his family; but they’re all the seed of Abraham

(2)      His family put that in him (Gen 12-God told Abraham leave your family)

e.    22-He not conscious of being the seed of Abraham, but he’s conscious of dying if you see God, why? Because that’s what they talked about

f.      25-Tear down the altar to Baal before you build one for Jehovah

(1)      That Baal alter brought poverty

2.     Judges 7:2-Don’t take a broke image into battle with you

a.    13-After all those fleeces Gideon still isn’t sure

b.    15-When he heard that dream, it put the image on the inside of him and immediately his words change

3.     Judges 8:4-9-He’s got a victory image now

a.    18-He’s looking like a King outside because he’s a king inside

b.    20-His son was afraid because for the past 7 years his daddy put that in him

B.     The are strongholds (images, poverty mentality) that get built up in our mind through our experiences, exposures, and instruction (2 Cor 10:5)

1.     Stronghold-Fortresses of thought (ways of thinking), built by what you’ve been exposed to, designed to trap you in a way of life

2.     EX: Bold Eagle and a buzzard

C.    The seed of God’s word bumps into a broke image that’s been built up over the years

1.     In a lot of believers minds there’s a middle class stronghold; a paycheck to paycheck, just enough stronghold; and they can’t see themselves as ever being rich

2.     Those strongholds are designed to trap them in a why life financially

D.    If Satan can plant something (build a stronghold) in you, he can trap you in a way of life

1.     Even though there is scriptures about God’s will for you to be rich, he knows it, but he wants to build/plant something else in you to trap you in a lifestyle that opposes God’s will for your life

2.     The last thing he wants is for someone stand up here a preach something that’s going challenge that stronghold

3.     The spiritual warfare is this: Can he, through experiences, exposure, and teaching build a stronghold in you that opposes the Word?

E.     3-The battle is not in the physical, natural realm – (Just like in Numbers 13)

1.     We’ve thought the battle was physical; you’ve thought I can’t be rich because I work here or because of this or that.  But what I’m here to tell you is that your financial prosperity has nothing to do with where you work or what’s going in the natural realm, but everything to do with the image you have and the seed you sow.

a.    You’re not broke because of your job, your broke because of your image

2.     The battle is inside; the biggest enemy is your inner-me

a.    There is a stronghold in you right now that was created to trap in a way of life

b.    If you’re going to prosper to the degree that God wants you to you’re going to have to go after that stronghold  

c.     You target that stronghold the way a guy with a rocket launcher would target a building.  You fire the Word of God at that thing until it comes down.

F.     4-Your weapons are not carnal-bodily, temporal, pertaining to the flesh

1.     Don’t bring carnal weapons to a spiritual battle

a.    You want to get another job, change jobs, ask for a raise, refinance, invest, but those are carnal weapons.  You can get a new job and do all of that, but your image is going where you go.  And that’s why you did something in the natural and thought it would make a difference only to find out that you’re about where you were before you did that thing.  It might even have helped temporarily, but before you know it you’re life is back to the image you have.

2.     This Word has the power to destroy that stronghold and it’s your weapon

G.   4,5-You pull down strong holds by:

1.     Casting down imaginations that exalt themselves against the Word

a.    Destroying & demolishing (that takes power) thoughts that oppose the Word

b.    One of the main problems with this is that most people don’t even know what God’s Word says about them financially, so when something exalts itself against that Word they don’t know it and they just take it and before long they’ve got stronghold of it, that the word didn’t build

c.     Every thought that rises up against what God’s word says you got to destroy with the Word of God coming out of your mouth (How to destroy a thought)

(1)      Any bill, circumstance, person that transmits a thought that’s not in line with the Word has to come to down

2.     Then bring (force into submission) your thoughts into obedience to the Word

a.    You force yourself to think this way  

II.     Paint a new image

A.    You’re going to have to go to the paint of God’s word, use the brush of your tongue, and paint an image on the canvas of your heart that you are a rich man (Psalm 45:1)

1.     You have to take the thought and say it until you don’t have to think to say it (Philippians 4:8-Fix/Attach your mind, Matthew 6:31)

2.     You do that until the word in you becomes more real than the world out of you

3.     EX: In my eyes I was rich long before I had any money

B.     Meditation’s the tool through which we create a new image; key to inner transformation

1.     Josh 1:8-His victory wasn’t determined by the strength of his opponent, but by what was going on in his heart

a.    Meditate so that you can observe/see to do

(1)      Meditate the word to see yourself rich and then do rich

b.    Meditate-Utter a sound, thoughtful deliberation with the implication of speaking to oneself, to imagine, to speak, to talk

2.     Don’t take a broke image into battle

a.    It seems like we’ve been trudging through the mud financially because we’re taking a broke image into this financial battle

b.    You give and tithe and little happens; You can’t sow and tithe w/ a broke image and then stand in holy wonderment about why you don’t prosper

c.     Psalm 1:1-3-No matter where I go I’m bringing my prosperous soul with me

3.     2 Corinthians 3:18-That image is going to change as you look at the right thing

a.    We look in this Word, it’s going to change us inside and then on the outside

b.    What you behold will put the same thing in you and that’s what you’ll become

c.     If you’re looking into a mirror that’s reflecting a broke image back to you, you’ll become what you behold; somebody is trying to tell who you are

4.     8 Meditation Keys (You’re allowing the Holy Spirit to make the word a reality in your heart)

a.    Separation is key in meditation

b.    Meditate the Word with purpose

c.     Speak the Word out loud; this controls your thoughts

d.    Apply the Word to yourself personally

e.    Place yourself in agreement with what the Word says about you

f.      Dwell on how that changes your situation

g.    See yourself as the Word says you are

h.     Remember the blood covenant and that God can’t lie

C.    Matt 12:33-37-Believing and speaking is how you got into this thing and is how it works

1.     33-Make the tree good-Make the image rich and prosperous

a.    The tree determines the type of fruit, the image determines the type of life

b.    The tree is known by its fruit and your image is known by the life it produced

2.     34-You’re going to speak based on and from the image in your heart (Numbers 14)

a.    This can’t just come out of your head, it has to come out of your heart

3.     35-You bring forth things from your heart

a.    37-By your words you’re justified and condemned (Mark 11:23)

D.    Your words and your image are hindering your money seed; they are stout against it

1.     You’re sowing seed, but your image and your words are disabling & crippling it

a.    It’s like praying a prayer and talking against what you prayed

2.     You’re money seed independent of the Word seed has no future

a.    If you have no word in you, then you’ll have a broke image you won’t speak faith words and that money-seed won’t harvest or will harvest little

3.     The Word is the seed that’s going to change your inner image (Luke 8:11)

4.     The money seed is responsible for multiplying and coming back to you, but only to the level of the image that you have and the words you speak (Luke 6:38)