“When you’re born, you look like your parents. But when you die, you look like your choices.” These are the final words of Dr. Crawford Loritts’s message at Passion City Church this past weekend entitled “Wind In My Sails”.
It is a must-listen to message which you can do in the video above.
The following are 5 Core Choices You Must Make Not To Be Driven By Your Emotions And Circumstances from Crawford Loritts’s Message At Passion City Church I captured from the video above.
Introductory Statements
- “What do you do when the wind is knocked out of you?”
- “Arrogance and pride is so ludicrously ridiculous… The truth of matter is we control categorically nothing. We’re one text message away from devastation.”
- “How do we not be branded by discouragement.”
- “Disappointment is what it is. You can be disappointed but not be discouraged. Disappointment means an expectation has not been met.”
- “Depression means you have gone beneath the hope-line… You have lost hope. It can be anger turned inward.”
- “Discouragement does not necessarily mean you’re depressed. It means a lot more than you’re disappointed. It means you’ve taken a gut punch.”
- “All of us are going to get discouraged. We’re all going to feel the punch.”
- “We’ve all meant people who are tainted with the negative. They are tainted with the negative for self-protection.”
- “Our problem in our culture today is we think with our feelings.”
- “It is the choices and decisions I make when the wind is not out of me that will determine the trajectory of my emotional attitude and outlook.”
- “Your emotions are great passengers but they are horrible drivers.”
- “The mind and your will need to guide your emotions.”
I Must Choose Truth
- “Choose the truth of God’s Word over how I feel.”
- “One of problems as Christians in this culture is the Bible has become a point of reference rather than the context of our lives.”
- “The Bible, God’s Word, is your life. You have to decide that this is the governor of our life.”
- “We have to reign in our feelings and thoughts and open this Book and read what is says.”
- “You have to choose the Bible to be your delight.”
- “You need to talk to yourself more than you listen to yourself.”
I Have To Choose Joy
- “Our joy and rejoicing have to be independent of our circumstances. Joy is tied to and lodged in that which cannot be affected.”
- “You can weep over bad circumstances and yet be joyful.”
- “To many of us are procrastinating our joy until our circumstances change… When you do that you have just committed idolatry because you’ve elevated your circumstances to determine your outlook. God determines how we look at things.”
I Have To Choose Faith
- “Their faith defied their circumstances.” – Referring to the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews
- “Faith in the Bible is never denial.”
- “Faith in the Bible does not deny bad stuff but it defies it… It looks through it to see the God that’s greater than and sees this is not the ultimate reality.”
- “The only way to develop faith is to embrace opposition.”
- “Your faith is only theoretical if you don’t have that which is coming against you.”
- “Faith in the Bible is desperation… Desperation in the Bible is about the passionate pursuit of Jesus.”
- “Oftentimes we seek God when our foundation is shaken, only to discover it’s God who is shaking them… to develop an appetite for the Ancient of Days.”
- “Bad news should drive us to Jesus.”
- “You only touch Jesus when you’re desperate. Too many Christians are handling (not touching) Jesus and that’s why they’re not getting the answers that they want. Jesus has become a cultural icon rather than the resurrected, living Savior. Apart from Him we can do categorically, absolutely nothing. We’ve got to get to Jesus.”
- “Bad news is a call to commune with Savior.”
You Choose Community
- “I am an introvert that loves people… I don’t get my energy from people.”
- “The downside of introverts is sometimes when I get discouraged I keep my counsel too long. We’re called to community.”
- “You can’t God as your Father without the church as your mother.”
- “You cannot experience sanctification apart from community.”
- “God has no lone wolf Christians. If you’re by yourself, over the long haul, nothing good happens. You get into distorted thinking.”
- “Bad news is a call to humility. We need to acknowledge we don’t have it all together… We need our brothers and sisters. We need a safe place to weep and cry and say how bad we feel.”
I Need To Choose Service
- “There are times and seasons in all our lives where you can’t stop… You have to show up.”
- “It is during these times you don’t want to produce, you don’t want to give, you feel like running away, you have no option. Tears become holy fertilizer that causes a bumper crop to grow.”
- “The most fruitful times in my life in ministry, more times than not, have been times of hardness where by faith I just had to keep going.”
- “So who told you to quit? It is the resurrected life of Jesus, Jesus living His life in and through us, that as we feel like fainting, when we feel like giving up, it is at that moment Jesus rises up in us and says, ‘You can take another step.'”
Conclusion
- “When you’re born, you look like your parents. But when you die, you look like your choices.”
- “What are we choosing and who are we choosing to look like?”
After listening to and reading Crawford’s thoughts, what choices do you need to make today so you are not driven by your emotions and circumstances?
The Top 100 Leadership Quotes From 2020 is my latest ebook. The wisdom contained in these pages from top business leaders, pastors, coaches, and superlative thinkers sustained countless leaders in the most turbulent year anyone can remember. If you want to be the best leader you can possibly be, click HERE or on the image provided to download this FREE resource. The lessons learned from last year, if applied, will sustain you for years to come.