Talk Notes
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to The Overflow Podcast. My name is Craig Booker. The title of this episode is Start With Who.
A lot of the material for this week’s episode was inspired by Pastor Craig Groeshel’s book The Power to Change Mastering the Habits That Matter Most.
Note: I will talk a lot about mental health, but please note this is not a substitute for therapy or mental health care. I am not a counselor or a physician. If you need help with mental health challenges, please find a qualified mental health professional.
The title of this episode is Start With Who. In the last episode, we talked about Called To Who Before Do. In this section of the book, Craig Groeschel starts out talking about how he has a thing for nicknames. And so you know if you work with him he says you will end up with a nickname. You might not like it, but that’s his thing. So it’s a very light-hearted fun story.
And you know if we look back at the Bible, you will see on many occurrences that God has a pattern of changing people’s names we can see that Abram became Abraham Sarai became Sarah Jacob became Israel, and Simon became Peter.
So Abraham Abram’s new name means father of many nations. Sarah which is Sarai’s new name. Sarah means princess or mother of nations. Jacob means supplanter. He was the second born. He tricked his father Isaac into giving him Esau’s blessing. We have Gideon. The angel showed up and said the Lord is with you mighty warrior. And that was Judges 6:12.
So why did God change people’s names?
This is a quote from Craig Groeschel and it says, “Because he knew who they truly were, who they would become, and what they needed to do.”
Abraham and Sarai were going to have children and become the father and mother of the nation of Israel Jacob’s children would become the original 12 tribes of Israel Gideon would become the mighty warrior who led God’s people into battle against the midianites Peter would become a foundation a stabilizing influence for the early church all right in the book Craig Groeschel says God changed their names because change starts with your identity you do what you do because of what you think of you for them to do what they needed to do first they had to think the right thing about themselves he goes on to say for you to do what you need to do for you to change you first need to think the right thing about yourself you need to know your true identity understand your true identity and start with your identity you start with who not do why because your identity drives your behavior if you don’t start with your identity any Behavior change you make won’t last all right so we have an exercise and it says complete this open-ended sentence with true aspects of your life if today I lost blank I would feel totally lost and not know what to do some examples he provides is a job money social status a talent or a skill and next one he says describe how each aspect of your life you wrote down is connected to who you are your identity and not just what you do how can you turn each one of them each one from do to who and how can you surrender that aspect of your life to the point where if God took it away you’d still be okay so lots of questions there um another example for this part what he says I feel like my career has become who I am not just what I do but if I if I got let go or could could no longer work I would still be a child of God still have my life my calling and family I would still have the most important things in my life so the principle for this section says to change you need to think about the right thing about yourself know your true identity and start your identity with who not do in Philippians 1 6 of the NLT it says I am certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Closing
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