and we can unlock our true potential and step into the fullness of God's plan for our lives. - Mm-hmm. - And we gotta know that today. So thank you for tuning in to Mind Matters. - Welcome to Mind Matters with Dr. J. A. Jones. Dr. Jones is the head pastor of the Faith Community Church of God in Orange Park, Florida. Relationships, finances, our spiritual life, whatever it is, our problems start within in our minds. - Dr. Jones explores mental wellness through the application of God's word in our lives. It's just what the doctor ordered. Let's join him now and dig into Mind Matters because your mind matters to God. - Welcome back to Mind Matters. I hope you had a wonderful day today and we're moving forward in life, moving forward with this particular year. Today we're gonna do part two as relates to the dynamics of relationships, friendships, work relationships, marriage, personal growth, and so on and so on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But we're gonna talk about how to navigate relationship with grace, you know, with God's help. And we can overcome challenges because of that. I have with me a special guest, my wife, that has been with me for many years, many moons. You wanna share anything today? - No, it's good to be here and address these challenges. - Absolutely, absolutely. Challenges, you know, I play a certain sport and when I'm in this particular sport at back in the day, this is back in the day. And one of the guys as we're playing this particular sports is four of us playing together, he don't view problems as problems. He said, opportunities. - That's good. - He said, opportunity. Okay, the next opportunity, you know, opportunity to face the challenge and deal with the problem. - Okay. - So that's how we wanna look at it today, as we navigate relationships. - Opportunity. - These opportunities come up and I used to love when he said it, it makes us all smile in the court back in the day and, but today, I want our audience to know that we all can overcome every problem and every challenge by looking at it maybe as an opportunity. - Yeah, yeah, the word talks about our trials and tribulations come to make us strong. - Yes. - So this is our opportunities to grow. Instead of looking at old goodness in a negative way. - Yes. - Look at it as an opportunity to grow. - Yes, absolutely. And last week we talked about don't let your problems override God's promises, don't let your feelings supersede your faith. That was the first point. The second point was life would give you what you fight for. - Yeah. - My goodness, that was good to me. Now today we wanna pick it up as overcoming blind spots. - Yeah, that's gotta be good. - It's gonna be good. - Oh yeah. - You know, this point is so important because when we confront the blind spots that hinder our progress and limit our perception of ourselves and our capabilities, we find ourselves in a better and a best place in life. Relationships, finances, in our health, in our careers, and that's so important. The Bible says this in Psalms 139, "Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me, and know my anxious thoughts, point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life." - Wow. Now it's good that you said with the blind spots, you know, and the scripture says, "Search me, O God." - Oh, absolutely. - Because it's our blind spots and a lot of times when things happen, we'll say somebody called us off guard and we'll look at the person and try to figure out why did they do this and what's wrong with them and all of this kind of things we called us unexpected or our situation called us unexpectedly. But here it is, it says, "Search me, O God, and know my heart, and test me, and know my anxious thoughts. It's all about us, those opportunities." - Yes, absolutely, absolutely. - It was the opportunity that caught us off guard, those blind spots. We didn't see that coming. - We didn't see it coming. - It's over. - But God can give us that awareness. - Yes. - And we're gonna talk about it more in depth as we go through the show today. - Yeah, it shows us ourselves. - Absolutely. Just from a practical standpoint, it's an blind spot definition, what's the definition? It's an area where a person's view is obstructed, right? The angle, for example, like the angle rear view mirror eliminates blind spots on both sides of the car. If you're in your vehicle, it's an area in which a person's lack understanding and impartiality, right? For example, we'll say John, we'll say Ray, we'll say Pookie, we'll say Boo Boo, we'll say June Bug. He had a blind spot where these ethical issues were concerned, okay? So he lacked some things going on. Just like a vehicle, most of us drive or ride in a car with somebody or some type of transportation, but just like a vehicle, the side view mirror can help us to know that there's another vehicle in our blind spot so we won't have an accident. - Right. - That means be careful, be it pay attention. - Don't try to go over. - Absolutely, because in life, we have blind spots that we cannot see sometimes. We just can't see it. The scripture says that the God of this world has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. To overcome certain blind spots, we must believe the truth instead of lies from our past because the past is the past. The present is the present and the future is what it's gonna be, right? Somebody said yesterday's history tomorrow is a mystery and the only thing that you and I have is today. So we have to take advantage of today. And sir, ma'am, I hope as you're listening that you're taking advantage of this particular thought today as relates to navigating relationship with grace, but understanding you can overcome blind spots. - Yes, God shows us our blind spots through the Holy Spirit. He will show us things to come. - Yes. - 'Cause the enemy loves to work in those blind spots. And he wants to throw us off and then we have a choice. We can walk in denial. - Okay, okay. - We can look at somebody else or we can own up to our face ourselves in the mirror or the, you know, - Sure. - Look at ourselves and see or ask ourselves, how can, oh, I didn't know that about myself. - Absolutely. - That is why we need one another. - Yes. - You know, somebody else can see what we don't see. - Yeah, just like, for example, if something was crawling on you, you can't see it, but you can feel it. - Yeah. - And you say, is something crawling on me? Is something on my back? - Right. - Or something in my hair. - Right. - And I say, yes. So I get it out because there's a blind spot. It's something you cannot see. - Right. - Sometimes it's a blind spot that we can feel, but we can't actually see it clearly. So God put people in our life, in our marriage, work relationships, church relationships, friendships to expose or to bring an awareness to the blind spot that we may have. That could cause us harm. That could cause us to get in an accident. That could cause us to be in a place we don't need to be because God wants us to know our blind spots and think about it, what you're saying and what we're saying today, audience, I'm so glad you have tuned in to Mind Matters, sir. Ma'am, thank you. I do appreciate you listening to this radio show. We all need somebody in our life that help us to see our blind spots. - But then we shouldn't take offense and jump on the person that's trying to help us out. - No, absolutely. No, absolutely. - We should be grateful that they can see something that we don't see and not criticize them and jump on them and look at them as the enemy. - Right. - As your enemy, especially in a marriage. - No, absolutely. - And you're working together. - Fatigue? - No, you're a team. - Yes, we are a team. - You're a team. - You're doing life together. - Yes. - And when one person points out something in the other, you know, don't think they're trying to bring you down or attack you or whatever they're trying to make you better or make you aware of what you cannot see. - When you say God shows us our blind spots, through the Holy Spirit, you know, what avenue that may come by, somebody else? - Yes. - Another person, right, an individual, because the Bible is all about one another, right? It says pray for one another, love one another, bear one another's burden, so fulfill the law of God. The Bible said, encourage one another. - Right. - So just like if it's a bug crawling on you, I've heard you in years past, oh, get it off. I don't want that on me or a second child, for sure, if she had something on her, she'd turn her back around, dad, just get it off, get it off, I don't want that crawling on me. And a lot of times, she's what, no? - She has grown. - She has grown. She has mature. - Yeah, before she would have caused a car accident. - Absolutely. - If there was a bug in the car, but now she's learned to control herself and pull over. - Absolutely. - And just pull over and deal with it that way. But you're right when the scripture said in 1 Corinthians chapter two, the spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. Who, for who knows a person's thoughts, except their own spirit within them. In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God, except the spirit of God. That's why we have to have a relationship with God, vertically, come on now, vertically, that we can stay in contact and intact with God, so he can show us horizontally our blind spots through somebody else, or during our private time, our devotional time. Sometimes while you're sleeping, God can reveal some things about us, about our blind spots, things that we should have seen, but we haven't seen, until we went to sleep and we had a good dream. And God spoke to us in our dream. God would deal with you in your dream. God would give you wisdom and give you direction. And that's so important for everybody to know, because as we're talking about these blind spots, they are clear to God, but they may not be clear to us. - Right. And also, even if you point out something to a person, say you're married, you point out something to them, and they react. - And emotional. - Right. - Okay. - Okay, but later on, the Holy Spirit will confirm what they said to you. - Okay. - Now, even though they reacted to you, you know, you can't, don't let me say it this way. Offense is something that you decide you want to take. - Okay, offense. - Offense, okay. - Offense is something you decide if you're going to take it or not. - Okay. - Or receive it or not. - Okay. - You want to decide whether you're going to be offended or not. - Okay. - That's something on you personally. - Right. - You can be offended. - Right. - You can decide not to be offended. - Right. - You know. And just like you pointed out something to the person in their blind spot. - Right. - And they react it. - Yes. - Don't get offended or take offense because they didn't know. - Right. - And they react it. - Sure. - And trust God to confirm what you pointed out to them. - Absolutely. - And so later on, they may come back and apologize then they may not. - Right. - But that's not on you. So you gotta keep your peace. - Absolutely, absolutely. And it's so important what you said because if we get the truth, we gotta live the truth. We get a word that we know is important. We must follow that word. The Bible says don't merely listen to the word if we do we deceive ourselves. We gotta do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. That makes sense, right? - No, it doesn't. - So we must not only just be hearers of truth or hearers of God's word, but you must be a doer of the word of God because through faith and belief in God's truth, we can overcome the lies and limitations imposed by our past experiences and we can unlock our true potential and step into the fullness of God's plan for our lives. If we understand that path and we gotta know that today. So thank you for tuning in to My Matters. We only halfway through the show today, but I want you to know that navigating relationships, it can happen with grace, God's grace. And I want you to know that you can overcome challenges by looking at all of them as opportunities to succeed. - Dr. Jones is the pastor of Faith Community Church of God in Orange Park, reaching a hurting world with the love of Jesus. We thank you for listening to My Matters and we encourage you to show support for the many community outreach ministries that Dr. Jones and Faith Community Church tend to. You can give at Faith Communities website, faithccop.org or just text money sign and the amount you want to give to 833-435-8022. That's 833-435-8022. We are blessed to be a blessing. Now let's get back to the program. - Our next point we wanna talk about is I love it because competition or comparison, I didn't know which one to say, but I'm gonna say both of them. Competition and comparison is a construct, not a concept. I wanna say it one more time. Competition or comparison, in other words, when we feel like we're competing against somebody relationally, financially or in friends or we compare ourselves with somebody else, that's a construct, not a concept. A construct is something we came up with. A construct is something that somebody said we should do and how we should do it. Or we learned it from somebody else. Because some lessons in life are cult and some lessons in life are taught. So when I say a competition or comparison, many times they're called by what we watch on television. How we look at social media, the news. If we don't get the likes we want on Facebook or on our Instagram account, because we're comparing our numbers with somebody else's numbers, we're comparing me as a leader in the spiritual society and the church. In our church, this particular denomination, some things I like, some things I don't. I don't compare myself with any other church, right? Because what God has for me, it is for me. We never should try to compare ourselves with numbers. If some church has a thousand members and we have, we'll say 150 members. Oh, we're not doing what we should be doing. Not, that's not the truth. Because when I say a construct versus a concept, a concept is a principle. I'm looking at concepts as a principle that is sure that God put in place for us and how we should live. So this point that we're gonna be talking about right now is it challenges the notion of competition and it reminds us of our unique identity and purpose in God's design. Because society pressures us to perform and try to act like somebody else. You know, back in the day when Michael Jordan was very popular, what was that commercial? I wanna be like Mike. I wanna be like Mike. Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, his heir, Jordan, his tennis shoes and all of that, people wanted to be like Mike. - Right. - Right, not like themselves, not like their unique identity and people today are still having that same framework of thinking. - That's why they use celebrities to promote different items and for, you know, to sell it. - Sure. - You know, they figure if they have popularity, then somebody's gonna buy that product just to be like that particular celebrity. - Absolutely, you know, Shaq, Shaquille O'Neal, I think the most commercialized athlete on the planet. He's on every commercial, from insurance commercials, from hair products, from insurance. I mean, every time I'm looking at it, he's on there for the most part. But again, they put him, he's a big guy, seven feet tall and he's played basketball professionally. But again, you know, he's promoting the product because he's likable. - Right. - He has maybe a great smile and, you know, he has a persona about himself, but we're not trying to be like Shaquille O'Neal. - Right. - We're not trying to be like Shaq. We gotta be who we are in Christ. - Right. - We gotta become who God wants us to become. We have to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. - Yeah, find out who we are. - Yes. - And walk in that and be the best us that we can be. Good meat. - Yeah, that means we got, I love the word development. We gotta develop ourselves mentally, spiritually, financially, relationally. We gotta develop ourselves with intentionality. We have to be intentional about our life because like you said, society would pressure us and to have a marriage like somebody else, to have friends like somebody else. - Right. - To be like some actors or a singer, you know. - Yeah, I like the analogy that you use a lot about being the piece of the puzzle. - Okay, go ahead. - You know, you got a big picture. - Like a jigsaw puzzle? - Yeah, a jigsaw puzzle. - Okay. - And so every piece is shaped differently when it connects to another piece. - Yes. - But you got to be that piece. - Yes. - You know, however you're shaped. - I like that. - Yeah. To fit when God wants you to fit. - Yes. - And you know, if you try to be like the end piece and you're a middle piece. - Right. - And you shape different than other middle pieces. - Come on now. - You know. - Right. - Something's not gonna work. - Right. We know it won't fit. Sometimes people are trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. - Not gonna. - Or a square peg into a round hole. They just wanna make it fit because that's how their paradigm is. That's how their pattern of thought and thinking has been for years. For example, sometimes people grow up in life, always like to go back to childhood because we are the products or really the result of our childhood. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's not so good, right? - Right, right. - Sometimes a parent may try to live their life vicariously through their child. They want their child to be a baseball star. The child hates baseball. They want their child to be the next gymnast to go to the Olympics, but the child loves to eat. That means they can't be thin. - Right. - You know, I'm just saying. So a lot of times in life, even now, the Bible says don't conform ourselves to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind that we may prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. That's in Romans chapter 12. - Right. - Very important as we move forward. So we should never be in competition with nobody else, whether it's relationships, whether with our money, whether it's with our health, or even in friends or work relationship. - Just be you, but be the best you can be. Come on now. - Yeah, 'cause when you got talking about, it's a construct because when you're trying to be like somebody else, when you're comparing yourself to somebody else, it can distort your life. - Yes. - Just like a puzzle piece. If you put it in the wrong place, it distorts the picture. - Yes. - So competition and comparison, it doesn't fit. - Nope. Not at all. - And so we gotta be who we are and get in touch with the source of our life. - Which is God. - Yes. And he has-- - It's not the universe. - Right. - Go ahead. It's God. - Right. - In the Bible, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. - And he will order our steps, he will guide us, he will lead us. - Yes. - And he'll open doors for us that's meant for us. - Yes. - You know, when somebody else said, "Well, I tried to do that too, but it didn't work for me." - Right. - That it was cause it wasn't for them to go through. It was for you to go through. - Right, like I said, we're trying to construct our lives based on the world standard, or based on our family standard, or based on our friends standard. - Or expectations. - Or expectations from them, no. - And we put a lot of stress on ourselves. - Oh my goodness. - Unnecessary. - Oh, that's a whole nother show. - And then we don't have peace because we're going, just like the words said, don't be conformed to the patterns of this world. - Right. - Other people's expectations of us. God knows why he created us. - Yes. - And while we are here. - Yes. - And who he wants us to touch. - Yes. Absolutely. - And it takes the stress off. - No, absolutely. Because the Bible said in Psalms 139 that we are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. Marvellous are your works. And that our soul knows right well. - Yeah. - And the Bible said in Book of Galatians chapter six, but let each of us examine our own work. And then he will have rejoicing in himself alone. And not in another. For each one share bear his own load. - Wow. - Sir, ma'am, as you're listening to this radio show, I'm so glad you tuned in. God has a path for your life. Don't let nobody put you in a place where you don't need to be mentally, emotionally, relationally or spiritually. Seek God, have a vertical relationship, and he will show you horizontally how to relate to others and how to live your best life. - Yes, your individual life. - Yes. - Your unique life. - Absolutely. - You're a designer original life. - Yes. - 'Cause there's no one else like you. - Not at all, not at all. - I mean, they may be similar, but when you take all the components of who you are. - Right. - You are not like anybody else. - Absolutely. Because when we embrace our individuality and trust in God, perfect design for our lives, we can transcend the need for comparison and competition and focus instead on fulfilling our unique call and destiny. Because we all have a destiny. - Yeah. - I love what you just said, because it's so important for us to have that understanding as we move forward and navigate relationship with grace. - Yeah. - And we all can overcome challenges. - Yes. - Or it's just an opportunity. It's an opportunity. - Right, right, right. - Opportunity, opportunity to succeed. - Yes. - An opportunity to become a better person. - Right, who you are. - Yes. - And God knows you're in from your beginning. - Oh, absolutely. - And so he knows how to take you there. - Right, right. - And what you will encounter along the way. That's just for you. - Absolutely. - Just for you to grow and become more mature and complete the work, well, the Bible used the word perfect, which means complete in which means mature. - Yes. - Right, a lot of times people think that means flawless, but it's not flawless, 'cause no one is flawless. And so we're going to go through our own unique experiences and have our own unique opportunities. - Yes, yes, absolutely. - Because they're for us. - Absolutely. - They told us to make us to be what God has called us, to be what He put us on this earth, to be and to affect someone else's life. We don't want to infect nobody's life, but we want to affect their life for the good. - Oh, absolutely. - So we need each other. - I like what you said, just for what? You? - Yes. - You know, they have a product just for men, where they can color their hair, to color their mustache. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Come on, man. You didn't bend the wall, Mark, and you'd have been to a store, and you didn't got that just for men. You don't like the gray in your head, the gray in your beard, or even a woman, but nevertheless. But I used to use it a long time ago, just for men, right, where you can color your hair and change it to a different color, make it darker, make it lighter, or whatever it may be. But God has a plan just for you. - Yes. - Yeah, the women use dark and love. - Okay, dark and love, whatever it may be. - And guess what? That only takes care of the exterior. - Right. - But we have an interior life. - Yes. - We have an inner life that impacts the outer life. - Yes. - So we got to live a life just for God, because he has a plan just for you. Sir, ma'am, woman, husband, father, leader, God has a plan just for you. You can navigate every relationship with grace, 'cause God would give you more grace. God's grace is something we don't deserve, and God would give it to us in our relationships. Just trust the grace of God. Because whatever God has allowed you to do, wherever relationship he allowed you to be in, he would give you the grace. Thank you for joining with me on Mind Matters. As we conclude our exploration of relationships and success, I want you to remember your thoughts shape your reality and with God at the helm of your life, there are no limits to what you can achieve. Because life gives us opportunities, not just problems, not just circumstances, but as an opportunity for you to succeed and achieve your best place in life. So I really appreciate you being with us today. Audience, and Cindy, thank you. Yes, and as you receive grace from God, freely as you have received, freely give. We'll see you next week. Stay blessed and keep seeking God in all things that you do. Thanks for tuning into another episode of Mind Matters with Dr. J. A. Jones. Be sure to tune in next Sunday at 5 p.m. right here on Praise 107.9. For more insightful discussion about how God's word can get our minds right. You can also hear Dr. Jones preach in person Sundays at 11 a.m. at Faith Community Church of God at 1268 Gainell Avenue in Orange Park, Florida, 32073. Thanks again for listening. Stay mindful and keep striving for improvement because your mind matters to God. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
