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Hey, are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.
You have to change your mind first. And my friend, there's a place where the neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with
faith and everything starts to make sense.
That place is called self brain surgery. You can learn it and it will help you become healthier, feel better and be happier.
And the good news is, you can start today.
Thanks, Lisa. Hey, so glad to have you listening today. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I live in Nebraska
in the United States of America with my incredible wife, Lisa,
my father-in-law, Tata, and the super pups, Harvey and Louis.
I'm a neurosurgeon and an author, and I'm here to help you harness neuroscience,
the power of your brain, faith, the power of your spirit, and good old common sense to help you lead a healthier,
better, happier life.
Listen, friend, you can't change your life until you change your mind,
and I'm here to help you learn the art of self brain surgery to get it done.
If you like the show, please subscribe so you never miss an episode and tell your friends about it.
If you tell two or three friends this podcast was helpful to you,
imagine how much good we can all do around the world together.
I'm Dr. Lee Warren and I'm here to help you change your mind so you can change your life. Let's get after it.
Good morning, my friend. Hope you're doing well. And today is Mind Change Monday.
I'm gonna give you three little ideas. They don't seem connected to each other,
but three little ideas that you need to change your mind about, okay?
One of them is to change your mind about the idea that this common misperception people say all the time,
God won't give you more than you can handle.
It turns out to be false, but that's good news. Number two, a little idea about redemption
and what it means to actually know that you've been redeemed.
You don't have to carry the shame and guilt and fear and anxiety of the past and mistakes
and that you're not good enough and all those things.
You've been redeemed and there's a good reason to know.
And the last one, that when you have a burden that seems impossible to carry, God will carry it for you.
We'll get back to neuroscience late this week, but this is an idea, three ideas you need
to change your mind about.
Since it's Mind Change Monday, it's a good decision for today to want you to understand
and know with all your heart that when you face something that you can't handle, there's always somebody right there
to help you handle it and carry it for you and redeem it for you so you can use that thing
that happened as a new story to change the way rest of your life plays out and improve your impact for the rest of your life on
other people to tell a better story than you're able to tell on your own and to,
help you as always my friend start today.
So I often hear people say quote God won't give you more than you can handle.
The notion is that God will never allow anything into our lives that's beyond our ability to bear it.
And I'm just here to tell you a little bit of bad news, friend.
That statement that God won't give you more than you can handle is not a biblical concept.
It is not in the Bible, and it is, in my opinion, a false teaching.
It's a misunderstanding and a misapplication of Scripture.
The idea that God won't give you more than you can handle, from what I can ascertain, largely comes from a misquote,
and misinterpretation of a scripture, 1 Corinthians 10.13.
1 Corinthians 10.13 says this, no temptation has overtaken you
except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful.
He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.
But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.".
Now understand, that scripture is not talking about God not allowing things into your life
that are more than you can handle alone.
That's not what it's talking about. It's specifically talking about the fact that when you are tempted by sin,
God will always provide an opportunity for you to not sin in that circumstance.
And the verse even further says that no temptation will come to you except what is common to man.
In other words, the things that we are tempted around,
the things that we are tempted by in our lives in order to sin are fairly common
among culture, race, gender, and time.
Sex, money, power, deceit, deception, self-advancement, greed, all those things
that we tend to be tempted by are common among all people.
And what God is saying to you, You're not gonna be tempted in any way that is unique to you.
You are not singled out in the world that's gonna face a temptation that is impossible to overcome.
And the second part of that promise is, so the first part is, hey,
the stuff that you're tempted by in your life, everybody else is tempted by too.
So don't think that you're uniquely being singled out to suffer some unavoidable temptation to sin.
That's not what it is.
The second part is, and God is faithful with every temptation, He will open a door,
he will tug on your conscience, he will give you some avenue
where you don't have to fall into that sin trap.
If you're meeting somebody in a hotel to do something that you ought not to be doing
with that person, there's gonna be a moment.
There's going to be a moment when your heart says, hey, I need to get out of here.
Hey, moron, you need to leave. You're about to blow up your family.
Hey, you need to stop this right now. If you are about to embezzle from your employer,
there's gonna be a moment where your conscience says, hey, you could go to jail over this,
or, hey, you shouldn't do this, hey, stop that right now, hey, give that money back.
If you're about to tell a lie, there's gonna be a moment where you say,
gosh, is this really what I should do? Shouldn't I just tell the truth?
You're going to have an opportunity to escape.
That's what the promise is, okay? Sin never comes along in a way that tempts you
beyond your ability to bear it,
never tempts you beyond something that is relatively common to other people,
and there was never an opportunity to sin that God won't give you an opportunity not to sin.
Nowhere in that scripture, however, does it say that you won't be faced with some circumstance
or some trial or some problem that you can't handle on your own.
And I can tell you from having lived life for a long time that there are some things that you cannot handle.
And God forbid that if you lose a child, if your beautiful, brilliant son is stabbed to death,
you can't handle that on your own.
You can't. You can't bear that without some help.
If you undergo certain things, you need God's help to get through those things.
And there are some things that will come along in your life that you can't handle by yourself.
Matthew 11, 28 through 30 says this, "'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,
"'and I will give you rest.
"'Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, "'for I am gentle and humble in heart,
"'and you will find rest for your souls, "'for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.'"
What is God saying here?
What is Jesus saying here? He's saying, your life is gonna give you some stuff
that's too heavy for you to carry, but I can carry it.
Let me give you something to carry that you can carry, and I'll take what you're carrying that you can't carry.
That's what he's saying.
There are some things, my friend, that come along in life that you can't handle on your own.
What does God want from you? 1 Peter 5, 7 says this,
cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
He's saying, hey, there's stuff you can't handle. There's stuff that's so big
that you can't even worry about it on your own. So throw it off to me.
Let me take it. I'll give you something you can carry.
If you're listening to this in Brazil or Iran or Alabama or Central America or Canada or somewhere else in the world,
all those are places that people are listening to this show.
If you're listening to this and you're going through something that's hard
and your friend says to you,
God won't give you anything you can't handle, then you might find yourself thinking,
there must be something wrong with me then.
There must be something wrong with my faith because I can't handle this.
I don't know what to do. I can't carry this anymore. You need to hear me say this, friend.
It is not true that the Bible says that God will never give you anything you can't handle.
That is a false teaching, and it will lead to a faith problem if you believe it. It is not true.
God will sometimes put things in your life or allow things into your life that you can't handle on your own. Why?
Because he wants to handle them for you.
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you, friend.
Now I want to change the subject for a second. When I was a little boy in southeastern Oklahoma,
my mom used to, I would go to the grocery store with her, and when you checked out at the grocery store
at the Piggly Wiggly in Broken Bow, Oklahoma in the 70s,
when you checked out, along with your receipt, you usually got a few of what they called
S and H green stamps.
I don't know if you remember green stamps or if they had them in your part of the world
when you were a kid or if you're a lot younger than me, they probably didn't even make them anymore.
So from the research I can do, the Sperry and Hamilton company, S&H, stopped making
the Green Stamp program available to retailers in the late 1980s.
So this doesn't exist anymore.
But what Green Stamps were, basically, is Sperry and Hamilton would go buy stuff from retailers.
Furniture, tools, toys, junk, basically stuff.
And then they would go to grocery stores and retail stores and they would sell these stamps.
And basically, they sold the stamps for more than it cost them to buy the stuff.
And then as a loyalty program for the grocery stores to get better customers or more customers,
I should say, they would give you rewards. Now we call them reward points, and we often get
reward points when we shop. But back then, you got physical green stamps, and you would take
these green stamps, and you would lick them and stick them in a book. And when you filled up a
book, you could go down to what they called the redemption center, and you could trade those
green stamps in for the stuff that Sperry and Hamilton had purchased, whether it might
be a new tool or a mop or a vacuum cleaner or a toy or some clothing or some silverware or something.
There were this whole little, usually a trailer, full of this stuff that you could trade your
green stamps in for. You could redeem them. It was called the Redemption Center.
And I'm talking about green stamps today because I want to read you a verse, Isaiah 44, 22.
God says this, I have swept away your offenses like a cloud.
Your sins like the morning mist, return to me for I have redeemed you.
And just think about that for a second. Now when I was a boy, one of my jobs
that my mom would give me would be to take all the green stamps and tear them out,
and lick them and put them in the book.
And it was a nasty process because the gum on the back of the green stamps
had a taste that wasn't pleasant
and your fingers got sticky and it would stick to the green stamps,
and your tongue would get sore and get distasteful
because of all the goo and the glue on the back of those stamps.
It was an arduous process of doing something in order to be able to redeem those things for something else.
Here in Isaiah, we have God saying, I have swept away your offenses like a cloud.
Okay, friend, there's stuff in your life, there's stuff in my life that when God tries
to deal with it, it doesn't taste very good.
I've told lies, I've been dishonest before, I've made bad decisions, I've made poor financial decisions,
I've had trouble in my life in different ways, and so have you.
And when God tries to clean that up and tries to put it in the book so he can redeem it,
it costs him something, it's arduous, and it doesn't taste very good,
and it's not very easy for him.
And when he redeems it, he's done that by shedding the blood of his son who never sinned.
So God says, I have redeemed you, I've done this thing for you.
When I was a kid, and we wanted to redeem the green stamps, we had to do the work.
But God says, I've done that for you. I have redeemed you. So I'm telling you that because I want you
to think about the idea that there's a reason why God will allow things into your life
that you can't handle.
And it's because he wants you to come to the realization. He wants you to come to a locked gate
or an insurmountable obstacle where you recognize that you can't get through
this life on your own.
Where you've got to get to a place where you say, Lord, you gotta take this from me
because I can't carry it anymore. You've got to lift this because I can't lift it.
You've gotta redeem this because I can't.
And God's saying, you don't have to do anything except surrender and let me have it.
You don't have to lick the stamps, I've already done that. You don't have to redeem it in the trailer
because I did it on the cross.
And you don't have to worry about this thing that you can't handle, because I can handle it.
The last thought is about my book, I've Seen the End of You.
Now I wrote this book, I've Seen the End of You, a neurosurgeon's look at faith, doubt,
and the things we think we know.
And part of the metaphor is when I look at a scan and I see the brain tumor and I think I know,
what's gonna happen over the course of that patient's life because I've seen that tumor so many times before.
I think I know when the radiation and chemotherapy are gonna come and when your hair's gonna fall out
and when you're ultimately gonna have a tumor recurrence. and I think I know when you're gonna die.
Let me just tell you something.
There is something, there is somebody who actually has seen the end of you,
and it's not Lee Warren, because I'm not always right.
Read the book and you'll see that.
But when God says, I've seen the end of you, he knows it, he knows what he's talking about.
In Isaiah 46.10, God says, I make known the end from the beginning.
From ancient times, what is still to come. I say, my purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please. Friend, God has seen the end of you.
And I'm not saying that in a negative way, that should actually comfort you.
Why, why should it comfort you? Because God says, even though he knows the end,
he's also promised to be there all the way through.
The same chapter, Isaiah 46, up in verse four, God says this, even to your old age and gray hairs,
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you, and I will carry you. I will sustain you, and I will rescue you.
And that, my friend, is great comfort to a man who lost his son when he was 44.
Because I can tell you that I'm carrying that as much as I've tried to get God to lift it.
There are days, Sunday was Mitch's birthday, February 9th would have been his 26th birthday.
And I am still very much carrying the weight of having lost my son.
And God says, you know what, Lee?
When you're an old man, you're still gonna be sad about losing your son, and I'm gonna be there to carry you.
I'm going to sustain you, and I'm going to rescue you from that, and that's great comfort, my friend.
Here's how this all ties together, friend.
God will absolutely give you more than you can handle because he wants you to come to the place in your life
where you run into a locked gate,
an insurmountable obstacle, something you cannot carry or get around,
overcome, or get through on your own.
Of all people, I recently heard an interview with Kobe Bryant.
After he passed away, a lot of people were posting things about him,
and one of the things that I saw, I didn't know much about Kobe Bryant
except that he was a great basketball player.
And I remembered that he had been through a really public difficulty with his marriage
when he frankly had made some mistakes.
And ultimately, I think he reconciled that.
But apparently, he also was a Christian who basically found his way again
in the days and months after that public shaming
that he went through.
And what Kobe Bryant said, and he said it to Stephen A on an ESPN Live interview,
he said something to the effect of,
When you need to pick up the cross and it's too heavy for you and God picks it up and carries
it for you, that's when you know that you can't make it in your life without God.
So take it from Kobe Bryant, even if you can't take it from me, there is going to come a time
when something happens in your life that you can't handle without some external power,
without some help from God. You are going to run into something that you can't handle.
And the way that your life plays out after that will be determined largely in your response
to that moment when you need to cry out for help. Are you willing to do that,
or are you not willing to do that?
I am thankful, and God will make you come to a place where you have to recognize that he will take it from you.
He took it from me, and I'm super grateful for that.
And I want you to be too. I want you to come to the place where you're grateful
that he bothered to do that sticky, distasteful, messy work to redeem you, to fill that book up
with all the stuff from your life, even though he'd seen the beginning,
he'd seen the end of it from the beginning,
even though he knew how yucky that process can be sometimes of taking the stuff out of our lives
that doesn't belong there and lifting that stuff away from us that we can't carry on our own.
Even though that's a hard process, praise be to God, We don't have to do it on our own.
He's done it for us.
I want us to be grateful that God was willing to take that process on Himself,
to lift those burdens from us and redeem us.
He wants us to get to the place where we understand that He has seen the end of us,
and His promise is that He will be there with us all the way through it.
He wants to be there for you, to carry the cross for you, to handle what you can't handle,
And He wants you to start believing that He will.
That when you feel like you've seen the end of yourself, that you've really only just seen the beginning.
I want you to change your mind so you can change your life. And the most important thing is to settle the matter today.
Isaiah chapter one, the very first chapter of that book, he says, come now, let us settle the matter.
Though your sins were as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
So God is saying, I'm gonna take care of you. All the stuff that's hurting you,
all the stuff that's limiting you, all the stuff that's weighing you down,
I can take care of it for you, and I've seen the end of you,
and I'm gonna be there with you all the way through,
and I'm gonna redeem this big, sticky, bad-tasting mess for you if you'll just let me,
if you'll just settle it.
So today, friend, settle it.
When you can't handle the things that come along in your life,
it's time to let go and give them to the one who can handle them.
I didn't mean for this to be a gospel sermon today, but I felt heavy on my heart
that this message was necessary for somebody in some part of the world, somewhere,
even if it's just for me, because sometimes,
especially a day or two after my son's birthday, I need to be reminded that God can, in fact,
handle and carry those things.
So friend, when you can't handle the things that come along in your life, it is time to let go,
and give them to the one who can.
It's time to redeem those stamps, my friend, because you can't change your life
until you change your mind and the good news is you can start today.
Music.
And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at wlewarrenmd.com slash prayer.
The theme music for this week's show is Dr. Lee Warren's Doctor Lee Warren.
And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at wlewarrenmd.com slash prayer.
And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at wlewarrenmd.com slash prayer.
And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at wlewarrenmd.com slash prayer.
And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at wlewarrenmd.com slash prayer.
And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at wlewarrenmd.com slash prayer.
And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall The theme music for the show is Make Us One by Tommy Walker,
graciously provided for free by the great folks over at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.
Check it out and consider supporting them, TommyWalkerMinistries.org.
Remember, you can't change your life until you change your mind,
and the good news is you can start today. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, I'll talk to you soon.
God bless you, friend. Have a great day.
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