Hurt People Hurt People.

January 18, 2020 Gaspar Anastasi

Anger management, Getting past the past, Making positive change, Rejection, Success & victory

The greatest cause of divorce, church splits, family break ups and every kind of broken relationship is “hurt people”. What do I mean by hurt people? People with damaged emotions. They have been affected by family issues passed down by their ancestors; by hurtful things they experienced in childhood; and by their own wrong choices. I know that it’s impossible to go through life without some kind pain and suffering, but some people have had more than their share. These are the ones I classify as “hurt people”.

Hurt people are like time bombs waiting to implode or explode at the first sign of rejection.

Hurt people have certain traits in common such as: deep roots of rejection, low self-esteem, inferiority complexes, perfectionism, self-condemnation and a critical and judgmental spirit, to name a few. These ingredients are a recipe for troubled and broken relationships because the individual has an over-emphasized, magnified, self-centered awareness. An easily offended spirit dominates them.

It’s unintentional.

“Hurt people” hurt people, but not on purpose. The pain they suffer is beyond natural understanding and, because they are often misunderstood, they suffer rejection, adding to the pain they already carry. They look okay on the outside, so you can’t tell how deeply wounded they truly are. It’s like the old saying “you can’t judge a book by its cover”, but when you start reading a few chapters you can size up the whole book pretty quickly.

Hurt people are like time bombs waiting to implode or explode at the first sign of rejection and, if two hurt people are in a relationship together, it’s truly a formula for disaster! It’s just a matter of time until they’re at odds with each other and they’ll eventually separate. Or even worse, they may actually physically hurt/murder each other.

Both people are victims of their own hurts. So there are no winners… just losers. The wounds increase and the cycle just continues. Are you a hurt person?

Here are some identifying signs:

1. You have many broken relationships.

2. You control/manipulate your friends.

3. You’re critical and judgmental of people you are no longer in relationship with or who disagree with you.

4. The people you hang with think like you, so gossip is the foundation of the friendship.

5. Your friendships dwindle and your isolation grows.

Remember, many people carry deep wounds, so you are not alone. It wasn’t your choice to be hurt, but you can choose to get healed. To fix anything you need to first admit that it’s broken.

Here are some suggestions:

1. For a season, avoid intimate, personal relationships and just work on allowing God to heal you. God is a great physician who can go where no knife can go.

2. Ask God to heal you from the inside out. He’s waiting for you to ask. Without faith you can’t receive everything God has already supplied for you.

3. Make staying in God’s presence a priority. Read His word. Pray in the Spirit. Become a worshipper.

4. Finally, get prayer from the Healing Streams ministry. God wants you to stop being hurt and become healed!…

What To Do With Disappointment, Pt. 2

December 7, 2019 Administrator

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Getting past the past

As I mentioned last week, disappointment can easily become a way of life wherein we expect and even accept it happening regularly. But this mindset sabotages us and can eventually lead to depression, sadness and hopelessness. Let’s add to the three truths we learned last week:

4. Disappointment is one of Satan’s weapons, but it can be resisted if we are willing to recognize it and then engage in this high level of spiritual warfare. James 4:7 says we must submit ourselves to God AND resist the devil (come out against him).

We need to be aggressively on the offense, not on the defense. Resist comes from the Greek word antihistamine, which is what our bodies use to fight allergies. But how do we offensively fight disappointment? Glad you asked, because God gave us a weapon to defeat disappointment every time.

Satan uses disappointment to rob the dream, prophetic word or promise God gave you. That word fills you with the faith to expect God’s destiny to be fulfilled. It gets you up in the morning and encourages you to keep on keepin’ on, even when all hell is breaking loose.

That word is a spiritual weapon and when you speak it against the mountain of disappointment, it will crumble. Jesus taught this truth to His disciples in Matthew 17:20 and Mark 11:22&23.

When you speak the word that the Holy Spirit has engrafted in your heart, you’re releasing God’s presence and power. Prophesy your destiny (calling the end from the beginning) by speaking that engrafted word, and don’t let the devil talk you out of it. God is sovereign, but your destiny won’t come to pass until you release what God planted in your heart.

5. Step into your God-given destiny. After releasing the prophetic word God gave you, you must guard against the temptation to not go forward and pursue your dream. Although he was 100 and Sarah was 90, to fulfill God’s promise of being the father of many nations, Abraham still had to be intimate with Sarah.

If God gave a word to you about your career, marriage, ministry, your family or even a vacation; don’t just speak it— pursue it with all your heart! Don’t let any obstacle stand in your way. Years ago, I remember planning a long-overdue vacation. We packed the car with enough clothes for a week, but there was one problem: We had no money! I’d been prophesying to the mountain of disappointment and finally made up my mind to pursue it. That would seem ridiculous to most people, but God said He would provide for the dream He placed in me.

As we drove off, the car behind me kept beeping the horn until I recognized the driver as one of my congregants. I pulled over to see what was wrong and this dear woman said, “Pastor, God told me to give you this money. I don’t know what it’s for, but He told me you needed it.” Well, as you can imagine, it more than covered my family vacation!

Speak your destiny into existence…then step into your miracle! The Holy Spirit planted God’s word for your destiny in your heart. Receive that engrafted word as your top priority. Remember you and God make a majority. Disappointment never has to be a way of life ever again!

We love to hear from you! If this blog has been a blessing to you, please take a moment to comment and let us know.…

What To Do With Disappointment, Pt. 1

November 30, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

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Getting past the past

Everyone faces disappointment from time to time. It’s part of life. But not everybody handles disappointment with success. For many of us, disappointments control us, overtaking our feelings, emotions, and decisions….leading us to live a life filled with hopelessness and despair.

There are 5 important truths to keep in mind when facing disappointments in life. Understanding these truths will change your mindset forever. So let’s take a brief look at them:

1. Disappointment is a weapon Satan uses to steal the dream and vision that God placed in your heart. His primary goal is to make us quit believing and expecting those God-inspired dreams and visions to actually come to pass. Remember how Joseph’s prophetic dreams caused his brothers to get so angry that they wanted to kill him? Why? Because Satan was using them to stop Joseph the dreamer from giving birth to those dreams.

Satan really isn’t after you directly. He wants to destroy the dream God gave you. He knows that when you begin to actually walk out your dreams, you will be extremely dangerous to him and his strategies to defeat you.

Joseph eventually was used by God to save His chosen people. If you remember that the disappointment you face isn’t directly against you, but against God’s destiny for you, it will give you greater determination to not give in or be controlled by disappointment. [James 1:1-3]

2. Disappointment gives you an opportunity to stand back and evaluate what you are disappointed about. Is it really from God? Many of us have godly ideas and thoughts of what we want to see happen in our lives, but not all godly dreams and visions are for us personally.

They may be wholesome and seem to have great potential to bring success in your life. But if they are not from God, (not engrafted into your spirit) they will cause you to waste valuable time. You will be constantly caught in the same cycles of disappointment over and over again for the same things. Allow the disappointment to give you the chance to take a second look to see if what you are hoping for is from God.

3. Experiencing failure in life doesn’t mean that the dream, vision or prophetic word is wrong. Many times it’s a sign that the strategy needs to be changed. Example: God spoke to me about taking back America, one city at a time. So I decided that Sarasota, which was about an hour and a half away from our church, would be the place to start.

After about six months I became disappointed because there wasn’t much fruit. The Lord told me my vision for America is correct, but my strategy was wrong. So I immediately stopped the work in Sarasota, followed God’s strategy and very quickly I experienced awesome fruitfulness.

I’ll continue speaking about strategy and the rest of the truths concerning disappointment next week. I believe that by understanding these truths, your life will change. Remember, not all disappointments are focused on God’s dream and vision in your life. Some are because we don’t have any direction from God, and some disappointments come because we are following our own lustful desires.

Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” You were created for God’s purposes…. not your own. Find out the “reason of your being”. When you do, disappointment will never win in your life again.

We love to hear from you! If this blog has been a blessing to you, please take a moment to comment and let us know.…

Does a habit have you?

April 21, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

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Getting past the past, Making positive change, Success & victory

Everyone has habits, both good and bad. A habit is a behavior acquired by frequent repetition. An addiction, on the other hand, is a compulsive dependence on an object, an action or a feeling, resulting in major life problems.

Good habits reflect God’s character and strengthen our character. Bad habits lead us astray, drag us down and affect our lives in negative ways.

Scripture uses words like bondage, slavery and stronghold to describe what it means to be a prisoner of sin. Maybe you aren’t enslaved to something as destructive as drugs or alcohol, but you may be held captive to some seemingly harmless activity or attitude. “….For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him, (2 Peter 2:19b, NIV).”

Heart attitudes like anger, criticism, greed and prejudice can be just as damaging as hard-core addictions to drugs, pornography, gambling and eating disorders. Only when our habits move from pleasurable to painful, do we desire and maybe even get ready for change.

The first step

The first step is to acknowledge what’s fueling your negative habit. God created us with a desire for a loving, personal relationship with Him, one in which He meets all our deepest needs. Bad habits and addictions develop when we attempt to meet our God-given needs for love, security and significance through an unhealthy dependence on people, things and activities. With the help of the enemy, wrong thinking takes root in us and things become idols that take the place of God.

Satan uses shame and condemnation to keep us in bondage. He makes us think that God is fed-up and disgusted with us, so we won’t turn to Him for help.

No condemnation

In John chapter 8, when a woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus, He didn’t condemn her. He showed her that even her would-be executioners weren’t without sin. He simply said, “Go and sin no more.”

As her sin lay bare before the Lord, I believe something supernatural happened in her heart. She sensed His love, forgiveness and acceptance and was set free from the lies she believed. No longer defined by her behavior, she received a new beginning. Get the picture?

Stop throwing stones at yourself and turn to Jesus, and keep turning every minute of every day. God brings conviction which brings repentance, rooted in right thinking and the power to change—not condemnation.

From bondage to freedom

How do we move from bondage to freedom? It takes faith and trust. Believe that God has not condemned you for your bad behavior. Trust His love for you, and the truth of His word. His truth sets you free!

Will power alone ultimately brings failure. But, if your desire is to surrender to God and let Him change you, you’ll find incredible peace, power and freedom.

If you’re feeling defeated, put down your stones and turn to Jesus. He loves you and He alone can give you the power to walk away from anything that holds you in bondage. Let go and take His hand!

If this blog post has been a blessing to you, please let us know by leaving a comment below!…

Get rid of negative labels

March 16, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

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Finding significance in life, Getting past the past

At one time or another, every one of us has been labeled, often by a frustrated, immature parent who didn’t understand that “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21).

Labels define a person according to our personal view of them and their inability to perform according to our expectations or standards. But maybe they’re unaware of what we expect, or our expectations are unrealistic, or perhaps their past hurts make them rebellious or incapable.

We define people based on our perception of them at that moment instead of God’s mercy and His view of who they are in Jesus.

When we speak condemning, critical words about a person’s character, we release a curse over him or her and their destiny. Such words spoken early in life are buried deep in their subconscious mind. As they grow older, the buried message leaks out in every thought about themselves. That’s how many miss our destiny. We live the labels.

The father of a famous 1920’s industrialist labeled his young son “stupid” and told him he would never succeed. When the boy was 16, his teacher looked at his poor grades and agreed with his father, advising him to quit school and get a job. The teacher said he wasn’t smart enough to graduate. So the boy accepted the label, quit school and held a menial job.

Then one day his company gave every employee an IQ test and the boy discovered that he was a genius! From that day on, he exchanged the “stupid” label for “genius”. His whole life changed and he became a wealthy and famous man.

Think of labels people have put on you. Some can just be laughed at and shrugged off. Others still make you shudder. Today, many of us live under the curse of negative labels that have set false boundaries and limited our God-given potential. Labels also forge an assignment from hell over our life that supports the curse it created. People see us and treat us accordingly.

So what should we do about it?

Ask God to reveal the labels that were placed on you by a parent or by someone you respect. It becomes a curse the moment you believe what it says about you.
Forgive the person who labelled you. Then repent for believing those labels and for repeating them over yourself. Then appropriate the blood of Jesus and declare that curse to be broken over your life.
Accept your identity in Jesus. Know the great life, power and destiny of Jesus that’s in you. Second Corinthians 4:7 says how God sees you: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” Always see yourself through the eyes of Jesus, not the label someone else put on you.
Begin to dream again and break free from the false boundaries of those labels by consistently seeing and talking about yourself the way Jesus does. Research the many scriptures that talk about who you are in Jesus and confess them daily until you become them.
Finally, avoid people who only see and talk about you in those negative labels. Some people will view you that way all your life. Surround yourself with people who can see you through the eyes of Jesus.

Negative labels are satan’s way of holding you back from your God-given right to succeed at what He’s called you to. Let this be the day that every label is broken and then refuse to allow anyone to ever label you again!

We love to hear from you! If this post has blessed you, please take a moment to let us know by commenting below.…

Check your rear view mirror.

November 10, 2018 Administrator

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Getting past the past

Compared to the windshield of your car, the rear view mirrors are small. The reason is obvious. If the goal is to reach your destination safely and accident-free, you must spend more time looking at the road in front of you rather than where you’ve already been.

Yet, we still need a rearview mirror for a number of reasons. It shows us where we came from and that we’re not there anymore. It also shows us if anything dangerous is coming up behind us so we can avoid getting hit. But our main focus should be looking ahead through that huge windshield.

I’m using this as an analogy of the impact our past has on our present because I believe not recognizing this truth keeps us living in the past. Although small, rear view mirrors reveal things we left in our past, so we can avoid them now and in the future. Our rearview mirror keeps us on a steadfast course to fulfill our God-given destiny.

What person would think of driving without a rear view mirror? But in life, we often choose to ignore the past and repeat the same mistakes. We remain unaware of how the past is still affecting us. Especially as Christians we’ve bought into the thought: I’m a Christian now, so that’s in the past. I don’t go there anymore. Sure, these things happened in the past, but guess what! If they’re constantly showing up in your lifestyle they’re still in the present!

On the other hand, some people live their whole life focused on the past. That’s all they talk, think and complain about. Because their review mirror is bigger than their front windshield, they’re consumed with the past and they miss God’s destiny that lies in front of them.

When we drive, we only look through our rear view mirror when changing lanes, making a turn, or when starting a journey. The same should be true in life. When starting on our new journey with Jesus, our past should be behind us not a passenger in the front seat.

How often do we have to wait to change lanes or turn because we saw another car fast approaching us when we checked our rear view mirror? We knew we had to deal with that issue first before we could safely move on. I’m sure that failing to check the rear view mirror is the cause of many accidents—some of them fatal.

So let’s evaluate our life by looking in the rear view mirror, making sure we’re not doing the same things or making the same foolish decisions. If we try to avoid facing our past we give it power to overtake our future.

Keep your rear view mirror small, but check it from time to time. See if old habits, speech patterns or attitudes and perceptions have crept back into your life. Make needed adjustments before going forward with your life changes.

Next, make sure that your windshield is big enough! Keep God’s vision and dreams clearly before you as the major focus in your life. Yes, check that rear view mirror, but make sure your eyes are on the road in front of you. You’ll never reach a destination you cannot see.…