The messages that have changed my life, transformed my thought process, and gifted me.
A few years ago we had a guest pastor came speak at my local church, per the norm, I decided to follow him on Instagram. One day I saw a sermon clip of his and wanted to watch the full message. So I found it on YouTube and as I’m watching I get a pop-up in the corner of my viewing “Relationship Goals.” So being the squirrel I can be, I clicked it. When I say this series changed my life, I mean it made me realize habits, it freed me from mindsets I no longer needed, and it CHALLENGED me to change.
So after the click-of-a-click divine message, I started following Transformation Church online to hear the rest of the Relationship Goals series. One thing led to another and now every single day I’m on YouTube in a sermon. There are so many amazing messages out there, it blows my mind that something said 4 years ago can speak to the exact moment I am experiencing. And that’s where this list comes from. The messages that stopped me from breaking a fast, that made me decide to get baptized, the messages that broke me down bawling in the car but changed how I’ll act from that day forward.
How YouTube Is Changing My Life- One Sermon At A Time:
#1 Relationship Goals (series)
As mentioned above, this was really my first experience of watching church via YouTube. But it is also one of my most influential messages. I remember being in my parent’s house at 30 years old, back in my childhood bedroom. I recently single, with a broken heart, and my family’s dreams taken. If you haven’t read this New York Times Bestseller, I highly recommend it! This sermon hit at the moment of life where I was ready to change, ready to seek God’s will for my relationships and STOP doing them my way. It just leads to heartbreak.
In the first part of this message, I was instructed to write my list. YESSSS I had a list. TO A T, no shame, old me, here it was:
- Over 6′
- Dark Hair
- Green Eyes
- Makes 6 Figures +
- Has A Home And Car
- Military
- OR… The Rock.
Ok now that my list is out there, what did Pastor Mike Todd have me do? He had me RIP IT UP. I was so ready to rip this. I was so mad and heartbroken. Clearly losing the one thing I wanted most in life (my children growing up in a loving home with mom and dad) was what it took for me to finally change the type of guy I dated. My standards after having a child are so much higher than the standards I was accepting for myself.
This sermon is part of a series, and as mentioned an amazing book. That was the first life-changing sermon I heard. Pretty big in my mind.
Are you believing for huge miracles? Maybe a family member needs miraculous healing? Maybe a womb to carry a baby? A business plan to take off? A spouse to come into your life? Crazy Faith is one of those series that through Mike Todd’s testimony proves that all things are possible. If God speaks something to you, like a strong desire to be a mom, a business vision, or a statement of healing, this is the message to cling to. I love the episode Faith Like A Farmer. Like many of the children’s books, I read to my daughter, it really all does start with a seed that we nurture and next thing we are pruning that tree and picking the fruits of our labor.
Crazy Faith reminds you that when God speaks something to you, he will provide for this dream. It won’t be overnight. If you’ve ever known deep in your heart what you want your future to look like and don’t know what steps to take next you have to watch Crazy Faith. I love Pastor Mike Todd’s Crazy Faith Testimony, it is so encouraging. So many of these sermons I listen to while exercising and they were such a hype music to me. To hear that God still works in our life and that he will show us what he wants for our life and provide that, anything is possible that God has planned for us.
#3 A Stead Hand For A Sudden Blessing
This is one of the most recent messages that has transformed my life, I listened to it live a year ago and took notes. God spoke to me the new “word” for my year is SUDDENLY. I journaled it, in faith, but didn’t know what it really meant. Now I am waiting for a SUDDEN blessing by growing my family through adoption and I have this message on repeat. The second part of this message is Dig Until God Does. Pastor Steven Furtick states, “I’ll be digging until God does it.” When you’re waiting for a miracle, waiting for something out of your control, waiting for something so big that it’s easier to give up… Pastor Steven breaks this down so perfectly what our role is to be in the position we need so when that sudden blessing comes, we are where we need to be to receive the blessing. If you see me around soon and I’m driving fast, singing my lungs out I’m receiving this over my life, awaiting bringing home my precious daughter.
#4 The God of Again
This sermon was part of a teaching series: The God of Also, The God of Again, The God of Already, The God of After, The God of A Way. These messages blessed me again and again. God will show up in a great way in this next season of my life, because through these messages I’m able to prepare my heart for next. All of these messages asked questions that I reflected and journaled: God what do you have for me? Who have you made me to be? What do I need to let go of to trust you? What are you repeating that I’m resisting?
Sermons are an amazing way to get started, but it’s OUR work to reread the sermons we discuss, to journal the questions pastors ask us to discuss with God, and to rewatch the message. In The God Of Again, Pastor Steven asked, “What does God keep repeating to you that you keep resisting?” At that moment, I had 3 things to write down. But one of them was STAND FIRM. In this season, God kept telling me to stand firm with the decisions I was making for my child and my life. I’m going to be very honest, I HAD NO IDEA what this meant. I mean this was WEEKS of God telling me this phrase. But what I knew it didn’t mean was to act quick, make decisions out of emotions, or change my values and standards to get me out of a battle. So after I heard this message The God of Again, I’m in bible study. I had journaled, and been asking what does this mean? And I opened this week’s teaching we were going through the characteristics of who God is and who he calls us to be, and the week’s title was STAND FIRM! Now I have answers, now I have resources, and now I have a playbook for what God is asking. I’m not here to tell you that what you are doing isn’t enough, but I am here to tell you that we have to keep digging into this. We have to surround ourselves with mentors we can discuss our troubles and celebrate our wins with, we have to watch sermons more than once, we have to be in God’s word daily, we have to be praying, we have to give space and time for the things God wants to speak to us.
Not only did this bless me with the wisdom I needed. It prepared me for this, “It’s not the one who got away, it’s the one that got you ready.” This was about 1/2 way through the message, and this was freeing. This told me that all the mistakes, all the heartbreaks, all the why did I do that PREPARED me for what is to come. Ya it wasn’t ideal, ya it hurt, but do you know how ready and accepting I am for God to come do relationships again for me? To come make A Way for a healthy loving family in my life, to come and give me my beautiful healthy daughter, and ALSO the husband of my dreams. By faith, I know the rejections in my life have fully prepared me for what’s next.
If you know me or have read any of my other blogs, you might have caught on that I love to shop. I love it. It feeds me. But it’s also put me in a bad spot financially (just being H.O.T as Transformation Church calls it. Humble Open Transparent). Most of the fasting I do isn’t from food or substance, it’s from shopping. To remove me from a place of consuming and show me the patterns I’ve created and where I need to lean in. A few times I’ve heard Transformation Church talk about money in different series, in 2022 I took advantage of a great gift they gave the congregation (even online) and they paid for everyone to have access to EveryDollar Dave Ramsey’s budgeting app. I was getting frustrated, I would make money, have money in my account, go to the store, and then next thing you know a bill would come out and I’d need to go return all that to pay for those bills. I just wanted to know, when I go to Target, what can I spend without having to return it because I bought it at the wrong time of the month were all my bills came out. Now being self-employed my income changes weekly/monthly/seasonally so budgeting is more of a task than predicting what I get every 2 weeks. But I tried it. And I did it in reverse, I put in all my bills, and business fees (licenses, insurance, supplies etc), and then my wants such as every Oct I want to budget for Christmas Card pictures, and every winter I want to budget for snow tires so I don’t despise Colorado. So after I put all those in it showed me what I need to make income-wise, so now I know in months where I’m having a slow season I will need to pick up extra work to afford what I need to. This is year 3 of me using this app and rarely am I having to go to the store and return things because now I know how much I have budgeted, AND it allows me to put dates in, so I saw most of my bills were coming out 12-15th of the month and that week I don’t have spending money (or I can change those due dates/pay early).
A lot of my mindset has been changed through listening to Transformation Church. Even being in Tulsa they speak to the mindset that a lot of the congregation was raised with a poverty mindset. These mindsets we have about money I would have not come to or realized my thoughts on my own without these sermons.
In my church we host a really fun water baptism, the congregation shares their stories and they have all these tubs set up while music is playing and we just clap and get to celebrate their decision. OK that summary WAS ALL I knew about baptism all those times watching. Then one day I came upon this series from Transformation Church called The Upgrade and it talks about as Christians our first step is Salvation (accepting that Jesus is the Son of God and died on the cross and 3 days later rose again), now I just thought baptism was celebrating that, but there’s more, you can be baptized in the Holy Spirit and receive the gift of speaking in tongues. Speaking in your heavenly language is when the Holy Spirit brings groans we utter and translates them to God and we are praying things that we don’t even know we need. And water baptism buries your past, when you go under and come out God will wash away your life, see you as new. Baptism is an instruction and through these messages, I felt the Holy Spirit speak that I needed to get baptized, I set it up with a mentor and we did it in her neighborhood pool. A few months later I was back watching this series remembering that I hadn’t finished it, I hadn’t watched the message on your heavenly language, and my life again was forever changed in this message. I was watching in the gym, and I felt such a strong spirit in me I got off the treadmill and went into the shower, and my heavenly language just started flooding out of me. I’m not saying any of this to brag or to give me a resume. I’m saying all of this to state we need to be hearing new messages daily, had I just been ok reading my bible and not diving deeper, I would have never heard this message or received this gift.
ALRIGHT. Saved the best for last.
But in reality, I could go on all day about how the sermons I study on YouTube have changed my life. I’ll do a part 2 one day with a list of more recommendations. While I highly suggest watching all the sermon series above, they mean so much to me because of the fruit that came from studying these messages. And from the blessings that occurred while watching them. I have full faith that the more you feed yourself and get in God’s word and get around a supportive group the deeper you will grow into who you were meant to be. Have faith to prune what God is asking and have Faith to receive with open hands all he has planned for you.