1. Self Awareness Part 2
Leadership 1

2. Personal Weakness/Weakness of the Soul
What do we do with weaknesses that are not sinful but are also not a lack of ability?
E.g. demotivation, procrastination, discouragement, disillusionment, etc
These are not a lack of character or faithfulness
The solution is not to find someone else to do it for you
You can’t just ‘get better’ at these things (i.e. you can’t automatically just become more motivated)
A lack of inspiration etc. means it takes more effort for minimal result
It is still a weakness that must be addressed

3. Soul weaknesses Not always easy to identify
Not a lack of knowledge or ability, not personality, can appear suddenly or over time
Not always a clear or direct cause
Feeling lost, uncertain, not passionate, more irritable, not wanting to attend church, unfruitful, etc
If cause can be identified, cannot always be changed (e.g. a person, circumstance, or society)
Can still be addressed, but needs to be identified accurately

4. E.g. Discouragement vs Disillusionment
They are not the same, yet can present similar symptoms
Discouragement:
A lack of courage
Fear of doing something again or something new
Worried and anxious of the outcome
Disillusionment
Had different expectations compared to reality
Dreams feel unachievable
Feeling of not being effective and producing fruit

5. E.g. Discouragement vs Disillusionment
Needs someone to encourage them
Needs support
Needs help in the task to guarantee a good result
Cannot be combatted by vision
Vision will paint a larger picture, which is more daunting
Vision will add extra tasks and more work, which is intimidating
Vision paints the goal, but someone who is discouraged will see it as an impossibility
Someone discouraged does not need to see the bigger picture, they need help with the small steps

6. E.g. Discouragement vs Disillusionment
Needs to be inspired
Needs to see bigger picture, vision, purpose of what they’re doing
Needs a larger perspective than the task in front of them so that they can excel
Cannot be combatted by encouragement
Encouragement asks the person to not give up and to persevere
Encouragement offers support to accomplish the same tasks
Encouragement will help them succeed in their task
Someone disillusioned is already capable and does not want to hear that they need to just keep continuing. They want to see something more purposeful and to believe in what they’re doing

7. Identifying a soul weakness
The 7 Whys
If we ask the right why question 7 times, we are able to identify the root cause of what we are feeling
If they can be identified accurately, they can then be addressed accurately
After identification, we need to know that God is the source of our strength and the antidote to our weakness
We cannot look to other things (media, entertainment, artists) to be our antidote
Don’t look outside of God for a weakness that impacts our lives in God
John 4:13

8. Living from our New Nature
Gal 6:14-15
To live from our new nature, we need to kill our old nature
Kill our old identities not by tackling sinful behaviour directly, but by tackling the identity message
We kill the old man by using the Word of God
Luke 4 – Jesus quoted scripture to tackle false identity messages
Killing the old man is rejecting the lies of the devil using the Word of God
Lying is the devil’s native language, one lie and he has access into our lives