Limitless Young Adult Version: You Can Experience the Freedom, Power and Potential You Were Created For

By Aaron D. Davis

Have you ever felt devastated, tears rolling down your face, because you once again failed God? You promised yourself you’d never fall into the same sin again. You’ve prayed about it over and over, but it has tripped you up at the most inopportune times, knocking you back several steps. Maybe like Aaron, and millions of Christians ar

• Language: English
• Publisher: TattooPreacher.com
• Release date: Jan 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998087078

Aaron D. Davis

Aaron Davis is a retired S.W.A.T. team member and former detective sergeant, pastor of over twenty years, science enthusiast, husband, and father. With a unique blend of ministry, professional, and life experiences, his message both challenges and encourages anyone who is searching for answers to tough questions. Pastor Aaron has served in ministry as a youth pastor, an associate pastor, a traveling evangelist, a street evangelist, a church elder, and a worship leader, and served on the board of trustees in one of the most respected ministries in the US. He has worked with and ministered to the homeless, inner-city youth, gang members, and drug addicts. He's preached in other countries and is currently pursuing an evangelistic ministry both stateside and abroad. Aaron was a law enforcement officer from 1999 until 2008, serving as a DARE Officer, School Resource Officer, Detective Sergeant (criminal investigations), and SWAT team member, and was awarded Officer of the Year in 2002. An attempt was made on his life in the line of duty, forcing a medical retirement. Pastor Aaron is originally from Detroit, Michigan, and lives with his wife of nineteen years, Lisa, and his son, Rocky, in Nashville, Tennessee. When he's not researching, writing, or serving others, Aaron enjoys riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, scuba diving, skateboarding, and riding dirt bikes with Rocky. www.TattooPreacher.com www.LimitlessSolutions.org

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Dedication

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Integrity, loyalty, and honor are foundational principles through which most of my life and relationships are governed. I hold these principles in high regard in myself, and I esteem them significantly in others. I’d like to dedicate this book to two honorable men who have had a profound impact on my life but are no longer with us today: Pastor Tim Smith and Pastor Paul Jim Miles. My life and every person reached through the ministry that God has called me to are a part of their legacies.

To Pastor Tim Smith:

PT, during my early teen years (and probably the most pivotal time in my life) when my friends were making decisions that proved to detrimentally influence much of their life afterward, I met you in Woodhaven, Michigan, and my life was changed for the better. Your bigger-than-life persona, smile, and the way you made people feel loved and accepted made you the world’s best youth pastor. You showed me the love of Jesus in a way that was unique to you, and I will never forget the impact you had in that season of my life.

To Pastor Paul Jim Miles:

PJ, I have so many fond memories of you, the big guy who loved and laughed so huge. Any time I think of you I smile. To this day, an experience that I had with you at seventeen years old in Troy, Michigan, when you taught me about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet is the single-most impacting lesson in humility that I have ever learned, and one that I reflect on often with tears. Thank you for answering the call of God and investing so much of who you were into the lives of others. I am blessed to have been one of those who was touched by your life. God knew that your example would be one that would influence the rest of my years in ministry, and He placed me under your leadership so that I could learn to carry on the torch of love and joy that you modeled so well. I love you and I miss you.

I look forward to seeing you both again,

Aaron

Endorsements

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Most people do not discover how to break through the barriers that have been created by their negative life experiences, the lenses through which they view those experiences, or the strongholds often created by these events until decades into adulthood (if at all).

With the release of the Limitless series, Aaron Davis has provided an invaluable resource for anyone who desires to be free from the bondage of strongholds and experience the fullness of becoming the champion that God created them to be. This version of Limitless for young adults will revolutionize your successes and create a solid foundation for your future. Freedom and victory are not a distant hope or unrealistic dream. The Bible says that those whom Jesus has set free are free indeed, and this book provides practical applications for experiencing that freedom and walking in the victory and authority that God always intended for you.

Danny Gokey

Artist, entertainer, author of Hope in Front of Me, and Founder of Sophia’s Heart

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As a former US Navy SEAL, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having your mind right before you enter the fight. The key to effective war fighting and owning the battle space is DISTRACTION. If you do not keep your thoughts on task, you are literally inviting defeat. Anyone who has ever fought for a living knows that if you can control the head of your enemy, either physically or mentally, your chance of victory exponentially increases (where your head goes, the body will follow).

We have an enemy that views us conversely as the enemy, and uses distraction techniques to take us off task, and create strongholds and repetitive cycles that work against the initial battle plan set in motion when Jesus came into your heart. In Limitless, Aaron Davis presents you with life-changing guidelines for overcoming self-defeating mindsets, effectively managing your thought life, experiencing victory over strongholds in your life, and living your dreams by becoming all that God created you to be.

Jeff Bramstedt

Former Navy SEAL

Founder Life of Valor Men’s Ministry

Preface

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On a recent trip, I had the opportunity to enjoy lunch with a mentor of mine at the Ritz Carleton in Dana Point California. As we sat 150 feet above the ocean at an outdoor café, my friend unexpectedly asked me, Aaron, what drives you in ministry? What are you passionate about?

I wasn’t anticipating the question, but without missing a beat, without having to think about it, a single word shot out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying. Freedom! He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, and I could tell that my answer was not what he had expected to hear. The usual answers revolve around the subjects of grace, marketplace ministry, healing, salvation, missions, prisons, human trafficking, digging wells in Africa, pastoring . . . I needed to elaborate on what I meant.

My greatest passion in life is to see people experience the fullness of the freedom that Christ purchased for them and walk in the assuredness, confidence, and authority of who God created them to be—conquerors in every area of life and victorious over every attack of the enemy!

I went on to share with him that I’m convinced that anyone who has not directly and intentionally dealt with the strongholds in their life is dealing with and being influenced by those strongholds. I’m convinced of this because I’ve experienced it myself. I was the fifteen-year-old church kid kneeling beside his bed in tears praying that God would help me do what was right and pleasing to Him, struggling with lust, anger, and bouts of rage. And I was the thirty-year-old pastor still praying, crying, struggling, and being held back by the same issues I had when I was fifteen. Things would be good for a while, but just when I felt like I was about to get ahead, I would be hit with one of those same three battles that had limited my progress so many times before . . . And most of the time I lost the battle.

None of us are as free as Christ exampled and intended for us to be, and I’m convinced that the primary reasons for this lack of freedom that most experience revolve around five areas.

What we believe about who God is.

What we believe about who we are.

What we believe about where we have been.

What we believe about where we are now.

What we believe about where we are going.

What you believe is ultimately what you produce. Perception determines reception, and perception for most is reality!

Attacks that have been orchestrated by Satan (the enemy of your soul) ultimately influence your unconscious belief systems (which I refer to as lenses) and how you process each of these five areas. You find yourself living defeated because your lenses are confirming the legitimacy of your present reality, ultimately molding your belief systems and stifling your faith.

In essence, people become convinced in some capacity that they are helpless in overcoming (probably because they have tried and failed so many times) and subsequently they become what they believe.

From these events and how you process them, compromises, behavioral patterns, and unbiblical belief systems sneak in (often because you have believed a lie) and detrimental lifestyle habits that I have come to define as strongholds take root, develop, and often grow beyond your ability to control them.

These strongholds create a ceiling for your progress and most often are the things that hold you back or tear you down a level or two every time you start to get ahead.

Think about it: How many times has it been the same attack, the same bad decision, the same self-sabotaging event, the same stupid mistake, the same behavioral patterns that have hindered your progress or set you up to fail just when you were about to hit that next level of progress in your life? This is evidence of a stronghold residing in your life!

Most often, this stronghold (and the behavioral patterns related to it) is rooted in something that happened to you when you were younger, how you processed an event or sequence of events that you have experienced over the course of your lifetime, and what coping mechanisms you have adopted as a result of these events.

A stronghold is not just the outward behavior you exhibit, but the entire process of belief systems developed leading to the behaviors that you have often spent years developing, nurturing, accepting, and excusing. The reason it is so difficult to remove these strongholds is because the roots go deep, and we are often living out what we have come to accept or believe.

Years ago I bought a house that had a huge weed in the landscaping. The weed was as tall as the bushes next to it. I went out there with a lawn mower and chopped that sucker down. It felt good. The ugly weed had been defeated! But a month later I noticed that stupid thing had grown back nearly as tall as it was before. So I sprayed it with weed killer (because that’s supposed to kill it, right?). But it didn’t work. Some of the leaves died and it got discolored, but it came back just like before.

It was obvious that this thing had been growing there for a long time and it was in no hurry to go away. I figured that because I hadn’t dug up the roots, it was able to quickly reestablish itself, and I assumed that I could just pull the whole thing up (roots and all) with little effort. After all, it was only a weed.

Now, I’m a pretty big guy, and at that time I was a SWAT officer in the best shape of my life. I was in the gym every day. I reached down and grabbed that weed at the base and pulled as hard as I could. The weed didn’t budge. I grabbed a shovel and began to dig around the weed. I wedged the shovel under the weed a few inches beneath the ground and began to try to pry up the weed . . . and I broke the shovel.

I was ticked off! I went to the garage and grabbed my pick axe. I spent the next fifteen minutes digging a couple of feet beneath the ground with the pick axe, breaking the roots that went in different directions and had even intertwined with the roots of the bushes next to it. I couldn’t believe it. It was ridiculous—it was a stupid weed.

Eventually I uprooted the weed, but it took a lot of work and energy. The roots had gone down probably two feet into the ground. It wasn’t a regular weed; that thing was a tree-weed! I didn’t want to have to mess with that stuff again, so I paid particular attention to what it looked like.

Low and behold, a few weeks later, in the same general area, I saw a weed growing again and the leaves on it confirmed my suspicion—it was the same kind of weed that I had worked so hard to uproot a few weeks before. This time I reached down and completely uprooted it with two fingers.

A realization came to me in that moment as it pertains to strongholds in our lives. Most of us recognize that the stronghold is unwanted and ugly, like the weed. So, like I did, we grab the lawn mower and cut it down so that we don’t have to live with the reality of looking at it all the time. But in a week, or a month, or six months, there we are having to face it again as it has reared its ugly head and messed up the landscape of our lives.

We decide that we want it to go away, so we pray about it and ask God to squirt it with some weed killer. And for a while that helps a bit. But the truth of the matter is, the thing got to the size it was to begin with because the ground of our lives proved to be fertile soil for it. So we realize that it’s probably going to take some intentionality for us to uproot it. After all, in most cases, it got the way it did because we allowed it to grow, even though we knew it wasn’t good for us.

So, like the weed, after allowing it to grow for years, we came to realize that uprooting it can be quite strenuous and difficult. We’ve broken some shovels, gotten tired of trying to pull it up, and many of us reached a point of just being okay with cutting it down every once in a while instead of doing what was necessary to completely uproot it.

But let me tell you, it is worth the work to uproot it. And once you go through the work of uprooting it, take the time to identify it for what it is, learn to recognize it in its early developmental stages, and do not allow it to remain in the soil again. You can keep it from limiting your potential and creating a ceiling in your life.

You don’t have to live defeated! That ceiling was never intended by God to keep you from your destiny. There is freedom from the strongholds that your enemy has used to limit your progress. And in the coming chapters of this book, we will discuss the steps necessary to abolish the strongholds once and for all in your life.

Introduction

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The Bible says in John 8:36, If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed (nasb); Isaiah 53:4–5 says, The fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. . . . It was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed (msg). Yet for many young adults in the body of Christ, these scriptures are a distant, hope-filled dream, an object to set your faith toward but far from an experienced reality because you don’t feel free or made whole. You don’t feel like Jesus is carrying your pains and all the other things that are wrong with you. On the contrary, it feels like you are carrying the weight of all your mistakes and sins on your own shoulders. In these circumstances, it’s easy to become tired of fighting and losing the same battles, spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally, over and over again, and healing in these areas seems more like a wishful fantasy than a reality.

It’s most certainly not for a lack of wanting to do better, or praying that God would take away the sinful desire or help you overcome in these areas you’ve continued to fail. If tears and prayer were the only things necessary for overcoming, you would have experienced victory over these issues long ago. But after many prayers, many tears, and many repeated failures, you likely feel alone in dealing with the harsh reality that maybe you will just have to learn to live with this pain, weakness, and sin in your life—managing it rather than overcoming it. Maybe you think you will be able to deal with it for seasons, but never really experience freedom from the free indeed perspective that John 8:36 would seem to imply. All through my teen years