April 9, 2016

What Do You Believe? This question is really important to everything you do because you live out your life based on your beliefs.

Imagine that I have laid a plank down on the floor. This plank is 12 inches across, 4 inches thick and 20 feet long. Can you see it? I don’t want you to trip over it and fall.

I am standing at one end of the plank holding in my hand a $100.00 bill. Do you believe you could walk down this plank, get the $100.00 bill and walk back without falling off? If I said, “Do this successfully and the $100.00 would be yours to keep,” would you try to walk the plank?

Now, think about this same plank, 12 inches across, 4 inches thick and 20 feet long, but it has been lifted 20 stories high and goes between the roofs of two buildings? The $100.00 is still available. Do believe you could walk this same plank, receive the $100.00 and walk back to where you started? Would you even attempt this feat now?

Beyond the factor of the location of the plank, what changed in this imaginary illustration? When you thought about the plank being at the 20 story level did you picture yourself falling and going splat on the ground in your attempt to get across? Were you at least concerned about the possibility of going splat? What actually changed was your belief and that came about because your focus changed. Remember the Apostle Peter out in the boat with the other disciples? Jesus came walking on the water and Peter thought, Lord let me come to you, and Jesus gave him the open invitation to come. Then Peter jumped out of the boat and walked on water, but when he began to look around and saw the waves, and felt the wind, what plummeted into the water, just before he did? It was his belief and faith. His belief and faith that with Jesus this was really possible.

It is important you not only understand, but also remember a very important principle: whatever you do, you will always manifest what you really believe, not what you say you believe. There are different levels of belief and we will make choices and decisions that influence and affect our lives based on what we believe at the core of our being.

What do you believe about your life for today? What you believe, at the 20 story plank level, about who you are, what you van be, do or have in life? Your faith and belief will impact your decisions about whether you can or can’t in every area of your life, including the spiritual.

Stop to reflect on what the Bible says about Jesus. If you do not know, you need to find out for yourself and not accept the opinions of others built on second hand mis-information. What do you believe? It is time to become honest and real about what you believe. If you believe, live it on a daily basis. If you don’t believe it, stop faking it. You are accountable for your choices; you will reap what you sow in life. So, what DO you believe?

April 8, 2016

Earl Nightingale in his book, “The Strangest Secret” wrote about principles that were not new to me. At that time I realized there were things I had not acted upon with any great consistency. Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? It would have been easy to come up with a variety of excuses as to why I never followed through, but the bottom line is, I had not been as teachable as I should have been in these areas. I was in fact 100% responsible for the choices I made and I will continue to be 100% responsible for the choices I will make in the future.

When you take the time to think about it, you do realize don’t you, life is all about choices. From the time you get up in the morning until you go to bed, you are constantly making choices relating to things like, what will I wear, what types of food will I eat, what will I do with my time, how will I respond to situations and circumstances that arise throughout the day, what attitudes will I express, and the list goes on and on. Remember, every choice you make has some form of consequence attached to it. The consequences may or may not be immediate, and they may even be accumulative in affect and not show up for a period of time, even years, but every choice does have a consequence. Dr. Shad Helmstetter declared, “The end result of your life here on earth will always be the sum total of the choices you made while you were here.” Albert Camus wrote, “Life is the sum of all your choices,” which means, “there are a thousand little choices in a day and all of them count.” When you think about choices you make in life, there are some that matter a lot, because they are life changers that dramatically influence the direction of your life and the lives of those around you. Joshua, chosen by God to lead the people of Israel into the promised land after the death of Moses in Joshua 24: 1-15 calls the nation to make a choice, “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. {15} But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

The choice to live your life in faith and obedience to God is one of those “biggies” that will impact and influence many other choices you make in your life. Anso Coetzer has said, “Decisions become easier when your will to please God outweighs your will to please the world.” While your choice about who you will follow in this life is of supreme importance it is not the only major choice you must make in your lifetime. Earl Nightingale says, another one of the “biggy” choices relates to what we believe about success and how we define it, not only for others, but especially for our self. This is because the choices we make regarding what we will focus our time and attention on relate to what we believe is really important in life. Therefore, Earl Nightingale says, the result of your choices lead to:
1. You get what you think about most of the time
2. You become what you think about most of the time

Take a moment and reflect back on the last few weeks of your life. What have you thought about most of the time? Have your attitudes been positive or negative? Have you been expressing faith or doubt? Has there been any specific area that has engaged a noticeable chunk of your time or has your life just kind of drifted along? What do you believe?

In the 9th chapter of the Gospel of Mark there was a father who had a demon possessed son. Everything he tried to do to help his son had not worked and no one could help him, including the disciples of Jesus. In sharing the history of the child, the father said to Jesus in Mark 9:22, “if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” Jesus turned the table on the father, calling for a choice to be made when He responded, “If you can? Everything is possible for him who believes.” In other words, Jesus was saying to the father, he held the key to the miracle of his son’s well being and the key was in his thoughts, in what he believed. The father responded to Jesus openly and honestly and made a choice as he declared, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

What do you believe about your life? What do you believe about your ability to be successful? What do you think about most of the time? No one else can ever make your choices for you. Your choices are yours alone. They are as much a part of you as every breath you will take, every moment of your life. You are 100% responsible for them. You cannot blame anyone else for them. So, what will it be in your life today? What choices will you make today. Will you obey God’s Word or will you do your own thing? Remember,
1. You get what you think about most of the time
2. You become what you think about most of the time