By Every Word

It’s Textbook

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May 052010

You ever heard that phrase?
I’ll give you an example. A psychiatrist is working with an individual trying to figure out why someone is depressed a lot. The patient gives them a background of their child life and from this story the psychiatrist draws the conclusion, based on his education, the root of their depression. When the patient says how did you figure this out? The psychiatrist says “It’s textbook.”

What he means is that the persons life, stress, job, family history, or other determining factor is a very common scenario that causes these feelings. It is so common that it was put in a textbook to teach other aspiring counselors so they would be able to recognize this pattern.

I was recently talking with a friend and they were sharing with me how sometimes people make them feel when they act a certain way towards them, or say certain things. It bothered them and they would catch themselves thinking “Why is God letting me be treated like this?”

I told them one of the reasons they feel the way they do- is because they are caught unaware by other people’s actions or behaviors. And this goes back to their preparation for the day. How did you start your day today? It is so important to start off our day with prayer. Communicating with the Father in heaven over the day. The days events, happenings, and works. Who knows what the day has to offer better than the one who made the day. Yet we go into our day blindly- ‘hoping’ for the best. Look at the “Lord’s Prayer”.

“Our Father, who art in heaven- hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done- on earth- just as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…”

This is a model prayer. Jesus was teaching the disciples how to pray. He told them to call on the Source. Where is the Source? In heaven. Then pray for His will to be done in the earth- JUST AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. Then He says to pray for daily bread. This is not talking about food- but everything you will need for the day. It is so important to prepare for the day and ask God to give everything we will need to do His will and carry out His purpose and work in that day.

Why do companies have meetings? To make sure everyone is on the same page and carrying out the same vision for the business. I’ve never seen an “effective” business hire a manager and say “Just go out their and see what you can do to make us some money.” They train them, give them instruction, teach them the vision of the company- so they can carry out the companies will.

So why do we go about our day and never get in touch with our… can I use the term “Heavenly CEO”? The one who has the vision, the plan, the purpose. We need the ‘daily memo’ so we are not caught unaware. When an employee acts irrational- a good manager is not lost for what to do next? He doesn’t say “Why is my company letting this happen to me?” No, he’s been trained. He’s been made aware that this can happen. He’s been made aware of employee issues. He’s not surprised when these occurrences happen.

It’s the same way with God. Many times we have those people that come up and act in a disrespectful way to us. Our initial response would be “What did you say to me BOY?!?” Because we were caught unaware.
But God is saying “If you had come to the meeting this morning, you would have got the memo.”

See if you are in daily communication -(prayer)- with the King- then you are able to go about the day being about the business of the Father. (Sound familiar? -Luke 2:49)

Pride is then not a factor- because you are ‘working’. And a threat made towards you is really towards the kingdom. You were ready, trained, prepared for that day’s agenda. So now you don’t take offense and are able to be effective because you were looking for it. You’re not caught by surprise because you were prepared in the meeting this morning…prayer. You were trained, instructed, and prepared- so you were able to recognize the situation when it come up. It’s no longer a “What am I going to do” moment; It’s textbook!

Start your day off with God. He will prepare you for the day. He will even tell you what to say.

Luke 12:12
For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.

Try it. You can always go back to your old ways, which are working so well…

Starting each day with communication (prayer) with the home government (heaven).

Now that’s kingdom!

Restoring the Natural Order of Man – Kingdom Study Series – Lesson 5

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May 042010

You were born for a purpose. You were created in the image and likeness of the Father in heaven for a reason. God created you with the intent on making you a ruler on earth. You were born to dominate the earth. So why are we letting life dominate us? Why do we continue to live in sin? We are out of order. It’s time to return to the natural order of things. The way God originally made it. The way He originally intended for things to be. Ruling under His authority. Carrying out His will. Return to the Creator’s natural order for your life!

What If

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May 042010

What if we were concerned more about our relationship with God than our relationship with people? We seem to have this backward most of the time. We spend hours with people and very little with God.

If we looked at the kingdom for what it is, the government of Heaven, than we would want to stay in right standing with our home government. We would want to keep our relationship with the government healthy. After all if you are not getting your intelligence daily from the government- what do you know?

We are after all ambassadors for Christ…

Setting Goals

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Apr 072010

Every year, around January 1st actually, we have this practice we usually do. We see a brand new start, a fresh outlook, a renewed zeal for doing something in our lives. You may have called this a “New Year Resolution”. It’s an amazing thing actually. We have many days we wish we could do again, and we could really just restart the next day-and let it be a brand new day- but many times we carry over yesterday’s hurts and failures over into the next day and continue to let them control our attitude and outlook.

But there is something different about a ‘new year’. I can’t explain it but, even those who usually drag each ‘let down’ with them day to day are able to get the feeling that they have a fresh start finally. There isn’t a difference from December 31st to January 1st in weather, circumstances, situations, length of days, or anything that is dramatic or observable. It’s just a change in our mindset. So we can actually control this mindset thing.

But, let’s talk about goals for a moment. It’s great to have a feeling of a new start or a new beginning, but what happened to the resolutions of the previous year? There must be something that triggered us to be so anxious for the new year to come so we could start over… right? If we fulfilled all of our resolutions from the previous year we would feel… AWESOME… yea? So somewhere during the year we must have lost our way to meeting our goal. And every year we wind up missing the goal and putting all of our hopes and aspirations into the next year. So we have to change something in our ways in order to get the desired result.

[Related Story]
Dave Ramsey on one of his radio shows was talking about a time when he had a new years resolution to workout. He hired a trainer and was excited to get started. But during his first day he and his trainer had to wait longer than normal wait times to get on a machine. It slowed the process down a lot. The trainer told him not to worry, they would all be gone by Valentine’s Day. And he was right.

So what caused them to give up? Well, I have a theory and I also have a truth.

[Theory]
We have something in mind we want to do- we fail early and spend the next 9-10 months waiting for the next year. So that’s 2 months of success and 10 months of procrastination. The next year comes and we are so unhappy with last year’s results that we try again but we try to go even bigger because we want to make up for lost time. This ends in failure most of the time again. I call this “resolution debt”. The feeling we owe for time missed or opportunities that have passed.

[Truth]
The most important thing we can do though is something very simple. It’s actually more important than working towards the resolution itself. When you have something you want to achieve you need to set a… goal for your… goal. Setting a number goal gives you something to work for. It makes you push harder, faster, and do whatever is necessary to get there when you can see you are closing in.

[Example]
You say “I want to read more books this year”. OK, good luck with that. But if you say “I want to read 2 books a month”. Well now you have something to work for. See if you don’t set a number to reach you will end up doing what the rest of the resolution imitat…, ummm setters,do- you will procrastinate. You will ‘feel’ behind the first month and decide to catch up the second month, but then it’s gone too until your “resolution debt” is so overwhelming you give up until the next year.

It’s time to set numbers to those desired results- after all that’s what will make it a result to be desired.

Now let’s see what the kingdom’s position is on this, shall we?

{Exodus 26}
Here is God’s instruction to Moses on the building of the tabernacle. Read it and look at the specific plan God has to see a ‘desired result’. This is very important, as you actually see this from God throughout the bible. He is very clear. You never see God say in this chapter “I want some curtains!” No no no- he is precise in his thinking. He says in verse 8:

⁸The length of one curtain shall be thirty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: and the eleven curtains shall be all of one measure.

Precise!

God also shows us how important it is for us to reach goals- and what to do to prevent from being stopped.

{Phillipians 3}¹³Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

So He says to forget the past, and keep your eye on the potential. You can never birth the potential inside of you if you are constantly looking to the past .

{Hebrews 3}
¹⁴For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end;

WOW! This is so important- you can’t lose momentum. Believe me, when you set a goal the devil is going to want to come and mess it up. It doesn’t matter what the goal is. He knows you were made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26) and he wants to see you fail- not achieve goals. Because when you do, you’re acting just like your father!

I have so many other scriptures I could reference (James 5:11, Hebrews 6:11) but I have two more I definitely want to get in your mind.

{2 Corinthians 11}
¹⁵Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

This is so true- sometimes we think it’s going to be easy getting results, but it is hard work but soooo worth it. You might just get more out of the journey to the result, then you do from the result itself…

…and one of the most important scriptures I believe to this is…

{Genesis 11}

⁴And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven;

Now this one is so good. These people set a goal with a specific desired result (heaven). They were working against God though- so let’s see what God says…

⁶And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

God even recognizes the power he has put in us when we set our mind to something. It’s just a kingdom law. God made it this way- and so the king had to put an end to the rebellion. So the mind is a powerful thing. The tongue is also a powerful thing. (James 3)

So think of some desired results you want in your life. (1 month goals, 6 month, 1 year, and 5 year) Then layout numbers to these goals. (Example: I want to lose 8 LBs within the next 30 days) Then go for it! Set sub-goals on the way there if it’s something big you are working to achieve. This may be how many calories to take in, or what you need to do in order to have your degree in 5 years. Just Do it!

Now write those goals down on paper so you have to look at them everyday and face the reality of how you are doing. Also speak the goals out loud. (Remember there is power in the tongue) Be so committed to what you want to achieve that it doesn’t matter what people think- you tell everyone what’s going to happen. That is exercising dominion over your life! That’s kingdom!

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