What’s Your Plan

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May 072010

Did you hear the weather this morning? If you hear them say it’s going to rain- do you get an umbrella or a coat?

Have you been praying for something for your ministry, or in your life that you need finances for? What’s your plan? God got my attention on this the other day. He asked me “If I gave you $100,000 dollars what would you do with it?”
I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know. I had not got that far. I was waiting for the funds then I would think what to do. But, this is out of order. God is a God of order. You have to have a plan if you go to a bank for a loan for a business venture. You have to have a business plan. God ‘is’ order- so why would He give funds to someone who doesn’t have enough faith to plan what to do with the funds. “We ask God for things but we don’t have enough faith to plan what to do with the answer.”

What great faith to show, by planning your operation, ministry, or business before you have the resources to implement. Without faith it’s impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6)

Show God how much you believe that He is Provider. If you have prayed, and you ask according to His will and not your own- then ‘Act’! Do something! Put some actions to your faith. Show you know Him as Abba! Source and Sustainer! Get a strategy! Start a plan! Do something visible for the invisible that’s coming!

First Things First

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Apr 262010

Priority

(Definition from Dictionary.com)

1.) the state or quality of being earlier in time, occurrence, etc.
2.) the right to precede others in order, rank, privilege, etc.; precedence.
3.) the right to take precedence in obtaining certain supplies, services, facilities, etc., esp. during a shortage.
4.) something given special attention.

–adjective
5.) highest or higher in importance, rank, privilege, etc.: a priority task.

Take a look at these definitions for the word priority. Now ask yourself…

Is God your priority, first thing, every day or do you put everything else ahead of spending time with him because “you’re just too busy”?

Well with our refreshed understanding of the word “priority” let’s take a test and see.

Is the occurrence of prayer the first thing on your agenda?

Does God precede all other people, events, and order in your life or do you ever say “I will pray later”…?

Would the Lord say you rank him first in your life? (*Remember- not because you ‘say so’ but by your actions, attitude, and by example)

Does God take precedence in your giving, thoughts, and ways? (*Basically do you discuss with God the plan for distribution and use of resources He has provided you? [money, house, land, personal property])

I love this one
Does God receive special attention each day from you? (Do you carefully strive to be in his will and favor even if it goes against your own?)

Is God of the highest importance each day of your life?

Well how did you do?
I’m looking at these myself and saying ‘Ouch!’ on a few.

If you run a business there are things you do to make sure you are running it well.

-You arrive early in order to make sure everything is clean and in order.
-You make sure the business is ready for production of goods or services as soon as the customer shows up.
-You make sure you are present when the customer walks in the door and ready to serve.
-You make sure to keep good accounting of the business financial records.
-You make sure to keep good inventory of your resources to run the business efficiently and effectively.

After all, if the customer is not pleased with your service, there is no reason for you bothering even to come in. Why would they want to use you as a vendor if your business is dirty, you do terrible upkeep, your goods or services are mediocre, you never open the door on time, you treat them like a bother, and you don’t keep anything in stock they can use? And you want them to reward you with their money?

Let’s look at another perspective…

Jesus is a king. Get religion out of your ahead. Religion let’s you fluctuate your level of service based on your emotions, how you feel, or what kind of day you have had. If He is king- then what gift are you bringing Him each day? Are you bringing Him an offering first, or a basketful of complaints? Sometimes we treat God like that only, a complaint department. A complaint department is a place we really dislike going, we feel we should not have to be there because the product -(life)- should have worked the way we thought it should, and we only finally go there out of last resort because we can’t deal with the problem any longer.

So here we are. Coming to God to pray -(complain)- about your life and God is thinking “I did not know they even came to this place.”

You ever lost a receipt and ‘thought’ you bought something from a store but after going to that business they scan the tag and tell you it did not come from there? Many times we blame God for our product… life.
But God says “I didn’t produce this. This has your brand on it- not mine. Oh and by the way I see the evidence of some horrible material in your design of the product” Who do you get your material from?” Hmmmm…

When we realize that Jesus is a king, and he is from a country (heaven), and heaven is a government -(kingdom)- then we will finally understand you cannot come to God and blame Him for a product He had no business with. It’s time to make a change in your day. It’s time for a reconfiguration of priorities. It’s time to put first things first. After all we plan then design, we discuss then implement, we get the blue prints then follow them.

God wants to put you at the head of everything you are involved with. He wants to establish you at the top of every field in life. He wants to assign you as the leader in each profession on the earth. But He only uses those that are good representatives of the kingdom. After all it’s His kingdom that is being represented through you. Are you a good representative of the kingdom? If you are taking on the role as an ambassador for Christ – are you fulfilling your reasonable duty and service with the up most standards and quality? or are you an example of an official who should be recalled?

I want to stay in right standing with my government.-(heaven)- I want to keep the lines of communication clear.-(prayer)- I want the government to be happy with my work.-(favor)- I want to have access to all of the benefits my government provides.-(covenant)-

I’ve got to keep first things first.

In His Image – Lesson 4 – Kingdom Study Series

Kingdom Awakening, Video Comments Off

Apr 222010

Who are we? Why do we exist? What is our purpose?
We have all asked ourselves these questions or something similar. Sometimes we feel like nothing. We feel like we can’t be anything because of our background, family history, or what we were born into. But that is simply not true. Our lineage goes back to the beginning of time- when we were created- man (male and female) were created. We were made with a purpose in mind. In the mind of God we were designed. He thought it good to create us in His image and in His likeness. You were made for a divine purpose. It’s time to realize who you are, where you come from, and carryout your Father’s heavenly mandate!

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!