By Every Word

Order Gives Fulfillment

Articles, Embassy Epistles Comments Off

Sep 202010

Alright, so here is a very well known scripture- but one we must remind our self of constantly.

1 Corinthians 14:40
Let all things be done decently and in order.
KJV

How many successful businesses do you know of that are in complete disorder when it comes to their bookkeeping, inventory, staffing, tax filing or other important areas. I’m not talking about “John’s Peaches” on the side of some random road. I’m talking about a proven business that has went through the ups and downs of the market and has sustained profitable results through these trying times. Probably zero or very few… and of the few they are most likely borderline bankrupt. It just doesn’t happen.

One of the greatest feelings in life is going to work or your place of business and fulfilling a needed duty for which you receive compensation in the form of green paper. That little green paper is earned for providing a service or skill that benefited others. When at work most of us enjoy that feeling of doing something important while earning those monetary notes- But there is also something we may not realize or be constantly aware of while doing our jobs that is a reward in and of itself, and that is the order of our environment. We often don’t give much thought at work about where to find a pen, pad of paper, find a proper place to work on a laptop, or other trivial necessity. We need a pen, it’s in the desk- need a pad of paper, on the left side of the desk… For some reason it just isn’t as smooth at home all the time. I don’t know how many times I have found myself yelling to my wife in desperation “Where’s a pen!?! I need a pen !?! …oh thanks… Where something to write on?!?”

I cannot always control where things are in the house, as there is usually more than one hand on them in any given day, but something far more important I can control is my time. God is a God of order and we being His creation in His image should realize we need to act in like manner. If we’re His children, why do we think we can go without having order in our life and expect successful results? I mean… He’s GOD! He does everything decently and in order. He does everything in proper time. Even Jesus came “when the time had fully come”.

Just so there is no confusion, I am not talking about scheduling every minute of a service down to the final 2 minute warning with prayer before the buzzer and we all leave and go eat chicken. No, no, no- that’s programming God out of our service and that’s another writing for another day.

But God does expect us to make the best use of our time as His citizens.

Hebrews 9:27
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
KJV

Judging from this scripture, I have so much time on earth while I am in this body. I know I have purpose to fulfill and I need to be about my work and getting things done. I don’t have a “heavenly slot machine” by which I can win life tokens for extra years, I don’t have a pause button for life, and God doesn’t plan on rewinding what has passed just so I can get a do-over for time wasted. So I have to do the best with what I have. But how many times do we come home from our orderly jobs, with our tightly knit agendas that use every ounce of time to its fullest, only to sit down on the couch and think about all the things we need to get done but become tired just thinking about it? Uncompleted tasks, projects, potential ideas keep piling up… but the only thing we succeed at is FAILING TO ACT! Sometimes we try, but we start one thing only to get scatter brained while thinking about the other things we need to do… and we often go to bed thinking “I just can’t get caught up around here.”

Well remember who you are- you were made in His image AND in His likeness. It is not natural for you to be disorderly. You cannot run a company like this, so why do you think you can get positive results in your life without order? I had someone recently tell me “I just can’t find time to read… I’m too busy” The reason we can’t find time to read is the same reason we can’t find time to pray, we don’t make time. We have to appoint times and bring order to our life. Prayer is the most important thing a citizen of the kingdom can do each day… yet it is often neglected… and we wonder where is God and why can I not get anything done. Because your life is out of order.

King David was bringing the Ark of the Covenant to his place and decided to have it brought on a cart, which was not the way God had told them to transport it. When the ark began to fall, Uzza tried to stop it and touched the ark and he died. After a few months of leaving the ark at Obededom’s, David acted differently in his approach to this task…

1 Chronicles 15: 12-13
12) And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.
13) For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.
KJV

Sometimes God will allow affliction to come on you, because it’s the only way to get His stubborn children in line with His plan. So prayer is a daily necessity in bringing complete satisfactory order to our day. Notice I did not say just “order” but “satisfactory order”. That’s because you may get results because of a well structured plan, but you’ll be missing a key component to your personal satisfaction and any results can only be sustained temporarily with a “no prayer agenda”. And yes, you need to assign times for prayer. I love God with all my heart and have seen great and mighty things, but I have yet to have the Holy Spirit in the form of a cloud pick me up out of my bed, float me out of my room to a solitary place, wake me up gently and say “Please pray…” I have times He gets my attention but the majority of the time it is a discipline… and one we definitely need to work on.

So make time be what you want it to be, grab a hold of it and bring order to it. Assign tasks to your morning and evening and you will see great rewarding results and feel accomplished at the end of the day. I am convinced that the primary reason for this feeling of accomplishment is because you are in right standing with the kingdom and in the King’s favor when you dominate your life. (Genesis 1:26). You’re acting just like your Daddy… in Heaven.

Start today, get a pad of paper and assign what you will do each day. It doesn’t have to be perfect- AND don’t just “think” what you want to do because that’s why we’re doing this exercise in the first place. Your mental agenda has a way of rescheduling indefinitely. So WRITE IT DOWN, and you can adjust as needed after a few days. An example would be…

6:00AM: Wake up / Pray
6:30AM: Get Ready
7:00AM: Leave for Work – School – Etc
–Blah–Blah–Blah–
6:00PM Arrive Home – Relax
6:30PM: Cook
7:00PM: Exercise – Shower
8:00PM: Read Book
8:30PM: Study Bible
9:00PM: Free Time

This is just an example and time durations for certain things will vary but- TRY IT! Write it down, commit to it, and follow through for 21 days so it becomes a habit. If you don’t like it, you can always go back to procrastinating- it will welcome you with slothful arms.

But kingdom citizens are not lazy, they ACT, and their diligence brings reward.

For The Kingdom!

Setting Goals

Articles, Embassy Epistles Comments Off

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!