The pain of our human condition is all around us. It is next to impossible to turn on a television and not see someone, some culture, some country struggling under severe oppression or pain. In all of this suffering you may be asking the question where is God? You may even be asking God, “Where are you in my suffering?”
I think we long for a world where justice and fairness prevail; a world where children are spared the horrors of war, starvation, death, divorce, dissertation and illness. We long for peace and harmony. Unfortunately, we live under a worlds system whose primary concern is its’ own preservation. Preserving the system is paramount to preserving people. The Bible calls this system of selfish preservation “sin”. Sin does not care about fairness or justice. Sin has no interest in the highest standards, the moral path, and sacrifice for the common good. Self only has one goal, to preserve itself at all costs.
The pain that is part of the human condition is a direct result of this driving desire for self preservation. Our world gives token assent to the issues of justice, human rights, and ecology, all of which can be sacrificed in a moments notice if they were to interfere with our personal peace and affluence, and if we thought we could get away with it.
Into this world of deteriorating values came Jesus the Christ. The Christian account of his life says he was sinless. That means he never thought or behaved from a position of self interest. He only acted from a position of love and obedience to His father. Jesus came into this world to redeem humanity from its self. He came to bring order to the chaos. He came to be with us in our pain, to transform our pain for his good. He did this by accepting our sin, our selfishness and the pain we experience living in a narcissistic world, as his own. He then accepted our pain and crucified it (killed it,made it of no consequence) in his body when he died on the cross.
Then, three days later he raised himself from the dead and boldly proclaimed to the world that death is not the end, and pain is not the final condition of humanity.
And now he invites you to join him in this great mission of restoring our earth and the inhabitants in it. He asks to be invited in to our pain so he can transform it. He asks to be invited in to our death so he can defeat it. He asks to be invited into our selfishness so he can impregnate it with his love and there by redeem all of humanity.
He asks…and continues to ask each generation, if we will be the ones to let HIM make a difference in the world, through them.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
94 Leadership Quotes, by John Maxwell
94 Leadership Quotes
I consider John Maxwell to be one of the greatest leadership minds of this generation. Enjoy his timeless wisdom about, character, communication, credibility, failure, folowership, fostering creativity, difficult people, leading leaders, motivating others, people skills, personal growth, procrastination, recognising leadership potential, success, teamwork, time management and timing.
Let me know a few of your favorites quotes.
Character
1. It's true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime.
2. You build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain.
3. Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership.
4. Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership.
5. Over time, is it easier or harder to sustain your influence within your organization? With charisma alone, influence becomes increasingly more difficult to sustain. With character, as time passes, influence builds and requires less work to sustain.
Communication
6. Great communication depends on two simple skills—context, which attunes a leader to the same frequency as his or her audience, and delivery, which allows a leader to phrase messages in a language the audience can understand.
7. Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.
8. Take the emotional temperature of those listening to you. Facial expressions, voice inflection and posture give clues to a person’s mood and attitude.
9. Persuasive communication involves enthusiasm, animation, audience participation, authenticity and spontaneity.
Credibility
10. Credibility is a leader's currency. With it, he or she is solvent; without it, he or she is bankrupt.
11. Speak the truth. Transparency breeds legitimacy.
12. Don’t hide bad news. With multiple information channels available, bad news always becomes known. Be candid right from the start.
13. A highly credible leader under-promises and over-delivers.
14. Diligent follow-up and follow-through will set you apart from the crowd and communicate excellence.
15. A trustworthy leader goes the extra mile to remedy strained relationships, even when it doesn’t appear to be required.
Failure
16. "Failing forward" is the ability to get back up after you've been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction.
17. Don't buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can't be.
18. Failure is not a one-time event; it's how you deal with life along the way. .Until you breathe your last breath, you're still in the process, and there is still time to turn things around for the better.
19.You are the only person who can label what you do a failure. Failure is subjective.
20.Don't allow the fire of adversity to make you a skeptic. Allow it to purify you.
21.Generally speaking, there are two kinds of learning: experience, which is gained from your own mistakes, and wisdom, which is learned from the mistakes of others.
22.Seek advice, but make sure it's from someone who has successfully handled mistakes or adversities.
23. When to quit: (1) Quit something you don't do well to start something you do well. (2) Quit something you're not passionate about to do something that fills you with passion. (3) Quit something that doesn't make a difference to do something that does.
24.People change when they hurt enough that they have to, learn enough that they want to, or receive enough that they are able to.
Followership
25. More than anything else, followers want to believe that their leaders are ethical and honest.
26.When your people see that you are not only competent to lead but also have a track record of successes, they will have confidence in following you, even when they don't understand all the details.
27. As a leader, it's your job to get your people excited about what their work will accomplish; it’s a natural motivator.
Fostering Creativity in Others
28. People are an organization's only appreciable asset, but creative people are an organization's most needed asset.
29. Be willing to absorb some risk and failures to allow people freedom to express themselves.
30. Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken.
31. Handle the ideas of your people carefully: If an idea is half-developed but has potential, pass it to the people in your organization who are proven process thinkers and implementers.
32. Sometimes giving your people permission to be creative is not enough; inspire them by modeling creativity.
33. The word 'reactive' and the word 'creative' are made up of exactly the same letters; the only difference between the two is that you 'c' (see) differently.
Fostering Your Own Creativity
34. When you are the leader in your field, it takes a greater level of innovation and commitment to stay there.
35. Make a point to continually search for a better way of doing things, even when things are going well, to ensure that a better alternative has not been overlooked and to keep your creative talents in practice.
36. Practice mental agility: Before you write off a far-fetched idea, back up and look at the big picture, because it might fit perfectly on another level.
37 Have fun: When you are truly having fun in your work, creativity flows freely.
Leading Difficult People
38. Consider who you are working with: Part of the art of leadership is discovering the unique relationship between the needs of the individual and the organization.
39. People only know that you and the organization intend to meet their needs when you tell them so.
40. Determine how to help the person, tell them how you will do it, and follow through – before asking the individual to do things in return for you.
41 People working together ultimately succeed or fail based on their commitment to one another.
42. Never give up easily on one of your people; it does a disservice to that individual and to you.
Leading Leaders
43. The better you are at surrounding yourself with people of high potential, the greater your chance for success.
44. Every relationship in your organization will affect you one way or another. Those who do not increase you will inevitably decrease you.
Motivating Others
45. When you delegate a task to your people, make a point to help them capture your vision for what the completed task will look like.
46. Hold your people accountable to a measurable standard of excellence, and make rewards and consequences a part of enforcing the standard.
47. Give your people full responsibility (ownership) for the completion of specific tasks and the prospect of sharing in the rewards that result.
People Skills
48. Successful leadership is about 90% people knowledge and 10% product knowledge.
49. You can have strong people skills and not be a good leader, but you cannot be a good leader without people skills.
50. The highest compliment a person can receive is one given by his or her leader; make a habit of being generous and sincere with your compliments.
51. When your people are having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, remind them of the purpose of their work and help them envision what their work will accomplish.
52. Don't judge what your people want to tell you before they've told you. Listen to them.
53. Part of your job as a leader is to help your people figure out what they're most passionate about, and then to help them pursue it.
Personal Growth
54. The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.
55. Leaders never outgrow the need to change.
56. My leadership began to take flight when I allowed myself to press people to change—whether they thanked me or cursed me.
57. Eventually, you must disengage from the relationships you’ve outgrown, or they will limit your growth as a leader.
58. Leadership involves the heavy burden of responsibility, and the fear of getting it wrong can paralyze a leader.
59. Confront your inadequacies and push your personal boundaries: It’s the surest way to grow, improve and expand the scope of your influence.
Procrastination
60. It doesn't matter how hard or long you work if you're not accomplishing what needs to be done.
61. Plan and execute your first failure so that you no longer have to fear it.
62. If the size of a task causes you to procrastinate or completely shy away, break it into smaller, more manageable tasks.
63. Often people fail to start or complete a task because they don't see any connection between what they're doing and what they really want to accomplish in life.
Recognizing Leadership Potential
64. Your key people can be spotted when important decisions are being made, because they're the ones explaining what needs to be done.
65. Determine how your potential leaders relate to the rest of your people; the people with the greatest potential won't have burned too many bridges.
66. A potential leader who obeys God is in a much better position to succeed than one who ignores God's will for his life.
67. Your potential leaders must have established a foundation of trust with others.
68. A potential leader is the one who would be able to mentally sustain your organization's vision if you quit thinking for the next month.
69. Potential leaders come to you to offer help more often than you go to them to give guidance.
70. True leadership requires serving others full time; potential leaders are ready and willing to do so.
71. Potential leaders make themselves valuable because they see and seize opportunities to better the organization—regardless of the nature or size of the task.
72.Though loyalty does not make a leader, disloyalty prevents a person from becoming one.
Success
73. Reaching the top is a monumental achievement, but remaining there may be the most spectacular feat of all.
74. The biggest detriment to tomorrow's success is today's success.
75. Passion creates energy and magnetically pulls co-workers and customers into a shared vision, and it is exceptionally strong when linked with a leader's values.
76. Leaders don't rise to the pinnacle of success without developing the right set of attitudes and habits; they make every day a masterpiece.
77. The best leaders are humble enough to realize their victories depend upon their people.
Teamwork
78. Teams make you better than you are, multiply your value, enable you to do what you do best, allow you to help others do their best, give you more time, provide you with companionship, help you fulfill the desires of your heart and compound your vision and effort.
79. Transmit your vision emotionally by gaining credibility, demonstrating passion, establishing relationships and communicating a felt need. Transmit it logically by confronting reality, formulating strategy, accepting responsibility, celebrating victory and learning from defeat.
80. Values hold the team together, provide stability for the team to grow upon, measure the team's performance, give direction and guidance and attract like-minded people.
81. Coming together is a beginning, and staying together is progress, but only when teams sweat together do they find success.
82. The Wrong Person in the Wrong Place = Regression. The Wrong Person in the Right Place = Frustration. The Right Person in the Wrong Place = Confusion. The Right Person in the Right Place = Progression. The Right People in the Right Places = Multiplication.
83. An organization's structure does not cause growth, but it does control the rate and size of your growth.
84. Talented performers flock to the best and brightest leaders, and these leaders in turn lift the lids off their people and uncork the latent talent inside of them.
85. The best way to serve the individuals on the team is to see that the whole team wins.
Time Management
86. Although it's admirable to be ambitious and hard-working, it's more desirable to be smart-working.
87. Though it's tempting—especially if you're a people pleaser—you have to learn to discern what wheels really need grease, what ones can be greased by others and what ones will squeak no matter how much oil they have on them.
88. The key to becoming a more efficient leader isn't checking off all the items on your to-do list each day. It's in forming the habit of prioritizing your time so that you are accomplishing your most important goals in an efficient manner.
Timing
89. The timing of your decision is just as important as the decision you make.
90. To establish appropriate timing for a decision, first discern the connection between the needs around you and the calling within you.
91. When assessing the ramifications for decisions, leaders must take into account the repercussions of failure.
92. Plain common sense can be the best deterrent to far-fetched opportunities.
93. All too often, would-be decision-makers take too much time collecting, analyzing and reanalyzing information, hoping for that one last convincing detail that will dictate the correct choice.
94. Consider if the passage of time shrinks available options or creates new ones.
I consider John Maxwell to be one of the greatest leadership minds of this generation. Enjoy his timeless wisdom about, character, communication, credibility, failure, folowership, fostering creativity, difficult people, leading leaders, motivating others, people skills, personal growth, procrastination, recognising leadership potential, success, teamwork, time management and timing.
Let me know a few of your favorites quotes.
Character
1. It's true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime.
2. You build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain.
3. Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership.
4. Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership.
5. Over time, is it easier or harder to sustain your influence within your organization? With charisma alone, influence becomes increasingly more difficult to sustain. With character, as time passes, influence builds and requires less work to sustain.
Communication
6. Great communication depends on two simple skills—context, which attunes a leader to the same frequency as his or her audience, and delivery, which allows a leader to phrase messages in a language the audience can understand.
7. Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.
8. Take the emotional temperature of those listening to you. Facial expressions, voice inflection and posture give clues to a person’s mood and attitude.
9. Persuasive communication involves enthusiasm, animation, audience participation, authenticity and spontaneity.
Credibility
10. Credibility is a leader's currency. With it, he or she is solvent; without it, he or she is bankrupt.
11. Speak the truth. Transparency breeds legitimacy.
12. Don’t hide bad news. With multiple information channels available, bad news always becomes known. Be candid right from the start.
13. A highly credible leader under-promises and over-delivers.
14. Diligent follow-up and follow-through will set you apart from the crowd and communicate excellence.
15. A trustworthy leader goes the extra mile to remedy strained relationships, even when it doesn’t appear to be required.
Failure
16. "Failing forward" is the ability to get back up after you've been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction.
17. Don't buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can't be.
18. Failure is not a one-time event; it's how you deal with life along the way. .Until you breathe your last breath, you're still in the process, and there is still time to turn things around for the better.
19.You are the only person who can label what you do a failure. Failure is subjective.
20.Don't allow the fire of adversity to make you a skeptic. Allow it to purify you.
21.Generally speaking, there are two kinds of learning: experience, which is gained from your own mistakes, and wisdom, which is learned from the mistakes of others.
22.Seek advice, but make sure it's from someone who has successfully handled mistakes or adversities.
23. When to quit: (1) Quit something you don't do well to start something you do well. (2) Quit something you're not passionate about to do something that fills you with passion. (3) Quit something that doesn't make a difference to do something that does.
24.People change when they hurt enough that they have to, learn enough that they want to, or receive enough that they are able to.
Followership
25. More than anything else, followers want to believe that their leaders are ethical and honest.
26.When your people see that you are not only competent to lead but also have a track record of successes, they will have confidence in following you, even when they don't understand all the details.
27. As a leader, it's your job to get your people excited about what their work will accomplish; it’s a natural motivator.
Fostering Creativity in Others
28. People are an organization's only appreciable asset, but creative people are an organization's most needed asset.
29. Be willing to absorb some risk and failures to allow people freedom to express themselves.
30. Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken.
31. Handle the ideas of your people carefully: If an idea is half-developed but has potential, pass it to the people in your organization who are proven process thinkers and implementers.
32. Sometimes giving your people permission to be creative is not enough; inspire them by modeling creativity.
33. The word 'reactive' and the word 'creative' are made up of exactly the same letters; the only difference between the two is that you 'c' (see) differently.
Fostering Your Own Creativity
34. When you are the leader in your field, it takes a greater level of innovation and commitment to stay there.
35. Make a point to continually search for a better way of doing things, even when things are going well, to ensure that a better alternative has not been overlooked and to keep your creative talents in practice.
36. Practice mental agility: Before you write off a far-fetched idea, back up and look at the big picture, because it might fit perfectly on another level.
37 Have fun: When you are truly having fun in your work, creativity flows freely.
Leading Difficult People
38. Consider who you are working with: Part of the art of leadership is discovering the unique relationship between the needs of the individual and the organization.
39. People only know that you and the organization intend to meet their needs when you tell them so.
40. Determine how to help the person, tell them how you will do it, and follow through – before asking the individual to do things in return for you.
41 People working together ultimately succeed or fail based on their commitment to one another.
42. Never give up easily on one of your people; it does a disservice to that individual and to you.
Leading Leaders
43. The better you are at surrounding yourself with people of high potential, the greater your chance for success.
44. Every relationship in your organization will affect you one way or another. Those who do not increase you will inevitably decrease you.
Motivating Others
45. When you delegate a task to your people, make a point to help them capture your vision for what the completed task will look like.
46. Hold your people accountable to a measurable standard of excellence, and make rewards and consequences a part of enforcing the standard.
47. Give your people full responsibility (ownership) for the completion of specific tasks and the prospect of sharing in the rewards that result.
People Skills
48. Successful leadership is about 90% people knowledge and 10% product knowledge.
49. You can have strong people skills and not be a good leader, but you cannot be a good leader without people skills.
50. The highest compliment a person can receive is one given by his or her leader; make a habit of being generous and sincere with your compliments.
51. When your people are having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, remind them of the purpose of their work and help them envision what their work will accomplish.
52. Don't judge what your people want to tell you before they've told you. Listen to them.
53. Part of your job as a leader is to help your people figure out what they're most passionate about, and then to help them pursue it.
Personal Growth
54. The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.
55. Leaders never outgrow the need to change.
56. My leadership began to take flight when I allowed myself to press people to change—whether they thanked me or cursed me.
57. Eventually, you must disengage from the relationships you’ve outgrown, or they will limit your growth as a leader.
58. Leadership involves the heavy burden of responsibility, and the fear of getting it wrong can paralyze a leader.
59. Confront your inadequacies and push your personal boundaries: It’s the surest way to grow, improve and expand the scope of your influence.
Procrastination
60. It doesn't matter how hard or long you work if you're not accomplishing what needs to be done.
61. Plan and execute your first failure so that you no longer have to fear it.
62. If the size of a task causes you to procrastinate or completely shy away, break it into smaller, more manageable tasks.
63. Often people fail to start or complete a task because they don't see any connection between what they're doing and what they really want to accomplish in life.
Recognizing Leadership Potential
64. Your key people can be spotted when important decisions are being made, because they're the ones explaining what needs to be done.
65. Determine how your potential leaders relate to the rest of your people; the people with the greatest potential won't have burned too many bridges.
66. A potential leader who obeys God is in a much better position to succeed than one who ignores God's will for his life.
67. Your potential leaders must have established a foundation of trust with others.
68. A potential leader is the one who would be able to mentally sustain your organization's vision if you quit thinking for the next month.
69. Potential leaders come to you to offer help more often than you go to them to give guidance.
70. True leadership requires serving others full time; potential leaders are ready and willing to do so.
71. Potential leaders make themselves valuable because they see and seize opportunities to better the organization—regardless of the nature or size of the task.
72.Though loyalty does not make a leader, disloyalty prevents a person from becoming one.
Success
73. Reaching the top is a monumental achievement, but remaining there may be the most spectacular feat of all.
74. The biggest detriment to tomorrow's success is today's success.
75. Passion creates energy and magnetically pulls co-workers and customers into a shared vision, and it is exceptionally strong when linked with a leader's values.
76. Leaders don't rise to the pinnacle of success without developing the right set of attitudes and habits; they make every day a masterpiece.
77. The best leaders are humble enough to realize their victories depend upon their people.
Teamwork
78. Teams make you better than you are, multiply your value, enable you to do what you do best, allow you to help others do their best, give you more time, provide you with companionship, help you fulfill the desires of your heart and compound your vision and effort.
79. Transmit your vision emotionally by gaining credibility, demonstrating passion, establishing relationships and communicating a felt need. Transmit it logically by confronting reality, formulating strategy, accepting responsibility, celebrating victory and learning from defeat.
80. Values hold the team together, provide stability for the team to grow upon, measure the team's performance, give direction and guidance and attract like-minded people.
81. Coming together is a beginning, and staying together is progress, but only when teams sweat together do they find success.
82. The Wrong Person in the Wrong Place = Regression. The Wrong Person in the Right Place = Frustration. The Right Person in the Wrong Place = Confusion. The Right Person in the Right Place = Progression. The Right People in the Right Places = Multiplication.
83. An organization's structure does not cause growth, but it does control the rate and size of your growth.
84. Talented performers flock to the best and brightest leaders, and these leaders in turn lift the lids off their people and uncork the latent talent inside of them.
85. The best way to serve the individuals on the team is to see that the whole team wins.
Time Management
86. Although it's admirable to be ambitious and hard-working, it's more desirable to be smart-working.
87. Though it's tempting—especially if you're a people pleaser—you have to learn to discern what wheels really need grease, what ones can be greased by others and what ones will squeak no matter how much oil they have on them.
88. The key to becoming a more efficient leader isn't checking off all the items on your to-do list each day. It's in forming the habit of prioritizing your time so that you are accomplishing your most important goals in an efficient manner.
Timing
89. The timing of your decision is just as important as the decision you make.
90. To establish appropriate timing for a decision, first discern the connection between the needs around you and the calling within you.
91. When assessing the ramifications for decisions, leaders must take into account the repercussions of failure.
92. Plain common sense can be the best deterrent to far-fetched opportunities.
93. All too often, would-be decision-makers take too much time collecting, analyzing and reanalyzing information, hoping for that one last convincing detail that will dictate the correct choice.
94. Consider if the passage of time shrinks available options or creates new ones.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
The Answer To Lifes Three Greatest Needs
Our lives seem to centre around three spiritual needs; our need for acceptance, our need for significance and our need for security.
Take some time to think about whom or what makes you feel accepted. The truth is, if we give the roll of making us feel accepted to a person or a situation we are asking that person or situation to be a god in our lives. Disappointment will always follow. Why? To give a person or circumstance that much power over us is a recipe for disaster.
People and circumstance will always let us down. There is no perfect person or no perfect circumstance. Only God knows exactly what you need to feel accepted. Since God has proven he has accepted us, then perhaps it is time to remove that burden from the people around us or the circumstance we find ourselves in.
Finding significance in our world is equally as challenging. Can the world we live in give us a reliable and truthful answer to the questions of my significance? I suggest to you it can not. What is my purpose? Why am I here? What is the reason for this situation? Do I matter? Does my life count? These are questions that only the One who created you can answer. An attempt to find answers to these questions apart from God leads to futility, despair and depression.
How do we process the difficult situations in our lives? Challenging circumstances can cause us to doubt ourselves and doubt God. If my faith is based on what happens to me in this world that faith will quickly vanish in the face of trial, heartache and disaster. My security can not be based on anything that is in my world.
The chaos of life is designed to breed fear. If I want to live with out fear my security must come from Christ alone. Not Money, position, power, or physical relationships. My personal relationship with Christ is my only guarantee of security. My relationship with Christ is the only guarantee of security when I die. My relationship with Christ guarantees God’s love for me in the present and God’s love for me in eternity. God gave us that guarantee when his son died on the cross. Jesus death and resurrection is God’s unchangeable promise that we are secure in him, regardless of the issues of life and death.
Perhaps now is the time for you to discover the real freedom that comes from believing in a God who loves you and has your best interests at heart. Check out my series on IDENTITY THEFT at www.allnationschurch.ca and just click on podcasts. I welcome your comments,and suggestions.
Take some time to think about whom or what makes you feel accepted. The truth is, if we give the roll of making us feel accepted to a person or a situation we are asking that person or situation to be a god in our lives. Disappointment will always follow. Why? To give a person or circumstance that much power over us is a recipe for disaster.
People and circumstance will always let us down. There is no perfect person or no perfect circumstance. Only God knows exactly what you need to feel accepted. Since God has proven he has accepted us, then perhaps it is time to remove that burden from the people around us or the circumstance we find ourselves in.
Finding significance in our world is equally as challenging. Can the world we live in give us a reliable and truthful answer to the questions of my significance? I suggest to you it can not. What is my purpose? Why am I here? What is the reason for this situation? Do I matter? Does my life count? These are questions that only the One who created you can answer. An attempt to find answers to these questions apart from God leads to futility, despair and depression.
How do we process the difficult situations in our lives? Challenging circumstances can cause us to doubt ourselves and doubt God. If my faith is based on what happens to me in this world that faith will quickly vanish in the face of trial, heartache and disaster. My security can not be based on anything that is in my world.
The chaos of life is designed to breed fear. If I want to live with out fear my security must come from Christ alone. Not Money, position, power, or physical relationships. My personal relationship with Christ is my only guarantee of security. My relationship with Christ is the only guarantee of security when I die. My relationship with Christ guarantees God’s love for me in the present and God’s love for me in eternity. God gave us that guarantee when his son died on the cross. Jesus death and resurrection is God’s unchangeable promise that we are secure in him, regardless of the issues of life and death.
Perhaps now is the time for you to discover the real freedom that comes from believing in a God who loves you and has your best interests at heart. Check out my series on IDENTITY THEFT at www.allnationschurch.ca and just click on podcasts. I welcome your comments,and suggestions.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
MY OWN WORST ENEMY
Have you seen the TV drama “My Own Worst Enemy? Even if you haven’t seen it yet I am sure you get the idea just from the title.
I don’t know about you…but I cause myself more problems than any body else. Perhaps you have heard the expression, “open mouth, insert foot”. Well that’s not just a problem with George W. Bush.
The Bible is very clear about our responsibility for our thought life. The book of Ephesians chapter 4 and 5 explains the war that is going on inside each of us. It is a war between the old self,( self is the boss) the nature we were born with and the new self, ( love is the boss)the nature God gives us at the time of our spiritual birth. This war takes place in our mind, and specifically our attitude. One of the amazing things about attitude is that no one can take your attitude away from you. No matter what the circumstance of life, you get to choose your attitude.
Your attitude is your responsibility and God’s word makes it clear that we will be held accountable for our attitude. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 we read that we are to”… demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”. ( act only from a position of love)
We become what we believe. We behave in accordance with what we believe. If we want to be different we must believe different, and that process begins with our thought life and the discipline of our attitude to make sure every thought aligns with how Christ would think. The reason Jesus Christ is our highest example is because he never thought or did anything that was not from a position of love. This is the basis of the famous Sermon On the Mount in the book of Matthew.
Our actions and attitudes will be a direct reflection of what we feed our minds. If we feed our minds God’s word and discipline our attitude to conform to that word we will behave accordingly. If we feed on the words of the world’s system, we can not help but reflect that system in our attitudes and action. We are what we feed our mind.
This story says it all.
An old Cherokee chief is teaching his grandson about life:
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
"One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.
"The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope,
serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
"This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old chief simply replied, "The one you feed."
Which nature do you feed the most? The nature of self,me mine,my way OR the nature of love,others,generosity,you first.
Until we each learn to function from a position of love in our beliefs, thoughts and actions, the world will continue to be at war, neighbours will continue to fight, marriages will continue to fall apart.
What kind of world are you contributing too?
I don’t know about you…but I cause myself more problems than any body else. Perhaps you have heard the expression, “open mouth, insert foot”. Well that’s not just a problem with George W. Bush.
The Bible is very clear about our responsibility for our thought life. The book of Ephesians chapter 4 and 5 explains the war that is going on inside each of us. It is a war between the old self,( self is the boss) the nature we were born with and the new self, ( love is the boss)the nature God gives us at the time of our spiritual birth. This war takes place in our mind, and specifically our attitude. One of the amazing things about attitude is that no one can take your attitude away from you. No matter what the circumstance of life, you get to choose your attitude.
Your attitude is your responsibility and God’s word makes it clear that we will be held accountable for our attitude. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 we read that we are to”… demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”. ( act only from a position of love)
We become what we believe. We behave in accordance with what we believe. If we want to be different we must believe different, and that process begins with our thought life and the discipline of our attitude to make sure every thought aligns with how Christ would think. The reason Jesus Christ is our highest example is because he never thought or did anything that was not from a position of love. This is the basis of the famous Sermon On the Mount in the book of Matthew.
Our actions and attitudes will be a direct reflection of what we feed our minds. If we feed our minds God’s word and discipline our attitude to conform to that word we will behave accordingly. If we feed on the words of the world’s system, we can not help but reflect that system in our attitudes and action. We are what we feed our mind.
This story says it all.
An old Cherokee chief is teaching his grandson about life:
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
"One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.
"The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope,
serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
"This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old chief simply replied, "The one you feed."
Which nature do you feed the most? The nature of self,me mine,my way OR the nature of love,others,generosity,you first.
Until we each learn to function from a position of love in our beliefs, thoughts and actions, the world will continue to be at war, neighbours will continue to fight, marriages will continue to fall apart.
What kind of world are you contributing too?
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
WHY YOU ARE THE WAY YOU ARE
Based the principles found in the bible, I wrote the following statement;
“You become what you believe. Change what you believe and you change what you become”.
Neither you nor I can act differently that what we believe deep inside of us. The bible calls that place of belief, the “heart”. If you want to behave differently you must change the source of your belief and that means you must change your heart.
Here is the problem we face: how do you change your heart? How can you be sure that you do not just change one defective set of beliefs for another? Or simply change one defective heart for another defective heart.
I realize that as a society we seem to have abandoned the notion that there is any moral truth at all. However, I believe the bible is a book about truth. The bible contains the truth about you. The bible is basically God’s story about what He intends to do with this world and with you in particular. God has a very specific plan for you. If you understand that plan and put that plan in your mind, you will be fulfilled, and satisfied. You must put what the bible says about you into your mind and into your heart ,so you can become what God has planned for you to become.
What a sad state of affairs to come to the end of life as we know it and finally realize we have been believing and behaving from a defective set of life principles.
There is an enormous amount of power in our mind, beliefs and thoughts. We would do well to be certain we have the right information in our mind.
Here are some amazing statements about the power that God has planted in your mind. They were written many years ago by a man named James Allen. He uses the term “man” to mean every person male or female.
“As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called "spontaneous" and "unpremeditated" as to those which are deliberately executed”
“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind”
“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears.”
“Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.
“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results. Bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results”.
“Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot. It rapidly crystallizes into habit”
Let me encourage you to take the time to examine what you believe and why you believe what you believe. The key to fulfillment is in your thoughts and beliefs. This is what I believe; it matters what you believe. Your success depends on it!
Check out the pod casts on www.allnationschurch.ca and go to IDENTITY THEFT
“You become what you believe. Change what you believe and you change what you become”.
Neither you nor I can act differently that what we believe deep inside of us. The bible calls that place of belief, the “heart”. If you want to behave differently you must change the source of your belief and that means you must change your heart.
Here is the problem we face: how do you change your heart? How can you be sure that you do not just change one defective set of beliefs for another? Or simply change one defective heart for another defective heart.
I realize that as a society we seem to have abandoned the notion that there is any moral truth at all. However, I believe the bible is a book about truth. The bible contains the truth about you. The bible is basically God’s story about what He intends to do with this world and with you in particular. God has a very specific plan for you. If you understand that plan and put that plan in your mind, you will be fulfilled, and satisfied. You must put what the bible says about you into your mind and into your heart ,so you can become what God has planned for you to become.
What a sad state of affairs to come to the end of life as we know it and finally realize we have been believing and behaving from a defective set of life principles.
There is an enormous amount of power in our mind, beliefs and thoughts. We would do well to be certain we have the right information in our mind.
Here are some amazing statements about the power that God has planted in your mind. They were written many years ago by a man named James Allen. He uses the term “man” to mean every person male or female.
“As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called "spontaneous" and "unpremeditated" as to those which are deliberately executed”
“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind”
“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears.”
“Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.
“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results. Bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results”.
“Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot. It rapidly crystallizes into habit”
Let me encourage you to take the time to examine what you believe and why you believe what you believe. The key to fulfillment is in your thoughts and beliefs. This is what I believe; it matters what you believe. Your success depends on it!
Check out the pod casts on www.allnationschurch.ca and go to IDENTITY THEFT
Monday, October 13, 2008
WILL THE REAL YOU PLEASE STAND UP
I don’t know about you, but I see very little of God in our world today. I see greed, haltered, selfishness, cruelty, emotional pain, rejection, isolation, jealousy, lies, sensuality, careless sex, aborted babies, broken promises, shame, guilt, fear and a host of other behaviours, that if taken together reflect God, I would want no part in Him.
Maybe what really freaks me out is that I see so little of God in my own actions. When I am truly honest with myself my behaviours more often reflect my selfish needs and not the actions of a loving God. I have reached a season in my life where I do not want that to be so any longer.
The key to changing any behaviour is to change what you believe in your heart. You cannot behave any differently from what you believe. Every action is a response to what you truly believe deep down in side of you. James Allen has written, “Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results. Bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are”.
What would you do if you discovered that many of the things you believe about yourself are not true? They are in fact lies. And for years you have been acting/ behaving from that set of lies and not from the truth. And, (here comes the conspiracy theory) there has been a concerted effort to make sure you never find out the truth about who you were really meant to be. I call this IDENTITY THEFT.
It is so simple. God has a plan and a purpose and a personality just for you. That plan purpose and personality has been hijacked and until the hijackers are exposed you will never find the real you, the you, God intended you to be. Until you discover Gods intentions for you, you will forever be searching in the wrong place. That is why so many people work hard all their lives, get ahead, become successful and eventually come up empty. That is why so many people never learn from their mistakes and repeat the same failures over and over again. They have been deceived, lied to, and are working under false orders.
I believe with all my heart our real personality and purpose has been hijacked. In Psalm 139 David is very clear about the fact that God has a distinct purpose and personality for each of his created children. He says in verse 14 that” We are fear fully and wonderfully made”; made in the very image of God
There is good news. God has made a way for you to discover who he intends you to be. Everything hinges on what you believe and weather what you believe is the truth or a lie. We are all on a journey of self discovery. The path we take may be different. And contrary to current popular thought, all paths do not lead to the same destination.
There is a you, which God intended. You are not a random collection of neurons and microbes and synapses and electrical currents. Most of us have been living out lies, lies that we have embodied as truths. We must replace those lies with the Truth and learn to live each day out of the truth and act from a position of love in our personalities.
God has made it possible for you to behave differently. He gave us Jesus Christ as our example. Every action, every attitude of Jesus Christ was birthed from His understanding of the truth about who he was and his purpose. He behaved consistently out of his beliefs and his beliefs were grounded in love, for he himself was love in human form.
Genuine change in behavior is possible but we must start with a tested, proven reliable source for that change. I believe that reliable source is Jesus.
So here is my IDENTITY THEFT CHALLENGE, start to read about the life story of Jesus. Get an easily readable translation of the bible like The NIV, The Message, or CEV. You will find the translation short forms on the cover. Start in the New Testament section the book called John, then go back and read Matthew, Mark and Luke. One thing you will notice is the incredible consistency with which Jesus behaved. He behaved the same no matter what the circumstance. He also behaved in complete agreement with his source. (You will understand what I mean by the time you have finished the book of John). Getting grounded in understanding the personality and purpose of Jesus is the first step in discovering who you really are.
Next time we will look at the sources of what you believe about yourself. We will examine them and test them in a writing called “Why You are the Way You Are”.
Maybe what really freaks me out is that I see so little of God in my own actions. When I am truly honest with myself my behaviours more often reflect my selfish needs and not the actions of a loving God. I have reached a season in my life where I do not want that to be so any longer.
The key to changing any behaviour is to change what you believe in your heart. You cannot behave any differently from what you believe. Every action is a response to what you truly believe deep down in side of you. James Allen has written, “Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results. Bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are”.
What would you do if you discovered that many of the things you believe about yourself are not true? They are in fact lies. And for years you have been acting/ behaving from that set of lies and not from the truth. And, (here comes the conspiracy theory) there has been a concerted effort to make sure you never find out the truth about who you were really meant to be. I call this IDENTITY THEFT.
It is so simple. God has a plan and a purpose and a personality just for you. That plan purpose and personality has been hijacked and until the hijackers are exposed you will never find the real you, the you, God intended you to be. Until you discover Gods intentions for you, you will forever be searching in the wrong place. That is why so many people work hard all their lives, get ahead, become successful and eventually come up empty. That is why so many people never learn from their mistakes and repeat the same failures over and over again. They have been deceived, lied to, and are working under false orders.
I believe with all my heart our real personality and purpose has been hijacked. In Psalm 139 David is very clear about the fact that God has a distinct purpose and personality for each of his created children. He says in verse 14 that” We are fear fully and wonderfully made”; made in the very image of God
There is good news. God has made a way for you to discover who he intends you to be. Everything hinges on what you believe and weather what you believe is the truth or a lie. We are all on a journey of self discovery. The path we take may be different. And contrary to current popular thought, all paths do not lead to the same destination.
There is a you, which God intended. You are not a random collection of neurons and microbes and synapses and electrical currents. Most of us have been living out lies, lies that we have embodied as truths. We must replace those lies with the Truth and learn to live each day out of the truth and act from a position of love in our personalities.
God has made it possible for you to behave differently. He gave us Jesus Christ as our example. Every action, every attitude of Jesus Christ was birthed from His understanding of the truth about who he was and his purpose. He behaved consistently out of his beliefs and his beliefs were grounded in love, for he himself was love in human form.
Genuine change in behavior is possible but we must start with a tested, proven reliable source for that change. I believe that reliable source is Jesus.
So here is my IDENTITY THEFT CHALLENGE, start to read about the life story of Jesus. Get an easily readable translation of the bible like The NIV, The Message, or CEV. You will find the translation short forms on the cover. Start in the New Testament section the book called John, then go back and read Matthew, Mark and Luke. One thing you will notice is the incredible consistency with which Jesus behaved. He behaved the same no matter what the circumstance. He also behaved in complete agreement with his source. (You will understand what I mean by the time you have finished the book of John). Getting grounded in understanding the personality and purpose of Jesus is the first step in discovering who you really are.
Next time we will look at the sources of what you believe about yourself. We will examine them and test them in a writing called “Why You are the Way You Are”.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
THE GLOBAL MONEY MELTDOWN
Greed has raised it's ugly head in the USA sub-prime mortgage crisis. What else but greed could have mortgage brokers, bankers and other lending institutions convince naive consumers that they can borrow money they can never hope to repay. Why are consumers so naive? Greed! They want to be naive! They want to believe they can buy that bigger house, car, pool and ATV. And what about the lending institutions who took those worthless mortgages and packaged them up into Real estate Investment Trusts that consumers in the stock markets thought were backed by real solid real estate? Deception, greed, naivete; the worlds monetary system at it's best.
1.8 million homes in default. Over 8 million homes with no or negative equity. Investment Banks falling like house flies. And with the massive 12 trillion dollar devaluation of the housing market, comes a major loss of real estate taxes which impacts every local community.
What follows is more of the truth. You may not want to hear it...but it is the truth!
National and Consumer debt is sucking the life out of our economies. If you want to survive difficult economic times…reduce your debt.
The most current figures I could research about debt are as follows… USA Debt today: $9,789,490,720,019. USA per Person: $32,119. Canada Net Debt 2007: $508,109,000,000. Canada per Person: $15,217
While some economists are telling us that the Canadian economy is strong enough and regulated enough to survive the US monetary meltdown, we will experience the aftershocks of a global economic crisis.
As the USA economy attempts to weather this recent storm of greed and deception in its financial institutions, massive infusions of cash will be needed. While the American government is proposing millions of dollars in bailouts for these institutions (and nothing it seems for the consumer) foreign governments and corporations are coming to the rescue.
According to the latest data, I was able to find, 785 U.S. businesses were acquired by foreign investors for $129 billion this year through August.
A few of the foreign investments now buying up the USA are:
Abu Dhabi's bid to buy 20% of the NASDAQ
Abu Dhabi's $7.5−billion bailout of Citigroup
China's $3−billion purchase of the Blackstone Group
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's purchase of 9% of U.S. private equity
firm Apollo Management for an undisclosed sum.
While foreign investment is regulated some what here in Canada, Canada and Canadian assets continue to be purchased by foreign interests (Vale INCO as an example).
The Bible is so clear about our obsession with money. It says that "the love of money is the root of all evil." Bigger, better, more, is at the heart of our consumptive society. We must reduce unnecessary consumption, learn contentment and invest in our world rather than make withdrawals from our world. It is imperative that we teach our children how to add value to the world through serving and giving rather than take value from our world through constant consumption.
The values I have just expressed are so counter-cultural...but they are the start of healing our devastated economy and following God's economic principles as outlined in the bible. Do not be in debt. Be generous. Save some. Live off the rest of your money.
While economists debate, we as people must become much more disciplined and directed in our spending. As people we must learn to trust in God as our source of supply and not the world’s monetary system. We could at least, check our Bible as much as we check our stocks.
1.8 million homes in default. Over 8 million homes with no or negative equity. Investment Banks falling like house flies. And with the massive 12 trillion dollar devaluation of the housing market, comes a major loss of real estate taxes which impacts every local community.
What follows is more of the truth. You may not want to hear it...but it is the truth!
National and Consumer debt is sucking the life out of our economies. If you want to survive difficult economic times…reduce your debt.
The most current figures I could research about debt are as follows… USA Debt today: $9,789,490,720,019. USA per Person: $32,119. Canada Net Debt 2007: $508,109,000,000. Canada per Person: $15,217
While some economists are telling us that the Canadian economy is strong enough and regulated enough to survive the US monetary meltdown, we will experience the aftershocks of a global economic crisis.
As the USA economy attempts to weather this recent storm of greed and deception in its financial institutions, massive infusions of cash will be needed. While the American government is proposing millions of dollars in bailouts for these institutions (and nothing it seems for the consumer) foreign governments and corporations are coming to the rescue.
According to the latest data, I was able to find, 785 U.S. businesses were acquired by foreign investors for $129 billion this year through August.
A few of the foreign investments now buying up the USA are:
Abu Dhabi's bid to buy 20% of the NASDAQ
Abu Dhabi's $7.5−billion bailout of Citigroup
China's $3−billion purchase of the Blackstone Group
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's purchase of 9% of U.S. private equity
firm Apollo Management for an undisclosed sum.
While foreign investment is regulated some what here in Canada, Canada and Canadian assets continue to be purchased by foreign interests (Vale INCO as an example).
The Bible is so clear about our obsession with money. It says that "the love of money is the root of all evil." Bigger, better, more, is at the heart of our consumptive society. We must reduce unnecessary consumption, learn contentment and invest in our world rather than make withdrawals from our world. It is imperative that we teach our children how to add value to the world through serving and giving rather than take value from our world through constant consumption.
The values I have just expressed are so counter-cultural...but they are the start of healing our devastated economy and following God's economic principles as outlined in the bible. Do not be in debt. Be generous. Save some. Live off the rest of your money.
While economists debate, we as people must become much more disciplined and directed in our spending. As people we must learn to trust in God as our source of supply and not the world’s monetary system. We could at least, check our Bible as much as we check our stocks.
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