If your books don’t balance you can’t blame it on anyone else!
I was sitting at a local restaurant trying to read a book in preparation for a meeting and a guy at the next table kept talking to me. He was an old guy talking about this watch he found and trying to return it to get a few dollars, which he obviously needed, then went on to his Dad etc etc. He really didn’t care if I was paying full attention but I couldn’t help hearing him out of the corner of my attention.
Then out of the clear blue he said, “If your books don’t balance, you can’t blame it on anyone else!”
All of a sudden all my attention went to that statement. I’m not sure why, but it seemed so out of place and as I considered the statement, I realized how profound it was.
“If your books don’t balance you can’t blame it on anyone else!”
Of course this is true at face value, but as I meditated on the wisdom of this simple principle, I realized it can apply to a lot of areas of our lives.
How often do I blame circumstances, how others have treated me, or just plain bad luck when things are not going my way; instead of taking personal responsibility for choices and decisions that I have made that put me in the situation? A lot!
I am going to purpose to live more by this principle of personal responsibility so that I can take control over my circumstances, make better choices and actually have a positive effect on the future.
So just remember, when life is throwing you a curve….
If your books don’t balance you can’t blame it on anyone else!
Everyone wants something, put whatever something is in this space, but no one wants to change.
There is a very basic law of life that is true for business, personal issues, spiritual life, everything. What is it?
We have a God given power over unlimited opportunities to change and determine our future, from now as far forward as we can imagine… Its the Power of a Choice!
But… The consequences of choices are set - unchangeable - like laws of nature.
However , our problem often is we keep doing the same things, making the same choices and try to change the consequences. This is very important, so let me repeat…
We try to change our circumstances by trying to change the consequences of our choices instead of changing our choices! This does not work.
Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I think a lot of us operate in our daily lives on the edge of insanity.
So here is our takeaway..
We need to change our choices if we want to change our realities of life.
1) Be careful who you listen to. Don’t listen to fools/failures or you buy into their lifestyles.
2) If you have a goal or vision you want to achieve, pick someone who is successful at that thing and make the same choices they make, do what they do.
While a little stressful to do something in front of people that you normally don’t do, my Father’s Day Message at our church proved to be a blessing.
I’ll boil the whole thing down into my central point:
We have an awesome power at our fingertips:
Our choices determine the outcomes in our lives, now and into eternity, either positive or negative.
(Sure some things happen to us we have no choice or control over, but overwhelmingly the outcomes in our lives are based on our choices!)
We learned that God lets us be involved and choose what happens in our lives; blessings or curses.
Who in their right minds would choose curses?
We all do it every day by not using the Power of a Positive Choice in our lives.
God wants a personal relationship with us as our Heaavenly Father and the same is true for us Dads.
Making a Positive Choice requires right priorities.
God wants us to Choose His Presence (person) over His Presents (things).
The video attached is an example of my daughter’s family making this kind of positive choice. When I see something like this as DAD, it feels the same to me as the first time any of my children came running to me yelling Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. It warms my heart and delights my soul (the same way God feels when we go to Him!)
Then…
I shared one small example from my own life. My dad was much older when I was born. He was a product of his generation; the great depression and both World Wars. He never had any kind of emotional relationship with me and actually called me, “Big Dummy.” In 4 years of college I never got a letter, visit or even a phone call from either of my parents. This left scars I carried around for many years (maybe still do).
But when I was in my forties (my Dad died when I was about 30) my older sister said, “Do you realize how proud Dad was of you? He talked about you all the time!”
No, I didn’t realize that! And in fact felt just the opposite.
But my feelings were wrong! And I chose a curse instead of a blessing by not making a Positive Choice to believe in how God makes a Fathers heart toward their children instead of just listening to words and filtering circumstances through my own imperfect and self centered view.
Last week I had two different people share their life stories with me. One was abandoned at birth by their Dad and another a young lady told by her Dad at 15 he wanted nothing to do with her. In both cases The Power of a Positive Choice by these two people, resulted in blessings in their lives!
As a Dad myself, I now know better the heart of a Dad toward their children and how we may fail and even some of us may fail really bad. But I choose now to believe my own Dad loved me and really wanted what was best for me. What a blessing!
So we concluded with a time for all of us to make a Positive Choice and not ascribe wrong motives to our own Dads and if necessary to forgive our Dads for the things they did to harm and scar us.
And then Choose their Presence (person) over their Presents (things).
That is where the Power of a Positive Choice intersects with Blessings!
(I’ll make the message available online when I get a copy of it.)
God has given us an amazing power to make choices and to reap blessings as a result of those choices!
This is my closing video for my Father’s Day message next week at our church, New Hope Christian Fellowship (click on name for map). And my main point.
However, there is a lot More. God has given me a very special message to fill in all the cracks that may be in our relationships with our Dads and with our Heavenly Father.
I will have the message recorded for those who can’t be there in person.
May God’s blessings flow out of your positive choices!
This classic daily devotional has delighted Christians for a hundred plus years! And its revelations and wisdom never gets old.
Now technology helps me keep up on my daily reading, even when I am too rushed to read it during my morning quiet time.
You can get it delivered directly to your email each day and can therefore read it whenever you have a spare few minutes.
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\ / MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST – http://www.heartlight.org/
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God somehow in his Sovereignty knows just want I need each day to use in my circumstances and seems to be just what I needed for that day!
Here is what one review on Amazon says:
“these profound thoughts were given by Oswald Chambers while at the Bible Training College in England, during the years of 1911 through 1914, and after his death in 1917 (while serving in Egypt during World War I) were edited by his wife, and later updated into modern English by James Reimann, who says in his introduction that the book is the “culmination of approximately 1800 hours of research and editing”, and the end result are words that flow and feed and sometimes pierce the soul with remarkable accuracy, to remind one of the way Jesus intended us to live.”
If you read this in combination with your Bible- you will find its a real change agent in your life.
At the risk of every other post on this blog being completely downhill, here is the BEST tidbit of advice I can think of. This is not some feel good psycho blabber, but rather good old meat and potatoes practical advice you can implement immediately!
Where there is UNITY God commands a blessing!
That’s it?
Yep!
First of all it sounds simplistic. That is because it is! If it were too complicated we’d never get it:-) It is a core principle stated in many ways throughout the whole bible. Unity is the basis of God himself as the Trinity. He says others will know Jesus is truly sent by God by our unity. He calls the church to oneness and unity. Families to unity. Men to unity with one another. So it is simple because it is a foundational principle.
And it works in business, family, friendships, church and on and on.
Plus, it is something we can choose. We choose how to take comments and discussions and what motives we ascribe to others.
This week at work I saw several instances of conflict between co- workers. Usually caused by poor communication and the poor communications were cause by people not trusting each other’s motives so taking offense when none was intended. Then conflict occurred that involved more people picking up offense for the original parties, and on and on.
But when all parties are pulling in unity - amazing things start to happen and the fruit is BLESSINGS.
So today- try this little test. Choose to ascribe good motives to everyone you come into contact with and see the results.
God spoke to me like a streaming video download and said, “Occupy My Promised Land.” (OMPL)
I was getting ready to teach an equipping hour class on a new book I had just finished, Marketplace Christianity (see review in this blog). The Holy Spirit sped me through a revelation of what God’s plan for the earth in the coming days looks like and how I am to be involved.
The short and sweet version is - God plans for each of us to be marketplace ministers listening to the Holy Spirit every place our foot steps to occupy our personal part of the Promised Land by bringing His Kingdom into every circumstance.
This video is a good start to understanding the Gospel of the Kingdom.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells us how to pray, “Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”
God gives us a divine human cooperative to fulfill. He has prepared works for us to do. These He prepared even before the creation of the universe and then He made each of us speficically with the gifts, talents, and even flaws to do these works.
All this is so amazing to consider… Let meditate on this revelation for a little while!
In sports its been my hardest task to lose gracefully. In close contests I wanted to be the one to take the last shot or be up to bat with the game on the line because I knew how much coming through meant to me, and wasn’t always sure of others.
Am I connecting to some of you?
In business situations this can be a help in not giving up in hard times. It can also lead to conflict when someone on the other side of a negotiation gets into a win/lose attitude rather than a win/ win attitude.
And in my marriage, my avoiding conflict until backed into a corner then coming out with guns blazing to WIN was a dysfunctional pairing of attributes. Rather than building up my wife I was tearing her down. I was supposed to love her like Christ loved the church, who gave Himself up for her that He might present her spotless and blameless before God. I used that with my daughters dates, but didn’t always live it out in day to day life. Probably still don’ do this as good as I should.
So I do hate to Lose.
Unfortunately for me, that’s not how God feels.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
The Kingdom principle is that its the losers who are the winners!
So much of what I read in the Bible could be changed out with Loser. God loves a cheerful giver (loser); The poor in spirit (losers) will inherit the Kingdom of God; Love your wife like Jesus loved the church who gave His life (loser); ……You can probably give a bigger list.
But this LOSER is someone who is willing to Lose his own rights to benefit others, to exhibit sacrificial love for others, to build others up, to bring glory to God.
So I’m trying to learn the Kingdom principle that Loser is the new Winner because in God’s Kingdom is the ultimate fulfillment of the old saying. “He who laughs last laughs best!”
I was reading the first Chapter of “David” by Charles Swindoll and he raises an interesting point about our teaching regarding servant leadership in evangelical circles.
How often do we hear Servant leadership but in our heads it looks like servant Leadership? We take Cap S and small l and turn it into small s and Cap L, when in fact Jesus doesn’t really use leadership in His teaching, just the SERVANT part.
“I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many.”
“He who would be first must be last and vice versa.”
In God’s Kingdom it seems leadership isn’t a place to strive for but rather is earned based on service and love and granted by God through Jesus.
And Jesus, what an example. He came to serve and when he is leaving earth for a season He is able to say, “All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”
There is a lesson here that i need to learn and take to heart! (small i on purpose:-)
This book was a catalyst that helped change the direction of our entire church.
We are now directing our energy 24/7 into the marketplace seeing our job as equipping ordinary people to change the world. That started a little over a year ago.
After reading MC I taught an equipping hour class and was led by the Holy Spirit to an incredable revelation about what God is doing around the world to prepare it for Jesus return.
More on that later- now for the book itself.
Robert Fraser tells about his crisis of confusion. Led to be a minister for Jesus but he found the only open doors to be in business. His journey ultimately leads to the realization that he could do more for building God’s Kingdom as a marketplace minister in his business than as a pastor in a church.
Bob combines his encouraging journey and stories with practical applications to help us take our faith into the marketplace.
But be forewarned- you will want to respond after you read this book. I used it to teach a 12 week equipping hour class and have given it to a number of my business friends.
Everyone wants to succeed in life. Our definitions of success may vary, but some common themes pass among all of us. Love, family, peace, prosperity, health, eternal security, faith... Lets discover together the principles and choices we can use to succeed in life!
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