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Building the Life of the Everyday Person! The Marijuana Message

Posted by john in Wednesday, August 10, 2011

     I work in a secular job and I was recently having a conversation with a young guy at lunch.  He was raised Catholic and ventured even away from that.  We began to speak about God and I listened to his ideas of what the church is.  “All you do is give the church money, money, money and I can worship God myself and keep my money.”  I tried to get him straightened out on this point but to no avail and so we ate lunch and kept jokingly bouncing the bad points of church and bad points of not going to church amongst each other. 
Are you speaking or listening with your communication?
                On the way back to work I began to give an example of why people go to church.  I will admit that I am not sure this was the Holy Spirit but the example really worked when I spoke about marijuana. 
                I said, “JJ if you were a pot smoker and loved it so much you couldn’t help but think about it all the time and you had this one guy with a nice house to hangout with on Friday nights and smoke pot, see your friends there that also loved weed, then tell me where you would be every Friday night?” 
                I think it instantly dawned on him why I said, “no you don’t have to go to church to go to Heaven, but if you are a Christian then you will want to go to church!” Now I didn’t lead JJ to the Lord that day but I did make a huge impression with him on why Christians fellowship on Sunday morning’s.  I will not stop though until he knows Jesus.
                Leadership is not about forcing someone to follow you or follow your beliefs.  Leadership is about having people want to follow you and your beliefs.  You can be as dogmatic as you want, as knowledgeable as you can possibly be, but if you do not know how to communicate your message then they will never follow you.  As a college instructor I learned that every person has different styles of learning and we must adapt to each to spread God’s message!
                Never be afraid to communicate your message on the level of the person receiving the message.  All people have different styles of learning.  Stay in God’s power and you will not go wrong.  Need help with learning to communicate with people? Let me know!
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Building the Life of the Everyday Person! Self-Improvement Tips That Will Change Your Life - Tip #1

Posted by john in Monday, August 1, 2011

Girlfriends and Girl Friends

Working toward finding happiness in your life? I know how you feel!  It seems very difficult for Christian leaders to find anyone to talk to because after all..."they know the Bible and shouldn't need any help!"

Growth is a management issue.  Life is a management issue. To grow properly you must learn management skills.

Through the next few weeks I will explore some 'Sure Fire Tips for Self Improvement'.  I need them myself from time to time and I was reading a book about it, I thought, why not make a blog about it and have people read the blog and attach some thoughts themselves.  

The very first tip I can give to Christians is TALK TO SOMEONE ELSE.  I have a bad habit of never speaking to anyone unless it is about business or just on a, "how's the weather" level.  We need better friends!

Proverbs 17:17 says, "A friends loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."(NIV)  Notice something here...it doesnt say "a brother is born FROM adversity."  God plants people in our path that they may grow into flowers that inspire us and help us!  

Make a list of friends you have.  Take that list and pick one out that you know you could tell anything to and go have a cup of coffee with them!  Or call me...I'm always looking for people that were "born for my problems(adversity)".


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Building the Life of the Everyday Person! Self-Improvement Tip #4: Remember That Timing Is Everything

Posted by john in Friday, July 29, 2011

Free Two Happy Girls Holding Hands Walking to ...
     Maybe happiness is meant to be the exception rather the rule.  If you're happy too much of the time, you might get too comfortable - too complacent - with the way things are and not want to change anything.  For example, if people had been happy having to light their homes with candles, we wouldn't have needed Thomas Edison to come along and invent the electric light bulb.  If in the Old West, people had been happy with the Pony Express as the major communication link between east and west, we wouldn't have needed the telegraph, telephone, and eventual global telecommunication networks.  If Americans had been happy using horses to plow their fields nad take them into town, Henry Ford would never have brought us tractors and automobiles.

    This could explain why people tend to be happier as they grow older.  Maybe it makes sense that young people are more frustrated, angrier, and more restless about life - these feelings provide the energy necessary to make things happen in terms of productivity, entrepreneurship, and invention.

    What I'm suggesting is that perhaps happiness is wasted on young and is emotion better suited to people in the other parts of life.  Why else would 38% of people between the ages of 68 and 77 report being "very happy" as compared to only 28% of those between 18 & 27?

    Look on the bright side: If you're under age 40, you have something to look forward to - a happier time of life.  If you're over 40, good news: You're already well on your way to compounding a life of happiness!


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Building the Life of the Everyday Person! Self-Improvement Tip #3: - Linger in the Moment

Posted by john in Thursday, July 28, 2011

stress
Bottom Line: Some people allow time in their busy day for a few moments of happiness, and other do not.  Which kind of person are you?

I wonder what it would look like if we could see the air waves and see all the communications traveling at once.  From cell phones, internet, radio waves and TV waves the lines we could see would blind us instantly.  But so is our lives.  
If you could take your brain waves and put them physically in front of your eyes would go instantly blind because of how many waves you would see?  Worry waves, stress waves, money waves, cell phone, TV, radio, computer...well you get the point, the waves would over power us if we could see them, yet sometimes they still do even when we cant see them! SLOW DOWN AND BE STILL!

Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

If you know God then you know that He will rule one day, He will again come to this earth and destroy every single wave that invades our brain and the only one remaining is His.  With this in mind...is there really anything to worry about?  Be still a while and linger...have fun...daddy says it will be ok!


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Building the Life of the Everyday Person! Self-Improvement Tip #2: Broaden Your Focus and Expand Your Thinking

Posted by john in Wednesday, July 27, 2011

positive
Positive emotions - curiosity, love, joy, contentment, wonder, excitement - expand your focus of attention.

When you're anger, your focus narrows to the source of your frustration and the object of your wrath. Your mind is like a heat-seeking missile, bent on destruction.

Stop letting that one negative suck all the positive possibilities from your life! You must learn to multi-task. Only an idiot would suggest the old saying, "just don't it bother you, move on, you are a bigger person!" Well that's good if you live in a fantasy world but sometimes our flesh is weak even when our spirit knows better! ("Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." Matthew 26:41)

Jesus got angry but was still God! He went running through the temple turning over tables, yelling etc as he saw the people using the temple for the wrong thing! (Matthew 21:12) Anger is not bad in some ways because they are a perfectly natural reaction to certain circumstances.

Stop letting Satan steal your possibilities today. Even though you feel anger, hurt or sadness toward someone or something determine that you are also going to feel love, joy, happiness or some other positive feeling toward something else and you will see a joy take over that negative!

And remember this...the temple of God is us...He lives in us. To use your temple for negative will make Christ angry so letting a negative stay in your may lead to your self-destruction because Christ wants no temple being used for wrong things!

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Building the Life of the Everyday Person! A Tandem Ride With Jesus

Posted by john in Sunday, April 10, 2011

FLESHImage by Amydeanne via Flickr

Jesus Our Savior!
I heard this in Church today and thought it great to share...

I used to think of God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there, sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I didn't really know Him. 


But later on, when I met Jesus, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Jesus was in the back helping me pedal. I didn't know just when it was He suggested we change, but life has not been the same since I took the back-seat to Jesus, my Lord. He makes life exciting. When I had control, I thought I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable. It was the shortest distance between two points. 


But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places and at break-through speeds; it was all I could do to hang on! Even though it often looked like madness, He said, "Pedal!" I was worried and anxious and asked, "Where are you taking me?" He laughed and didn't answer and I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into adventure. And when I'd say, "I'm scared", He'd lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey, our journey, my Lord's and mine. And we were off again. He said, "Give the gifts away; they're extra baggage, too much weight." So I did, to the people we met, and I found in giving I received, and still our burden was light. 


I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He'd wreck it, but He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear high rocks, fly to shorten scary passages. And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I'm beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, Jesus. 


And when I'm sure I just can't do any more, He just smiles and says... "Pedal."


(Author unknown)

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Building the Life of the Everyday Person! God Can Win This!!

Posted by john in Monday, February 21, 2011

Church

             God set out to prepare Elijah to be a great man of faith and prayer.  To do this, He set up and obstacle course of tests.  To this point in I Kings, Elijah had passed everyone, and God has met Elijah’s every need.  When Elijah feared for his life, God showed him where to hide.  When there was no food, God sent ravens to feed him.
                   When the wadi dried up, God sent Elijah to a widow in Sidon.  When Elijah discovered that this poor woman had no food left to share, God provided flour and oil every day to feed them all.  At this point God designed another crisis.  It was the greatest test Elijah had faced thus far.
               If you are at the end of the rope and you can’t see anything left to help you then you must depend on God.  When you think that there is nothing left to feed you physically, emotionally or spiritually then you must understand that God operates in the extra-ordinary and not the ordinary.  You may have been put at the end for a reason, at the point where you see no help or resolution.  For it is as that point where you decide if God will be allowed to win or lose in your life! 
                God has food for you every day! You must pray!  Pray and ask God to feed you.  Prayer is the feet to God’s will.  It sets God’s desire and power into action.  I challenge you to turn off the radio, turn off the TV and computer and spend 30 minutes a day in prayer!  Watch what God can do for you if you only take time to tell Him your need!  It is not that He doesn’t already know your need, He does!  The point is that God wants to hear you ask! 
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