A two-way street

God knows your requests, everything that you expect to receive from Him. Have no doubt about it. According to your faith, you will receive them.

The question is:

Do you know what God has asked of you? And most importantly:

Have you honored His request yet?

 

Outsmarting your habit

You already know, the majority of things that you do daily consist of habits. From the side of the bed you sleep on, to the time you wake up, or what you do from the time you wake up, the food you eat, the route to work, your routine at work and dozens of other tasks you complete – are all habitual.

Habit is something we do without much thinking. The activity is already embedded in our memory and triggered by some kind of deficit faced in a situation or activity. The bad taste in your mouth in the morning triggers the habit of brushing your teeth. The smell and taste of the rice on your plate triggers the habit of adding beans as well. The annoyance your husband causes you triggers the habit of brushing him off and diving into Facebook for the next two hours. (You can’t imagine the power of habit.)

That’s where the problem lies. Bad habits create bad results. We know this, but we’re still not able to break them. Why? Because we’re not outsmarting them.

It’s possible for you to break a habit, if you only take your brain off auto-pilot and use it.

Want to break a bad habit? Are you up for an experiment?

Okay, here goes. The first step is to identify the bad habit that you want to break.

Write it down on paper. But before you do pay attention. It has to be something:

1. that really bothers you
2. that you’re sick of falling for, and
3. that will bring you positive results, a good reward, when broken and substituted with something better

These three points are very important. The habit that you want to break has to be included in one of the three. So now, take a couple of minutes and write what it is.

The Coach

The starting point for the coach is to believe in the player, in his potential.

Then he identifies his strengths and weaknesses.

He decides what to do to maximize his strengths and eliminate his weaknesses.
He is demanding, because he knows that every player is a reflection of the coach.
He disciplines with a firm hand but not to the point of hurt, because he knows the limits of the person.
He shows how it’s done and provides the necessary tools for the job to be done.
He teaches.
He is a friend but not a buddy.
He helps the person achieve more than he could ever do alone.

Every father (and mother) is a coach.
Every husband (and wife) is a coach.
Every teacher is a coach.
Every boss is a coach.
Every pastor is a coach.
Every leader is a coach.
YOU are a coach — if not to another person, at least to yourself.

What kind of coach have you been?

Thinking BIG-Small thinkers live small lives

Thinking big, in a nutshell, is to think like God. God’s thoughts are bigger than big. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts,” He said in Isaiah 55.9.

Man is limited only by his thoughts. And unfortunately, most people have been prisoners in the tiny prisons of their small thoughts.

You can only do what you think is possible. That’s why people who think small, live small lives.

What is to think small?

It’s to think of what you don’t have instead of what you do.

It’s to think of what you can’t do instead of what you can.

It’s to think of a problem instead of a solution.

It’s to think of what you have against you instead of what you have for you.

It’s to think that you already have enough because you have more than a pauper.

It’s to think that you have tried everything to get what you want when you’ve really only tried a handful of things.

It’s to think that successful people are just ‘lucky’ and that you are not as lucky as them.

It’s to doubt you will succeed and believe you will fail.

You can only do what you think is possible. Henry Ford said, “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you will ALWAYS be right.”

So when you catch yourself wondering why your life is this or that way, why it doesn’t get better, the answer will inevitably come down to the kinds of thoughts you’ve been thinking.

To think big is to think like God. And to think like God, first you must know what He thinks. And to know what He thinks, meditate on what He said in His Word. Here’s just one example:

“Ask of Me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.” Psalm 2.8

What was it again you asked Him for when you prayed this morning?

Onslaught of Evil

A frightening diagnosis, a curse of witchcraft, a death threat, and all else that terrorises the heart, are darts from hell to confront our faith. If our faith is based on the Word of God, none of these things will matter; however, if our faith is based on our emotions, the heart will tremble and collapse before the problems.

For this reason, the Spirit warns us not to look at things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4.17,18).

When we take intelligent faith into account, we do not accept doubts or give in to any “light and momentary” affliction, however difficult it might seem. On the contrary, we manifest a natural resistance as a result of our personal conviction! That’s when revolt comes in and we demand the fulfilment of the Word of the Eternal God.

This is to see what cannot be seen, to believe the impossible, to live from faith to faith and by faith.

How can a person understand this if he is not born of God?

How God Speaks to You

On November 4th 1995, Yigal Amir, an Israeli and devout Jewish law student, assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin because, he claimed, God told him to do it. In May 2003, Deanna Laney, a 38-year-old Texan mother of three, ‘devoted wife and choir member in her church’, killed her two sons aged 6 and 8, and bashed the skull of her 14-month-old baby. After doing it, she phoned the police and said calmly ‘I have just killed my children. God told me to do it.’

When I hear stories like that I can only think that either God has gone mad or I am worshipping a very different God from the one these people do.

The two examples above are perhaps a bit extreme but they do illustrate what can happen when people do not recognize the voice of God. Every day, people around the world make wrong decisions based on the belief that God is telling them to do it. How many, for instance, have gotten married thinking the person was “God’s choice” for them, only to realize later they made a big mistake?

Truth: Who doesn’t want to hear God speak to them?

But how does God speak to us? Can we know when He speaks? How can we be more sensitive to hear His voice? Can the devil speak to us and pass off as God? Let’s explore the issues around this subject.

I would say that 99% of what God wants to say to us is written in the Bible. And the remaining 1% includes different ways He may use to draw our attention back again to the 99% that He already explained in His Word.

In other words: It is extremely important that you do not deviate from God’s Word when seeking guidance from God for your life. To look for dreams, visions, signs, prophecies or any other kind of special revelation will probably lead you to the wrong place. Some of the most confused Christians I have ever met were deep into this kind of belief. That’s because the devil uses these things to speak to people and pass off as God.

God has repeatedly said that His Word will never change. He is committed to it. He is not like politicians who promise and don’t do it. Neither does He have a memory problem to forget what He said. So there is no other word, advice or revelation that can be safer, surer, or more reliable than the Word of God itself. You are safe if you stick to it.

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3.16,17

Having said that, it is important that you take the Scriptures as a whole, bringing every verse you read into context. Loose verses of the Bible can be easily misinterpreted and lead you to disastrous consequences. God has given us faith and intelligence to be used together to our benefit. If you use your faith alone, you will become a fanatic. If you use your intelligence alone, you will become a stupid unbeliever.

God speaks to you through His inspired Word. Therefore, read your Bible and meditate on it. Make time to hear God more, and He will speak to you more. It’s amazing how much you can benefit by cutting down a little on watching TV, listening to music and reading the papers, and instead using that time to spend with the Word of God. Try it.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Do you have them?

 

God looked to all religions and said:

—  You don’t represent Me.

The valley was full of religious leaders from around the world, from all religions. From the top of the mountain, God’s voice spoke. Perplexed, they asked: “What do mean we don’t represent you?”

– If you had a mirror, I would tell you to look at yourselves. But let me tell you what I see:

• Internal fights – your leaders dispute for power, while I taught that “the greatest would serve the least.”
• External fights – you fight amongst yourselves, counting who has more sheep, all the while the sheep that have gone astray are getting lost
• You made me the image and likeness of yourselves. Instead of being like Me, you imagine me to be like you. You change your God to comply with you but you don’t mold yourselves to my liking
• You think I hate the same people you hate. I have bad news for your: I don’t hate anybody, but I hate what you do
• You manipulate my people for your own gain. You make up schemes, always thinking of how to take more of my sheep’s money, when I ordered that you take care of them
• You make a spectacle of yourselves to please people instead of giving them what they need. Your meetings (or better yet, you should call them “shows?”) are full of tricks to impress, involve, and lull My sheep into a sleep of deception

– Should I go on? You don’t represent Me. You’re frauds!

Although embarrassed, the religious people dared to say: “Lord, then who represents you?”

– Again with the hypocrisy. You don’t understand anything!  Why do you call me Lord if you’re not my servants? As for who represents me, it’s not Algebra or Trigonometry. It’s easy to know. The problem is your ego is so big you can’t see. If I would send Him to this world again, you would crucify Him once more.

There was then a long silence. And the voice became silent