How to change your life RIGHT NOW! (Part 1)

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.~The Apostle Paul

Image from senegambiademocracy.org

I have good news for you.

Not new news.

But good news.

You can change your life right now by changing your focus, right now.

That's it.

That's the good news.

I'm sure you've heard something like it before.

And I'm sure you've experienced it before.  In a word:

Distraction.

You've distracted yourself before.  You've done something to get your mind off of something.

That skill, the skill you already have and already use is the life changing skill.

Imagine this.

You wake up.
You decided before you went to sleep what the first thought of your day would be.
So again, you wake up, and think that thought.  Say it's this thought:

"I determine my thoughts, emotions, and actions."

That's your first thought.  And you keep that thought in focus while you do your morning routine. You practice determining your focus, no matter what happens around you.  And you keep doing that. Imagine the impact this will make on your day.  Now imagine doing that every day.  According to the research of Prochaska, Norcross, and Diclemente, it takes 90 days to make a change permanent.  So imagine you wake up everyday, for 90 days, and focus your mind in the way we've been talking about.  You would have the power, one day at a time, one thought at a time, to not only change your life, but to define your life.

You can start now.

Decide your focus.

Click here for part 2.

How to change your life RIGHT NOW! (Part 2)

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." ~King Solomon

I have more good news.

A word.  A compound word (maybe?)

MINDSET:

A fixed mental disposition that predetermines your interpretation and response to situations.

From dictionary.com (rearranged by me.)

That's the good news.  You can fix your focus in such a way that it predetermines your interpretation and responses to situations.

Say you decide to fix your mental disposition on negative situations.  You decide to be negative.  Now say someone compliments you.  Someone says, "You really look nice today."  Because you have a negative mindset, you may interpret the compliment as a deception.  "She's only saying that to get something from me.  She just wants to butter me up for something."  So you may say, "Thank you," but you won't mean it.  You'll be watching her.

But if you have a positive mindset, and receive the very same compliment, you will interpret the compliment as genuine, and genuinely say thank you.

Your mindset determines your experience, and your responses to your experience.

Your focus is your heart.  And you have the key to what comes in, as well as what goes out, of your mind and mouth.  That's why Solomon said to guard your heart above all else, because everything you do flows from it.  

How do you change your life right now?

By changing your mindset.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Do you really want to meet God?

For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world:  to bear witness to the truth.  All who are of the truth hear my voice. ~Jesus, The Chosen One, God's Son.

Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more.
~Morpheus, from The Matrix.

What if I could tell you something that would change who you are from now until you die?

I have something to tell you.  Something that will change who you are from now until you die.

Do you want to hear it?

That's the question.

We say we want to change.

But most of the time we don't.

We won't.

We can't.

We are afraid of that change because it will mean we have come face to face with reality.

With God Himself.

Most of us don't want to meet God.

We don't.
We won't.
We can't.

Why?

Because if we meet God, then the illusion that we are gods must come to an end.
Do you want that?
Do you want to meet God?

(I'm really asking.  You can really answer in the comments.)

When death comes to good people

The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.  Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death. Isaiah 57:1-2 NIV

I had never seen God's words above from Isaiah.  So meaningful to me.  So powerful to me.  Intuitively I think we all know that when a good person dies, it must be for a good reason. And God just gave us the good reason. The real reason.

The reason an innocent baby dies, the reason an innocent baby is allowed to die, or is taken away from this world, is to spare this innocent baby from evil.  Evidently, evil awaited this innocent child, and God spared him or her, taking him or her straight to heaven.  Imagine.  To wake up in heaven, and for that to be the only thing you've ever known, or ever will know.  So many babies have died, and are dying as I type.  God is sparing them from evil.

This doesn't mean that killing them isn't evil. It still is.  But if God allows it, He is sparing them from even more evil, from even worse evil.  God is good.  Glory to God.

And when a righteous man dies, in his righteousness, because of his righteousness, God is sparing this righteous man from evil.

When a righteous woman is taken away, when she has to leave a job, or a neighborhood, God is good.  God is sparing this righteous woman from evil.

When you have been righteous, and you've lost your job, or home, or relationship, when God took you away from those people or those situations, God was sparing you from evil, if you were righteous in that situation.

Now if you were unrighteous, that's another story. Another blog post.

But if you were righteous, and you were removed from a person, place, or situation, God loves you.  God spared you.

Praise God.

How to heal and be healed (Part 2)

So, how do you know if you are healed, or if someone else is healed when you share the good news about Jesus the healer?

How did you know you were saved when you believed the good news about Jesus the Savior?

The Spirit makes it known, as it is written, "The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God."  In other words, God Himself makes it known to you.  How else would it be?  If God is the one who is forgiving you, God Himself is the one who'd let you know that He forgave you.

And if God is the one who heals you, then you will know that you are healed in the same way you know that you are forgiven.

How do you know if you're forgiven?  You don't feel ashamed or condemned anymore.  You feel free to be in a relationship with the one you formerly sinned against. 

What about sickness?  How do you know you're healed from a cough?  You stop coughing.  How do you know you are healed from a headache?  Your head no longer aches. 

You should expect the same certainty, predictability, and reliability of healing that you do from salvation.  Is one harder for God than the other? 

Remember some men bring Jesus someone who was paralyzed?  They put him in through a roof because Jesus was so crowded by people trying to hear him.  Jesus saw their faith and said to the paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven."  The religious leaders thought Jesus blasphemed because only God can forgive sins.  So Jesus said, "Which is easier to say?  'Your sins are forgiven,' or 'Take up your mat and walk?' But so that you will know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins--(Jesus said to the paralytic) "Take up your mat and walk."  And the paralyzed man got up and walked.

Do you see the connection?  You can't see sins being forgiven, but you can see a paralyzed man get up and walk.  The same God who heals diseases, which came about through Adam's sin, also forgives the sin that caused sicknesses. 

But we don't usually believe that.  In Jesus' day, the religious leaders believed he could heal, but they didn't believe Jesus could forgive sins.  Today it's the opposite.  We believe Jesus can forgive sins, but we don't believe he can heal.  We may not even believe He forgives sin, not really. 

I choose to believe.  Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He is still my Savior, my Healer, and Deliverer.

What about you?

How to heal and be healed

Surely He took our infirmities and carried our sicknesses.  By His wounds we are healed.
The Prophet Isaiah

Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died for your sins?  If so, you know that your sins were immediately forgiven and forgotten, as if they never happened, the moment you believed.  Period.  Jesus' death for us is a historical fact.  Even if you don't feel forgiven, that wouldn't and couldn't mean Jesus didn't die and rise from the dead.  He is our Savior.

But did you know that He's also our Healer?

Yes, His salvation is not just so we can be forgiven for sins, it's also so that we can be healed from sicknesses, as it is written,

"Praise the LORD oh my soul and forget not all of his benefits.  Who forgives all of your sins and heals all of your diseases..."  King David

The same God who forgives all sin also heals all diseases.
All sin.
All diseases.

How? 
Faith.

If you can believe God to forgive you, the same belief also heals you.
This is how you are healed:  Trust in Jesus as your healer in the same way you trusted him as your Savior.

And this is how you heal:  Share the good news about Jesus as the Healer in the same way you shared the good news about Jesus as Savior.

If the sinner accepts Jesus as Savior, he or she is saved.
If the sick person accepts Jesus as Healer, he or she is healed.

All you do is share the good news.  If the one who hears believes, he or she will be saved...and healed.

Escaping the argument trap (Part 2)

"Don't answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.  But speak with a fool according to your wisdom lest he think in his soul that he is wise." 
Proverbs 26:4-5


I will never argue again.  I will never verbally fight.

I've said that before, and still did it.  Why?  I see these two reasons:

1. I forget who I'm talking to: an unreasonable person.
2. I forget my focus, allowing myself to get blindsided and distracted.

So, if I don't need to forget these two things, then I need to remember two things instead.

ONLY REASON WITH REASONABLE PEOPLE
I used to be a bouncer, and the head bouncer had this motto:  Never try to reason with a drunkard.
It seems obvious.  But I would forget.  I actually had an experience that was just as telling.  A drunk woman, or a woman who was leaving tipsiness and entering intoxication, said, "I keep forgetting I'm talking to someone who is sober."  Look at that.  Even as she approached drunkenness, she had to remind herself that the best person to talk to when you're drunk is someone else whose drunk.  She saw what the head bouncer saw: The sober and the drunk can't converse.  Sober people converse with sober people.  Drunks converse with drunks. 

But I forget.  I start talking to a drunk person as if she's sober.  In doing so, I become drunk with rage.  I allow myself to get into the hellishness of arguments, the merry-go-round of fighting. 

Never again.  I will reason with the reasonable, reasonably.  With the unreasonable, I will either completely avoid them, not talk to them at all, or speak as briefly as possible.

Click here for part 3.

(The image above is from Google Images)