Wise Words For Today

Christians must face the scriptural reality that life in Christ is not an automatic exemption from difficulties, hardships, and handicaps. When we face difficult, distasteful, disastrous times, we must choose to overcome them through faith in God. The maximized life is the life of the “overcomer.” This is one who faces the less-than-optimal situations in life and instead of throwing in the towel or buckling under and quitting, works through them to realize his dreams and full potential…..Real quality of life is determined by what you do in less-than-optimal situations and the way you fare under pain and pressure.

I.V. Hilliard

(from Living the Maximized Life)

 

A Very Open and Insightful Blog

Just wanted to share with my readers a fantastic blog I discovered recently. It is entitled Eve’s Utopia and is highly insightful, informative, and challenging in a positive sense of the word. I recommend it to one at all.

http://evesutopia.wordpress.com

 

Encouragement for Living: You Are Never Disqualified

Mick Turner

One of the greatest gifts of God to each of us is the placing of a divine plan for our lives deep within us. God has his generalized plan for humanity and a personal plan or mission for each of us. You, me, the butcher, baker, and even the candlestick maker have a divine purpose scripted on our hearts by the Creator and it is a plan just for us. More incredible is the fact that God has equipped us to carry that plan out and in so doing, help establish his kingdom right here on earth and bring great glory to his being. What a wonder! What a blessing! What a responsibility!

 

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you have been, and what you have done. That divine purpose still exists inside you and with a little effort and a lot of faith, you can discover it. Start with prayer, asking God through the Holy Spirit to reveal his divine plan for your life. Be persistent in your asking; be vigilant in waiting for an answer; and be confident that the answer will come.

 

Also, keep in mind that it is never too late to get started on the dreams God has for you. God created you to accomplish extraordinary things and no matter how old you are, how sinful you have been, or whatever afflictions you may suffer from, God can and will use you because that is one of the primary purposes you were created in the first place. Listen as Jim Graff speaks clearly to this issue:

 

God uses ordinary people – with all their flaws and problems – to accomplish extraordinary dreams. You and I don’t have to wait until we have it all together, achieve a certain degree of fame, earn a specified amount of money, get a better job, or meet the right person. Instead, we can start today to embrace who we are and how God made us, knowing that he will use us. From this knowledge, wellsprings of confidence water our hearts. That confidence allows us to see our dreams and visions as God’s road maps to significant lives.

 

A significant life – that is what God created you for. Make a consecrated commitment right now to lead a life of excellence in cooperation and divine partnership with the Holy Spirit. The life of excellence is what Jesus demonstrated for us and it is that same kind of life to which each of us is called. Sure, we may foul up things from time to time, but God is right there with us offering a hand to pick us up, dust us off, and send us on our divinely appointed way.

 

As said earlier, it matters not where you have been. In fact, your past failures and problems may be part of your qualification for the task God has for you to perform. I worked for many years in the field of addiction prevention and treatment. The most effective professionals ministering to those suffering from addiction were those people who were former addicts themselves. It is this foundational philosophy upon which Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are built.

 

If you think your past sin(s) prevents you from carrying out your purpose for God, you have been lied to by the Master of Deceit himself. Satan would like nothing more than for you to continue walking around half-alive, depressed, despondent, and spiritually paralyzed. That’s why that little voice tells you time and time again that there is no way God will ever use you. Granted, he may use others but you, you’re a lost cause.

 

Listen my friend – God saved you and God will use you. The God Christians worship is not a God of wasted effort. God never does anything without a reason, a plan and a purpose. If you are saved, you are to be used. You are destined to be God’s instrument for something special. If you doubt what I am saying, go to Scripture and conduct a detailed study of Paul’s life.

 

Paul, formerly known as Saul, was there when Stephen was stoned to death. He even held the coats for the men who pelted the first Christian martyr. Saul was the most persistent and ardent persecutor of the early church. By the world’s way of reasoning, you would never expect that God would use Saul to spread the faith across the Mediterranean World. But that’s exactly what God did. God, thankfully, doesn’t necessarily think as the world thinks.

 

If God can use Paul, he can surely use you.

 

In China I knew a wonderful believer named Mr. Zhou (not his real name.) Now in his 60’s, Mr. Zhou was a successful businessman and used much of his income to support the efforts of the house churches in his Province and also to support young pastors in training. He also spent most of his free time training Chinese missionaries to live and work in Muslim countries. Mr. Zhou had many business interests in the Middle East and often used his stores for employing young Chinese missionaries.

 

What makes Mr. Zhou’s story so fascinating is how it is similar to that of Paul. Back in the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution Mr. Zhou was a young man and a leader in the Red Guards. His specialty, as he put it, was ferreting out Christians and torturing them. He often beat them horribly, put dunce caps on their heads and signs on their backs, and then marched them through the city streets while a gathering mob hurled insults, bricks, and bottles at them.

 

Later, when in his late 30’s, Mr. Zhou found Christ through the efforts of a pastor he had once tortured. Now Mr. Zhou does God’s work out of a sense of love and service. God used Paul and God used Mr. Zhou.

 

If God can use Mr. Zhou, He can use you.

 

Once you finally accept the fact that God can use you, wants to use you, and will use you, it is then time to get to work. Many times sincere believers put themselves in a holding pattern, waiting for specific directions from God as to what their ultimate purpose is. Yes, we do need to discern what our ultimate purpose is and with prayer and patience we will do just that. Yet in the meantime there is plenty that we can do. No matter where you live I am certain of one thing: there are people living there who are in need of something and who are suffering. More than likely there are already groups of Christian servants working to meet some of those needs. Find out about these groups and find a way to get involved. The real question is not so much what you should do. The real question once you know in your heart that God wants to use you as his compassionate servant to a hurting world is, “Are you available?”

 

Only you can answer that question.

 

Hopefully, you are, indeed, available. You are gifted for service my friend. And no matter what form that service may take, you can rest assured of one absolute certainty: the Holy Spirit will empower you not only proceed, but succeed. He will make sure you not only survive, you will thrive.

 

My primary purpose in writing this article is to encourage you to understand and accept the reality that God put a potential and purpose in you before you were born and, further, he still wants that purpose to be realized. Stop looking back at the past and instead, step forward into the service that God has for you. You cannot change the past but know this: whatever happened is history in God’s eyes and in God’s heart. As a Christian you have been forgiven so turn your eyes forward instead of keeping them riveted in your rear view mirror.

 

Do all that you can to let this truth sink deep into the depths of your heart: where you are going, what is in your future is far more important that what’s behind you. Scripture tells us that with God, all things are possible. So if it seems your dreams have died, let the Lord resurrect those dormant dreams and allow those dreams to drive you and motivate you to be all that you can be for the glory of God and the sake of others.

 

Our world is a hurting world and there are many areas of need. The dream God placed in your heart is designed to deal with one of those areas. More than anything, the church, the Body of Christ, needs compassionate people of noble character and a heart of service. That’s you, my friend.

 

© L. D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved

 

Wise Words For Today

Sadly, because many are not knowledgeable of their divine potential, they limit their growth and development and forfeit their covenant rights that have been granted to them by their faith in Christ. They deprive their families and communities of the wonderful benefits they could provide for them…..Just as God spoke to a nonexistent universe and it came into being, God has spoken words over you that have given you immense power – power to alter and control your environment, power to excel and not fail and power to do great exploits in the earth. We have a choice to either accept or deny what God has spoken over us……There are no worthless people in God’s creation. He has given everyone a divine potential to do supernatural exploits that bring glory to his name. When you fall short of this potential, you deprive yourself and your family of the optimum life-style that was planned for you and them. You also deprive your generation and the world of your unique gifts that were given by God to bless mankind. God has chose you and made you extraordinary and special. Therefore, you have tremendous value.

 

Jim Lowe

 

(from Achieving Your Divine Potential)

 

New eBook Almost Completed

Mick Turner

Two days ago (Saturday) I reached a major goal in my life. I completed the text for my latest ebook, finished with the editing and rewrite and it is now ready for conversion into electronic format. Other than the conversion, all that remains is designing a cover.

The ebook is entitled, Radical Encouragement: Reflective Essays on Christian Optimism.

There have been times when, due to other commitments, I wondered if I would ever bring it in on time. God must have given me the needed push because I did finish it two weeks ahead of my deadline date. A second ebook entitled, The Blessings of Biblical Success, is also near completion. It should also be ready for conversion in about two weeks.

Between this blog, my everyday living duties as a parent, my work at the newspaper, and the work on these two ebooks, I have been burning up the keyboards of late. Sometimes my mind feels like it is in overdrive and those are the good times. At other times it seems like it has turned into puddy.

I will post links to the book when it is available for download.

Blessings,

Mick

 

Wise Words for Today

Choose to be an optimist, and you will so live that when you die you’ll leave behind a life far more inspiring than that of any pessimist. I’d rather be an optimist who overestimated his success than a pessimist who fulfilled his gloomy prediction.

Robert H. Schuller

(from Don’t Throw Away Tomorrow)

 

Why I Am A Christian Optimist

Mick Turner

I am often asked why I believe so strongly that Christians should be among the world’s most ardent optimists. I normally respond by saying that it is, more than anything else, due to the nature and the character of the God I worship. Most folks leave it at that. On occasion, however, an inquirer might want a bit more detail.

 

The reasons that I have adopted Christian optimism as my foundational philosophy of life are too many to mention in any short conversation and certainly within the framework of this article. Suffice it to say that once I began to take my walk with Christ seriously and put into practice as best I could a sincere desire to live according to his teachings, the Holy Spirit gradually revealed to me why optimism was the Christian’s inherent approach to life.

 

As I began to explore scripture through this frame of reference, it is as if the Bible became a living organism, consistently revealing its truths in relation to the nature and character of God. These revelations of God’s love, his faithfulness, and his integrity brought about a positive response in my being and this response flowered into an optimistic approach to life. Over time I came to understand that the optimal way to live is as a Christian optimist. Even our language reflects this reality as optimal and optimism have the same prefix and the same root.

 

As I said earlier, the confines of this article does not allow for a detailed list of the reasons why I am a Christian optimist. I do, however, want to list a few of the reasons below. Should you desire a more in depth study of the subject, I suggest that you study the Bible, focusing of the nature and character of the Father as revealed in scripture in general and in the persons of Christ and the Holy Spirit in particular.

 

I am a Christian optimist because:

 

The Biblical God is a God of love. Further, he loves me.

 

The God of Scripture loves me with a proactive love, not a passive, indifferent, and conditional type of love. The Bible reveals that God loves me enough to send his only Son to die for me so that I might have life to the fullest and, on top of that, have life eternally.

 

The God of the Bible further exhibits his proactive love by pursuing me. He chased me down when I ran from him. Consistently acting as the “Hound of Heaven,” the God I worship continues to come and find me when I have strayed from the sheepfold and, wonder of wonders, loves me still.

 

If ever there was a prodigal on this earth, it is I. Still, my God not only accepts me back after I wander here and there, he comes out on the path to meet me and, in spite of my faithlessness, he celebrates my return. Even though I am undeserving of his love and his grace, he gives it freely.

 

My God is a God of mercy, not justice. I shudder to think what life would be if I got what I actually deserve.

 

The Biblical God gave up a part of himself so that I might be forgiven; and he sent another part of himself so that I might live the kind of life he wants me to live. I am optimistic because I am forgiven and I am empowered.

 

God allows me to partake of his divine nature.

 

The Christian God has already blessed me with all that I need to live a holy life and has further blessed me by indwelling me with the power to make that life manifest on a daily basis.

 

The Biblical God has placed within me the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.

 

The God I worship has made me a New Creation and has promised that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

 

My God has said that he has prepared even greater things for me in the next world.

 

The God revealed in Scripture has told me that Christ will, indeed, come again.

 

Obviously, I could go on and on here but by now I hope you get the picture. As a Christian I have every right to be an optimist. In fact, I could be nothing other than an optimist. Sure, life has problems and will always have problems. The Christian life is not a pleasure cruise. Far from it. Yet in spite of this, I am an optimist because I know that I have the power within me to handle any situation that may arise. God has promised me that he will never make me face more than I can handle.

 

I am a Christian optimist because he that is within me is greater than he who is in the world.

 

© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved

 

Have You Never Heard?

The following passage from Isaiah is one of my all time favorite scriptures. In times of depression, despondency, and especially episodes of confusion, reflecting on this passage, praying it in an affirmative manner, and just being quiet in the Sacred Silence and allowing the words to speak to me – all have been highly fruitful exercises.

Have You Never Heard?

 

Have you never heard?

Have you never understood?

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth.

He never grows weak or weary.

No one can measure the depths of his understanding.

He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.

Even youths will become weak and tired,

And young men will fall in exhaustion.

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.

They will soar high on wings like eagles.

They will run and not grow weary.

They will walk and not faint.

 

 

I have called you back from the ends of the earth, saying,

“You are my servant. I have chosen you and will not throw you away.

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.

Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you.

I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

 

        Isaiah 40:28-31; 41:9-10 [NLT]

 

Wise Words for Today

Habits are one of the critical components in the life of every person alive today. The problem is that habits can be good or bad, constructive or destructive, positive or negative, encouraging or discouraging. If you are going to live a “better than good” life, you must build as many positive habits into your life as possible. Think of your life as one of those giant cables on the George Washington Bridge and every individual wire as a habit. The more positive habits you bundle together, the stronger your life becomes – the more traffic it can bear, the more storms it can withstand, and the more service it can provide to others.

Zig Ziglar

(from Better Than Good)

 

Renewing the Mind: Conscious Cognition and Affirmative Prayer

Mick Turner

Throughout his letters, Paul repeatedly demonstrates his understanding of the importance of dealing with our minds. The Apostle clearly recognizes that the mind is where our behaviors and actions begin and he also understands that it is in the mental realm where the enemy is most likely to launch his most diabolical attacks. It is for this reason that Paul tells his readers over and over again how important it is for the believer to renew the mind.

 

Here at LifeBrook clients and visitors often here phrases and terms related to dealing with the mind in general and the process of renewing the mind in particular. In our training programs on “Strategies for Renewing the Mind” and “Who We Are In Christ,” we typically explore the importance of developing what we call Conscious Cognition. Basically, conscious cognition involves assisting participants develop the ability to be acutely aware of their mental functioning. The more conscious we are about out thinking, the more equipped we are to master our minds.

 

“Conscious Cognition” is based on the teachings of Paul regarding the renewal of the mind, tearing down strongholds, and taking thoughts captive for Christ. The actual practice of conscious cognition involves disciplines such as positive thinking, positive imaging, positive statements, and affirmative prayer.

 

We have found that the most fruitful exercise for most people involves what is popularly referred to as Affirmative Prayer.

 

How to Form an Affirmative Prayer

 

1.                  Affirm your identity as a child of God and a new creation in Christ.

2.                  Affirm your positive connection with the Divine and the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.

3.                  Voice your desired goal in positive, affirmative words in the present tense.

4.                  Express your gratitude for having your desire granted by God.

5.                  Close prayer in Jesus’ name with a firm and joyous Amen!

 

After your formal prayer session, your Affirmative Prayer process continues in three important ways. First, maintain a sense of positive expectation in which you faithfully believe your prayer has already been answered. This is not wishful thinking or a “fake it til you make it” pretense. Instead, it is the faithful acknowledgement that, just as scripture promises, your blessing has already been provided on the spiritual world. This brings us to the second manner in which your Affirmative Prayer process continues. You act as if the object that you prayed for has already been obtained in the physical world. What this does is aid in the process of bringing your already granted blessing from the spiritual world down into the flesh and blood reality of your daily life.

 

The third way in which your Affirmative Prayer session continues involves a personalized affirmation. This type of affirmation is a short phrase, usually gleaned from Step Three in the process described above. For example, if you prayed for an increased sense of confidence and courage, your personalized affirmation might be:

 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; I am courageous and confident in all my endeavors.

 

The important point here is to repeat this shortened form of your prayer session as often as possible. It is especially important to repeat your personalized affirmation when you first arise in the morning, and just before going to sleep. Another method that has been helpful for many Christ-followers is to coordinate their affirmation with their breathing, just as when performing “breath prayers.”

 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. (inhale)

I am confident and courageous in all my endeavors. (exhale)

 

I have found affirmative prayer to be an excellent modality of approaching our relationship with the Creator. As stated earlier, effective affirmative prayer is always based on scriptural promises. The actual process of affirmative prayer as described in the preceding paragraphs is not designed to remind God of his promises. God does not need to be reminded of anything. Criticizing the method of affirmative prayer based on the “reminding God” notion is a mistaken and futile practice.

 

Affirmative prayer does help remind us of our need for God, our utter dependence upon God, and of the generous blessings he has already provided for us. With these thoughts in mind, let’s look at an example of an affirmative prayer that meets the criteria laid out above.

 

I take possession of the reality that I am a child of the Living God and a new creation in Christ. I acknowledge that because I have been adopted into the family of the One True God, His eternal light shines in me and through me, casting His presence and His love onto a dark, hurting world. The Holy Spirit, a full one-third of my Heavenly Father lives in me, making me powerful and whole, capable of doing great things for the glory of God.

 

 Therefore, I go forth each day with confidence and courage, meeting the challenges of life with faith and optimism, knowing that the Lord is within me, equipping me for any circumstance.

 

Lord, I thank you for your presence within me, beside me, above me, and in every circumstance, and I am especially grateful for your gifts of courage and confidence, the very things I requested as I approached your throne.

 

With love and gratitude, I pray these things in Jesus’ most holy name, the name at which every knee shall bow. Amen…

 

Remember also that the abbreviated form of the prayer is:

 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; I am courageous and confident in all my endeavors.

 

I have found that for both the long form and the short form, repetition is the key to success. Our bad habits of thought were formed in the exact same way as we, along with the Holy Spirit, will go about forming new habits of thinking that will move forward the process of renewing our minds. Each time we repeat our positive affirmations and our affirmative prayers, we make a little progress toward our goal. We repeat it, and we move forward a little more – and on and on it goes. The good news here is that we can soon begin to see change taking place and that change, no matter how small, is significant. When we experience the fact that change is possible; when we see through our own experience that we are actually making gains – this provides us with the ability to live in hope and optimism.

 

As time passes and we remain faithful in our practice, the pace of change accelerates. Our friends and associates will notice that we are somehow different. Even if they can’t put their finger on exactly what has changed, they know that for some reason you are easier to be around. Whereas before you often greeted them with a flat expression and a diverted gaze, now you approach them with a smile and look them in the eye. And guess what, my friend? This opens a door for you to share the source of the “new you.” As you continue to manifest the fact that you are, indeed, a new creation, you will have increased opportunities to share how this all came about.

 

Renewal of the mind, as Paul pointed out, is the key to an effective walk of faith. If you have been ignoring Paul’s insistence of cognitive renewal, why not get back to it? And if you have been avoiding this teaching, why not push yourself to get on with it? Your progress will be minimal until you place a renewed mind in the new you, the new creation.

 

Also, I suggest that you keep in mind the goal of all this work toward the mind’s renewal, as well as other disciplines in your program of spiritual formation. You want to get to the point where, as the Apostle, you can say with confidence the four words that best describe the state of the truly transformed Christian’s life:

 

Not I, but Christ…

 

© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved