Quote from New Life newsletter: What Would You Pay? In all your ways know and acknowledge and recognize Him, and He will make your paths straight and smooth [removing obstacles that block your way]. Proverbs 3:6 Your priorities are determined not by what you say they are but by what you are willing to pay for them. The value you place on each priority in your life is equal to the amount of value you’re willing to invest in that priority. If you’re not willing to make an investment in a particular priority, it’s not really a priority. To have anything of value you must be willing to pay for it. The payment can be in time, in money, or in some other kind of value. Look carefully at the things you consider to be your priorities. For each of them, ask yourself an important question. What are you willing to give up, what are you willing to sacrifice, what are you willing to invest, what are you willing to do to further that priority? It’s easy to say you have certain dreams, goals and ambitions. It takes more than just claiming to have a dream if that dream is to be realized. Look at the things you desire in terms of the price you’re willing to pay for them. That’s how you’ll discover your true, driving desires and that’s how you’ll begin to make them real. Father in heaven, today we are reminded of true value. It’s time for us to do a life audit on what areas we are prioritizing. Help us to make sure we have our priorities in the right order. We will choose to prioritize You above all else, to love our families more than our jobs and what is true over what is popular. In Jesus name, AMEN! Everything has a price including success and failure. Choose either one and be prepared to pay the price.
Quote from New Life newsletter: Do You Lack Focus? But the worries and cares of the world [the distractions of this age with its worldly pleasures], and the deceitfulness [and the false security or glamour] of wealth [or fame], and the passionate desires for all the other things creep in and choke out the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Mark 4:19 If you think that your life lacks focus, consider this. You are always focused on something. You definitely have the ability to focus your attention. Yet in order to benefit from that ability to focus, you must be willing to continually exercise control over it. Staying positively and productively focused is not so much a skill that must be learned as it is a choice that must be made. And you’re much more likely to make the necessary choice when that choice is clear to you. In every moment you have a choice. You can choose achievement, or you can choose mediocrity. You can choose victory, or you can choose defeat. You can choose to keep yourself focused on the thoughts and actions which will move you forward, or you can choose to let your focus wander uselessly from one thing to another. Staying positively focused is a matter of choice. You can focus your efforts in the direction of success, whenever you choose to do so. Remember, you’re always focused on something, so make the choice to make that focus count. Father in heaven, it’s been said the only difference between a flashlight and a laser, is focus. One merely helps us see while the other can cut through the hardest metals. There is great power in focus, and we ask for Your help to harness it. Teach us to focus in, instead of letting our attention and time slip off in many directions. In Jesus name, AMEN! Focus comes from eliminating distractions.
Quote from New Life newsletter: Deal With It, Before It Deals With You Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger. Ephesians 4:26 Each time you encounter a difficult situation, you have two basic choices. You can choose to deal with it or you can choose to let it deal with you. When you go ahead and deal with it, you put yourself in control. That’s far better than the alternative of letting the problem put you under its control. Dealing with it means real, focused effort. Dealing with it means discomfort, inconvenience and perhaps even some pain. Not dealing with it, though, will eventually bring even more pain and discomfort. The faster you start dealing with a difficult situation, the more control you’ll have over it. If you wait around until you can no longer avoid it, many of your best options will have already disappeared. It’s usually not much fun to tackle a perplexing problem. There are many other things you’d rather be doing. It’s not much fun, but it can be extremely rewarding. Jump quickly and aggressively into dealing with it, and you’ll probably even uncover a valuable opportunity. At the very least, you’ll put yourself in the best possible position by acting quickly and decisively. Pretending your problems don’t exist won’t make them go away. Dealing with them will. Look at them, acknowledge them, deal with them and use your considerable energy to move on ahead. Father in heaven, it’s always hard to deal with the elephant in the room, we want to avoid it at all costs. We need Your help to bite the bullet and deal with the problems before they snowball into even bigger problems. We know that sin grows best when it’s left unaddressed, so we ask for the strength and courage to address our problems today. In Jesus name, AMEN! Deal with your problems before they deal with your happiness.
