Unknown
Clarify My Values, Outline My Shape, Surrender to God’s Mission, Prayerfully Mapping out my Cosmic Mission Statement; Organize my time around my SHAPE and Life Mission and for the remainder of this series – Sustaining and Strengthening My Cosmic Mission.
“If the axe is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed but skill will bring success.” Ecclesiastes 10:10
Mt Everest – every year they fail…
Great disappointments – People who crash and burn, who are seduced by the world and the temporary…
Today we’re going to look at four important skills. If I want to become all that God wants me to be, if I want to fulfil the purpose He put me on earth for…
1. I MUST MASTER MY MOODS
You’ve got to be able to not just do what you feel but do what’s the right thing to do regardless of how you feel.
Have you ever known something would help you and you’ve known it would be good for you, but you just never could find the time to do it?
Specific example: for the past six weeks, I’ve been giving you a homework project. And I know you’ve had every intention of doing those but… I’ll tell you what often happens… We are manipulated by our moods. Have you ever realized that most of what gets done in this world is done by people who don’t feel like doing it? If I only taught preached when I felt like it, I’d be here about half the time. And if you only went to work when you felt like it, you’d only go to work every once in a while. True maturity is when you learn to do the right thing regardless of how you feel. It’s learning to master your moods.
1 Corinthians 8:11 (LB) “Let your enthusiastic idea at the start be equalled by your realistic actions now.”
Proverbs 25:28 (Living Bible) “A man without self control is as defenceless as a city with broken down walls.”
You’re helpless and hopeless if you don’t have any self-control in your life. So how do I learn to master my moods? There are two very practical ways…
1. By guarding my mind
Because whatever you think about is going to determine your mood. Your moods are determined by whatever you focus on.
The way that you think determines the way that you feel. And the way you feel determines the way that you act.
If you want to change your life, you don’t change your behaviour or change your emotions. You can’t force emotions – I command you to be happy! It’s like telling a little kid, “I command you to cheer up!” You have to change your thought life.
Proverbs 4:23 (NCV) “Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life.”
If you want to fulfil your mission, it means you’re going to have to guard what thoughts you allow in your mind.
2. By affirming God’s word.
Every time we sing a song here on Sunday morning, we’re affirming God’s word. We’re affirming the truth rather than filling our minds with trash.
Affirming God’s word means believing what God says about my life rather than what I feel about my life. I might feel incompetent but God says, “You’re competent.” I may feel unloved but God says, “You are loved.” I might feel unworthy but God says, “You’re worthy of My grace just because I made you. You’re a child of God.” I may feel like it’s hopeless but God says, “With Christ there is hope.”
So you begin to affirm what God says is the truth rather than listening to your feelings.
Feelings can lie. I remember the night before I got married I had this incredible feeling. Run! If I had followed that feeling I would have made the greatest mistake in my life. Feelings are often the result of something you eat. Or they’re the result of the weather outside. Have you ever been in a conversation and somebody says something and all of a sudden your mood changes? Why? Because thoughts determine feelings and feelings determine actions. So if you’re listening to negative stuff all the time on the radio or you’re always around people who are always down, you can’t soar with the eagles if you run with the turkeys.
A very important lesson on faith. Faith is acting before feeling. It’s doing the right thing whether I feel like it or not. This is an amazing truth. If you wait until you feel it, that’s not faith. Faith is doing the right thing even though you don’t feel it. The amazing thing about this is that motion creates emotion. In other words, you can actually move yourself into a new mood.
Example: Sit up straight, raise your shoulders a bit, lift your chin, take in a deep breath, fill your lungs way down low and let it out slowly. Put a big smile on your face and grin at me. Laugh, chuckle! Now do all these things and say, “Boy! I’m depressed.” It doesn’t work does it? Why? Your body will not let your emotions do the opposite of what your body says. That’s why body language can be read. So if you’re depressed, get up! Move around. Do some exercise? Take a shower. Do whatever it takes to get going because you can actually move yourself into a new mood. Motion creates emotion.
Motion controls emotion.
Psychologists call this the “act as if” principle. But God had a word for it years ago. It’s called faith. Faith is acting before you feel it. It’s doing the right thing whether your mood says to do it or not.
Philippians 4:13 (Jerusalem Bible) “There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the one who gives me strength.”
Real practical: I have no doubt that in the last six weeks, God’s been talking to many of you. You know that He’s been telling you to do something. And you’ve been giving Him all kinds of excuses and you say things like, “God, I don’t have the time! I don’t have the energy. I’m too old… I’m too young … I don’t have the money … I don’t have the education… I don’t have the talent to do this.” Stop making excuses and start affirming God’s word.
Here’s your homework for this week: I want you to take some little cards and write down some Bible verses that are important to you. Fill your mind with TRUTH…
There’s a second skill:
2. I MUST MANAGE MY ENERGY
Even if you know your life mission, if you’re tired all the time, it’s not going to get fulfilled.
So you’ve got to learn how to manage your energy. If you’re in a state of continual fatigue, you are likely to be grumpy; you will miss key opportunities because “I’m too tired to do that”.
There are two types of fatigue. There’s physical fatigue and spiritual fatigue.
Physical fatigue happens when your muscles are tired. Spiritual fatigue occurs when your emotions are tired. Spiritual fatigue comes from things like frustration, expectations of other people, conflict, resentment, worry and anger. All these kinds of negative emotions create spiritual fatigue. When you’re physically tired, all you have to do for that is get some rest. You sleep, you wake up feeling better. Spiritual fatigue takes more than rest to get recharged.
That’s why a lot of people are all stressed out. They go for a week to Margaret River or Bali and come back and they don’t feel any different. They took themselves with them! The problem was inside.
That’s why you’ve got to get into a small group, talk it out with other people, get into God’s word, fellowship, do some ministry to help other people. There are other ways to replenish emotional or spiritual fatigue.
How can I best manage my energy so I can complete my mission over the long haul? A couple of suggestions to manage your energy…
1) eliminate non-essentials in my schedule
Those things that really aren’t important; eliminating the trivia; you need to be aware of time wasters.
Proverbs 12:11 (Living Bible) “It is stupid to waste time on useless projects.”
Make sure, in your schedule, the important things get done first before anything else gets done.
2) by taking time to relax
Proverbs 14:30 (Living Bible) “A relaxed attitude lengthens a man’s life.”
There are three kinds of time that you have. There is prime time, grind time, and unwind time.
Prime time is when you’re at your best. And you ought to use the best part of your day for God and for the things that are the most important tasks.
Whatever you’re really good at, whatever you really need to get done first, schedule that in the prime time of your day.
Grind time is when you have to do the stuff of life that everybody has to do. Obviously, not everything you have to do in life fits your life mission. It’s just stuff that has to be done.
Unwind time - you need to schedule time to relax. You need to know what relaxes you. Maybe it’s going out and having a hit of tennis, some other sport, come home and roll around and wrestle with your kids on the carpet. (If your kids are out of the home, do it with your wife!)
Most of you know I have a saying: divert daily, withdraw weekly, meditate monthly and abandon annually. That’s the secret to lasting. Jesus sleeping in the boat…
If I am to sustain my Mission I MUST MASTER MY MOODS, I MUST MANAGE MY ENERGY and…
3. I MUST MAXIMIZE MY ABILITIES
I must maximize my abilities, the ability that God has given me.
We’ve been talking during this series how each of us have a God given shape or abilities and we can see in that SHAPE and abilities the way that God wants to form our life mission. We are to steward this…
1 Timothy 1:6 “Fan into flame the gift of God that is in you.”
It’s like feeding a fire, putting the fuel in so that my abilities can be all that God wants them to be.
How do I do that? There are two life long habits we can develop that will enable us to do that are through the…
1) habit of continual learning
Proverbs 19:8 “Do yourself a favour and learn all you can. Then remember what you learn and you will prosper.”
Life Journal – Notes Pages… Blank Pages at the back…
A second key to maximizing my abilities is through…
2) continuous serving
1 Timothy 4:15 (Living Bible) “Put these abilities to work; throw yourself into your tasks so everyone may notice your improvement and progress.”
How can I help somebody else? Serving is the essence of the Christian life. Jesus, when He came, said, I came not to be served but to serve. I came to give My life.” If I want to follow His example, I’ve got to give my life in service to others too.
God very clearly tells us that it’s through serving others we develop the abilities in our lives.
There’s an aqueduct that the Romans built in 109 A.D. outside the little city of Segovia in Spain. It served that city for 1800 years, bringing water into the city. After that long they thought of it as a museum piece. They built some pipes into the city and stopped using the aqueduct. As soon as they stopped using it, as soon as it stopped serving, it began to dry up and crumble.
We’re made to serve. We’re made to make a difference in this world. So don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “I’m put in this world to be served by others.”
If I am to sustain my Mission I MUST MASTER MY MOODS, I MUST MANAGE MY ENERGY 3. I MUST MAXIMIZE MY ABILITIES and
4. I MUST MAINTAIN MY FOCUS
I told you in the very first week of this series that nobody intentionally plans to waste their life. I’ve never met anybody who’s said, “I’m planning to fail. I’m planning to just blow off my life and waste it.” People, who waste their lives, do it by default. And the problem is we get distracted. It’s human nature to get distracted.
Luke 9:62 (Living Bible) “Anyone who lets himself be distracted from the work I plan for him is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”
ADD is Attention Deficit Di sorder. I have it, we all do! I have ADD! It’s interesting that recently I was taking some rubbish out to the bin… I have to walk thru the garage! Jordy’s tricycle needed a repair, paint brushes needed a wash, a sprinkler needed fixing, my bench needed tidying – 2 hours later! We get distracted.
How do you keep from getting distracted from your life mission?
By having your quiet time with your journal and also having your diary nearby!!
Establish a daily review! It’s where you take a regular time each day where you sit down and review that list of values (that you haven’t made yet) and then you look at your life mission statement (which you haven’t completed yet) and then you compare it to the goals you’ve set for the year (which you’re planning on doing) and then you sit down and look at it in light of your schedule and say, “Am I doing what I believe God has said is important to me?”
The quality of your life will be in direct proportion to the kind of questions you ask yourself. Successful people ask themselves the tough questions that unsuccessful people never even think about asking. Questions like, “Why am I doing this?” “Why do I do what I’m doing?” “Is it leading me to the right direction?”
You ask yourself those kinds of tough questions, then you take God’s word and read it and let Him speak to you, talk to you back.
You say you don’t remember what you read, you don’t have to! It’s like eating a meal. Two weeks ago on Tuesday you don’t remember what you ate that day. All it did was get you through to the next meal. That’s spiritual nourishment for that day.
Three things determine the quality of your life: my commitments, my values and my relationships. You better figure out what those are in your life or you’re not going to have a quality life.
1 Corinthians 3:13-15 “The quality of each man’s work will be seen when the day of Christ exposes it… the fire will test it and show its real quality. If (it) survives, he will receive a reward, but if it burns up, he will lose it…”
I want to put things on the line today! I am fearful for some of you because it’s not like you don’t know what to do. This is the basic life message of this church that God has a purpose for your life. I shudder to think that one day you will stand before a Saviour with nail pierced hands. He asks “What did you do with your life?” and you say, “I had every intention of following my life mission but… in my entire life I never could find a single day to sit down long enough to pray and write down the values I thought were important that I ought to build my life on and build into my children. I couldn’t find a single day to sit down to think through the four purposes You made me for and how that applied to my life, what my goals ought to be in my life as a result of that. I never sat down and considered how those goals ought to be fit into my schedule. I’m sorry.” I shudder when I think about that. One day God is going to do an audit on the quality of your life and I want you to be ready for it.
Prayer
I want to invite you to pray a prayer with me right now. Say this I your mind, “Father I want to live a quality life. I want to fulfil the mission You made me for. I want to build my life on the values that are important and will last. Jesus Christ, I need Your power to do what I know is best to do. I need Your help in becoming what You intend for me to become. Please help me to master my moods. Help me not to live based on feelings but based on truth. Help me to live by faith, to do the right thing even when I don’t feel like it. Help me to take action on what I know is right and to affirm Your truths and promises so that my mind can be renewed. Help me to fill my mind with Your word so that the scales will be balanced to the good side of truth not trash. And, dear God, please help me to manage my energy, to make sure that the most important things get done. Help me to maximize my talents, to never stop learning, to never stop growing, to never stoop serving. I realize that all I am I owe to Your graciousness and I want to use the rest of my life learning about You and Your plan. I want to use my gifts and talents to help other people. Most of all, Father, I ask You to help me maintain my focus, to keep a close watch on my lifestyle and to not let a day go by that I don’t take some time, even if it’s just a few minutes, to sit down and talk to You about my life and look at it seriously and let You talk to me through Your word. I ask You to help me in these areas. In Jesus’ name. Amen
