Consistent Prayer & Word Life

27. February 2012 by Bernice Davis.

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Hello Everyone:

 

This is one of the most popular questions that I’m asked and I thought I would address it before I get into the heart of the Matthew study.    People often ask how can one develop a consistent word and prayer life and how does one begin to transform the mind.  The emails talk about the struggle that one has with being inconsistent.  

I think it would be fair to say that we have all experienced inconsistency in our prayer and word life at one time or another and at various seasons in our life. Some of us may even find ourselves in that season of inconsistency now. Discipline doesn’t happen overnight, it is developed.

I struggled for years on developing a consistent word and prayer life. One of my first problems was when I started studying the word; I set my goals too high and would always get discouraged and stop. When I first started reading the bible, I use to fall asleep all the time. Sometimes, I would even say I’m going to spend 30 minutes reading the word and 30 minutes in prayer daily and found myself because of schedules, excuses, etc, not meeting my goals, and then I would get in this cycle of starting and stopping because I just could not consistently keep a one hour prayer and word time.

Let me tell you what I did to overcome this problem in my life. I decided to reach for smaller goals. Each day, I began something as small as 5 minutes of prayer and 5 minutes of reading the bible which was something that I could easily keep. After I started getting consistent because that was such an easy goal to keep, the 5 minutes grew to 10 then to 20 then to 30 until sometimes now, I find it difficult to put the bible down and I love my prayer time now. In the beginning it was a chore, but now it has become a love. My relationship with God has grown and I really love now being in God’s presence through prayer. I look forward to it rather than seeing it as a chore.  

 

 

So, as you see in the beginning, I did it simply because it is the right thing to do and sometimes I felt burdened by the ritual but knew it was necessary to develop a strong relationship with God. Now reading the word and prayer has become a joy, my source of strength and renewal.

 

 

 

Another method I used was memorization of scripture. I found a scripture every day, and I memorized it. I would go to work and write my scripture for the day on a sticky pad and would put it on my computer monitor so that it would be in my face all day and by the end of the day, I had memorized it. That was also another way that I begin seeing my mind renewed and transformed. My thinking began changing, my faith began growing, I felt more and more empowered with each scripture that I committed to memory.   I must admit though that as I have gotten older my memory verses are for the week instead of daily.  I focus on a scripture a week and used it in my prayer and meditation time.    Our church has a 15 minute prayer call every Tuesday where hundreds gather via the phone in prayer.  If your church does not have this then conference calling is free and you can gather some friends together and pick a time every week for however many days you want to commit to and pray with your friends over the phone.  It is an excellent way to keep you accountable and to begin to work on discipline in your own study life.

 

 

 

 

The bible teaches that transformation of the mind can only come from the word of God, there is no other way. So all I’m saying is start off with little steps and they will grow into larger steps and God will honor our faithfulness. Even if we don’t understand everything that we read, the comprehension will come. I used to pick up the bible everyday and quietly whisper to God “to please read this with me.” It was my way of asking him to help me understand what I was reading and to get the correct meaning from the text.

Get you a good study bible that has easy reading. Remember, God will honor your faithfulness and will send you help. You may not like the way that I did it but find what works for you. All I’m asking you to do is consider sitting and planning a study life that will work for you and something that you can faithfully keep. So our memory verse for this week will again be  Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate on it day and night, and thou shall observe to do all that is written within, and then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and thou shalt have good success.” (KJV)

Stay encouraged and don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

True Happiness

21. February 2012 by Bernice Davis.

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our father and from the Lord Jesus Christ:

Hello Everyone: 

Thank you for joining me weekly as I share with you the topics that I am studying for my own personal journey through the scriptures.  This is my personal study and my source is the “word of God” as recorded in the bible.   There are many teachings out today and many of them use a lot of “new age” philosophies, relativism, spiritualists/mysticism teachers, etc.  Many of these books, I have read for “educational” purposes and to be knowledgeable of their position.  While many of these worldviews may have some truth and may even be useful in some areas, I do not embrace their theology/philosophies nor will I use them in my weekly devotionals because I have found them to be inconsistent with the “word of God.” 

As in the words of the famous reformer, Martin Luther, ” Unless I am convinced by sacred scripture or by evident reason, I cannot recant, for my conscious is held captive by the word of God and to act against conscious is neither right nor safe.  Here I stand, I can do no other, GOD HELP ME!”  This simply means for me that I am committed to truth as it is revealed in the Holy Scriptures and if I am holding a position that is proved inconsistent with scripture, then as soon as I become aware, I will submit to the truth of God’s word.

I will admit that many of the positions that I have held in earlier years, I’ve had to abandon.  When I embarked on my journey of a consistent study life using proper hermeneutics (the science of interpretation- a method used to get to the original meaning of a text),  I found that I had been holding on to many childhood and church traditions that had not been founded on the correct interpretation of scripture.   I am aware that this study will not be appealing to everyone, my goal is simply to allow you to come “into my world” and share my personal study time with God.  This is not a forum for debate yet it is designed to help us all strengthen our walk with God. 

 I have not discussed my biblical position in years since starting this devotional/blog and I thought since I have so many new followers; I would share my position again. 

 I would like to say welcome to all of the new people that have joined me this year and welcome to my website.    It is so good to hear from you through email and yes, I do read them all and they are always so encouraging.   As you know each week you will be able to log in and read a new study for the week. 

I have recently starting studying Matthew again.   I know that was one of my first studies that I did but I can’t get away from it.  My goal is to master that book.   I love it because it takes me not only to New Testament studies but most of my preparation for this book is actually found in the Old Testament.    I often talk to you about having study goals outside of your regular reading and meditation.  My study goal is to master the book of Matthew. 

Now, with that said because I study it so much in my own private time then for a while you will start seeing my weekly devotionals reflect my home study project.  

Okay, now let’s begin our study for the week.   The book of Matthew is one of my favorite gospels.  It was written to a Jewish audience, which means that in order to properly understand it, we will be studying a lot of the Jewish customs in order to put the scripture in its proper context.  When we talk about context, we simply mean the setting in which something was created.  In order to properly understand scripture, it must be interpreted in the context in which it was written.  

Matthew opens up with a genealogy that traces Jesus through the line of David, covers the birth of Jesus, his escape into Egypt(when King Herod was trying to kill all male children 2 and under according to the wise men’s report), his for-runner John the Baptist, his baptism by John, his 40 day temptation in the wilderness and then it begins coverage of  his early ministry. 

The text says that when Jesus heard that John the Baptist was in prison, he began his earthly ministry with his message being “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  The word repent in its original language means basically to “change your mind.”  Jesus was teaching a new way that had not been previously taught by the spiritual leaders of his day.  Jesus was informing his audience that in order to embrace this “new way’ there had to be a change in the way one thinks, a shift in your mental consciousness.   

In order to embrace change, we must all be willing to lay aside our own way of thinking which is often shaped by our past, environmental/societal conditioning, parents, peer pressure, friends, relatives, relationships, circumstances, etc.  While all these influences may not necessarily be harmful, many of them can be opposite the teachings that scripture requires embracing to experience an “abundant” life on earth.  

Jesus came with a message of reform, a message that would prove to be controversial to the “powers that be” but it was and still is a message of power and transforming to all that did and will believe it. 

His message was  “change your mind” for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”  Simply put, change the way you think and embrace God’s way of doing things.  Jesus was about to teach God’s rules and orders but would also model these principles before the world.  The religious leaders of the day (Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes) often failed to teach the correct meaning of scripture and Jesus constantly labeled them as hypocrites. 

You may be wondering about now, where does my heading of “true happiness” come in.   You’ll see shortly in the upcoming days, that Jesus is about to teach the meaning of happiness and how to experience and live in joy.   Before, we get in the message of Jesus and the heart of his sermon, it is important to understand the issues that Jesus faced. 

There were four major groups during Jesus’ day and each had their own philosophy of true happiness.  These four groups were the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenses.  For the Pharisees, true happiness was being faithful to the “letter of the law” and the traditions of the elders, for the Sadducees, which was the more liberal group, true happiness was found in going along with the popular “politics” of  the day and redefining truth as it was convenient for their belief system and politics.  For the Essenses, true happiness was found in isolation from the world system which in their mind would help them stay faithful to upholding their belief system without influence from worldly distractions.  For the Zealots, true happiness was getting the nation of Israel back into the hands of the Jewish people, for it was currently under Roman control during the time of Jesus.  

Happiness was being defined at all different levels.  This is similar to the age that we live in now.  Everybody is claiming that they have found the “road to true happiness” and many spiritualists are teaching that true happiness is defined by “what is right in each person’s own eyes.”  Those of you that are familiar with scripture know that this is a familiar saying written during the time of judges when people had turned so far from God that they began to embrace teachings which were opposite the ways of God and everyone judged their actions based on what one believed was right in their own eyes. 

During this season, people were coming up with their own theologies and ideologies which were in contrast to “the word of God.”  The problem with this type of thinking is that while it provides comfortable justification for lifestyles and mindsets, it does not require accountability to God but only to oneself. This is a dangerous position where one depends on their own intellect, knowledge, or state of consciousness outside of God to determine truth.  There must be a universal objective standard for truth and that standard is the “word of God.”   

As we start on this journey, I would like for you to think about what you define ”true happiness” to be.  Write it down.  Be honest with yourself; don’t just write some “spiritual comment” that really didn’t come from your heart.  What do you feel you need in life to make you really happy and live in joy.  As we go through this journey, we’ll see if it is consistent with scripture.   

On next week, we will begin with the breakdown of the genealogy of Jesus.   I know …. You’re thinking… uhhh…. I always skip over genealogies when I study the scripture.    My goal for next week is to give you some study tools to help you be able to not only understand genealogies but to be excited about studying them.     

Enjoy your week.  We will resume our study of the scriptures on next Monday. 

Stay encouraged everyone and don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Holiday

20. February 2012 by Bernice Davis.

Hello Everyone:

Those of you that have been following me know that I never post on national holidays because people are off and away from their computers.   My post for this week will be available on tomorrow morning.    Happy President’s Day.

Stay encouraged and don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Help Us to Number Our Days

13. February 2012 by Bernice Davis.

 Weekly blog for February 13-19, 2012

 

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Hello Everyone:

 

With the tragic death of one of the greatest gifts the world has been graced with, it made me reflect upon Psalm 90.

 

Our memory verse for the week is:  Psalms 90:12 “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

The heading of the Psalm reads written by Moses the man of God.    There are 150 Psalms and of all the Psalms, this is the only one that names the author as Moses and because it is written by Moses that makes it the oldest Psalm of the collection.

There is a consensus among scholars that it was written in about the 38th year of the 40 year death sentence that the children of Israel were to endure because of what happened at Kadesh Barnea with the spies.   If you remember Moses sent 12 men to spy out the land and 10 came back with a negative report saying that they could not take the land and Joshua and Caleb came back with a positive report saying that if God be with them the land could easily be taken.  The others murmured that they were as grasshoppers to the giants that lived in the land.  The spies were there for 40 days.

The children of Israel would then be sentenced to 40 years in the wilderness which was the time it would take the generation of unbelievers to die off.  

Scholars predict that according to the exodus numbers, that there were approximately 1.3 million people that would die off in the wilderness.   To make it more visual to you, it means that about 87 people per day over a 40 year period would die.  That means Moses witnessed 87 funerals per day. 

At the end of this journey, when he had seen all this death along with his family members dyeing off, he would pen this Psalm to the Lord.

Please read it below slowly and carefully and then read my reflections upon it.

1 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 3 Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. 4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. 5 Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. 6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

7 For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. 8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. 9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. 10 The days  of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. 11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply  our hearts unto wisdom. 13 Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. 14 O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. 16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. 17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

This Psalm fascinated me for several reasons.   First, it is all about time and how our life is short and how we should value the days that God gives us and not waste them or spend them in worry, immobility, unproductiveness.    

Verses 1-6 compares our life with the eternity of God.  It reminds us that God is everlasting and we are temporary and will return to dust.   Remember, our context.  Moses penned this Psalm after watching millions of people die off in the wilderness over a 40 year period.  He has experienced death on a daily basis in record numbers yet the heart of this psalm is about living.   When you are in God, you can experience tragedy after tragedy and yet still be expired to wake up and LIVE.   This is especially true when you have a right concept of who God is and that he is always in control no matter what it looks like.

Moses goes on to say how God measures time differently than we do.  He states that a thousand years in God’s sight is like a day or a watch in the night.  A watch referred to a 4 hour time period.  He is specific though about saying a watch in the night.  This is the time that we are sleep when we have no consciousness of time.   When we are sleep and you wake up, you really don’t know how much time has passed away.   Have you ever been in a deep sleep and when you awaken you realize that hours have passed and you only intended to get a quick “power nap.”   In sleep, there is no consciousness of time.

Moses continues by giving us a guideline for the minimum and maximum for life.  He tells us that seventy is our minimum (though we know some people live less than seventy) and eighty is our maximum (yet we know that some people live longer than eighty.)  In those years, Moses says that they are full of trouble and sorrow and unproductively.  In verse #12, Moses asks God to teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.  The Hebrew word for wisdom means to get skill for living.   Moses is saying that if we are aware that we do not have forever and that life could end for us any day, then we should be living our lives out skillfully.   

This part of the psalm really blessed me.  It actually helped me to get refocused.   It made me start getting things in order, to stop procrastinating, thinking I’ll put it off for another day.   I just really layed before the Lord and thank HIM for my life and asked him to help me apply wisdom to my heart so that I could live out my days skillfully or purposefully.   IT REALLY MADE ME THINK. 

Moses concludes with asking the Lord to satisfy us with HIS unfailing love so that we can live our days out in gladness and bless us according to the years we have seen affliction and trouble and he then asks God to establish or direct the work of our hands.   Wow… bless us according to the pain we have suffered.  Some of you that are reading this have really been through some horrendous pain and suffering and have had struggles on every side but the prayer of this Psalm is that the Lord would bless us compared to our pain.   Great Pain, Great Blessings.   Whooh……….  I’m taking a praise break right here.  

I don’t know if this is touching you as it did me, but in its context of what Moses went through and now how he views life, it just really made me think.   Let’s just live ………..  Let’s just enjoy life.  Let’s live to the best of our abilities.   Let’s do the best we can.  Let’s be productive.  Let’s be skillful in how we live our lives.   Let’s not worry.  Worry can’t solve anything, it only makes things worst.   Let’s just trust God and live…. 

Be encouraged! 

God Bless!!!!!!!  Don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Preparation

6. February 2012 by Bernice Davis.

 Weekly blog for Feb 6-12, 2012.

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our father and from the Lord Jesus Christ:

Hello Everyone: 

Welcome back to my blog.  We are well into the New Year with one month under our belt and I’m sure we will all agree that the month flew by.  I said that to say that if you don’t plan for a successful and prosperous year, soon it will be December and nothing will be accomplished.     I have traditionally started my first blog of the year with sharing with you some personal tips on how to help make your year fulfilling and how to accomplish goals.  Many of us find ourselves depressed as the year closes because we realize that another year has passed and we’re still in the same place, physically, financially, and spiritually.

 I normally divide my goals up in three categories; Spiritual, Physical, and Financial.

 

Spiritual:

 

Prayer:

(1) Plan to meet the Lord in prayer.  I am not going to tell you to spend an hour each day in a designated place and commit to it for a lifetime but what I will say is really begin to focus on spending quality time with God through prayer and meditation of HIS word.   If it starts out small then okay but start.  I have found that the more I plan to meet with God through prayer the more I want to spend more time with him.  It is the sweetest place I know.   It’s a time that helps me to re-focus, to get rid of heavy burdens by talking about them to God in prayer and releasing them so they don’t weigh me down and it is a time of replenishing.  I always feel strengthen, renewed and refreshed after my prayer time with the Lord.   Prayer also helps me to walk in a state of repentance and humility.  It is very difficult to sincerely stand before a HOLY God and not first confess your faults, failures, inconsistencies, etc before you begin to really engage in fellowship with the Lord.   My prayer time allows me to constantly check myself and it helps me to work on my shortcomings.  I was just telling my husband tonight that I want to be a better wife to him.  I told him that he deserves better than what I’m doing.  It is my communication with God that makes me come to such conclusions and convicts my heart of sins.  I love the Lord for this, it is helping me grow and become more Christ like in all of my endeavors.

 

Recently, I was a little down about something that happened to me and one of my close friends asked me if I was okay and I told her that I was fine, all I needed was a little time with God at the chapel and I would be okay.  I truly released it and left it at the altar.    Whooh…. I am singing the hymn..  “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!     It is truly a privilege to pray…

 

Meditation

One of my favorite scriptures is Joshua 1:8  “this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate on it day and night that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein and then thou shall make thy way prosperous and thou shalt have good Success.”  This will also be our memory verse for the week. 

 

The word meditate that is used in the above scripture means to think on something to the point that you act.  You can easily see this definition in the body of the scripture for the text says to meditate so that you will observe or obey which means to act.

 

This is not a foreign concept to us at all.  We have all meditated on something to the point that it caused us to act.  It could have been something negative or positive.  I remember a long time ago, I was in a relationship and this man hurt me so that I vowed to get even.  I meditated (thought) on the matter so hard and long that I was moved to act out my thoughts or my meditations and it ended very ugly. 

 

I have also had positive meditations.   I remember when I wanted to open up my first business.  I meditated (thought) on it to the point that I begin acting out what I had been meditating on in my mind and I have now been self employed for almost twenty years. 

 

I can go on and on with examples of how I have held thoughts in my mind and focused on them until the point that those thoughts became realities.  The word of God teaches us to meditate on God’s word to the point where the word that you have in your mind manifests into reality.     A friend of mine by the name of Bishop Dwight Pate always says that your “wealth is in your mind.”  It all starts with a thought.    A meditated thought is acted out upon.

 

So when we talk about having meditation time, the scriptures are not simply saying just read your word but hold on to it in your mind and focus on it and guard it so the enemy want counteract with evil thoughts and cast down every imagination that would exalt itself against the knowledge of God.

 

Think God’s word and act upon it.  Our Joshua text also teaches us that we are to meditate day and night.   Then the text closes with powerful results.  If you do this, then YOU will make YOUR way prosperous and YOU will have GOOD SUCCESS.

 

If we focus on the spiritual this year and not the material the possibilities in God are unlimited.

 

Study:

 

(2)I use the You Version on my ipad of this “read the bible” in a year software.  Before I got my ipad, I used the book version.  You can pick them up at any Christian book store or order them from places like Amazon.com, etc.   They are the one year study bibles.  I use this program just to read content.  It is one of the chronological ones so it goes from Genesis to Revelations in the order that the events happened.  I do not use this bible to study with but just for meditation purposes.  So my goal is to get through the bible in a year.  You would be amazed at how many Christians have never read the entire bible.  It never gets old.  Each time I read it, I find things that I don’t ever remember reading before.  It is fascinating to me.   The software that I use is wonderful. It allows me to track my progress and if I miss a day, it will send me a text message to my phone.   A couple of weeks ago, I had fallen behind a day and a text came across my phone at 3am and I was so mad because I was in a deep sleep and I wanted to know who was texting me at 3o’clock in the morning.  To my surprise, it was my bible study program reminding me that I was behind on my reading.   Since, I could not go back to sleep, I jumped up and caught up on my reading and it was the funniest thing afterwards, I was able to go right back to sleep.

 

(3) Study Projects-   I also like to choose biblical goals.  I pick various subjects such as the prophets, or the psalms, or Proverbs, or a study of the disciples, or the monarchy, etc and I try to master that subject.    Currently, I am doing a study on the book of Matthew and my goal is to master this one book this year.    This study is different from my reading/meditation studies that I mentioned above.  This study is project oriented. 

 

(4)Volunteer- Giving back to others that are less fortunate is an awesome way to grow spiritually.   It is so rewarding to be able to help someone else.  Sometimes I think these experiences are more rewarding to me than they are to the people I am assisting.  Volunteering also helps you keep your mind off your own problems and helps you to be grateful for what you have no matter how little or great.  Volunteering just helps you maintain a grateful heart.

 

Physical:

 

(1)If you are married, make sure you don’t let the busyness of life keep you and your spouse from spending quality time together.  My husband and I have a date night once a week where we just catch up on what has happened for the week.  I will admit that last year it was really hard to keep it always because we were blessed with some new contracts for our business and it made our schedules almost impossible at time but things have settled now and we are able to begin our date nights again. I am so excited.  I love those times that we plan together.  They are the best.

 

(2)Exercise -  I know this is the worst but it is so necessary to keep our bodies moving.  Maybe I should not have said this is the worst because some people are really into exercising but I am not one of those but I know I have to plan exercise time in my schedule in order to live the life that I want.   I am not an expert on weight loss but I have read and know that doctors say as low as a  5 to 10 pound weight loss can have significant results in terms of better health.    So let’s make sure we keep it moving this year.  There is so much free information on the web concerning weight loss and in our communities where we can pick a plan that will accommodate our lifestyles.

 

(3)  ME TIME-  Have one day a week just for YOU.   For me, it is Sunday.   I attend an early service so after church, it is my day just to do whatever I want for me even if it is to do absolutely nothing.    Sometimes I walk the neighborhood or if the weather is good, I go to a place called Stone Mountain here in Atlanta and I walked the trial around and up the mountain or sometime I write on one of my book projects, or I go see a movie by myself or just lay around.  It is my day that I invest in my own mental and emotional health and just focus on me.     I know with kids it may be very difficult to take a full day but maybe it just may be a couple of hours or so but TAKE IT.  It will help you to be so much more productive and focused.   It’s the best.

 

Financial

 

  This year I will be focusing solely on building my savings account back.  Those of you that follow me know that I was on a six year plan to get out of debt and I am currently debt free except for a mortgage.  It is now time for me to start back to contributing to our IRAs, etc.   SAVING, SAVING, SAVING.  This is my goal this year….. less spending and SAVING…    Someone wrote on their face book status today that it is time that we start living below our means so that we can stop being a slave to bills and I so agree.  It is so liberating when you live debt free.  You can do more and you can help others more..    If you are in debt, please focus this year on getting out.  A wonderful place to start and the book that I and my husband used was by Dave Ramsey.  You can visit his website at daveramsey.com for additional resources to use during this journey or there are also plenty of other resources on the web and many of them are free.  Just begin to research.  Start this debt-free journey.  You want regret it.    It is one of the most liberating things I have done outside of accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. 

 

Remember:  Change does not happen without an announcement of what you’re going to do.

 

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

Yes, things happen but what we know for sure is that nothing will happen unless you start planning.

 

Write the Vision and make it plain…  (Habbakuk)

More Tips:

2.  Break your goals down into weekly or monthly goals so you can measure your progress.  It does not work well when you just say you want to accomplish something by the end of the year and have no strategic plan to accomplish it. 

3.  Now that you have your goals written down.  Take each one of them and list them on a separate page and write daily or weekly things that you will be doing to accomplish them. 

4.  If you get off track, do not beat yourself up.. Simply pick up where you left off and KEEP MOVING.

5. Make sure you take time for you.  If you do not invest in yourself, you will become overwhelmed and it could lead to things such as stress, depression, procrastination, etc.

6.  One of the best things to do in a New Year before you begin your journey is to clean your home.  You may think this is crazy but when you have clutter around you , it is very difficult to stay focused.   When you have things that you know you have to do but won’t do them, it stops you from moving forward, because that thing that is incomplete will always be calling you to it and you will end up not doing anything.  Get all projects and things that you need to complete out of the Way.  Stop procrastinating. 

7.  whatever your goals are this year, just remember to have fun.   Whatever you create today, you must live in it tomorrow.   Make great choices and LIVE FREE in Christ.

 

Enjoy your week.  We will resume our study of the scriptures on next Monday. 

Stay encouraged everyone and don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »