What Matters Most?

I have really thought long and hard about this question.  It came up as I listened and observed people who do not struggle financially.  Now we know money isn’t everything but man it makes things a lot easier.  I wanted to set the bar for myself and see if I was truly happy with what God has given me and was I OK with the choices I have made to get here.  For years I could not see past the dollar signs because I was always in a struggle.  You know the feeling where you have just enough but not enough to do more.  In most cases, I believe I would and want to do more for others, but ultimately I was looking past the riches I already had.  This is where the question comes of What Matters Most?

Well for me it was my health, mental health and emotional health.  I took 2 years off from coaching to truly realize who I was in Christ.  I am Anthony and I am validated and I am identified by the man I am in God’s eyes.  It was hard to pull away because I didn’t really know what matters most, was it winning? was it championships? relationships?  What was it?  I can tell you if you take the time to inventory your life you will come to realize you have more than you could ever need, it is just learning to accept where you are and be happy with how God is working to make you reach out to others in your life. This is where I realized What matters most?  It is the people that cross your path whether for a moment or for a lifetime.  What impact does your soul make on those in your life.  Do the people around you aspire to find the peace you have or deal with nonsense in a Godly way.  I think what is best is the people that trust you and love you most know that you are just you.  Whether you are talking in their face or behind their back it is the same thing you said to them in their face.

What matters most? Love, Integrity and the ability to know the world does not revolve around you.  Very rarely is there something you do that changes the lives of people, including those close to you.  What matters most is realizing everyone has a battle or two or three they are going through.  It is through these battles that we grow and in those times is where we gather what matters most.  It is so easy to get caught up in the world and fall into the lies and deceit of the evil one.  However, it is in those daily thought battles where Jesus can meet us.  Yes the answer to what matters most is Jesus but in a practical way. What He does in my daily life effects those talking or watching how I choose to live and love in  my life.  Far from perfect but definitely transparent.

One Love, One King, All Christ

Live Like Your Loved

Self-Help = Self-Hurt

When we take the time to look back at all the things we tried to fix on our own, we realize the failure rate is pretty high.  Now, don’t get me wrong there are some people out there who can MacGuyver the heck out of anything, but that doesn’t work on our souls.  The problem for most of us is our pride mixed in with about a thousand table spoons of shame.  We just know we can handle the situation and even have the guts to tell God we got it.  In the end, the only thing we get is shame, pain and fear and are usually too humiliated to even face God.  That in and of itself is a lie because he is omnipotent and will never turn on His Beloved.  We typically wait til it’s too late to get Group( Jesus, Holy Spirit, God) Therapy that the burdens have built up to the weight and the size of the sun.  This is what we do even when you read about history and even when you read about people in the bible who saw miracles and were with Jesus.  They all tried the self-help method and it never worked.  We hit rock bottom and then reach for the sky in the hope we can make it close to Heaven.  We are taught the self-help stuff from when we are kids and once we learn how to get our way we take hold of that and run with it.  I can tell you from personal experience that every time I have tried to self-help my soul I ended up self-hurt and running back to a place where I could medicate and numb that feeling.

I learned a pretty cool saying the other day and it was right on point, they said ” My best thinking, on my best day, Got me Here!”  When you place that in perspective and realize once you were in that place of darkness, dread or failure it was usually that plea to God to help you get out!  We so easily forget the blessings that God gives us and take for granted that everything we do should be for His Glory and not our own.  When we are in self-help mode we point fingers and always have someone to blame.  I read the other day that “we cannot blame God for all the bad that happens while we are praising Him for all the Good that happens at the same time.”  When we are in self-help mode we typically got ourself there through choosing the way we know and not the way we grow.  Now when you sprinkle in brokenness and abuse the only way to deal with those things is on our own, again another lie from the enemy.  Then God has people to enter into our lives who have the wisdom of knowing how God saved them and then they share with you that it is not your fault.  They share with you that your innocence was taken from you and you can have a clean slate.  God will cover with His robe and Jesus with His Blood so that you will be in the refuge and fortress of the Most High and adopted as His son or daughter.  My friends throw away your self-help stuff and reach for your bible.  The next step is GROUP(Jesus, Holy Spirit, God) Therapy.  Once you experience the sweetness of Gods love, the kindness of His mercy and the fullness of His Grace, the shame, pain and fear will flee!  For every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord! Amen!

One Love, One King, All Christ

Why do we splice back into our corrupt wiring!

This past Sunday I attended a traditional service and when I say that the second youngest person is in their early 60’s.  The pastor is 85 years old and spent a lifetime doing revivals for Jesus all over the country.  He opened up with talking about technology because his wifi at his house went out.  Then the technician at the house was talking to him about his wifi problem and he said that changed his sermon for this day.  Basically what happened is the technician fixed everything and put all new equipment into their house.  When he went to connect the network and leave it still wasn’t working.  The technician realized what he did was splice all the new wires into the main wire box outside and that wiring was corrupt.  It was at that moment he realized God put it on his heart to speak about this today.  This is what we do as followers of Christ, we are connected to the main source of our peace and salvation and for whatever reason we may find we splice back into our old corrupt wiring.  Whenever the path that Christ has trailblazed for us starts to show some difficulty we run back and go to what’s familiar.  We sometimes don’t even realize we are splicing back into the old way of thinking and living, also commonly known as ” The Old Man.”  We are so familiar with this that we by instinct will splice back into the thoughts and actions we think will free us of the burden we are feeling.  We will hold onto this comfort even though we know it is harmful to our soul.

Thankfully, we serve a God that is GOOD! He sees no faults in our wiring and is always ready to re-splice us back into his perfect, powerful and full of grace wiring.  Even when we splice back into the “Old Man” we feel the shock but it many times is not painful enough to remind us we need to fix it.  How crazy is it that even though we are connected directly to God and the flow is perfect we still feel inadequate about being there.  I am tired of that and want to sink deeply into the Goodness of our God!  That means giving up my wire cutters and splicers and relinquishing those tools to Christ.  The trick is wanting what God has to offer more than what we want.  There is nothing good in me or around me and there is Only GOOD, LOVE, MERCY and GRACE in Jesus.  I want that direct connection to stay fully intact and I want to live off the full awesome mighty power source of Love that My Adoptive Father wants to give me all the time! Amen!

One Love, One King, All Christ