faith based tenacity…

if you want to receive GOD-given dreams, wisdom, humility and tenacity are going to be a part of your life. 

i’m sure there were people in pharaoh’s court when joseph was raised to the top leader in all of egypt who said, “look at this!  this young guy!  an overnight success!  i’ve worked all my life in pharaoh’s court and never got anything like that.”  an overnight success!

genesis 37.2 is the account of joseph.  joseph as a young man of 17.  now skip to genesis 41 and let’s see how old he is in genesis 41.46.  thirty.  thirteen years between the dream and the fulfillment of the dream.  is that an overnight success?  it’s a pretty long night!

some of you are in the middle of a pretty long night.  GOD gave joseph the dream and during every bit of that long night, GOD was faithfully working to accomplish that dream. 

joseph was a failure who knew how to succeed in a success.  he knew that because of GOD’s grace he would never truly fail.  joseph was the kind of guy who always seemed to land on his faith!  wherever you put him.  whether you put him in a slave’s household or you put him in prison or you put him here in pharaoh’s household, he always lands on his faith.  he had that kind of tenacity.  faith based tenacity.

just a thought from the front porch…

so what is the cost?...

so in making decisions pray for guidance, get the facts, ask for advice and then calculate the cost.

there is a price tag for every decision in life, even the seemingly most insignificant decision.  every time you give a minute of your life to anything, you're giving your life away.  you’ll never get that minute back.  when you give your time to something, you’re giving your life for it.  you can always get more money, but you can’t always get more time.  you only have a certain number of days. 

every decision has a price tag.  it will cost you time, money, energy, reputation, talents, resources.  there’s always an investment to be made.  proverbs 20.25 (niv), it is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows.

it is a trap to decide without deliberating, to make a promise without pondering it first, to make a commitment without first considering the cost of the commitment.  it is ok when people pressure you to make a decision to say, “i’ll get back to you.”  it is not as important that you make a quick decision, but that you make the right decision. 

this is also true when someone is considering giving their life to CHRIST.  don’t always pressure people to give their lives to CHRIST the very first time they hear the message.  encourage them to take the time to make the right decision. 

and i’m convinced that if you sincerely consider it, the claims of CHRIST, the benefits that HE offers if you give your life to HIM, you’ll make i believe the right decision. 

it says it’s always a trap to make the decision without first considering the cost.  one of the rules of life is that it’s always easier to get in than to get out.  it’s easier to get into a relationship than get out.  it’s easier to get into debt than to get out.  it’s easier to fill your schedule than fulfill your schedule.  calculate the cost.

in luke 14 JESUS said that no man builds a tower without first figuring out how much it’s going to cost.  HE said no king goes to war unless he counts the soldiers first to make sure he has enough to win. 

so ask:  is it worth it?

h.l hunt said, “there are only two keys to success in life.  one, decide what you really want.  and two, decide what you’re willing to pay for it.”  there is a price tag with every decision.

just a thought from the front porch…

success and mistakes…

proverbs 28:13 (lb), a man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. there are two key words there, mistakes and successful. and they go together. there is no success without making mistakes.

mistakes are how you grow, how you experiment, how you figure out what works.

one pastor tells his staff that he wants every staff member making a major mistake each week. why? if they’re not making any mistakes, they’re not growing. they’re not pushing the envelope. they’re not taking risks. and if they’re not taking risks, it doesn’t require any faith. and if they don’t have any faith, they are being unfaithful.

we only grow by experimenting. and when you experiment, you’re going to make mistakes. so i want everybody to make a major mistake every week. don’t make the same one every week. if you do that, there is a real problem. if you’re making the same mistake every week, you’re not learning, you’re not growing, you’re not taking notes. GOD’s having to teach you something over and over. the point is, if you don’t take any risks you never grow.

the freedom to fail is the freedom to grow. this has profound implications for parenting. if you provide such a safety net for your little child that he or she never has an opportunity to fail, never in a competitive environment, when you play them games you always let them win and they never fail, guess what? you’re doing them a dis-service. you’re setting them up for greater pain. that’s not the way the real world operates.

the way the real world operates is sometimes you win and sometimes i win. nobody wins all the time. nobody. if you set up an environment where you protect your little darling where they never have any difficulty and they never have any bad feelings, they never fail and they never lose to somebody else, it’s an unrealistic bubble you’ve put them in. and when they get out in the real world, they’re going to collapse.

just a thought from the front porch…