a sweet symphony

I don't have much experience going to any types of performances or shows where there are symphonies, but I do know that the best symphonies are when everyone plays their roles extremely well and together. If you think about it, we are all a part of God's symphony. Each and every person created by God is unique, special, and has gifts and talents like no one else.

I believe we are all called to be a part of the symphony to play God's music. Equally and untied as one. Everyone playing their own special instruments, meaning we are all using the gifts that God gave us to serve him and love others. 

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God's service; you are God's field, God's building. 

(1 Corinthians 3:7-9)

Only God can make things grow. 

God's work involves many different individuals with a variety of gifts and abilities. There are no superstars. in this task. No super believers. No one who stands out more than the others. There are only team members performing their own special roles 

We can all become useful team members of God's team by setting aside our desires to receive glory for what we do. We should never seek the praise that comes from people - it is comparatively worthless. Instead, seek approval from God.

My encouragement to you today is to play your part. You are so incredibly special. You are capable of things that other people aren't. You have gifts that other people don't. Be you and give God all the glory and I can assure you that you will make difference in the world, but even more important than that, you will feel self-worth and fulfillment. 

everyone wants to be wise

Everyone wants to be wise. But where does wisdom come from?

I know for me, discernment is something I ask God to give me nearly everyday. I know that any good decisions that I make, which I would like to think are most decisions, come from God and not myself. Without God's discernment I could still do the right thing, but perhaps with the wrong motives at heart. 

"This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words." (1 Corinthians 2:13)

Everyone wants to be wise. Yet Paul taught the Corinthians that true wisdom and discernment requires believers to be guided by the Holy Spirt. Satan's greatest impact on us occurs when he deceives us, so that means we need the Holy Spirit's help. 

Spiritual discernment enables us to draw conclusions based on God's perspective, make wise decisions in difficult circumstances, recognize the activities of God's Spirit, distinguish the correct and incorrect use of Scripture, and identify and expose false teachers.

As we serve God today, let's make sure we ask God to give us discernment and let that discernment guide you in your daily walk. 

simple salvation

It's quite easy to overcomplicate things...Nowadays for many things you do you must have certain things like knowledge, wisdom, and competence. Oftentimes people achieve something just because they believe. Which is flip-flopped right? Belief should be what ultimately leads to us accomplishing many things right? 

The power in truly believing in something is forgotten about. I am not really sure where that simple truth became so lost in translation and throughout life, but it has. We overcomplicate things that shouldn't be complicated at all. 

Are you a little confused by what I have wrote so far? Because I am. 

I did it on purpose. I did it to make you realize how crazy it is that we forget the power of believing. Such a simple truth.

There is a common misconception that goes around where you hear people say: "fake it to you make it." I've said that, and I have lived it. Especially for many months when I first started my career. We should be saying, "I believe it because I'm here." If I would've had that belief during the beginning months of my career, I can almost guarantee that I would've gotten off to a fast start. I was just faking it till I made it and pretended to know what I was doing and I thought that was what would lead to success. But I will tell you this, since I have truly started believing in the work I do and the value in I bring, everything is so much more fulfilling and rewarding to me.

How often are you like that in your faith? Do you coast? Try to fit in with other believers entirely based off of good deeds? I've tired that too, and have lived it. I never was fulfilled until I truly believed. All we have to do is believe that Christ Jesus died on the cross for our sins. 

We won't get to heaven by doing the right thing over and over again...we will spend eternity in heaven when we truly believe. A truth so simple, we forget about it all time. 

Oftentimes, when I sit down and spend time unpacking the word and seeing what I can learn, I feel like I need to find something that is going to make me feel good, or find something I can use to encourage other people. I am always trying to increase my knowledge and wisdom, and I overcomplicate it. I have read confusing things in my bible my entire life, and I always beat myself up over it because for some reason I overcomplicated my faith, and forgot about the simplicity of salvation...which is belief.

God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord."

(1 Corinthians 1:28-31)

In that scripture Paul continues to emphasize that the way to receive salvation is so simple that any person who wants to can understand it. Skill and wisdom do not get a person into God's kingdom - simple faith does - so no one can boast that his or her achievements helped him or her secure eternal life. 

There is nothing we can do to receive salvation, we just have to accept what Jesus has already done for us. 

my refuge

I want to start by asking this simple question, when times get tough, difficult, and you feel like all the cards in the deck are stacked against you, what is your first reaction?

Is it your phone? Social media? Do you call a friend? Call your parents? 

I am guilty of all those. Especially this week, I have not been doing a good job at having God be my refuge. I have been turning to what distracts me from what I am facing and that's typically my phone. Not to have a pity party, but I make a lot of phone calls everyday, and when people don't pick up, just aren't nice, or aren't interested in what I do, it's easy to get down. It's been a tough week and every time I feel like my back has been against the wall, I turn to my phone first, and not God. 

One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever heard, was that when you get rejected on the phone, or someone tells you they just aren't interested in what you do, to pray for them. Thank God for the opportunity you had to reach out to someone, and pray for that person and their future whether our paths cross or not. 

I write with complete honesty because I believe that's the best way to encourage, inspire, and to have an impact. 

If you say, "The Lord is my refuge," and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent. (Psalm 91:9-10)

Why not turn to God first? God is our shelter. The writer of this Psalm had faith that will carry him through all dangers and fears of life. This should be a picture of our trust - trading all our fears of faith in him, no matter how intense our fears or how difficult our circumstances are. 

My one thing for you as we attack today, is to remember that God is our refuge. When things go your way, praise God, when things don't go your way praise God! Praise God always. Turn to him first. Pray for those who tell you no as much as you pray for those who tell you yes. 

rookie mindset

I've heard "rookie mindset" mentioned many times in podcasts that I have been listening to the past couple days. Each time, it's used in such a way to draw us back to our original ways. Oftentimes, as our lives, careers, and knowledge progress, we forget our simple ways that led us to get to that point.

This happens in business all the time. There are successful people who work extremely hard and build something amazing, and then it seems like something is missing for them. To really figure out what is missing, you have to go back to how things were when you first began. 

This even happens for athletes as well. I think back to my basketball journey. I had the exact same struggles playing college basketball sometimes as I did when I was playing in jr. high. For example, my shot was always off when I would watch the ball when I would release my jump shot, rather than keeping my eyes on the back of the rim. Something so small, affected the entire mechanics of my shot. I would do the same thing in jr. high. I didn't adjust my mechanics to something brand new, I had to remember how I would fix it years ago. How I fixed it was doing something as simple as form shooting right underneath the basket. 

Having a rookie mindset is also incredibly important in our faith in Christ Jesus. Not having a rookie mindset will allow you to overcomplicate things far behind what we could've imagined. With our faith, there are things that we first learn as believers that we must never forget. Like the life of Jesus and how God gave his one and only Son, so that whoever would believe in him, shall not perish, but have eternal life. We must always remember the life that Jesus lived. Without remembering that, what is there to really base our faith off of?

"Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son." (2 John 9)

Continue in the teaching. 

I can't stress that enough. Although it's important to grow, and continue to learn new things, it's even more important to continue in the teaching that we already know. My encouragement to all of you who are trying to grow something special in your life, remember to have a rookie mindset. Remember what you learned when you started this journey on who you are becoming. 

it's not about how much, but how many

For me, one of the most difficult things as a believer is that I have always believed that to be obedient to Christ, I must go out and love every single person. I have always felt like I had to live that way, and I have never done a good job with it. Why? It's a bit exhausting.  

I felt like the only way to show others Christ's love, I had to go out and love on people I have no relationship with. No wonder I don't feel like I have done a good job with it. 

I read a verse, and understood it more clearly than I ever have this morning, and it completely changes everything. 

"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." (1 John 4:12)

What John means when he is writing this to us, is it's not how many people we should love, but how much we love the people that we already know. 

Who else needed to hear that this morning?

Before you get carried away, I want to be clear, just because this is what John meant when he wrote this doesn't mean we don't have to love others. We still need to love everybody. But are focus really shouldn't be on how many people we need to be loving, but on how much we need to love the people that we already know.

Our job is to love faithfully the people God has given us to love, whether there are two or two hundred of them. I challenge you to think about your life. Who is in it that you feel like you need to love for a reason and a purpose? A coach will love his family, and his team, a pastor will love his family and his or her congregation, a teacher will love their family and their students, a financial advisor will love their family and also their clients, etc.

I've been bent out of shape my entire life, and I hope with this post, God will bring you to the same revelation he just brought me to. I also encourage you to not take for granted the people in your life who are the closest to you because they are the ones that we can be and should be loving the most.

the carrot, egg, and coffee bean

I was inspired to share this post with you after I heard Jon Gordon explain this story on a podcast this afternoon..

My encouragement to you: be the coffee bean. 

The carrot, egg, and coffee bean represent the three types of people that there are and how they handle conflict and what is thrown at them in life. First, I want you to think of what happens when you put all of these things in boiling hot water. 

When you put a carrot in boiling hot water what happens to it? Well it gets softer, it gets weekend by its environment. 

When you put an egg in boiling hot water what happens to it? It gets hardened right? 

We can be like a carrot when we face difficult situations, like we are in right now, we can crumble from the inside out, we let the fear, stress, and anxiety get the best of us. We can be like an egg, and become hardened, bitter, angry, frustrated, and just not care anymore, and a lot of people right now are saying that they just don't care right now. 

We could be like both, but we don't want to be like either of those. We want to be like the coffee bean, when you put the coffee bean into boiling hot water, it transforms the water, it transforms the environment, it's not impacted by it's environment, but transforms. 

Being a coffee bean is our opportunity, it's our charge, our power, and it's our responsibility everyday as positive leaders here on earth. We can impact the environments that we are in, we don't have to be the victim of our circumstances. 

We can actually change our environment, and that's how we are going to change the world. Pessimists aren't going to change the world and naysayers are going to complain and say you can't do it. The believers, the dreamers, and the positive leaders are who have the greatest impact are like the coffee bean. 

Be the coffee bean.