“This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate therein day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.” (Joshua 1:8) “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:13)

There are three things that more than anything else I know of, seem to determine where we end up in life. They are the things we think on, the words we speak and the actions we take. This is a profound truth and will be the object of much study for me in the months to come.

Each of those three things are choices we make each day and involve a deliberate action. There are three other things that are unseen that also greatly affect the outcome of our life and they loosely parallel, what’s in our mind, what’s in our mouth and what motivates our actions. They are first of all, hope which is an anchor for our soul (Heb 6:19) and in its simplest form is a positive attitude about the present and the future. It arises from the things we think about and the beliefs we choose as a result of those thoughts.

The second unseen parallel is faith. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:13 “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;” Faith before it runs toward the challenge, speaks. It declares the outcome. This is a big topic for subsequent blogs. Faith however, without works is dead (James 2:17) and thus action always follows. But Galatians 5:6 says that faith works by love. It is motivated and empowered by love and love voluntarily labors. (1 Thess. 1:3)

And what does that labor produce? The harvest of what you think, what you expect and what you say. I will leave that with you for now and look forward to developing these thoughts with you in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, change your thoughts, change your life. Selah.

“For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one; much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:17

I was greatly heartened by the overwhelming response from Tuesday’s blog. You all gave me great hope that perhaps there is a body of people who do want to impact the culture through the strategic takeover of cultural mind molders that shape the destiny of a generation. We have a growing community of brothers and sisters from Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, Africa, Central & South America, etc who are using this site as a way of connecting, supporting and even challenging each other. The posts many of you contribute not only help each other but give life back to me and I am grateful that you take the time to stay in touch and share your perspective!

I spoke Tuesday night to a group of business-minded entrepreneurs in Greensboro, NC and it was terrific! What a great bunch of people! Special thanks to those who drove up from neighboring states to join us. It was wonderful to meet you!

Like many of you, there were several who were struggling to figure out how they could get out of the difficult financial straits they are in. The main emphasis of my talk Tuesday night was on perspective — how you see and interpret the circumstances you find yourself in and how you see yourself. If you see yourself as a grasshopper or a pauper, that is what you will be. That is, at least, how you will live.

We first have to get a firm grip on who we are and what we are which helps us discern a little more on “why” we are. We are children of the King, but that doesn’t mean we are supposed to be spoiled rich kids. Rather we are to be trained to rule and reign with Him. Do you have any concept of what that means? Our King owns everything and I believe He wants us to learn how to manage (steward) some of those things. It’s not that He needs help. It’s that we do! We need to grow up and mature.

Acquiring and managing resources involves risk and training and reward. In the process we grow up. And even better, we grow in our relationship with Him as He trains us to manage the planet and rule and reign in life. Business is a context for relationship. What a shame for those God prepared and gifted for sharing in the joy and privilege of managing the planet, who shun that responsibility because they want to do something they consider to be “spiritual.” Let me tell you, it takes a great deal of spiritual maturity to acquire and manage wealth without being mastered by it. Jesus said it would be difficult (Mat 19:23) I look forward to growing together with you all.

The purpose of a business is to make a profit. There it is. I said it. That ugly word in the minds of so many Christians, which might explain why so many are so broke in the business world. They think profit is evil or bad or at the very least, inappropriate - unless it happens by accident or as a result of doing other things well but minus the profit motive. Believe it or not, you can desire a profit and work hard to generate one without being guilty of coveting or piercing yourself through with many sorrows due to the love of money. But that requires spiritual maturity. Selah.

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