Author: admin

Wise people live their life with the future in view. Our lives are brief enough as it is. Scripture declares we are like a vapor (James 4:14). Astute people seek to elongate their influence by leaving a legacy. A legacy is the influence you exert on people and organizations after you are no longer present. Your influence can take on a life of its own! Legacy enables you to continue to bless, or curse, people long after you are gone.

Some people do not even positively impact people in their own lifetime. Yet great people live in such a way that long after they have departed, people still feel the positive impact of their lives. What a privilege to be able to bless your grandchildren!

How do you leave a legacy? By investing in people. Organizations will come and go, but people are eternal. You leave a legacy by investing in God’s work in people. Long after you have departed, God will still be working in the future generations. What God begins in your life, He may complete in your grandchildren. You won’t be there to see it, but God will be present to bring it to pass. Finally, you leave a legacy when you consciously invest in the next generation. You may not think you have time to mentor a junior colleague or to volunteer with your church’s youth program, but that is where the future is.

One of the most certain biblical principles is this: the people you spend time with will affect you. People rub off on one another! Only fools believe they can spend time around fools and not begin to think like them. Peoples’ words and values are powerful and addictive. We do not realize how often peoples’ attitudes and views of life seep into our own attitudes.

That is why we must be proactive in choosing our companions. Do you see people who are continually being negative and critical of others? Do you really want to become like them? Do you see someone who is prideful? Or lustful? Or sacrilegious? Or profane? Do you want to see those negative traits migrate into your own character?

Conversely, are you aware of someone who demonstrates godly wisdom? Do you know people of sterling character or fearless conviction? Would you like to obtain those qualities yourself? If so, be proactive. Intentionally put yourself next to those you want to rub off on you. Ask for time to spend with such people. Ask them questions and learn from them. Invite them to speak into your life. Watch them and how they conduct themselves. Don’t merely gravitate toward people who are already like you. Find people who are living their lives on a higher plane than you currently are, and get as close to them as you can! Never become content with the current state of your life as long as there are still new ways to improve yourself and to become more like Christ.

Wealth is deceptive. One who accumulates a large bank balance or spacious house, or who collects valuable treasures can appear to others to be rich. Yet they may in reality be the most impoverished of people. Their money may have enslaved them rather than freed them. Their cavernous home may sit quietly, devoid of laughter and of the conversations of trusted friends. Treasures may sit in vaults and private rooms with no one to share them with. What good are earthly treasures if we do not have what matters most in life?

On the other hand, there are those who have chosen not to devote their lives to the endless quest of accumulating possessions. They choose instead to enjoy each day to the full. They regularly rest from their labors so they can enjoy the company of family and friends. They cultivate a vibrant walk with God with more fervor than they pursue their next dollar. As a result, they may not live in the nicest neighborhood, or have the most exotic vehicle, or wear designer clothes, but they have joy and peace.

When economic downturns come or disasters strike, these people still have joy and peace. When thieves abscond with possessions or when health declines, their laughter is unabated, for they are rich toward God and toward others. Happy is the person who is rich in the areas of life that matter most!

God does not ask us to be a “good person.” He expects us to be blameless. Don’t downsize God’s expectations for you. To do so, robs you and indicates a lack of faith in God’s power to transform your life.

A person who always seeks to honor God in all they do will naturally develop a blameless life. Being blameless is not identical to being perfect. Blameless people still make mistakes. But the way they conduct themselves when they sin or when they fail makes them blameless in their relationships to others and to God.

A reward of being blameless is that you have righteousness as your bodyguard! Righteousness is not being “holier than thou.” It is being like God. It is doing things God’s way and therefore reflecting His character. It is doing the “right” thing. While you may have enemies who oppose you and seek to harm you, they will have difficulty pinning accusations on someone who is behaving in a godly manner. They may shout loud accusations against you but the righteousness of your life will deflect their verbal arrows.

Conversely, just as righteousness zealously guards the blameless, wickedness will overthrow the sinner. Wickedness may appear like an evil friend who entices us to embrace evil. But at a crucial moment, our wicked deeds will betray us and seek our destruction. Far better to trust in righteousness! We know what to expect from it. For it reflects the nature of God.

There is a profound difference between doing one’s job and performing your tasks with diligence. It is possible to undertake your assigned tasks with the minimum effort. But the person who honors God is the one who does everything with diligence. Diligence entails doing your best. It means you work with passion and pride. It includes going the second mile to ensure the end result of your labor is something for which you can be proud.

Some people take no pride in their work. If they do not feel like doing something, they simply cannot bring themselves to attempt it. If sloppy, half-hearted work will suffice, why put one’s self out to do outstanding work? Such people saunter through life, never knowing what could have been had they only done their best. They miss the scholarships and academic opportunities at school that they could have earned had they applied themselves. Promotions and job offers never materialize because no one is impressed or attracted to someone who is unwilling to give their best effort.

One doesn’t have to hold an executive position to be diligent. Diligence comes from our inner self-respect and our desire to honor God through our labor. It is not something that only comes from a large salary.

Think about the work you have performed lately. Can you take pride in it? Does it bring glory to your Creator? Does it challenge others to imagine what their best efforts could produce? Would it inspire others to want you to work with them as well? If your character is reflected in your work, what does your current effort reflect about your character?

God did not design us to be anxious. Anxiety acts like a poison that eats away at our soul, our state of mind, and our joy. Fear, on the other hand, can actually be healthy. Fear of snakes causes us to find an alternate route when we find one lying across our path. Fear of failing an exam and being thrown out of college can drive us to study! Scripture often exhorts us to fear the Lord but it never tells us to be anxious. Anxiety is different than fear. It is not necessarily grounded in reason. It is a prevailing worry for which we can do little about. Anxiety does not compel us to take action like fear does. Anxiety tends to immobilize us so we find ourselves merely worrying rather than doing something productive to address our concerns.

If you allow yourself to become consumed with anxious thoughts, you may become depressed. Wallowing in anything for very long will affect you. So, living your life in constant anxiety leads to a state of depression.

While anxious thoughts will inevitably bring us down, an encouraging word acts like a balm to our struggling soul. The power of a positive word, spoken in season, is hard to measure. The key is to develop friends who will routinely speak those words to you. It means you need to be the kind of person who utters such words to others as well. When you begin to feel anxious, find your way to those people who know how to speak the kind of word you need to hear. Don’t simply congregate with other anxious, negative people! Find people who truly know the Lord and who understand how to give grace through their words.

Wise people feel no compulsion to tell others all they know. In fact, they run much deeper than they let on. If you don’t probe and ask questions, you will only skim the surface of what wise people understand. They have spent much time thinking about important issues. They have meditated upon God’s word. They have read and studied widely. They have a wealth of knowledge and breadth of insight that could be of enormous help to those who seek to learn from them. Prudent people do not withhold knowledge maliciously. They simply treat it as something valuable that has been entrusted to them. They do not offer precious gems to people who will treat them as cheap trinkets. Wise people hallow God and His word. Around those who treat God’s word lightly, wise people will remain silent. They know there is no point in subjecting God’s wisdom to a fool.

Conversely, fools love to speak, regardless of whether they have anything valuable to say. In disrupting the silence, such people reveal the impoverished nature of their soul and thought. Had they remained silent, you might have suspected the scarcity of their thought. But now that they have opened their mouth, they leave no room for doubt!

Are you someone who delights in wisdom? Do you meditate on the deep things of God? Are you continually on the lookout for wise people who could teach you much? Can you recognize wise people when you are in their presence?

People have an uncanny ability to view life through their own individual lenses. We can act selfishly and yet justify our actions by proclaiming that we needed a break. We can be rude but view our behavior as merely being honest. We look out for ourselves, but we see it as caring about the greater good. We are dishonest but explain we were simply following commonly accepted practices. We hurt someone but console ourselves in the knowledge that we meant well or that we were misunderstood. We make a mistake but blame others. Nothing is our fault! We have an explanation for everything!

Of course we are not as generous in evaluating the behaviors of others. When others fail, we don’t believe they meant well or gave their best. When they hurt our feelings, we assume they are malicious at heart. While we expect others to forgive us, we are less inclined to extend pardons toward others.

Because we so easily deceive ourselves, we must rely on counselors who know us and who understand the truth of our situation. We need someone who will cut through all of the lies we tell ourselves and make us confront the truth. This isn’t easy and it doesn’t come naturally. But it is the pathway to wisdom. While living in a dream world where we are always the hero can be fun for a while, it is not reality. It is only an illusion. So find someone who will tell you how things really are, and then listen to what they say!

Money is unbelievably seductive! It can lead us to believe that we can do anything we can afford to pay for. It causes us to turn to our wallet in times of difficulty rather than to our prayer closet. We can misguidedly value people not by their godly character but by their net worth. And if that were not enough, we can mistakenly assume that riches are reliable.

The truth is that there is no vault secure enough to prevent the loss of everything we own. Thieves are constantly devising new ways to relieve us of our possessions. Natural disasters can overwhelm us unexpectedly. The economy can plummet. Our partner can cheat us. Our company can fall on hard times. Clients can dry up or be lured away by a cutthroat competitor. And, if we manage to overcome all of these challenges, our health will ultimately decline and death will finally loosen our grip on every dollar we accumulated. Even the world’s wealthiest people have ultimately grown frail and weak and been unable to control their destiny. For those whose confidence is placed in their wealth, many an anxious night awaits them!

In what or whom are you placing your trust? Is it reliable? Would you bet your life on it? Can you sleep at night?

When you are generous, you reflect God’s character. It is in God’s nature to give you far more than you deserve or expect (Ephesians 3:20). Of course, God can afford to give generously because it never depletes His storehouse or limits what He can provide the following day.

While we do not have unlimited resources like God does, He still encourages us to reflect His generosity. There are many reasons for this. For one, what we give in this life will follow us into eternity. Today’s investments will pay enormous dividends in the future! Second, God is looking for conduits. When we share with others what God has given to us, God tends to marshal additional resources in our direction. God desires for His people to be channels of blessing to those around them. Third, God never asks us to do anything He will not also provide sufficient resources to accomplish the task. You must believe that if God is calling you to be generous, He will also enable you to be so. Finally, when you relate to others with generosity you will be surrounded by people who are grateful for your life. People tend to respond in kind. If you are stingy with them, they will be miserly toward you. But if you relate to others generously, there will be those who show kindness toward you in return.

Ultimately you must decide what kind of person you will be: Stingy or generous? The fact is that this life is extremely brief. We will hold our possessions and wealth only temporarily. Soon, whatever we had will be passed on to others. So, we can wait until after our death for our worldly goods to be distributed to others, or we can enjoy the process and participate in sharing love and encouragement with those around us now. God knows that is the best way to invest our life. Are you truly a generous person?