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What you do today determines the quality of what happens tomorrow.

What to do about tomorrow.  That is my message for today.

About 430 years.  That is about the length of time the Israelites were in Egypt.  They waited for God to deliver them from the bondage they lived daily.  I’m sure with each passing day they must have wondered if tomorrow would be the day God would deliver them.

In bondage, the Israelites probably prayed daily that they would live till tomorrow.  And they probably lived daily praying that tomorrow would be the day of their deliverance.  God does not promise that we will live to see tomorrow, but still tomorrow is always going to come.  The question for us is this.  How should we live today knowing that tomorrow will come whether we see it or not?

The Lord warns us about trying to live our tomorrows today.  He also reminds us that tomorrow is not promised to us.  What we learn to do about tomorrow can be found in what we did yesterday.  Yesterday is often the reason we have the day that we are having today.

Proverbs 30:25 tell us this.  “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer.”  Summer is the yesterday for the ants when winter comes. The ants may be small and insignificant, but they are smart enough to prepare for the tomorrow they want to live to see.

What the ants do today determines a lot of what they will have to do tomorrow.  Like the ants, what we do today will impact our tomorrow in some way.  So, what should we do about tomorrow?  Well, we should prepare today for the tomorrow we would like to see.

How do we do this?  There are three things we can do today about tomorrow.  These things will prepare us for whatever tomorrow brings.

First, remember, today was yesterday’s tomorrow.  We must learn to live today from what we did yesterday.  Most of us don’t do this.  We try living today from the things we do today.  This is folly.  Today cannot give you much if yesterday you didn’t prepare for much to come your way today.

It is yesterday that determines the quality of your tomorrows.  So, what you do about tomorrow is found in what you did yesterday.

Next, remember that we work today so that we have wages tomorrow.  As we live, we must learn to work.  We must work today with the idea we are storing up something needed for our tomorrow.  We must remember what we get from our tomorrow is the wages we earned by the work we do today.  So, learn to work hard today because tomorrow you will be paid.

Finally, we must remember that as we live and work, the Lord is living and working perfecting each of us.  He does not want either of us waking up tomorrow the same person that we are today.  So, as we live and work today, we must learn to tarry on the Lord to finish the work He is doing on us.

If the work He wanted to do yesterday on us is not complete, we must learn to tarry on Him until He finishes what He has started on us.  If the persons He wants us to be tomorrow is incomplete, we must learn to tarry on Him until He finishes what He wants us to be tomorrow.

What we do about tomorrow is largely determined by the mindsets we have about today and yesterday.  Learn to live today, praying that you will have more to give than what you want to get.  Learn to pray today that you live in such a way that tomorrow needs what you live for today.

Although tomorrow is not promised to you, tomorrow is nevertheless coming.  Let learn to live in such a way that tomorrow will be better for others by the way you live today.  Each day, learn to tarry on the Lord.  When you tarry, you hang around the Lord longer than you do anything else.

When you do this, He will fill your today with some of what you did yesterday, and with some of what you do today and with some of what you will need for your tomorrow.  This is the one thing you can do about tomorrow even though tomorrow is not promised to you.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

The only prayer God cannot answer is the prayer you do not pray

The answered prayer.  That is my message for today.

There have been times where I have faced circumstances that seemed too far gone to change.  I’ve actually said to myself “if things are going to get better now it will take a miracle of God.”  I was probably feeling helpless, defeated and hopeless.

Often it is feelings like these that keep us from praying as we should.  But we should remember, no matter the circumstance we may face, it is never too late to pray.  The answer to your prayer is always coming especially when you pray in earnest.  The Lord does not have a “to do list” of unanswered prayers.

The book of Daniel, chapter 10:12 scripture says this about Daniel.  Then he said to me, “do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words.”

Daniel and the people of Israel were in the early years of captivity in Babylon.  Daniel had prayed to God for discernment and the insight to understand so that he could help the people through what would be 70 years of captivity.  But he didn’t get a response right away.

Daniel could have thought that God was not going to answer his prayer.  Scripture says Daniel mourned for three full weeks waiting for a response.  At the end of three weeks, the angel Gabriel came to Daniel and delivered that message to him.  We may not face 70 years of captivity today, but we have our own Babylon’s.

You must learn to pray no matter how things may look for you.  And because it’s never too late to pray, you can be assured that a response is always on the way to you.  The scripture says from the moment Daniel set his heart to understand the circumstances and to humble himself before God, his words were heard, and an answer went out.

Daniel wasn’t asking God to free the people sooner.  He wasn’t asking God to take revenge on the Babylonians.  He wasn’t asking God to return the people to Jerusalem.  He was acknowledging before God that he and the people didn’t understand what was ahead of them.

The people felt helpless, hopeless and defeated.  Sometimes, things can look so bad to us that we don’t know what to pray for, so we don’t pray at all.  But God has an answer for a helpless prayer.  He has an answer for a hopeless prayer.  And He has an answer for a defeated prayer.

But, you get the answered prayer only if you pray. The only prayer God cannot answer is the prayer you do not pray.  We can learn three things from Daniel that will help us in our own lives and in the circumstances we face.

• Pray first and pray last.  We must never forget to pray no matter how dire our circumstances may be.

• Look for understanding.  Understanding will help you learn to look for a response that may be better than what you are asking.  If it is healing you want, God may choose to give you the strength to live and to serve with a sickness in a way that heals others.

• Humble yourself.  Learn to go to the Lord in humility.  Hopeless, helpless and defeated feelings do not make the Lord move faster on your behalf.  But a humble spirit, strong in hope and steadfast in faith will set your answered prayer into motion.

When you pray and live in this way you can always have access to the answered prayer God has waiting for you. It is never too late for God to move on your situation.  Nothing will keep God’s answered prayer from you when you pray in earnest even if you do not know what to pray for.

If you don’t know what to pray for, pray for understanding and discernment and wisdom.  God will always respond to those.  The Lord loves you, so He has an answered prayer waiting for every prayer of yours.  Remember, you do not get answers to prayers you do not pray.

Pray.  There is an answered prayer waiting for you.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Never listen to anyone or anything who doesn’t listen to the Lord.

You heard what?  That is my message for today.

Sometimes, we try so hard to depend on the Lord that we actually become independent of Him. We all know that God is good to us. When we are in the middle of our troubles, we can often hear ourselves or others saying, “God is good to us.”  That would be true.

But we have also heard it said, “God helps those who helps themselves.”  This is not a statement of God’s.  It may be how we want to believe but there is no scripture reference to support this statement.  We are very self-seeking and impatient people.  When we do not hear God say what we want to hear, we turn to ourselves or to our social network to hear it.

And there are always people ready to say what you should not want to hear.  When they do this, they steal from you the glory of patience and dependence you should reserve for the Lord only.  The devil uses the feelings and emotions of weak people with loud mouths to cause us to believe we can do the good that God is slow to do.

Instead of waiting for God’s good come to us in the way we want it, we follow what we have heard others say to bring about the good we think is needed.  Our dependence becomes our independence because we listened to something we heard from a source that didn’t listen to the Lord.

Have you heard it said, “we must love the person but hate the sin?”  Well, I hope not because this is not a biblical statement.  Yet, many of us are easily influenced and predisposed to believe we must love everyone no matter how they live.  We should love everyone because God calls us to do that.  But loving how others live is not what we are called to do.

In Matthew 17:5, God says this about Jesus to Peter, James and John, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.  Hear Him!”  Listen!  We must stop listening to what we have heard from others and hear what the Lord is saying to us and about us.

Now hear this.  Our love for others should be part of the reason they would want to turn from what is or might be wrong to what is right.  If by our love, others are made to feel comfortable in their wrongs, perhaps our love is really not love at all.

The Lord probably scratches His head and says to us “you did what because you heard what?”  For sure, Jesus loved and still loves each of us no matter who we are.  But His love does not make us believe it is ok to live a life contrary to the life that is obedient to Him.  He loves us all and He lovingly asks and places the expectation on us all to sin no more.

We need to learn to stop acting on what others tell us or on what we say to ourselves.  We must learn to hear what God says to us about us. When we take what God says and shape it into what we want we open ourselves to live by statements of emotion and feelings.  You heard what?  That should be our own question of our own selves.

Emotions and feelings will lead you to believe if you are not loving then you are condemning. Jesus never condemned.  He does not ask us to judge or to condemn the behavior of others.  But by our attitudes others can judge their own behaviors and attitudes.  We need to make sure our attitudes are sound and founded on something other than feelings and emotions.

Our attitudes are one of the main reasons we live more by what we have heard or what we want to say, than by what really is.  In the book of Matthew, Jesus takes specific aim at teaching us to clean up our attitudes.  He wanted the people then, and guess what, He wants us today to base our attitudes on what the Word says to us about us more than on what we hear from ourselves or from others.

Matthew 5:43 Jesus says this.  “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”

Jesus makes several of these type statements.  I call them His “you heard what?” statements.  He is telling the people don’t believe and act on all the things you hear from others.  People will make you emotional.  Your emotions will make you live by your feelings more than by factual realities.

Jesus wants you to live by what He says to you.  In a way He is saying listen to Me.  “I don’t want you to love on one hand and to hate on the other.” “Don’t listen to what you heard, listen to what I tell you.”

My mother used to tell me, “Don’t listen to anyone who does not listen to the Lord.” Why did Eve listen to the devil when we know the devil doesn’t listen to God?  The devil heard what was said but he didn’t believe what was said. Eve tried to make sense of what God had said in relation to what she heard the devil say.

How crazy is that?  If God says don’t, why would we listen to anyone or anything that says but you can now because you are smarter. Learn to do what God told the disciples.  Jesus is His beloved Son.  Listen to Him.  Never listen to what you have heard, seen, or read on Facebook by people who only listen to themselves and who want you to listen to them. They are simply trying to live their lives through your life.

Listen and hear the Lord.  Don’t put the Him in the position of saying to you, “you heard what?” 

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

If you haven’t developed excellence to be a part of you it will be difficult to do things that will return excellent results

Skillful Living Series – Message # 12

The message today is Delivering Excellence and Results.

Have you even been asked, what do you do for a living?  Most of us should say, I work at learning how to be excellent and successful.  Many will work at acquiring skills and talents, but few will be willing to work at delivering excellence and results.

God says something like this when He says in 1 Samuel 15:22, “Has the Lord as great a delight in burnt offering and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?”  Samuel is speaking to King Saul a sacrifice Saul had attempted to offer God.  Why does He ask this question?  Because many of us would rather do what is easy and convenient than to change something about us that would change what we choose to do.

God did not accept what Saul did (his sacrifice), or his heart for doing it (his mindset).    Because we do this, we fail at things we do because success and excellence are not a part of who we are. Saul wanted to focus on doing something when God wanted him to focus on being something.  Many of us are like Saul.  It’s easier for us to do things than it is for us to be something better than what we can do.

Life and living are not the same things. Those who are the most skilled at life are the most skilled at living.  Life is knowing who God made us to be.  Living is doing the things in life that are the expression of who we are.  Life is the I am, and living is the I do.  The two need to match.  King David understood life, so he lived and had an abundant life.  Saul understood living, so he did all that he could to live abundantly.  He failed.

Excellence and Results are really more a state of mind in who we are than a thing we do.  If excellence is not in you as a part of who you are, it is not likely you will be able to do things of excellence. Both life and living worked for David because he started with being skillful at life.  Neither worked for Saul because he was unskillful at life.

Some of us would think God is silent on the idea of results.  But He is not.  Jesus says as much when in John 10:10 He says, “I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.”  Jesus says, He is the Way and the Truth and the Life.  So, if you want a life of abundance, you must learn to skillfully develop more of Him in your life and in how you live.

Skillful living comes from a skillful life.  A skillful life comes from a life that is developed by the Word of God.  The book of Proverbs can be taken as God’s how to instructions for developing a life that is abundant.  Excellence and Results in living can be yours when you have perfected Excellence and Results in life.

Here are some helpful things about people who are more skillful at life than we are:

• Rule the things that would love to rule or irritate you.  An oyster has no arms or legs, yet it produces a pearl right in the middle of its belly using nothing but its own will.  Life is not about getting out of bad things.  It’s more about what you make of the irritants that are within you.

• Not what you must get but what you get to be.  Many of us live to pursue what we can get with life.  But the most skillful of us use life to be what is needed by others.
• Purpose more than passion.  In living many are pulled by desires that never cease.  But in life many of us are driven by the Purpose of Life that is defines how we live.

• Do successful things.  Many of us live by trying to make the things we do to work.  The most skillful of us learn to do what works so that life is full of excellence and results.

• Discover more of what you don’t know.  Many of us learn to live by doing what we know.  The most skillful of us learn to fulfill life by discovering what we do not know so we can have a life that could not be had.

• Be something of value.  Living tries to get more things of value; life tries to be more value than cost.

Excellence and Results are a natural part of life. Life is yours to have for eternity.  Living passes away with each day.  Living can be tossed to and fro by waves and winds, but Life with a Purpose withstands the strongest winds that come at the living.

Keep yourself sharp at all times.  A dull life is a wasted life.  Accept that you may lose sometimes at some part of living, but you are never a loser at life.  And finally, never rush to start to do something that you are not prepared by life to be excellent at doing.

The oyster uses a substance called nacre to cover an irritant it cannot rid itself of.  In this process it creates the pearl we all know.  You have something in you like nacre.  It is designed to help you learn to be skillful at life and to live life to its fullest.

What is that substance you ask?  Its your Will.  It is the will to learn to be what most people want to have in living that will enable you to live skillfully and to deliver excellence in all the results you achieve in life.

Living is easier than we make allow it to be. Be skillfully great at life is the thing that will make you more successful at the things you do in living.

Be skillfully great for someone today.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Your Edge is what makes you distinctive among things that look and feel the same.

Skillful Living – Message # 11

The message today is developing your Edge.

In 2024, it is estimated that there are over 8.2 billion people in the world.  That’s a lot of people.  None of us is exactly the same as anyone else.  Many of us will grow to do some of the same things.  But many of us will do the same things in different ways.

God created each of us to be unique even though we may appear to be much like each other.  We are alike, but we are all different.  We are all different, yet we are alike in many ways.  We have no control over how we are made.  But, how we choose to live – well we have total control of that.

Those of us who are skillful at life learn this from you as much as they learn about themselves.  They realize how alike and how different they are, so they learn to work on being better at the ways they are alike, and they work on being better at the ways they are different.  This is the Edge they have on us.

Psalm 139:14 says, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”  In this Psalm, David is praising the Lord for what should be obvious to everyone.  He is saying Lord, the work You did is something great, and You created something great when You created me.

David’s Edge was in knowing and living in ways that acknowledged God’s greatness in how he was created.  David was a child of God who acted like a child of God because he knew he was a child of God.  Now isn’t that amazing.  People knew when David was around because David acted like someone they did not.

David was skillful in how he lived because he knew how he was designed to live.  Your talents and your skills are never enough to make you skillful at life.  You need the work of your Edge functioning in your life to help you live skillfully at life.

What do I mean by your Edge.  Your Edge is the thing that makes you distinctive among many things that are just like you.  Your Edge is the thing that makes you unique among many who do what you do.  Your Edge is the thing that provides meaning for what you do and meaning for what others want.

Those who are skillful and successful at life work from their Edge more than they work from their talents.  If you want to be a magician, learn to develop the Edge of being a performer.  If you want to be a farmer, learn to develop the Edge of being a provider.  Your Edge is what sets you apart from others who do what you do.

Teachers teach, but teachers with an Edge facilitate learning.  Facilitating learning is their Edge. Two believers may know the Lord but one will know the Lord and walk with Him.  Walking with Him is their Edge.

Your Edge will help you live skillfully because you will learn to walk better, and you will learn to live free of and free for things others never think about. Every person has an Edge out there waiting to be discovered.  Every business out there has an Edge just waiting to be discovered.

You and the person around the corner both own alteration businesses.  They can fix your clothes to fit you just the way you want.  But your Edge is not just changing how clothes fit people.  It is in altering how people feel about themselves in the clothes they wear.

When you discover your Edge, you will discover a way of life that is indispensable to others.  You are better at how you live because you are better at living in your best.   You are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.  God was painstakingly detailed in creating you.

You are an exact replica of nothing.  You are no copy of anything.  And even though you may look like the people around you, with your Edge, you don’t have to be different to be better.  You don’t have to be the same to be better.  You must be better than you are to be better than you are.

Discovering and developing your Edge helps you live skillfully and successfully.  It helps you echo David’s words.  You are skillfully and wonderfully made – your Edge is what tells others how true that is.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

You will make better decisions when you learn to depersonalize the way you make any decision at all.

Skillful Living Series – Message # 10The message today is Decision-making. 

The history of man and probably even your history is loaded with times when you have made poor decisions.  People have come to expect that many of us will make poor decisions at almost all times.  Decision-making is the ability to choose and to do what is best to do when we don’t have the courage to wait for what is best to happen for us.

People who are the most skillful at life learn to become great decision-makers. They understand that life follows how they think.  So, what they do is first seen in what and in how they think.  They learn and understand that thinking is the key to acting so they focus life on becoming the best they can be at how they think.

Many of us are poor decision-makers because we have no inherent way to examine the merit of what we think we want or must do.  Many people suffer because those in positions of authority over us make poor decisions.  Many nations have been destroyed because of poor decisions made by their leaders.

Scripture is full of examples of people making poor decisions.  In the book of Genesis 13:9-11 Abraham allows his nephew Lot to choose the land to live on from among all the land before them.  Lot in his selfishness, chose the best of the land.  That happened to be the land of Sodom – the very land God later destroyed by fire because of its moral decays.

Lot decided to choose what was best for him.  Why didn’t he say to his uncle “you choose first – you are the elder?”  Why didn’t he have the insight to know the best land would have attracted the worst people?    Why didn’t he have the sense to know if it was too good not to have it was probably too good to have?

Well, Lot had no control of his basic desires.  He had no values or principles on which he based who he was, so he did what was convenient for him to do.  Lot had no wisdom.  Wisdom is the one thing that is key and even essential for us to live skillfully.  For the successful person, wisdom is the basis of their thoughts.

The Lord did not mean for us to go through life without a full tank of wisdom.  James 1:5-6 says this to us about wisdom.  “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” 

Skillful living and sound decision-making is found in living a life through the power of wisdom.  Many of us don’t ask for wisdom because we don’t really know what it is.  Wisdom is the ability to think about your thinking before you act on your thinking.  It is the insight you get from having the ability to think and act using the uncommon sense gained when you learn to discern what is learned from what you have already learned and understand.

Wisdom is enlightenment.  Wisdom is insight into what cannot be seen in the natural state of things.  It is the ability to restrain yourself from acting simply on what you see, or on what you want, or on what you desire.

So, if you want to learn to be more skillful at life and you want to learn to become a better decision-maker you must learn to act more with wisdom than with your skills, knowledge and understanding.  If you are too impatient to know wisdom for yourself, strive to know it for others.  How you live your life will impact how others live their lives with and around you.

Here are some things you can do to help you become a better decision-maker:

• Ask the Lord for the blessing of wisdom.  If you ask, He will give it to you.
• Never listen to anyone who does not listen to the Lord.  If in the secular world, never listen to anyone who does not listen to someone better.
• Often you must take your instructions for what you do from those who have authority over you.  Always do what a person of authority asks you to do; it will be better and safer for you.  However, give them your obedience but never give them control of your thinking.
• Test your thoughts to make sure they are sound before you act on unsound thinking.  Power, position, authority do not make your decisions sound.  Sound insights and wisdom are what makes your power and authority good.
• Make decisions of Purpose more than you make decisions of want and desire.  You cannot have all the things you will ever want in life.  Let that be your first decision of wisdom.

Those who learn to live skillfully, master themselves and how they think before they try to master all the things they will want to do and to have in life.  Let this be you.  Learn to live Delivered from your desires and from your wants.  You will become a great decision-maker when you learn to live skillfully with the wisdom that is right before you. Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

People perish for lack of vision.

Skillful Living Series – Message #9

The message today is Vision – seeing how things will unfold for you.

Many people fail to learn to live skillfully because they never learn to act today based on something inspiring they see in their future.  They are reapers more than they are sowers.  They wake up each day and go out looking for the manna they need to satisfy their current need.  They don’t see a time where they can live off all the land offers because they have no vision beyond today’s manna.

Remember, Purpose provides meaning and reason for our lives.  Vision then provides us with the inspiration we need to live out that Purpose and meaning in a skillful way.  Purpose is why we live; vision is how we live.

In the book of Habakkuk, God had a conversation with the prophet Habakkuk.  He gave Habakkuk a vision of many great things to come.  In chapter 2:2 Habakkuk asks what he should do with the vision.  God tells him this.  “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, it will not lie.”

God has a lot to say to us about the power of living by vision.  He knows we are not omniscient – or all knowing.  He knows that for us to live skillfully, we must be able to know more than what we can see.  Vision helps us to do that.  People who are more skillful at life understand the power of living by what cannot be seen.

Scripture tells us the just shall live by faith and not by sight, 2 Corinthians 5:2. Perhaps this is telling us we must learn to live by the reality of the things we do not see as much as live by what is seen. The most skillful people do not just react to what is seen, they respond and live for what is not seen.

So, what now?  Skillful living is found in living with Purpose and Vision.  How do we stop ourselves from living for the manna we gather each day, and learn to enjoy the feast that is there for us because we learned to sow the things that would give us a bountiful harvest later?

Proverbs 29:18 tells us, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  When we do not have a vision of where God is going with us, we will tend to go where we can take ourselves.  We will try many things – so many that sometimes we try and fail more than we succeed.  Vision helps us to restrain ourselves and to learn to wait on the Lord to provide what we cannot provide.

God has provided us with all that we need be skillful in how we live out who we are.  Here are a few things vision can do for us all in helping us learn to live more skillfully.

• Vision will help you see how your life will unfold.  When you can see the result of a decision today you may make a better decision.
• Vision helps you see the end before you begin.  If you can see how things will end it may change for the better how you choose to begin.
• Vision will help you make unseen connections that are critical to success.  You will learn to see what is visible but hard to see.
• Vision helps you live inspired by a journey more than living to take a vacation.
• Vision helps you see what can be possible.  You learn to live and to perform with excellence.
• Vision unites the hearts of people.  You learn to think together; dream together and to act together.
• Vision gives life to Purpose.  We learn to live fulfilling a shared Purpose.
• Vision helps different people see common ways to live and work together.  We see beyond what we saw before; we see more than we saw before, and we see what we didn’t see before.
• Vision helps us see where we belong.  It inspires how we should live so we live inspired lives.

If you are living without a vision, you are living without a sense of what the future can hold for you.  God wants us to believe the unbelievable; He wants us to imagine the unimaginable; and He wants us to believe the unbelievable and unimaginable things He has in store for us.

You cannot live skillfully tomorrow when you have no idea of what tomorrow will be like because you are so focused on making it through the day.  Discover a vision for your life and you will learn to skillfully live out that vision in all that you are today.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

This is the seventh message in the Skillful Living Series.

The message today is developing a Life of Discipline

The Lord says a lot to us about how we should live within ourselves.  We are not here to enjoy all that we set our hearts to enjoy.  Life is not supposed to be full of indulging pleasures as we may think or wish.  Instead, for most people the most enjoyable life is the life that finds a reason for hope in a hopeless situation.

This idea of not indulging ourselves is captured in the word temperate.  God wants us to learn to live temperate lives.  Temperate means we have control of our thoughts, of our feelings, of our desires and then ultimately of our actions so that we do not live wanting or needing to have all that we want.

Those who are skillful in how they live, learn to live disciplined lives.  They are temperate in all that they are.  They do not allow themselves to desire too much of anything.  The glass is neither half full nor is it half empty for them.  Whatever is in their glass is just right for them.  It is just what they needed.

Many of us find it impossible to think this way.  We see what is missing in our lives and we set about trying to find it.  Or we see what remains in our lives and we set about trying to keep what is there.  We complain either way about what is missing or about what little remains.  We can never be satisfied with what we have because we are undisciplined.

To those who live skillful lives, they are probably aware of the many scriptures that encourage us to live in a disciplined way.  Disciplined living leads to successful living.  The more you restrain yourself from living for everything, the more of the things you really need you will have.

The book of Titus, 2:1-10 encourages us in living disciplined lives in this way.  It says, “But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine; that older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience.”  Titus would go on to speak the same thing to older women and to you men and women.

Discipline says that in all things we are to show ourselves to be a pattern of good works, in doctrine, showing integrity, reverence, in sound living that cannot be condemned.”  This scripture says a lot to us.  But the key feature of this scripture is discipline.  You will know you are living a disciplined life because people will see what a life of discipline has done in you.

We cannot live a disciplined life unless we are trained to do that.  God didn’t forget this.  Grace is the teacher He uses to train us to discipline.  It is grace that will teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts so that we live soberly, righteously and Godly right where we are today. Disciplined living should exhort others.  It will never hinder the lives of others.

So if you want to be more skillful in how you live, learn to live a life of discipline.  You cannot have all the things you would like to have.  Stop wanting everything.  There is an old proverb that says if you chase two rabbits you will catch neither.  Discipline would tell you to focus on catching the one rabbit you need for food and you will not go hungry another day.

Here are six ways skillful disciplined people live that makes them more successful than you and I.  Learn these things and adapt them for yourself.

• They develop a sound life of Perspective.  Your life follows how you think.  Learn to think in a sound disciplined way and a sound disciplined life will follow.  You don’t have to have all you want to have all you need.  Learn to think that way.
• They develop a life of Preparation.  They are prepared to be successful at the things they have not had to do yet.  They don’t limit themselves by their skills, they prepare themselves by their wills.
• They develop a sound Way with People.  They learn that they need people more than people need them so they develop a Way with People that makes them easy to be with.
• They develop a life of Courage and Sound Decision-making.  They learn that their motivations are the main reason they try so many things that fail so they develop the courage to live in ways that keeps them temperate in all they are.  They make better decisions as a result.
• Teamwork and Teamplay.  They realize they cannot achieve much on their own, so they learn to discipline themselves to be great at teamwork and better as a team player.  Because of this they learn to have others as the focus of their lives rather than themselves.
• Excellence.  They learn to slow down and live lives of excellence so that excellent work can come from them.  Nothing is so small with them that it cannot be done well.  If excellence is not within you, excellence will not come from you.

So, if you want to be better and more skillful at life, learn to be more skillful and disciplined in the way you live.  Having much of what will pass away profits you nothing.  Disciplined living leads to discipline results.  A lazy person will produce lazy work, but a disciplined person will produce what will last.  The hand of a disciplined person will make them rich in many things, but the life of a slacker will lead them to poverty.

If your life isn’t going the way you want, perhaps its because you are undisciplined in the things you want.  Stop, look, and listen for a new direction.  Then set out to live in a disciplined way and you will find treasures of success along the paths you take. 

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

This is the sixth message in the Skillful Living Series.  The message today is developing Social Maturity.

So, what is social maturity?  Well, I don’t have a dictionary definition for you.  But when you ask the people around you, I think they would probably say it is the ability to stop living like you are a two-year old.  Socially mature people don’t just get older, they grow up.  Adult immaturity is not a natural phase of your development.

You cannot be skillful in how you live your life when you are unskilled at how you manage your life.  Exceptional people are skillful at being the best they can be and at being the best for others.  They are never selfish but always selfless towards others.  Your social maturity is the thing that has the greatest impact on how you are perceived by others.

Our immaturity is the place where we see how our worst behaviors and attitudes can control the best things about us.  God warns us of this constantly.  In 1 Corinthians 3:2, scripture says, “And brothers, I could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal people, as to babes in Christ.  I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able.”

Paul is telling us that when we have all 32 teeth, we should not still live like we can only take milk from a bottle.  Unfortunately, many of us live just that way.  Social maturity shows up in us in these three areas.  We see it first in what we want, then in how we want things to be, and finally in what things we want to happen for us.

If you believe you are the most important thing in your life and in the life of others, you are probably still taking milk when everyone else is eating solid foods.  When you still live with envy, when you are prone to stirring up strife, when you are divisive because you cannot keep your mouth closed, when you prefer only those who prefer you, and when you must have all that you want, you are living an unskilled selfish and socially immature life.

What then shall we do?  How can we learn to grow up when we are already old?  How can we unlearn what we love so that we can come to love what we have not learned.  Well, I have the ten commandments of social maturity that will help you.  Those of us who are skillful routinely avoid living these ways:

• Number One:  Don’t just get older, grow up.  Even children must grow up.  You are no exception.
• Number Two:  Don’t get your feelings hurt when you don’t get your way.  Sometimes it’s better that you don’t have all that you want.
• Number Three:  Don’t be so driven that you drive others away.  There is a time to relax on every journey. 
• Number Four:  Don’t be hurt when you are not invited to the party.  Sometimes your absence is good for others.
• Number Five:  Don’t try to control everything that happens around you.  Sometimes the things you don’t control will make you better.
• Number Six:  Don’t act out your negative emotions and call it passion.  There are times when you may not be what is best for the situations you face.
• Number Seven:  Don’t live like you must be first in everything.  When you must be first, people will allow you to walk alone.
• Number Eight:  Don’t put your life in the middle of the social network.  People don’t always need to know everything you      want them to know about you.
• Number Nine:  Don’t get so close to your feelings that your feelings get hurt easily.  Others will stay away.  Many people control their feelings; they don’t want to have to control yours for you too.
• Number Ten:  Don’t lose control of yourself or people will make sure you have no control over them.

Ok, I said Ten but Twelve is the new Ten.

• Number Eleven:  Don’t act like you must be the center of attention.  When you are too much for others, they will have none of you.
• Number Twelve:  Remember, things will be ok even if you do not get your way. 

Now don’t go thinking these are not for me.  Towards the end of His life on earth, Jesus asked Peter to “follow Me.”  Peter felt special because the Lord chose him, but when Peter saw John following Jesus also, he asked Jesus, “What about this man?”  Peter was showing some selfishness there.

The Lord said to Peter in John 21:22, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you?  You follow Me.”

Jesus was saying to Peter, just do what I ask you to do and don’t worry about others.   Grow up Peter!  There are enough special people in the world that I can add you to the list, and it will still not be complete.

Learn to develop your social maturity.  You are not the most important thing in your life.  Others are.  When you learn that, you will be close to a level of maturity that others will want to emulate.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.