Kingdom Minded (Part 2)

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ~Matthew 6:33

Do you ever have those moments when God speaks something to your heart about where you've been missing it and you just want to fall on your bed and just cry? That's where I was when God was dealing with my life about building my kingdom versus building His. I've learned a long time ago that if I'm for real when I tell God, "Lord, I'll go where you want me to go, do what you want me to do, say what you want me to say" then I'm going to have to allow Him to mold me into the man of God He called me to be. Often times our refining process occurs through discipline.

Hebrews 12 tells us that God disciplines those He loves...it then goes on to say that No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening - it's painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way (v.11).


So when I was going through this - I had to look inside at be totally honest and vulnerable about the motives of my heart.

These are some hard truths I had to confront within me:

I cared more about pleasing people than pleasing God: I wanted people to see how great I was! Again, I wanted to build the Kingdom of Bubba, not the Kingdom of God. I was constantly trying to impress people with where I was spiritually, physically, and mentally.

I had an inaccurate view of success: I thought success was when you are in the spotlight, popular, and everyone thinks of you as a mighty man of God!

I thought I could get everyone to like me: I don't deal well when people don't like me - so I would do anything to get people to like me. I would often pretend to be things I'm not in order to get people to like me.

I was focused on me instead of others: I said that I wanted to add value to people, but really - I wanted to add value to myself.

I thought I could promote myself: I was naive enough to believe this - I tried climbing the ladder of success on my own instead of realizing that promotion comes from God.

Now - I am pretty hard on myself - I don't want you to think that all the motives in my heart were wrong because they weren't. A ton of them were perfectly fine - I'm just showing you some of the lies I bought into through this journey of becoming Kingdom Minded. Tomorrow I'll cover the truths I've learned through the journey.

When is the last time God's disciplined you and brought out some of the lies you've been buying into? Were you open to them? Or did you say, no that's not me...I'm not like that? I encourage you to take some time and write down the areas in your life God has been dealing with you in... be open and vulnerable and realize that if you'll be willing to walk through that journey that in the end - you'll be at an entirely new level spiritually!

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The Road to Chicago (Part 2)

"We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret."

-Jim Rohn

One of the greatest lessons I learned while training for the marathon was the power of discipline. Hearing that alarm go off at 6 a.m. and throwing on your running shoes to go out and run x number of miles, to keep running when you'd rather be in bed or at Starbucks, to not take shortcuts, and the discipline it takes to finish strong.

"Discipline is the Bridge between Goals and Accomplishments." -Jim Rohn

I used to be the most undisciplined and lazy person you could of laid eyes on. I wouldn't even take my dishes from the table to the dishwasher after dinner! Then I got out of high school and had my first novel thought, "In order to get something, I have to do something". I'm serious...it was a huge revelation. I remember visiting my friend James apartment and I saw his wardrobe and I wanted it... he told me...man I worked very hard to buy all of those clothes. At this point, I realized that if I wanted in something in life that I'd have to pay a price! John Maxwell changed my life when he said you have two options in life:

"You can either pay now and play later or you can play now and pay later. Either way you'll Pay!" -John Maxwell

Up until that point in my life I had always played... never knowing life demands a payment. From that moment on I decided that I would write out all of my goals, dreams, and ambitions in life and then discover the price it costs to pay to see them come to pass. I've been paying the price ever since so I can accomplish everything God put in my heart to do.

So how do I live a life of discipline? By discovering the price of my dream (whether it's a marathon, personal growth, financial, in ministry, etc.) and going after it with everything in me. Knowing that if I'll have the self discipline to do what I need to day in and day out, that I'll see all of my dreams come to pass. Remember, "The secret of your success will always be found in your daily agenda." Dave Campbell was right when he said:

"Discipline is remembering what you want." -David Campbell

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