If you don’t live by PRINCIPLES, you will live by PRESSURE. If you live by PRESSURE, you will make wrong DECISIONS.
Luke 12:13-21 NIV Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Proper SCALES: God doesn’t measure SUCCESS the way we measure SUCCESS.
MORE doesn’t make you BETTER, it makes you more of what you ALREADY ARE.
Ecclesiastes 2:11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
Proper PERSPECTIVE: God is our SOURCE.
Deuteronomy 8:17-18 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
Proper MANAGEMENT: Do you have a PLAN?
Proverbs 21:20 The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.
1. Face the FACTS.
Psalm 51:5-6 MSG I’ve been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born. What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
2. Create a PLAN.
Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.
3. Start TODAY.
James 1:22-25 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
