Category: godliness

Christian maturity is not tested when we are in groups, but when we are alone. In the secret, when no one is looking, and we have no friends to twist our arms into doing the right thing—that is when we prove and improve our maturity.

Having friends to obligate us and remind us that there are other people in the world relying on our ability to keep our moral code can help coerce good behavior. With other people watching, we are more likely to follow morals and thus not create regret, but this is no test of maturity. If you ever hope to become fully mature, you’re going to have to do the right thing when no one is looking—and that means you’re going to have to be alone sooner or later. Prepare yourself.

Have conversations with good friends. Take counsel and know that having demons to battle makes you more normal than not. But, don’t reduce your friends into a set of crutches. Friends are good for many more things than leaning on all the time. It’s much more fun to take a walk or run together, but that means many hours training on your own to make the group runs all the more formidable.

There is a lot of money made on keeping Christians dependent on systems that only make them weak. The same goes for many consulting companies that maintain a status of “being needed” by offering “solutions” that only perpetuate problems. Sunday morning Christian “church” is great when it’s not a need. But, once it becomes a “need”, that’s when the abuse starts. Jesus is your only “need”, everything else is a “want”, including your friends.

When evaluating any business proposal or Christian fellowship, watch to see what their demands are. Do they try to collect a list of your associates, suppliers, addresses, or phone numbers? Do they get money in a way that perpetuates an existence that only keeps asking for money? Many big companies fall into “marketing scams” because they are bored and never learn to identify scams in personal, social circles, including Christian societies. The way to see through any scam is to grow strong alone.

The world is full of semi-good people who help others. Semi-good is the same thing as semi-bad. So, put differently, the world is full of people who who help others while also hurting others. These “semi” people have enough goodness to gain trust, but retain enough ill will to harm people who need help the most once their goodness earns them status.

The truth that semi-good people never come to accept is their own need for help. They help others from perspectives of compassion and concern, the Good Samaritan, and shared love for everyone in the world. But, we all need help.

People who make the biggest difference in the world recognize that they need help just like everyone else. We don’t all need the same kind of help, for the most part, but we are all in desperate need of help and no one is an exception.

The man who helps others from the seat of benevolence and charity—but not from having his own need through which he identifies with those he helps—places himself above others. He sees himself as the demigod who needeth not, helping the lower, unfortunate “lessers” who are beneath him. We can only help others from pure goodness to the extent that we have received needed help ourselves. Any other position from which we purportedly “help” is for nothing beyond our own egos.

Christianity is a religion of pure help and need. It’s not about buildings and priests and liturgies. One can be a Christian without any of those things and many who have all of those things aren’t Christians at all, no matter how much they believe they are. The Christian God died because it was the only way to help humanity. The only One who needed nothing gave everything to help we who had no way of helping ourselves. He came as a baby named Jesus, no other. Acknowledging your own need for Jesus’s help is all it takes to be a Christian, nothing more.

Our universal need for help never ends. Even after receiving help today, we need more tomorrow. “Good” people are good because they help others, remembering that they also need help everyday.

No job needs to be your dream job. Any work will do as long as you can do it. Don’t think about choosing work too much, just ask if you can make money at it and get better at making more money at it every day.

Of course, one’s work must be ethical, but that’s about all. Work is for money. If you can change the world at the same time, that’s a plus. But, you can also change the world through your profit-potential hobby. Don’t buy the lie that you must have puppy love for your cash cow every day.

Income sources can change over time. There is a skill all in itself to recognizing any source of income as a source of income—that might be the best and most important skill to learn. Income streams are all around us, slightly camouflaged, but easy to find once you break off the codependent, dysfunctional relationship with your delusion of that “one and only dream job”. The skill of income itself can take over, then you will be better at staying focused, staying on task, and you will be better at being much happier while you are doing work that you may care little for, but that other people need so badly that they’ll help you pay your bills if you do that job for them.

Part of the fluidity of business means that college textbooks are out of date by definition, but so are any job skills or craftsmanship. Business changing the economy means that your job can also change. Tsunamis affect everyone near the coast. Your best chance is to learn multiple skill sets.

Learn skills in a classroom that are best learned in in a classroom. Chase after a career and curriculum that you are likely to finish—regardless of whether you “like” it. Whether you need a challenge or an interest—chase whatever cat you can grab by the tail!. Most importantly, never learn only one skill!

Most businesses and marketable craftsmanship combine multiple skills, creating “third skills”. The more skills you combine, the more “third skills” you create, the more marketable you will remain in the fluid world of money.

In the midst of the storm, your greatest need can only be given by God. In the peace and quiet, when there are no pressing needs anywhere to be seen, you have the best time to prepare to receive whatever God has to give you later when those storms come. Whether in the quiet or in the raging wind, praise God!

In a manner of speech, praising God “turns on the lights” wherever you are and for whatever you pray for. The lights of praise dry up disease and drive out fear. When hardship and opposition stand in your way, praising God will bring a light so bright that it blinds your enemy and washes him out in pure white—and all you will be able to see is your peaceful path forward.

The praise comes first, before the good results—before the solution to your situation. Praise God for the problems He will solve tomorrow, especially the problems you don’t know about yet. He already knows tomorrows problems and He already has His own solution waiting for you.

God is already worthy to receive praise, that is why He must be praised right now. It is injustice against the existence of every molecule, every human, every angel, and against the Creator God Himself not to praise Him for what He already deserves. He is worthy now, already, so praise Him now, already!

Stop what you’re doing to praise Him as a gift to Him. Don’t stop if it is dangerous, of course, or you might create a terrible situation in which you must repent before praising God. You can’t praise God with conscious, intentional sin continuing on in your life, sin that you either know is wrong, including harming others. Refusing sin and declining temptation are also forms of praise, forms that God loves. Those forms of praise are easier when you praise Him for Who He is already.

No matter what your situation, praise is the solution, both for the problems you face and for the problems you have yet to see. So, praise God now while you have time. Tomorrow, you may need to rely on the praise you gave him today.