Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Make Today Count... the Joshua Principle

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com

Make Today Count by John C. Maxwell is a condensed version of Today Matters (2004) and released in a small, handy, hard cover book. He features his daily dozen decision areas that if you do them daily they will bring success as you want. He attributes this to his success and shares his plan with you.

You are preparing for something and you can be a masterpiece. The two ingredients to a masterpiece are decision and discipline. Decide your daily focus, and create a discipline to do it every day.

The Daily Dozen: attitude, priorities, health, family, thinking, commitment, finances, faith, relationships, generosity, values and growth.

Attitude: making the decision to choose and display the right attitude daily. Keep a positive attitude, change bad attitudes to good ones. Think, act, talk and conduct yourself like the person you want to become.

Recognizing your attitude needs daily adjustment. So find something positive in every thing. Remove negative words and replace with positive words. Do the same for people and circumstances. Be a person to express gratitude and find something good to say about people and things. What disciplines must you practice today to have an upbeat, positive attitude.

Priorities: making the decision to determine and act on important priorities daily. Prioritize your life and set it on what brings the highest return.
Ask yourself 3 questions:
What is required of me? Family, in my job.
What gives me the greatest return? High return activities.
What gives me the greatest reward? Productivity with satisfaction.

Stay in your strength zone. Commit to live every day according to your priorities which means five things:
1. Evaluate priorities daily.
2. Plan time carefully.
3. Follow your plan diligently.
4. Delegate whenever possible.
(If they can do it 80% as good as you that's good enough.)
5. Invest in the right people daily. Invest in people of potential.

Decide today your daily priorities.

Health: making the decisions to know and follow healthy guidelines daily. Take good care of yourself by exercising and eating right. Have a purpose worth living for, do work you enjoy, find your pace, learn to laugh. What health disciplines will you practice daily.

Family: making the decision to communicate with and care for may family daily. Decide on problem solving strategies. Put your family on your calendar first. Create and maintain family traditions. Find ways to spend time together...significant events, needs, fun time. one on one time. Put your marriage first,constantly express appreciation for each other, resolve conflicts quickly. What family discipline will you practice each day?

Thinking: making the decision to practice and develop good thinking daily. Take time to think each day and practice the right thinking. Set aside time for thinking every day. Create a process. Use the following: focus on the positive, gather good ideas, spend time with good thinkers. Be an intentional thinker.

Commitment: making the a commitment to make and keep proper commitments daily. Commit to carry through what you determine as worth doing. Count the cost and be willing to pay the price. Always strive for excellence.

Expect a struggle when you commit; don't rely on talent alone, you must put something into it. Focus on choices not conditions because some choices will require struggle, it will require you commitment. Do what's right even if you don't feel like it.

Finances: making the decision to earn and properly manage finances daily. Put the value of things into their proper perspective. Do not be preoccupied with things, envious of others, over value possessions, believe money is happiness, and constantly crave more.

Life follows the pattern of learn, earn, and then return. Reduce debt. Use financial formula like 10-10-80; give 10%, invest 10%, and live on 80%. Create a financial game plan. Follow it daily. Be grateful for what you have and give as much as you can.

Faith: making the decision to deepen and live out faith daily. Decide to accept God's gift of His son as your personal savior. Faith in partnering then with God, and using the Bible as your source for Spiritual principles for living and taking action based on these daily. Faith is the heart of life. Faith is birthed out of difficulties which strengthen, and enlarge faith. Tested faith is trusted faith.

To manage the discipline of faith:
1. Embrace the value of faith.
2. Put God in the picture.
3. Associate with people of faith.
4. Explore and deepen faith.

D.L. Moody said he learned faith when he opened his "Bible and began to study, and faith has been growing ever since."

Relationships: making a decision to initiate and invest in solid relationships daily. Place a high value in people and really work at learning to understand people. Give respect freely but expect to earn it from others. Commit yourself to adding value to others: looking for ability in others, helping others develop their abilities.

To manage relationships, put others first, don't carry emotional baggage, give time to your most valuable relationships, serve others gladly, express love and appreciation often.

Generosity: making the decisions to plan for and model generosity daily. Live to give. Give others your money. Give others yourself. Add value to others and start by valuing people and giving to them, giving others' respect, know what people value, making yourself more valuable by committing to personal growth, and doing things that God values. Don't wait for prosperity before you become generous. Develop a generous mindset with who you are and what you have. Find reasons to give every day and find people to receive everyday.

Values: making the decision to embrace and practice good values daily. Maxwell's values include to be God's man, develop his potential to the best of his ability and be a true spiritual leader. Create a list of good values, embrace them and live them daily. Evaluate each day in light of your values.

Growth: making the decisions to seek and experience growth daily. Develop and follow a personal growth plan for your life. Set growth goals, learn to enjoy the journey and make your goal to constantly move forward to your greatest potential. To grow each day, Maxwell listens to audio lessons daily, reads two books a month, sets an appointment each month to learn from someone. File what you learn, apply what you learn.

To make today count,
each day do one thing in each of the areas.
Make the daily dozen decisions to be a masterpiece.
Ask these three questions.
1. Have I made the decision to improve in this area daily.
2. When did I decide.
3. What did I decide.
What discipline will you practice today and every day to be successful in this area.

http://www.injoy.com/

Follow the Joshua Principle.
A daily discipline of fixing our minds on God's principles, renewing our minds, rebuilding our minds, and taking disciplined action every day with the Power principles of Spirit is our driving force.
The first chapter of Joshua and the Psalms emphasize the power behind constant meditation, sharply focused thinking to concentrate on the precepts, principles of the Bible. In Joshua, God guarantees success in efforts that follow this method:


" I promise you what I promised Moses: 'Wherever you set foot, you will be on land I have given you. No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you. "Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1: 1-9, NLT)

"But they delight in the law of the Lord,
meditating on it day and night.
They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
and they prosper in all they do." (Psalm 1:2,3, NLT)

The Lord told Joshua to check out the territory... get intelligence on what is going on where he was to take the land.
" Then Joshua secretly sent out two spies from the Israelite camp at Acacia Grove. He instructed them, "Scout out the land on the other side of the Jordan River, especially around Jericho." So the two men set out and came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there that night."
(Joshua 2:1, NLT)

And sometimes His methods are unorthodox, out of the ordinary, even a little bizarre. Think of it, God has His Servants stay in a prostitute's house. That definitely would raise a few eyebrows, but the cleverness here is the enemy most certainly wouldn't expect that as Children of God.

With this intelligence, He guarantees that we will be effective when we follow what he tells us strategically to do.


"So Joshua and all the fighting men set out to attack Ai. Joshua chose 30,000 of his best warriors and sent them out at night with these orders:" (Joshua 8:3,4, NLT)

Whenever they followed the orders of the Lord, the Angel of God's Spirit went before them and they had overwhelming success. When they didn't, they had humiliating defeat. The only defeats came when they failed to follow His instructions to the finest detail. We can be assured He, the Spirit, will give us instructions to the finest detail if we seek his strategies first. And then follow them precisely.

The important thing is seeking His Strategies, first.
We then are assured overwhelming victory.

How can we develop this ability to hear the exact mind of Christ, the strategies of God and His Spirit. It takes a life of discipline in the Spirit.

Oswald Chambers refers to William James in what we have to do to become holy people. Holiness is a discipline where we must launch ourselves with as strong and decided initiative as possible; never having an exception in this practice until the new habit is securely rooted in our lives; and continually act on all the resolutions you make. Never stop working consciously on this discipline until it is part of your life. It is habitually working out a life of practical holiness until we have renewed our minds, and keep the mind renewed. (Conformed to His Image)

As I wrote in Jesus Is Us (using my pen name Geffry Fields), here's an excerpt from Practical Side of living in Jesus Spirit:

To be consistent to what we believe and stand for requires a personal disciple daily... morning, noon and night... keep mulling over the teachings of Jesus and His Apostles in the Bible. Joshua advocated to meditate on Spiritual principles day and night…i.e., constantly and all the time.

Jesus Spirit lives in us and teaches us directly
. When we take time to focus on His Spirit in Us we get Divine direction. When our thoughts come in alignment with Jesus way of thinking from the Scriptures, it ignites the Spirit of Jesus to come alive and speak to us, through our thoughts. And It actively works to become our reality for us.


When you read the Scriptures regularly, this happens more and more and gets more refined. Reconditioning, reprogramming takes time. When you desire circumstances to change and you stay in this High level meditative thought pattern, the elements of earth become a slave to your thought images.


What you see intensely, vividly for a length of time, with strong heart-felt emotion, while intensely in Jesus Spirit, begins moving conditions affecting this.


Those who practice this relate that they have seen great miracles when they do this repeatedly. How you prepare in quiet, in Jesus Spirit, in the Secret place of the Most High, will be manifested, come into reality.

We, in concert with Jesus Spirit create the reality, the will of Spirit, purpose of life
it becomes us and we then partner with Jesus Spirit to bring it into existence. The biggest part of all this transformational process happens during "Secret Place" times. As a civilization we don't spend as much time here. Those who do will verify that this begins to happen.

But it takes renewing the mind through reprogramming its thought processes, with Jesus Spirit processes and then allowing it to saturate our being as it takes us on a mystical journey in our mind and soul. The more time spent here the greater the external results you will see. The more Spiritual Power you will see being part of your life. The more results you will see in untouchable areas of your life....mind, body, relationships, purpose, mission, gifts, skills.
You live a Powerful, Action-packed, Spirit-guided lifestyle.


(For the complete article note:)
http://jesusisus.blogspot.com/2005/07/practical-side-of-living-jesus-spirit.html

What does God require of us...
a life of discipline, each day and serving His interests.

As Joshua continues to remind us:
"But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord."

(Joshua 24:15, NLT)

Today!
It's about what we do Today!
Each hour, each minute. Make that choice every second to live the Principles and Thoughts of Spirit which we choose to allow into our minds
.


"But be very careful to obey all the commands and the instructions that Moses gave to you. Love the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, obey his commands, hold firmly to him, and serve him with all your heart and all your soul." (Joshua 22:5, NLT)

"So be very careful to love the Lord your God." (Joshua 23:11, NLT)

Seeking God's precise instructions each day is an expression of our love and respect for who God is and how He really wants to bless us in all we do. He wants to be part of us in all we do.

We are called to take the Land,
and use the exact methods and strategies He gives to us.
Develop the discipline of Spirit daily.
Secure His Divine Intelligence.
Get His orders and carry them out exactly.

And know how much He loves us, as we serve Him with such gratefulness, in love, knowing how much He cares for us. What drives us is the love affair God has with us and He asks that we love Him the same. He extends His love first. He just asks us to feel the same for Him as He feels for us.

So in love, we naturally love Him back with all we have,
with all our strength and efforts.

1 comment:

Marvin said...

Love this article! I needed the reminder to be consistent and constant in keeping truth in the front of my mind.

Marvin
www.firmfamilytree.com