Have you ever heard the product of humility and fear of the Lord is riches, honor and life? Wealth, honor, and life, echos the desire of most people alive today. Many have the desire, few have the discipline. Seems everyone is looking for a shortcut to success, but actually become successful at cutting their life short. It's clear key ingredients are being left out. Humility and fear of the Lord. Being able to honestly see who we are before a Holy God, and fully trusting in Gods view of success and not our own is the humility described. This humility creates the room needed for God to have His way, in and through our life. When you experience Gods way, you will gladly give up your right, to be right. The other missing ingredient is the Fear of the Lord. This fear is when life becomes deeply respectful with overwhelming admiration for the extraordinary power and Person of God being real and present in your life. If this is not the core of our being, who are we? With humility and fear of the Lord, we come to understand that we do not determine the standard of our living (our $ value, our position of power, how long we live), God does. The problem we are dealing with today, people have decided their standard of living. A new year is only a few hours away, I want my desires to produce a discipline of humility and fear of the Lord, that creates an attitude that becomes an action that represents Gods riches, honor and life. Simply stated, growing deeper in love with the King Himself, not the Kings blessings. Happy New Year, and may 2014 be the year people see a "Radical Holiness" of Jesus in the core of our being.

If our thoughts influence our decisions, what choice of decision will the world see from your life today? What if you said good-bye to excuses and hello to responsibility? What if today you made a choice to decide, "I will say yes to the ability to live responsible." No more dwelling on the past, no more "It's not my fault", no more "but my kids, but my spouse, but my church, but the government." Get off your "but" excuses and rise up to an opportunity of responsibility to unwrap a gift called "challenges to change." Stop being near sighted, it's not about whether the economy is good or bad, it's not about the problems that may come your way, it's about you having a choice to make. Say yes to responsibility, leave the blame game in the dust, drown the pity party of complaining, delete the words "I didn't get a fair shot", and bury the "I'm feeling sorry for myself attitude." The responsible choice takes on challenges because of the change they bring, a change from limits to possibilities. A change from ordinary to adventurous. A change from troubled relationships to transformed relationships. If you say yes to responsibility, what use to scare you will now attract you. Are you ready to say "YES"? Don't wait for your circumstances to change, begin to change your circumstances, or at bear minimum, change the way you look at them. Albert Einstein once quoted, "The problem cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created it." Have you ever heard the way a man thinks determines who he will be? Make the choice, live the "YES"! Merry Christmas to all

Living in the "day before" prompts hours of excessive work trying to make up for past failures. Living in the "day ahead" prompts hours of excessive worry trying to prevent future failures. What's the worth of this living? Living in the "today" prompts the effort to make life count now. Once you realize the worth of today, you'll realize it's worthless to try and make up for the "day before" or to try and prevent things for the "day ahead". Focus on the worth of today and make it count. Is your life being governed by the "day before", the "day ahead", things or others, or are you really seeing "today" from God and allowing God to lead and empower?

Don’t be controlled by the external, be internally driven. Are those around you helping you get to where you desire to go, or are they just weighing you down so you miss the dream and have to hang with the "day befores" while worrying about the "days ahead"? Gods present is an awesome present, open it up and realize its worth. Today is NOW, Narrow- Opportunity - Window, don't waste today in the worthless work and worry of the "day before", or the "day ahead". Today is worth what to you? Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

The most brilliant diamonds don't just jump out of a mountain of rock. Discovering and uncovering real diamonds requires very intense labor and dedication. Deep within each human being there's a masterpiece, a gem among gems created under the pressures of life and death. Life won the battle and the creator now seeks to knock away any and all materials that covers the masterpiece. God is in the business of moving mountains to create opportunities for diamonds to shine. This requires each of us to make decisions. As God begins to knock away the layers rock and dirt, we begin to feel uncomfortable and uneasy. Its here we must have an internal motive of decision making that is not influenced by outside forces. When God moves mountains, don't run back under the rock and dirt and settle back in your comfort zone. The diamond that's unbreakable is inside, the rock and dirt must be moved before its out in plain sight. When the inside God created gets out, we accept the responsibility for our hopes and dreams, our failures and heartaches. Inside out gives us an extraordinary freedom and strength to deal with the decisions, dedication, and pressures of life. God is always more concerned about your character (inside) than He is about your comfort (outside). Get inside out!