Be A Victor Not A Victim

In recent years many people around the world have become proficient in the art of being oppressed. There is conflict between choosing the victim or Victor mindset in how one chooses to live.

“Your attitude determines your altitude.” The victim hood narrative is one that draws quick assumptions and assume the worst. This mentality leaves little room for growing beyond the challenges we all face, and places the responsibility to face the world onto others.

Victor mentality believes that you are in control of your life and welcomes challenges, knowing they can overcome with hard work. Seeing yourself as a Victor in life leads to confidence and success. A victim complains that life is unfair whereas a Victor acknowledges life is unfair to everyone.

When comparing the Victor to victim mindset is like using a rope to reach the top. The Victor narrative sees that how high you get up the ladder would be the result of one’s own effort, while the victim allows the challenges they face to keep them down and others to pull them up. America is a very privileged country and with hard work there’s no reason the top cannot be reached.

Some other ways to stop the victim hood narrative is to avoid identity politics. Identity politics seeks to exploit and allow people to blame others for the failures in their lives. I don’t need to hear from anyone where I’m oppressed or not. I believe we have all the resources we need to succeed.

In society today, I urge all to choose a Victor mindset. In seeking this mindset, I find it vita, to be realistic and prepared to do what it takes to become successful.

I have a few individuals in my life, who complain they their isn’t any employment opportunities for them. I true of the matter it there are a lot of employment opportunities, they just refuse to work.

A victim gets themselves tied up in knots and allows this to affect their efforts. Victors prepare their mind every day to do what needs to be done to reach their eventual goal. Ultimately this all comes down to choosing one mindset of looking at life over the other.

I lived with a victim hood mentality for years.

All people face some sort of oppression that can be a setback in their lives.

What separates those who rise to the top is all about mindset. Everyone needs help from time to time and that is what make America great. The help is there for those who need it, but to take that help and use it to be successful on their own. Don’t take advantage of the help you for doing nothing.

The victim mentality is being challenged in many ways. Let winning become a culture in your life. Wake up everyday deciding to work hard and not let others control your destiny. Do everything you can to be the best version of yourself and you will see victorious or that amounts to greatness in your life.

If you are unhappy with your life seek to change it. Choose to change your mindset and stray from victimhood and you will be a Victor in this life who stands strong on your own two feet.

Stand Firm To The End

I feel that we are living Matthew 24 today.

“But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” -Matthew24:13

How many of you have ever thought about what the end of the world will be like? Some of you may have lived through the panic of the year 2000, when it was thought that the world would descend into total chaos as the computers would revert back to the year 1900. Or would world war three start and we would all annihilated ourselves with nuclear weapons? Could a mentor come to hit the earth, or would the sun explode billions of years later and engulf our world? Perhaps these don’t scare any of you and you know as the Bible says, that the end of the world will come when Jesus comes again. So now the question might be, are you ready for Him to come again? To be honest, I used to be unsure about this. Now I no longer doubt. When my faith was small, I realized that this is good news. I am growing everyday in the assurance of the truth more each day. In the passage of Matthew 24, the disciples has the same question about the end of the age, but Jesus makes it very clear the way of salvation. I pray that you may grow in faith, in hope, and in assurance of your salvation when Jesus comes again.

Look at verse 1 of Matthew 24, ‘ Jesus left the temple and was walking away when His disciples came up to Him to call His attention to its buildings.” The time was 2 days before Jesus would be crucified. Earlier in the day Jesus was in conflict with the religious leaders and the teachers of the law. He denounced them for their hypocrisy and indicated them for the murder of God’s prophet and messenger, but in the very same breath He held out His hands, longing to forgive them and take them to Himself, but there were not willing. Without the forgiveness of God, only judgement will remain. He warned them with the truth, “Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Matthew 23:38-39) After He had said this Jesus and His disciples left the temple to go back to Bethany, about 1.5 miles away, where they were staying before the Passover festival. The disciples must have pondered Jesus’s last words in the temple. The temple desolate? We will not see Jesus again? As they we leaving the temple the disciples said, “Look Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” (Mark 13:1) The must of thought, how can something so big, so beautiful become desolate? In Jesus’s time, the temple was still under construction, but King Herod made it a very ambitious building project. The eastern side of it adorned in gold, so the sun shone on it for miles away. The walls were made of white marble, so up close it looked like a sea, and from far away it looked liked pure snow.

Jesus responds to them, Do you see all these things? He asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another, every one will be thrown down.” (Verse 2) The disciples must have been deeper in thought now, as they made their way out of Jerusalem. By verse 3, as Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives the disciples came to Him privately. “Tell us, ‘they said, when will all this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” Mark tells us that is was Peter, James, John and Andrew who came to Him privately. Now look at their question. They connected the come of Christ with the end of the age. They had some idea that Jesus was the messiah who would come and establish God’s kingdom here on earth. They wanted to know when, and what would be the sign of that time. Their understanding of the kingdom of God was not perfect, however. They may have thought that the kingdom would have appeared right away, (Luke 19:11) and that Jesus would somehow disappear and reappear as the undisputed Messiah, but they really are not. He tells them in verse 6, “ You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come,” Jesus says, “see to it that you are not alarmed.” I think there can be some degree of fear when you hear about war. Jesus will even tell His disciples to flee when appropriate. What Jesus means here is “don’t panic,” Don’t lose you mind, and don’t become hopeless when you hear of wars and famines and earth wakes. I might seem like the end of the word, but it’s not. Jesus says such things must happen, but the end is still to come. They happen because of sin and the curse of sin. Because of sin, nations are at war. Because of the curse, the earth groans. But Jesus said these are birth pains. As we know with the birth of a child, the frequency of contractions increase and so does the pain, until the child is born. Likewise, we will see increase in the intensity and frequency of wars, famines and natural disasters right before God’s kingdom comes. In Christ, this should not cause us to panic but even be a little bit hopeful.

Jesus turns up the heat in verse 9, “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. This just got really serious. Not only might your country be at war, but you personally will be persecuted, hated, and put to death because of Jesus. Persecution will cause many to fall away from their faith and betray one another. People will renounce their belief in Jesus in order to survive, and may even report on their fellow brothers or sisters. On top of that, many false prophets will appear and deceive people. They will try to lead people away from their faith, and instead lead people to themselves. We see in our time false prophets. There was a man who claimed to be Jesus would come again. Many people will sell their homes, some will lose the life savings because they will believe that man.

“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love will grow cold.” This is a sad reality, and we also see this in our society today. People love their comforts and their pleasures. They care more about themselves that they will not help someone in trouble. When we see a man who is beaten, unconscious, that falls on the street and robbed and people pass by and no one will be bothered to help, or even move him off the street. We see this in our own cities, in how killings have increased. I was watching the news the other day and there was a beheading in our streets and people do not even feel guilty or any remorse.

Why do you think God has allowed wickedness to increase, and false prophets to arise? Why has God allowed persecution, war, and famines ? Part of it is to show the utter sinfulness of sin, and to show why these things must come to an end. It is to show that God’s wrath upon this sinful world is just. But what else is all the suffering for? How can Jesus tell His followers not to be alarmed at the threat of war! How could he tell the not to fall away in persecution or death? What is the believer’s source of strength? How can a believer not panic in uncertain times or fall away because of danger or temptation? It is faith. Suffering always refines and purifies faith. Why would God lead His church through such dark times? It is to test and show their faith, which is like pure gold. It is often the hard times that we draw closer to God, and help us to depend on Him more. Difficult times, more often than easy times, strengthens our faith. And that is what will save us in the end of the age: faith, faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus tells us in verse 13, “but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” The person who has faith in Jesus to the end, even in war, or famine, or earth wakes, or persecution, or even death will be saved.

Jesus wants to give everyone in the world an opportunity to know Him, and then trust and believe in Him.

The Purpose of life is a life of purpose.

I can remember the feeling so vividly-the emptiness, the yearning, the confusion, the lacking, and the depression. They all merged together, and the always seemed to present themselves at the worst possible times.

The simplest things, like getting out of bed in the morning felt so heavy. The best joys in life, like being with family and creating new connections, felt unsatisfactory. Things were hard and almost unbearable.

Back then I didn’t have a clue what was creating these feelings, or what I needed to do to change them.

It sounds like a cliche to say that one day something happened that changed my life forever, but it did. Everything transformed for me when I decided to focus on creating purpose in my life.

Life is an entire different experience when you know what’s guiding you.

What I’ve learned is that it is only when your mind, body, spirit and soul are in alignment can we truly reach satisfaction and fulfillment. We must find our purpose, our meaning that we desire. That doesn’t mean that the American dream must be forsaken, it only means that we must be pursuing it in harmony with purpose.

As I dug deeper to find my own purpose I discovered some truths:

We all have a purpose, one that provides meaning and direction for our lives. We may not have found it yet or we may have found it and have suppressed it but we all have one.

It is never too late. No matter your age, no matter of your past decisions, if you have only one day left to live, starting the journey will bring peace, satisfaction and fulfillment to your life.

Finding it requires a disciplined and detailed process. It is not something that it found by accident.

Purpose is not a job or a role. It is a guiding light, how you apply it to what you do is up to you.

Staying true to it is even more difficult that finding it. Family, friends and society in general are constantly causing to question it’s veracity and it’s value and your ability to live it. Don’t give in.

Fulfillment and satisfaction come from the journey not the achievement of our purpose. It is from tending to the journey that the fruits of satisfaction and fulfillment are harvested.

Living our life with meaning requires that we must be all in. Our mind, body, spirit and soul must be committed to our purpose. We must be aligned and balanced in our approach. We cannot get fit and stay fit if our spirit, soul and mind aren’t aligned towards the end. We cannot discover our purpose unless our mind, body, spirit and soul are committed to the task.

Purpose lies within and we must find it and the power that comes with it or be forever controlled y what lies without.

The time to begin is now. We need not wait for a life changing event to prompt action. Start from that feeling inside that says, “Is this all there is?”

Do it now cane live a life of harmony and peace.

, “Is this all there is”? Do it

Cowardly To Courageous

We often think humility is timidity, shyness, or even weakness. But we are wrong. The humility that God imparts to us take root in the soil of our souls, and as we water and fertilize it every faith, courage and conviction begin to grow in us. We become stronger because our confidence is in God not ourselves instead of having self-confidence we have. Godfidence.

Think about it: Jesus was not timid, shy, or weak, yet He was the humblest man ever to live. By grace, He wants to teach us how to live as humble citizens of His Kingdom.

God’s grace has a humbling power that will redirect your life. Humility is not weakness. Humility is placing yourself under grace, glory, love, and mission of God. It give you a supernatural ability to accomplish God’s mission. Happy are the humble, for God will do above and beyond all they think or imagine because the risen Lord Jesus will work mightily in them.

When the sum of who you are is found in all who Christ is, we become courageous. When we locate our hopes is what Jesus hopes for, we grow in conviction. When we give Jesus the broken pieces of our lives, we grow in completeness. Jesus’s courage, conviction, and completeness become ours.

In loving Jesus, we begin to love ourselves. This love for God and self catapults us to love others. This is the good life.

One Man, Two Lives

There were two men, one had courage, conviction, and completeness, the other who didn’t. One man was asked, “Do you know Jesus of Nazareth?” Not only did this man deny that he followed Jesus, despite being with Him daily for three years, but he denied that he knew Him three times, even cursing and swearing.

The other man followed Jesus with such love and allegiance that the chief Jewish council who exercised authority in civil and religious matters observed his boldness, wisdom, and power and recognized that he was a follower of Jesus. (Acts 4:13) Even under threats, this man would not deny Jesus. He said, “Whether it’s right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide; for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20)

One man denied knowing Jesus. Another man was unable to deny Jesus.

Ready for the plot twister? These man were actually the same person.

Before the resurrection of Jesus, apostle Peter denied being Jesus’s disciple. After the resurrection, he became the leader of Jesus’s followers. What happened to Peter to bring about this change? Jesus happened to him. He encountered the humbling grace of God, a grace that will remake you and take you deeper into God’s kingdom. God’s grace will turn a denier of the faith into a defender of the faith, a coward into a courageous leader.

Over the years of journeying with Jesus I have grown to love Peter. Peter gives me hope. At moments, he is loyal, dependable, and wise. At other moments he’s running from servant girls who question him about knowing Jesus. Sometimes he’s rebuking Jesus, and other times Jesus is rebuking him. Peter at times is brave enough to walk on water, and other his bravery is severely lacking. There is a little of Peter in all of us.

Being Spiritually Minded

There are three classes of people, or three ways that people relate to the Spirit of God:

1. The natural person is what everyone naturally is: deficient in the ability to understand the things of the Holy Spirit, which can only be spiritually discerned. To this person, spiritual things are foolish.

2. Then there is the spiritual person, or one who is spiritually minded, in other words one in whom the veil is removed, the spirit reborn, and the mind of Christ activated.

3. Thirdly, we have a carnal or worldly person. This is the spiritual person who has failed to grow and mature. They have legal access to the mind of Christ but are overcome by worldly influence. They are likened to being “infants in Christ’ who cannot handle solid food. (Corinthians 2:14-31)

Imagine if our population consisted of people who didn’t grow up but remained as infants. Our species would be endangered. Who would become parents for the next generation? Where would we obtain the teachers to train and disciple new believers? Who would go into combat and lead the fight against evil?

For my first thirty-five years of my life, I had little if any, perimeter of protection around my thought life. Evil strongholds in my mental city. I was lacking a true compass, to guide me out of darkness and into light. Following my conversion to personal faith in Christ the hidden and secret wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 2:7) impacted my soul and to this very day, it continues to release God’s life transforming Word into my life.

How You Can Be Spiritually Minded?

The mind of Christ is the ability, through the Holy Spirit, to understand the thoughts of God. That is what it means to be spiritually minded. It consists of spiritual truths taught by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is every believer’s personal tutor.

Our responsibility is to show up for the lessons!

Jesus said that He made known to His disciples, everything that He heard from His Father, because He took time to listen to the Spirit. The Son of Man needed to appropriate the “mind of God” as to the specifics of His mission and the details of His ministry assignments.

If Jesus needed to set aside time for prayer, study, and reflection, how much more do we?

Jesus said to His followers, “I still have many things today to you but you cannot bear them now.” When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that He will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16: 12-15)

Another way to define the “mind of Christ” what the Spirit is taking from Jesus and making known to us.

We are faced with crossroads in our lives regularly. The fork in the road branches into two. We use the metaphor to describe those times when we must make a decision in life. Naturally, there are both major and miner decisions in life. The minor ones occur daily and are still important, for if we choose wrongly in the so called minor, on a daily basis, they will eventually have a major impact.

What path of thought and meditation will I choose to follow each day? The end goal is simply not positive thinking, but obedience to Christ. We were predestined to be ‘conformed’ into His image. (Romans 8:29)

We are cautioned about being conformed to the pattern of this earthly world and the way to avoid that is renewing of the mind. (Romans 12:2) But the end game is all about obedience. A renewed mind is better able to discern the Will of God, making daily choices that glorify God.

In my opinion ‘fork in the road’ is found in Deuteronomy 11:26-28. “I’ve brought you today to the crossroad of Blessing and Curse. The Blessing: if you listen obediently to the commands of God… The Curse: if you don’t pay attention to the commands of God.”

The word “curse” doesn’t garner much usage in our vocabulary, but “blessing” is and what it looks and feels like to be blessed.

The bottom line is obedience to Christ, just like His bottom line was obedience to His Father. It’s all about the Man who first loved us and became obedient unto death for our sake. Every thought that seeks to build a contrary agenda in my mind, If We will endeavor, by God’s grace, to corral it into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We have to choose to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. That’s a daily choice. That’s how I choose to think.

Exchange The Enemy’s Lies For God’s Truths

The universal downfall of an can be attributed to the fact that they have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather that the “Creator.”(Romans 1:25) The antidote to this dilemma is to reverse course or take the other fork, namely- to exchange the lie for the truth of God.

It’s really pretty on paper. In real life it gets complicated and messy- this due, exercise of dismantling the negative strongholds and establishing a positive fortress of God’s Word to occupy our mind.

Negative thoughts become actions, which becomes habits, which become a stronghold. In contrast, thinking on God’s Word becomes positive action, which becomes a Godly habit, which becomes a fortress called the mind of Christ.

Mind Over Matter: The Most Important Factor Of Humanity

“Thinking: The Talking Of The Soul With Itself.” Plato

Humans are cognitive beings. Everything we do, and everything we feel originates in our mind as thoughts. The thoughts for perspectives and influence our decisions. Decisions then lead us to or prevent us from action. The pattern of thoughts we choose to entertain and focus on, the shape and quality of our lives. Given the power and importance of the mind, why are preventable mental health measures not a major point of focus in culture? Throughout our lifetimes, we experience an infinite amount of physical and emotional states including love, loss, pain, pleasure, addiction, depression, violence, insecurity, etc. Based on these experiences, we learn he to suppress, cope, express, and/or share our emotions with others the best way we know how. Developing the skill set to learn how to focus and be aware of how we process or interpret information and respond accordingly, empowers us to have control over our emotional states instead of being led by them. Better communication within the self will improve how we communicate with each other.

Mental and emotional health through self-awareness are essential to living the most successful, fulfilling life. American culture had taken strides to promote physical health with the hope of preventing life threatening diseases and conditions. The same preventive measures need to be taken with mental health.

There are empowering materials that promote mental and emotional awareness, usually labeled “self-help,” that have stereotypically categorized those who see knowledge in this area as “weak” individuals.

Organized Religions is another Avenue with empowering information available. Because you basically have a do’s and don’t list you have to live by. And you live those do’s and dont’s to a tee. Some religions won’t allow you do drink coffee or carbonated drinks. But, not necessarily for those who choose to be nondenominational.

I know a family that their religion doesn’t approve of drinking coffee and refuse to help them in anyway because of this.

Mental health should take precedence over the physical. Until one’s head is in the right place, the body never can be.

A healthy self-esteem requires self- awareness. Self-awareness helps us understand the meanings we associate to actions and events in the world.

Example: Two of my cousin as well as I were diagnosed with Bladder Cancer. We were all told the prognosis was death. One cousin passed away, the other so sure he was going to die soon. So his is living a life of depression and physical pain. While I chose to not listen to the Physician and chose that and I wasn’t going to die. I kept the faith and asked for prayer when I needed it, and got right with God. That was 10 ten years ago. I have had many cancer checks and there is no sign I’ve ever had cancer.

I keep telling my mind that the doctor was wrong. That I was not ready to die. I was still needed. And God is the Greatest Physician there is. There were only one of two reasons why I was healed, Mind over matter or God healed me! I think it was a little of both.

People seem to just want a band-aid on everything, every illness. But we have to find the root cause. In order to find it. We also accept things people or doctors say as truth, but it reality the truth in the way we live and the creator of the Universe.