The Audacity of God's Grace: 10 Strategies To Living Your Best Life Now (7 page)

Abraham believed in the Messianic promise for he loved Jesus Christ—by faith and understand that Jesus was crazy about him and his success. This is why Jesus was born on earth through the descendants or lineage of Abraham. Abraham knew also, the principle of living a purpose driven life; staying intact on his mission and vision for life, being diligent on his duties, working hard, and as a result God gave him intimidating prosperity and victory over his enemies. He learned to network with powerful people of his time, and ran successful businesses, defeated nations and enemies who wanted to derail his vision and caused him failure on his God-driven Kingdom and nation building assignment. Abraham did well by all standards in the principle of dominion and commerce that it was on record that Abraham equally paid tithe to Melchizedek, the one who was also a priest, and the king of Salem. If you are not doing well materially and resourcefully, how can you pay tithe to any priest? How can you build and develop yourself and children?

Poor Teaching Syndrome leads into Self-fulfilling Prophecies

The major problem of poor teachings is that they create bigger rooms for people to have small minds. People with such small minds cannot be motivated to take actions in life that will translate them into greater opportunities and the victory sanctuary of life where the grace of God is abundant, and where there is much more to go around materially and resourcefully. A careful analysis of the majority of the masses who fill our church pews and majority of our citizens in society today have been adversely affected with what I describe as Poor Teachings Syndrome (PTS).

Poor Teaching Syndrome (PTS) are pedagogies that I describe as using religion to brainwash people; undermine their physical and material potentials and well-being, and the pursuit of certain religious agenda that negates empowering the minds of adherents to climb the material ladder of the earthly resources in ways that people become significant on earth while waiting for Jesus return. PTS has steadily regressed the financing of the work of the gospel of the kingdom (Matt 24:14) and has sabotaged many believers and their churches from reaching their kingdom capital. PTS philosophical systems are therefore, predominant in the thoughts, actions, and in the minds of many people living a life of poverty and struggle in many religious gatherings. Congregations, people, communities and families infected with PTS end up teaching and infecting their own offspring with the same syndrome. I have seen and heard numerous people who procrastinate on their success or that of their children because of poor teachings and a poor thinking pattern. It has facilitated many crimes and subjected people over time to be engaged in microwave thinking—a shallow thinking that is rooted in the belief of immediate compensation, thus neglecting the long term consequences of poor actions. Is it any wonder that PTS has continued to subject many to swim in the stream of self-fulfilling prophecies? Why will you keep procrastinating on your joy when you can do better today with happiness and success?

Don’t Procrastinate Your Joy & Success

I have heard people more often say; oh he achieved that because he didn’t play by the rules. I could have been married by now. I could have landed in that career. I could have owned that house. I could have owned that car. I could have owned that firm or business. I could have been that rich guy in town, but then we quickly recline into claiming that our own riches are in heaven. Why not such riches begin here—I mean on earth first, so that we are better prepared to walk on the streets of gold in heaven? The problem with this system of understanding is that it has created nothing but a double standard of living.

I know of many people who deeply covet to be that wealthy business tycoon in town. However, PTS console them to give up with such thoughts and compensate them with mediocrity. Who wouldn’t like to do well? I have witnessed those who sincerely desire that their children will be able to live at those nice houses and apartments in the neighborhood and attend those distinguished schools in town. But again, PTS get in their way. I have seen people whose life would have not been cut short if they had better health insurance or the financial resources needed to take their loved ones to that good or specialist hospital or consultant. The problem is that they couldn’t afford to. The question is why not? The perception problem installed in our mind by PTS has led many into rejecting God’s material blessings and abundant living opportunities even when they are provided.

You Can’t Continue This Way

It was Pastor Joel Osteen, the senior pastor of Lakewood Church, one of America’s largest and fastest-growing congregations with about forty-five thousand adults in attendance every week, whose story I find interesting as it threw greater light to how PTS can arrest our minds. In his shared story of his late father—John Hillery Osteen, the founder and first pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, from its humble beginnings in 1959 until his death in 1999. According to Pastor Joel Osteen, his late father, John Osteen grew up with what he described as “poverty mentality.” When Pastor Joel’s father started pastoring, their church could only afford to pay him $115 every week. Pastor Joel Osteen shared the following story about his Dad: Daddy and mother when they initially begun their ministry hardly could survive on a $115 weekly pay, especially once my siblings and I came along. The most dangerous aspect of their life, however was that Daddy had come to expect poverty. For a number of years, he wasn’t even able to accept a blessing when it came. During a time of special services at the church, although our family barely had enough food to get along, my parents hosted the guest minister in their home that entire week.

The following Sunday, a businessman in the church said, “pastor, I know you cared for our guest speaker in your home all week. Things are tight, and I realize you can’t afford those extra expenses. I want you to have this money to use personally, just to help you out.” He handed my dad a check for a thousand dollars, tantamount to ten thousand dollars today! Daddy was overwhelmed by the man’s generosity, but he was so limited in his thinking at that time, he held that check by the edge of the corner, as though it might contaminate him if he clutched it any tighter, and said, “oh, no, brother, I could never receive this money. We must put it in the church offering.”

Pastor Joel Osteen said that later, his Daddy admitted that deep down inside, he really preferred to keep the money. He knew that he and mother needed that money, but he had a false sense of humility. He couldn’t receive the blessing. He thought he was doing God a favor by staying poor. Pastor Osteen reported that Daddy later said, “every step I took as I walked to the front of the church to put that check in the offering, something inside was saying,
Don’t do it. Receive God’s blessings. Receive God’s goodness.
”
But he didn’t listen. He reluctantly dropped the check into the offering. He later said, “When I did [i.e. drop the check in the offering box], I felt sick to my stomach.” Based on this story shared by Pastor Joel Osteen about his father, you could see clearly someone—a minister for that matter who tirelessly worked hard for the good of God’s people and for God too, and whom God has chosen to bless with finances that God and even the people he was serving have come to believe that he merited. However, false religious mindset, powered by PTS subjected him into captivity and placed his mind and lifestyle under the clutches of mediocrity. The inability of the man of God to be open to receive God’s material favor and blessings cost him and his family who were struggling to make a living against God’s plan handsomely, just for the sake of his ‘religious’ mindset. The good news of that story didn’t end there however, because years later, Pastor Joel Osteen’s father had to outgrow this limited poverty-stricken mindset and received God’s best and unlimited prosperity.

You too can. But you need to kill every cankerworm of fear and limitation the enemy has planted in the backyard and front yard of your mind. You don’t have to settle for mediocrity. But if you are in an environment where mediocrity abounds, chances are that you will never grow rich or win life big favors and opportunities. It is absolutely ok for you to prosper and do well in life because that is part of what God’s grace is about. You don’t have to feel guilty or apologetic with God’s material blessings over your life or household, for you cannot intimidate God with your requests. What you must understand is this: God’s blessing is mostly poured on those recipients who are not closely minded.

Don’t Pity God Over Material Blessings, It Can’t Finish

While I thought about the thinking pattern of numerous people who seem to pity God for giving out his material blessings, I see why a countless number of Christians live in extreme poverty and like paupers today. My personal discovery is that many people who struggle through life did really want to have a better life. It is not like most people never prayed about it or that they have never ever wanted to do better or as though it wasn’t a priority in their lists. However, most people who struggle through life never thought consciously and imagined the possibility that yes—they can receive disproportionately, the abundant blessings of God and live their best life right now.

“Most people can easily accept almost anything to keep them in the race of survival instead of greater success.”

A great number of people have failed to reach their fullest potentialities and live their best lives today because of poor teachings and an unemployed mindset. Many are living as poor people not because they should have; but because many of those who were their role models—their parents, pastors, and other mentors never imagined living the best life there was in their lifetime, and consequently installed that thought pattern in those who looked up to them.

Why do we have some people who seem to be destined for a life of poverty and a life of struggle whereas, others seem to be destined for greatness? Why do we have some others who do succeed in whatever venture they lay their hands onto, including the creation of wealth and riches whereas a countless number of others do not share in this fortune? Many of the times, the answer is traceable in the products of poor thoughts patterns, engineered by poor religious systems of thinking and teaching. Poor parental mentorship and upbringing that neglects empowering people to think big earlier on in life has greater chances to defeat us from eating the fruit of the land.

It All Originated in the Mind

Many people whose religious parents, role models or mentors never imagined living at their best and performing on top of whatever discipline or enterprise they are involved will greatly influence and install a negative “Deoxyribonucleic Acid” (DNA) in people who looks up to them. The implication is that poor or negative “DNA” has the ability to inhibit and mutates in both physical and spiritual cells and outlook of followers for life. It has the capacity to flow in their thoughts, their actions, and veins of achievement too. Remember that whatever you don’t believe, you will never become. When we embrace a poor system of thinking and living, it wrongfully informs us that once we live a simple life, which many times are defined by mediocrity and poverty, we are better off prepared for inheriting the kingdom of God. The real issue is that inheriting the kingdom of God or preparing to become partakers of God’s great kingdom does not demand that we live and stand by mediocrity.

Our inability to understand that living our best life now—an abundant earthly life, filled with God’s material and spiritual blessings for those created in the image of God, can cause us our place in the kingdom of God. Poverty and its many antecedents have the capacity to make many, miss the mark. Why are many believers involved in cheating, stealing, fraud and deceitful lifestyles? Why are too many unemployed or underemployed Christians betraying the faith? The answer is not far away from poverty. The root cause of lack of success, mediocrity, financial failure, and a bleak future of financial woes begins with the mind. Our childhood influences as we grow up and what we are taught about finances, wealth, prosperity, spirituality, and our ability to live well and make a difference in life shape our future financial habits and stability. It can guarantee our freedom to succeed or place us into poverty—financial struggle and bondage. What we are taught either help us to embrace mind-liberating abilities—simply put victories that translate into success or it can lead us into self-defeating thoughts which translate into self-fulfilling prophecies of failure. You can do better and teach your children to do so too.

CHAPTER THREE
HAVE A MILLIONAIRE MINDSET

“Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.”

—
Arthur Schopenhauer

DESIRE IS THE KEY TO MOTIVATION

One outstanding feature and secret of the rich is that they invest their wealth into people who are willing to work hard. That way, the rich create employments opportunities and titles for the willing hands and their families and reap a floodgate of financial increase. This is how the rich are able to remain rich. Why do you think majority of wealthy or rich people have children and generations of rich families? Why are some children born to become automatic millionaires and automatic billionaires? Why have billionaires successfully built multinational companies that are Trans-generational which achieve growth and longevity like the Coca Cola Company by John Pemberton, who bought out businessman Asa Griggs Candler whose marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century? What about “Brads Drinks” which was first made in 1893 by Caleb Bradham, the innovative pharmacist who developed his fortune from his drugstore where the drink was first sold and would later be called PepsiCo, named after the digestive enzyme pepsin and kola nuts used in the recipe?

The story of PepsiCo goes that Bradham sought to create a fountain drink in his little drug store (pharmacy) in New Bern, North Carolina, United States that will serve as energy booster while aiding digestion. The fact is that every millionaire or billionaire family I know have remained in that status because they work very hard in order not to fail short of their own expectations or to go back to a middle class status. How they achieve these are by creating employment opportunities and wealth creation avenues. For the rich, growth, success, and expansion are always their priced virtue. The transgenerational entrepreneurship of each of these families discussed above has defined the world of brand names such as those observed in the soft drink industry today. Each of these families successfully built and passes wealth to their future offspring. What people are taught and what they are exposed to have immense influence and consequences in their lives.

What Are You Willing To Teach Your Kids?

While millionaires and billionaires teach their children about having both short and long term—or impact goals, about investing into ideas, about building partnerships, exposing them into their alliances and a network of leadership to dominate the human and natural resources and be in charge of earthly goods, poor people don’t very much emphasize and teach their children about serious long term goals that rewards their children’s future with stupendous wealth other than sending their children to school to either become lawyers, physicians, nurses or engineers etc with the shallow thinking that only higher education will land their children into greater greener financial success. The reality is that most advanced degrees or specialty licensing and certifications can push people over to a better financial success, but it doesn’t very often come easy or through cooperate rankings alone unless if those people who have acquired these educational treasures open businesses of their own, trusting God’s favor to use their knowledge and skills plus a mind-set for success to reap a plentiful financial harvest.

Frankly, eating the fruit of the land as seen in God’s promised word for many may not come through graduation from higher or advanced degrees alone. If only higher education lands people into higher financial success, why do we have an uncountable number of people in the academia, Ph.D. holders, physicians, dentists, veterinary doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses, and pharmacists; psychologists, sociologists, public health practioners, and pastors or theologians with advanced degrees etc. who are still a few paychecks away from poverty or foreclosures and repossessions? It almost happened to me. Don’t let that be you. There are many homeless people with master’s degree.

“The fact is that most poor people and the middle class waste their time in gossip about the rich.”

The irony is that they live to invest much of their energy and time working to make things happen around the rich. Others work or retire around the product of a millionaires or billionaires brands, ideas and innovation. Most poor people cannot help but talk about other people’s business ideas or helping to manage these millionaire businesses. For me, working for someone else or in a cooperation should be the beginning point of getting to my destination, not the end—retirement! You can begin as a cleaner or a certified public accountant (CPA). You can start as a certified nurse assistant. If you believe you cannot successfully dive into the world of owning a small business, make sure to retire as a nurse manager or nurse supervisor. You mock yourself and God’s abilities in you when you gain an entry level job as a certified nurse assistant or cleaner
and retire that way
. You can pay your dues for a number of years by working for someone else—a cooperate entity or organization, or retaining a high paying private or government job. But it will be disingenuous of someone created in the image of God to gain an entry level job as driver, or a janitor and retire that way after 35 years as the chief driver or chief Janitor. It meant that you never really experienced growth as you’ve wasted your potentials for 35 years!

The Difference Between the Rich and The Poor

A great majority of poor people cannot help to know what is happening around Kim Kardashian or the Kardashians each day or week as if they have nothing more to pursue. They are anxiously waiting for the next movie to be released by Mr. and Mrs. Smith. A number of poor people tie their life around what happens in Hollywood—dancing with the stars or American Idol etc. The middle class and most poor people are usually happy when they attain an interview and land into what they call their ‘dream job or career’ because that is what many of their parents and mentors have programmed their mind to be their route for financial freedom. This is farther from the truth, because financial freedom will elude most people with their advanced degrees by just clocking in and out or receiving their monthly salary until retirement. I trust that you or your children can do better than that.

“If you must have a salaried or paid employment, let that employment be one of your streams of income, not the sum total or only source of income.”

While the rich think of opportunities that will reward them handsomely; to create wealth, to innovate and build things that solves worldly problems, majority of the poor and most religious people think of how to pursue higher degrees or skills that helps them to work for the billionaire neighbor who only has a GED or high school diploma if they actually completed high school. I don’t want you to misunderstand me into believing that I encourage laziness or stereotype the rich. What I want to encourage you to do is to think like these millionaires and do better things with your God-given abilities than you are doing right now. I have a very strong work ethic and I hardly sleep or go to bed most times before 12 a.m. as you will discover later. But for now, I want you to ponder and think about a series of interrelated question that I believe will be helpful to you.

How Long Will You Be Here?

Have you consciously considered who ran the billionaire-owned hospitals and work over time and double shifts as doctors, registered nurses, respiratory or physical therapists, certified nurse assistants, phlebotomists or the other technicians and professionals on the team? Who are the janitors’ years in and out who works for 35 years and retire with income that subject their geriatric years to misery? Ever considered who are the majority of people patronizing or mostly using billionaire-owned gyms? Who are the managers of these organizations? Who do you think waste most of their time drinking at a millionaires’ bar or glued at big screen TV sets, computer screens, or playing video games? Who are those dancing or striping all night at a millionaires-owned night clubs? Couldn’t they do better with their lives? Who consume a market share of the soda drink industry and become obese, or spend all the time at McDonalds either working or eating mostly junk foods? Why are there no liquor stores or McDonalds at Beverly Hills? Who buys most of the millionaires’ made beers, wines or liquor? Who spends most of their money in the millionaires’ and/or billionaires owned gambling or lottery industry? Who finance majority of the billionaire-owned cars or sport utility SUV’s from the giant car manufacturing companies—are they from the middle class or the poor? Who are the majority of air hostesses or the passengers who patronize the aviation industries or fly with United Airlines or Delta economy most of the time? Who works more often or buy goods at the billionaires stores like those of Wal-Mart’s, Sam’s club, Costco’s, BestBuy’s, ninety nine cents stores, Stater Brothers etc.? Have you considered who make up the security guards populations and officers of security companies? Who are the majority of university professors at University of Phoenix? Is that all they can do with that Ph.D.? Are there not Ph.D. holders who have been to school most of their lives and yet, who are just a few pay checks away from extreme poverty or foreclosure and/or eviction. The list goes on and on and on and is endless.

Build Your Values On Big Things

No matter how you answered these questions, the fact remain that we need these services and people from diverse workforce as they are necessities to our ability to live our everyday lives as both individuals or societies. On the contrary, it is either poor people or the middle class that are the engine rooms on which the organizational success of these companies or industries survive. Ironically, most of these people who make up the workforce will never reach the top or experience financial freedom. The overarching question that I want you to begin to consider for once and for yourself if you have not done so is that you can have the capacity to become a business owner of organizations or cooperation’ such as I have referenced above. It all begins on your mind. You can start out as a janitor or driver, but the mistake you may make is to retire that way. You’ve been created for more! Why not start thinking like a millionaire?

What I want you to tell yourself daily is this: I am capable of creating wealth. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can be a serious business owner. I can do more for this generation by solving a world problem. The facilitation of what I have just said begins the moment you believe that yes—you can. This is called realization of your net capital in God’s economy of grace. Your success begins with the “I CAN attitude, not the I CAN’T”. You are probably the only person that can answer for yourself where you fall in between. The problem of most young people today is that they don’t want to put in the hard work and diligence it takes to make it big in life. Unfortunately, most young people have embraced the microwave thinking that yearns for immediate compensation. They want to become wealthy overnight. But that is not going to happen. This is why many young people plunge into fraud or become easily recruited into crimes and become criminals.

It takes God’s favor, vision and vigilance, a hard work ethic, perseverance and discipline; and a major breakthrough or series of financial connectivity—i.e. multiple streams of income to become a multimillionaire. You can start small, but you must learn to think and dream big. Remember the saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with taking the first “right” step. In the world of business or entrepreneurship, that first step is vital—a key. However, in a situation where the first step is not working, you don’t need to relapse and give up. Many millionaires I personally know are the most open-minded people on the planet. Think like a millionaire! Just think like one! One of my favorite authors of the 19
th
century Ellen G. White once observed that: “higher than the highest human thought can reach is God’s ideal for His children. There’s never a period when there is no more to learn and no higher attainments to reach.”