wednesday nov 20

Expand Your Skills to Succeed

If you want to succeed in life, your education cannot end when you graduate. All leaders are learners, and you need to continue learning the rest of your life. Because the moment you stop growing, your contribution to your company stops growing also.

Ecclesiastes 10:10 says, "If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success." (NIV) It's important to work smarter, to sharpen your ax. You waste less time when you do this.

How do you sharpen your ax? By filling your head with learning - read a book, listen to a seminar, take a class, attend church. If you keep learning, then God can continue to expand your horizons.

"Do yourself a favor and learn all you can; then remember what you learn and you will prosper." (Proverbs 19:8 TEV) The solution to most of life's problems is training. So learn all you can.

That's why I encourage my congregation to take notes during my sermons. Did you know that if you don't, then within 72 hours you'll forget 95 percent of what you hear? So you may look real spiritual, but you're not real bright.

Learn all you can and remember what you learn and watch how God blesses your work.

Heh. The short-term-memory is also mentioned in today's devotional.  
I don't think we can do anything about it, but the only way to remember is to write ourselves a reminder/note of the sermon.
Which we do, and should continue doing.
Anyhow, I think this is mainly about continual growth, not only knowledge-wise, but also spiritually in Christ.
If we stop growing at a certain point (spiritually) then the relationship with God will be limited to that point.
In the same way, our continual growth in God will help us get closer to God, and holiness. We shouldn't stop growing at one point, and
as Pastor Sam told us, we shouldn't be holy only up to a certain point and be, for a lack of better words, satisfied about how far we got. Rather, we should try to get close to God as possible by continually growing in faith. That is the only way we can be successful.

I guess this is basically saying to keep searching for God. To thirst for the Gospel. Sometimes we all get too caught up in our own lives to remember Him which is why we do devotions, pray, and have our own quiet time. In a way this replenishes us.

I also took this as a personal reminder to look for God on my own. Seek knowledge when I'm not necessarily asked to. Don't only think about God on Sundays at church, or at practice on Saturday or Theology class on Friday. We should always be seeking for Him and try to apply the things we learn to our daily lives. Like how it was mentioned in today's reading, it is suggested to take notes on sermons and I agree that taking notes really is helpful - you remember more when you do (apparently physically writing something down and rewriting things helps you memorize things). Though I haven't been really consistent with this recently, I really want to sacrifice my time to learn more about Him and really apply it to my life.

I find that as we get older, we need to try harder and harder to keep our minds open to learn.
What I mean by this is that when we are little, we admit that we do not know everything and we depend on others with what is right and wrong. That's the beautiful mindset of a child. As we get older, we do gain more knowledge, but it is typical to start to get arrogant. Most people will not learn to let go of what they strongly believe and move on.
As mean as this sounds: You don't know everything.
That's what we begin to be like as we learn more. Let God do the teaching.
Have you ever had that one stubborn person who you know is totally wrong but they keep on insisting that they're correct?
I'm pretty sure this is how God feels when you begin to stick to your own knowledge.

This is a verse I have not forgeten...

Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding."

~Audrey~

The key here is remember. I really think I should start taking notes like michelle on sermons because I hear all that good information and lessons about God and life but then I forget a lot of it because I didn't write it down. I know itll be hard for me to bring a pen and paper because I forget to even bring my bible but I should try hard to remember it so I can remember the sermons and actually apply them to my life.

I feel like this devo is more about humility than it is about learning. *Well, moreso a combination of both. There's really a lot of good examples of people thinking they're on power highs, and fall abruptly. Those moments usually occur when one forgets that there's still space for "better". As humans, we should realize that there's always always space for improvement in relevance to everything. Especially as praise team members, we have to realize that we have even more to improve on than other people, as we can improve technically/mechanically, along with improving spiritually.

The devo's really not all that hard to understand, but moreso hard to follow because it's just one of those "the more you do it, the more difficult it gets" things.

September 22nd, 2013. Pastor Sam's first sermon. "His grace is enough"
LOL just thought I would point out that I remember briefly about a sermon from a few months ago, mainly because I like reading Michelle's notes.
Anyways, I feel as though there are areas that we could ALL improve on that this devo talks about. First of all, it is very easy to take notes during sermons, it's just that either we are too lazy or don't take the little effort and time to actually come to church prepared to take notes. Although its good that we are focused, we should write little notes, nothing big, just enough to remember the general ideas and such. It is very beneficial to us as there are always new things for us to learn about God, and through sermons is one "outlet" to learn more about Him. Now what good is learning about Him if we don't remember the majority of it within a few days? Exactly.
As well, expanding your skills and going out of your comfort zone will lead you towards success! God is always challenging us with different tasks, and it is up to us to do these tasks to our full potential as well as always be hungry to learn more. The more you learn, the better. The benefits are beyond what you expect, and knowledge will go a long way in your life. The more you learn, the more God will be able to use you as a tool to help yourself and others. Be an example, lead others to strive to expand skills and become more stretched out of their own comfort zones!
                   

^^^ @ John: *"Be DESPERATE for God, His grace is enough." c; You also write little things saying "John is cute" in my sermon notes... /:<

I sometimes can be stubborn and not keep a humble, open mind to learning new things. At times, I feel like I know enough about a particular subject, so I close my mind to any new learning, basically preventing myself from growing. However, I often get a reminder that I always have something new to learn, or something harder to work at, which grounds me and reminds me to keep humble.
I hardly ever try to improve upon something and usually the reasons for that would be because I feel like I'm at a satisfactory level with it. Either that, or I'm just really lazy or procrastinate upon sharpening my skills.
There's always something new to learn everyday. It may be the smallest, insignificant thing, but there's always knowledge out there that can be pursued. Learning isn't reserved for certain periods of time in our lives.
Also, we will always have room to enhance our skills no matter how good we get. We have to keep humble and know that we don't possess the capability to succeed/improve on things on our own. We definitely need God for that.

7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
2 Timothy 3:7

5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,
   and let the discerning get guidance—
Proverbs 1:5

15 The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge,
   for the ears of the wise seek it out.
Proverbs 18:15

As the devo says, in order to be the most effective servants of God we need to keep learning, so we don't settle for mediocrity. This message ties well to yesterday's devotional in that we need to exceed expectations and strive to surpass mediocre work especially when it comes to God. The best way we can do this is by continually learning and improving aspects of ourselves to become more and more effective as representatives of God. Another part of the devo that was a welcome slap in the face was the fact that people who do not take notes of sermons tend to forget them within a few days. I am definitely guilty of this, to help me remember and apply sermons to my life I will need to take notes. I'm going to do just that

2 Thessalonians

1:8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
2:11 For this reason God sends them a power delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
3:14 If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed.

These three verses can easily be misinterpreted. As I read this passage, I started to freak out, does God really punish those who don't know Him? But what Paul talks about is relevant to Romans 1:24-28 and how God uses sin to punish the sinful. This is because their heart turned away from the truth, loving God's creations rather than God himself. God doesn't put up with any of this, as he allows sin so that they may be judged accordingly. Also, the main purpose of not associating with those that don't obey the instructions is so that they could repent. How would they know right from wrong if everyone would treat them the same like nothing wrong happened? Never sugar-coat things, especially when it involves with someone's faith. Also, even though it may seem that God uses sin to judge against those that don't accept His grace, He only uses it to draw the line. To see where are hearts truly stand, if we love and obey the law. And I think God does this in order for us to see our mistakes, if we ever want to turn back to Him. So that we may be convicted by the Holy Spirit. God is God, He obviously knows how we truly feel about Him, its just for our own benefit. It's all perspective, like Pastor Sam said on Sunday.

Psalm 25:9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.

After reading and reflecting upon this devo, i know that learning is something we should continuously doing. However, not everyone is a learner and have the capability to just learn and learn. For example, it is so difficult for me to give my 100% ALL THE TIME. it just tires me out and i just cant function. Like sometimes, id listen to something in one ear and the words would just slip away through the other ear. This devo is really simple. ALWAYS BE LEARNING AND GIVING IT YOUR ALL. But this is easier said then done.
A great way to relate to this is when your about to start a new semester or school year. Your so pumped and excited for school and your planning on giving it your 100% for the whole semester. But what usually happens is the first few weeks you give it you all then you slowly decrease your work output. I dont know about you guys but this is what happens to me. And then once we get a big break, i'll get pumped and excited for school again and the cycle repeats.