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What we do today and the decisions we make are going to matter now more than ever. The power of living intentionally in Christ is a huge positive benefit bringing glory to God, benefit to us and encouragement to those that we love.
In this blog, and the one that follows, I’ll share ten life-changing reminders and practical applications as it has to do with how your past impacts how you live today. Let’s get started.
- Habits
- Habits: Paul says in 1st Corinthians 11:1: Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.Forty percent of our daily activities are habitual; we don’t think about them. Things like how we dress, how we drive, how we ride a bicycle. But even more importantly would be the attitudes we hold about faith, relationships, work, health and finances because of what we’ve learned in the past. Those good and bad habits impact us today.Take this little audit and ask yourself, “How are my habits impacting my life today in the five essential areas of life: your faith, your family, your finances, your health and your work?”Consider these questions:
- What habits are supporting you and the goals that you have?
- What habits are holding you back? (Satan I think loves to camp on the negative habits, the things that aren’t working in our life and reinforce them, keeping us from living the kind of successful life that God intends for us. It keeps us down. We never really fully experience all that God has for us.
- Regrets: Our regrets from the past will impact how we view life today. Ink.com showed that 72% of us feel regrets about our ideal self. We recite actions we wish we had taken. We regret more of what we didn’t do than what we did do in the past.Romans 8:1-3 says, “Those who enter into Christ being here for us no longer have to live under a continuous low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The spirit of life in Christ like a strong wind has magnificently cleared the air freeing you from a faded lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.”Maybe you have something that God’s laid on your heart to do. Something that you know is important and will bring glory to God. It may feel a little risky, but you know you need to do it.ONE THING you can do today – after you’ve wisely prayed about it and received good counsel, make that decision to act, so you don’t have regrets in the future about not acting today.
- Expectations: You’ve probably heard me say, “We judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge others by our expectations. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick but when the desire comes it’s a tree of life.”Your expectations have followed you into today and they impact how you are going to relate in life. Do an audit and ask yourself: “How are my expectations about others, about God, about work and about myself impacting how I’m going to relate today to others?
- Attitude: Pilots know what the word, attitude means. A pilot will tell you that an attitude, when they’re flying, is either nose up or nose down. The attitude is either lifting them to a higher level or it’s bringing them down.When we think about our attitudes we should ask, “Does my attitude about life, about others in these essential areas one that is filled with positivity, hopefulness, God’s goodness, and expectations of good things from him?” Or is your attitude discouragement, negativity, loss and defeat?Hebrews 9:27-28 says, “Everyone has to die once and then face the consequences.” Christ’s death was also a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever.
- Inertia: Inertia is the tendency to do nothing, for things to remain unchanged. If something is stopped, inertia keeps it from moving forward. If it’s moving forward in a straight line, inertia tends to keep things moving in that same direction.Inertia can be a very powerful force in the physical world, but it can also be a very powerful force in our spiritual and our relational lives.If at some point in the past, you got on the wrong path, going in the wrong direction and maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about, in your life, you’ve made decisions you now look back on and regret ever making those decisions, inertia will tend to keep you moving in the same direction even if it’s the wrong direction. Or if in the past you found yourself getting stuck. You started in a healthy direction, something happened, you got stuck in a pothole, it’s kind of like the giant train with a block of wood under its wheels.It’s virtually impossible to get that train moving, because of the inertia once it stops.
So, ask yourself, “Am I stuck? Where will I be tomorrow if I stay on the same path that I’m on today, or am I moving in the right direction?”How you answer these questions (and those in the next blog) can have a transformational impact at how you view today. Because today matters, what you do today is what intentional living all about.
