Life is a struggle, but what most people don’t realize is that our struggle, like Jacob’s, is really a struggle with God! We want to be God, and there’s no way we are going to win that struggle.
Why you do what you do matters the most to God.
A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree. PROVERBS 11:28.
You must make a counter-culture decision to focus on becoming more like Jesus. Otherwise, other forces like peers, parents, coworkers, and culture will try to mold you into their image.
Surrendered people obey God’s word, even if it doesn’t make sense.
Without faith it is impossible to please God.
Remember, you will take your character into eternity, but not your career.
Martin Luther said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” You can’t keep the Devil from suggesting thoughts, but you can choose not to dwell or act on them.
The most difficult area to surrender for many people is their money.
Most important, you must learn to love lost people the way God does.
God has never made a person he didn’t love. Everybody matters to him.
Fear is a self-imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be.
Hope is as essential to your life as air and water. You need hope to cope. Dr. Bernie Siegel found he could predict which of his cancer patients would go into remission by asking, “Do you want to live to be one hundred?” Those with a deep sense of life purpose answered yes and were the ones most likely to survive. Hope comes from having a purpose.
Spiritual maturity is becoming like Jesus in the way we think, feel, and act. The more you develop Christlike character, the more you will bring glory to God. The Bible says, “As the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more.”16.
Love means giving up – yielding my preferences, comfort, goals, security, money, energy, or time for the benefit of someone else.
The first misconception is that we confuse fear with humility. We tend to say, “Oh, I could never do that,” and we think we’re being humble. But that is not humility. That is fear; that is a lack of faith. A truly humble person would say, “With God’s help, I can do it. With God’s blessing, I will do it. I may not be able to do it on my own, but with God’s help I will do it.” That’s real humility.
You know you’re surrendered to God when you rely on God to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda, and control the situation. You let go and let God work. You don’t have to always be “in charge.” The Bible says, “Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him.
How would it make you feel if God showed you what you could have accomplished in life if you had just believed him a little bit more?
The book of Proverbs warns us over and over again about negative associations. Constant exposure to wrong attitudes and wrong values will eventually take its toll in our lives. It is always easier to pull someone down than it is to lift him up. What kind of friends should you have? The kind who bring out the best in you, who lift you up, who encourage you, who make you a better person.
If there was no God, we would all be “accidents,” the result of astronomical random chance in the universe. You could stop reading this book, because life would have no purpose or meaning or significance. There would be no right or wrong, and no hope beyond your brief years here on earth.