Sunday 3/3/13 Pastor Michael sermon The Good Life-Wisdom From the Wealthy

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Sunday 3/3/13 Pastor Michael sermon  The Good Life-Wisdom From the Wealthy  Prov. 13:18-22

Most people will say that they want to live a good life.  To some, having a life without a bunch of drama is a good life. To all, the good life means doing better than our parents and living our dreams. Living life on the edge and winning each day. Most people who want the good life make a huge mistake. They ask people who are worse off than them on how to get the good life. These are the most vocal folk but they don’t have the good life themselves! Certain people talk loud but are not saying anything! If you want to have the good life, we must seek folk who have what we want and learn from them. Don’t hate on folk who have accomplished the good life. Follow them and copy what they did. If God did it for them, He will do it for you!

Solomon, in the text, is giving us wisdom on how to have the good life and become wealthy. He recognized his moment was bigger than what he could handle. He had just inherited a kingdom from his father King David. Solomon asked God for the wisdom he needed. He humbled himself and was honest in that he didn’t know how to be a good king. We all need humility-be humble and ask God for help. Humble is being able to think less on yourself and put others before you.

***Principles to Elevate Our Lives to the Good Life***

A)  Correction will always lead to Promotion  Vs. 18 :   People who cannot grow from correction will end up in poverty. God lets us go thru painful things to prepare us for our next level. Instead of being bitter, we should come out better! Life is like a classroom and the teacher marks our quiz with red marks where we were wrong. Don’t get mad at the teacher because it’s not her fault we answered wrong. We should learn from our mistakes, take the test again and pass it! 
There are three sources of Corrections>>>>>

1)        Power - - God corrects us thru his power and redirects us to improve and get better. God chastises us, corrects us because He loves us. God will use life experiences to correct us so we can grow.

2)        People - - God uses family, friends to correct us. If we came out of a crazy family then when crazy comes near us,  a radar  goes off.  Crazy cannot get too close to us.  Some of us have “cheerleader” friends.  “Cheerleader” friends gather around us and cheer for us.  A real friend will correct us and tell us the truth when we are wrong.  True friends will risk telling you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it.   A true friend will tell you to drop that zero man and wait to get a Hero man!

Foes and Enemies teach us too.  We learn from people that hate us because they tell us the truth. Don’t get stuck on how they said it. Get stuck on the truth that they said.  Haters are our motivators! They are our instigators to our next level. You cannot go forward without people pushing you. As soon as you start doing something to help better yourself, Haters will come out of the woodwork! Don’t let the Haters distract you but instead let them motivate you to push on forward!! The Haters talking about you shows that you are being promoted by God. If the devil thinks you are going somewhere, he will send Haters! This is a good sign for us.

3)         Past - - Don’t try to hide or forget our past. God uses our past to remind us how He has brought us up and out of our mess! The fact that we are here today, clothed in our right mind is a testimony that God is not finished with us yet! We came thru the fire and don’t smell like smoke! Give God praise for what He is doing in our life! We are not where we want to be but we are not where we used to be! Thank God for every situation that he has brought us out of! Thank God! Thank God! We are better and wiser!

B)   Consistency and persistency leads to Victory Vs. 19:    We have to go thru the process. The desires He put in us are visions, ideas God has for our life.  The vision becomes a reality when we put it on paper and write it down. He that sees it may run with it. The person that you show your vision may be the one who will finance it. Writing it down is the thing that gives it momentum. 

Take a picture of what you want for your future. A business, more money, a mate -whatever it is, take a picture of it and put it up on the wall to see. If you have to borrow money from someone to take a picture of it then do that.  Our life is supposed to be better. Go home today and write down your vision, take some pictures and put them up on your Wall of Faith! Put up pictures of where you are going!

Amen