Live - Build - Change the Christian faith and business show Morning Mindset Media

There is a phrase that we hear in the church fairly that is something I fear we say without knowing what it really means - or how to apply it rightly: claiming God's promises.
Okay so someone says, “I'm claiming the promises of God” for this, or this or this…
In this episode of the podcast I ask the questions, “What does that really MEAN - and is it OK to do when it comes to business endeavors?


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Here’s a rough outline of TOPIC OR GUEST… [0:49] The right way and the wrong way to claim the promises of God [3:20] Applying God’s promises depends on your relationship with God [7:32] What about business endeavors? Is it appropriate to claim the promises of God? [10:34] A recent story of how claiming the promises of God could apply [15:03] Believing in what God is doing in your business How we are often the means of God’s promises coming true It’s important that we have our thinking straight when it comes to “claiming the promises of God.” Anyone - you or I - can go off in all kinds of directions, claiming that we are taking one of the many promises of God in scripture and actually be on the wrong track - both in our thinking and in our behavior.
It’s easy to do. So how do we avoid that mistake?
I've seen this practice done a couple of different ways throughout the twenty years I was a pastor and just in my life as a believer. I’ve seen it happen in the lives of people I rub shoulders with and in my own life at times. And what I’ve learned is that there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.
From what I've learned of scripture and through what I have seen people put into practice, let me give you a couple of scenarios.
Say you have somebody who is struggling to put food on the table. They don't have a job. They are not actively looking for a job. But they are praying and hoping that something is going to come through for them and they say things like, “I am claiming the promises of God... that He will never let the righteous be forsaken.” (Psalm 37:25)
I think it's probably pretty obvious - at least I hope it is - that it's not really a very wise or proper way to “claim the promises of God.”
God's promises are not isolated.
When God makes a promise to the righteous, He's making a promise to a person who has certain characteristics, certain things true about them. That's what He means when He uses the word “righteous” to refer to them.
And to be clear - all of the righteousness any of us have is righteousness that comes to us through Christ - and it includes having Christ Himself in us to strengthen us and fill us with wisdom. He motivates us to go and do what we need to do in order to be a part of God's promises coming true.
We are often the means God uses to fulfill His promises to us.
So we can't just “claim promises of God” if we are unwilling to step into the situation by faith, trusting God is going to help us, and actually put our faith into action.
I think that's a wrong way to apply this idea of claiming God's promises.
What would the right way to claim God’s promises, look like? That’s what the rest of this episode is about.
Psalm 37:4 is and example of rightly claiming the promises of God In scripture there are some keystone kind of verses - verses that lots of other theology or lots of other beliefs rest upon. They are foundational because they communicate foundational concepts or truths that support everything else.
One of those statements I believe is often overlooked in this regard and is easily misapplied in this kind of thing is Psalm chapter 37, verse number 4.
It says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
As we stop and think about that, it could be taken one of two ways. It could mean: If you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you everything you want. And so the desire

Stay hungry... It was the summer of 1980. I was 13 years old.
And I was the hungriest I'd ever been in my life.
I was in the middle of my "ordeal," an initiation exercise to gain entrance into a special group within the boy scouts known as the "Order of the Arrow."
There was a group of 25 of us who were invited to participate. It was an honor and I was glad to be there.
But it was difficult for a 13 year-old because we had to:
Spend the weekend working at the camp Remain silent the entire time Sleep by ourselves out in the woods, with no tent or sleeping bag Not eat any food for 2 days Weird? Maybe. Consider it an early testosterone-laden initiation.
But you can see why I was so hungry.
Staying hungry impacted my thinking Of course, I was nowhere near as hungry as many people in the world are every day, but for a teenager who'd never missed a meal in his life, it felt like I was starving.
Though I was plenty busy, it only took about 12 hours of not eating for my thoughts to be on one thing only - food.
I wanted to eat. Badly.
I couldn't sleep because my growling stomach kept me awake.
I was consumed with the thought of consuming something, anything, to satisfy the gnawing in my belly.
And to make matters worse, the light at the end of the dark hunger-tunnel was that we were promised that if we made it to the end, we'd be given a lavish banquet.
That focused my thoughts on food even more.
Staying hungry as an adult  
When I hit adulthood I began to hear the phrase "stay hungry" in a variety of circles.
Because of my boy scout "ordeal" I had a pretty good idea of what was meant by it.
Hunger drives you. Hunger keeps you focused (on the thought of food). Hunger won't let you rest.
So when I heard sports figures or business gurus say that success requires that you "stay hungry," I knew exactly what they were getting at.
They meant that you had to set a goal and keep it before you at all times.
You had to desire something, one thing, more than you'd ever desired anything before.
They meant you had to become obsessed with that one thing.
How should a Christian business person stay hungry? All of that is great advice... if you are your own man or woman.
If you call the shots in your life.
If you don't answer to anyone. Ever.
But those are not descriptions that fit a Christian.
[tweetthis]We have a LORD (Jesus). He's made claims on our lives. Yet, He still wants us to "stay hungry."[/tweetthis]
How?
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. - Matthew 6:5
It doesn't really matter what your lot in life is (business, homemaking, trench digging, plumbing, etc.), you have the same calling as every other Christ-follower.
You are to stay hungry - for righteousness.
Nothing can take the place of that desire. Nothing should outshadow it.
It's difficult to be THAT kind of hungry in business because there are so many other things to be hungry for... so many other things that vie for that place of obsessive attention:
success fame notoriety money growth reputation a greater market share and the list goes on.
So what do you do?
 
It's not easy, but it begins at the beginning of every, single day.
Getting hungry in the morning Your morning is vital to your day.
Even non-Christ-following people know this to be true. (See this post from Lifehacker called, "Do you have a morning ritual?" and this one, "5 morning rituals" from Entrepreneur Magazine.)
Whether you've ever taken to a morning "quiet time" or "daily devotional" is not the point. The point is that morning is the time you've got to set your mind and heart for the day ahead.
In the context of what we're talking about, the morning is when you've got to stoke your hunger - for righteousness.
If you don't do it then, I can guarantee you the competing options that rise up through the busy business day will squelch it altogether.
[tweetthis]You've got to set aside some time at the beginnin

I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this short update - the LORD has been doing significant things in my life and heart recently and I wanted to let you know how those movements of the Spirit are impacting with I've been called to do with Live Build Change.
 
Contact me at https://www.LiveBuildChange.com/contact 

You know somebody once told me, “Never make decisions when you're under the cloud - wait until the sun comes out. “
And that is great advice. Get some space away from the situation.
Let me tell you about the time I most felt like quitting my business...
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When I feel like giving up on my business… OUTLINE [0:00] Changes to this podcast in 2018 [2:48] A time when I felt like quitting my business [4:37] What should you do when you want to quit? [6:21] Why it’s important not to make decisions when you’re under the cloud [7:18] What if God DOES show you that you’re on the wrong track? [8:18] If you’re going to stick out out - go into “learning mode” [10:18] Why making the same mistake repeatedly is inexcusable in business I think it was about a year and a half into my business, Podcast Fast Track that some events happened all kind of right in a row that made me want to quit. I was discouraged, I was down, there were things that made me doubt myself and my abilities - and whether or not should have started this crazy entrepreneurial journey in the first place.
In particular the thing that made me want to quit was that I had a client who canceled his subscription to our podcast production and show notes service. Then another one. Then another one. Three customers in a row who bailed out.just when I thought I'd been doing a really good job for them.
To be honest I saw the first one coming.
The businesses had been growing pretty rapidly and I was scrambling to keep up with the workload. I was trying to create systems so that I could bring others on to help me out - I was doing all of that at the same time.
It was during that time frame I'd made a handful full of mistakes on that particular client’s work. I made the mistakes, not my team, me.
It's strange how that happens - all of the mistakes happening on one client's account. I mean if they'd been spread out over two or three client, I don’t think I would have lost any of them. But that's how it all started, that's how I began wondering if I should quit my business.
Then when the second client cancelled her subscription, and the third one just on the heels of that, you can imagine my state of mind. I mean if you've been there before you're asking all kinds of questions…
What am I doing wrong? Maybe be I'm am no good at this. Maybe I should have taken on the risk of starting my own business in the first place. And sometimes the worst case scenario you hear in your own mind… “This just isn't going to work.”
What should you do when you hit that point?
And if you haven't hit that point yet and you are starting a business, I’m pretty certain you will come to everyone.
So I want to answer the question here, “What do you do when you want to quit your business?” The first thing I would say is you need to get some space from the issue. I learned the hard way that I don't make good decisions or good assessments when I'm in the pit of despair. You know I had to get some space, to get away from the situation for a little while so that I could look at it unemotionally even eventually, dispassionately.
Because I want to see what's really happened, not what I feel has happened. When I was able to do that in the situation I told you about here's is what I was able to see...
Number one, the first client’s issues were entirely my fault.
I had made mistakes.
He lost trust in me - and trust is the most valuable thing that I can give to a client so that was completely understandable. That he said, “No thanks, we're gonna to handle this another way” is completely understandable.
The second client was reorganizing his business and decided the podcasting didn't fit into his plans. Okay, that kind of thing happens in any type of business there's nothing I can do about that one.
The third client was in the middle of some heavy

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Get the Morning Mindset every morning via Facebook Messenger https://manychat.com/l2/LiveBuildChange ***************** Get Daily Email Encouragement every morning in your Inbox http://careygreen.com/DE-List *****************
Find out more about Christian Life & Business Coaching http://CareyGreen.com ***************** Connect with the LIVE BUILD CHANGE Movement and Community Website: www.LiveBuildChange.com
Facebook Community: www.LiveBuildChange.com/FB
Email: Carey@LiveBuildChange.com