Dean Alfange
My Creed
I do not choose to be a common man,
It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,
I seek opportunity … not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen.
Humbled and dulled by having the
State look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life
To the guaranteed existence;
The thrill of fulfillment
To the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
Nor my dignity for a handout
I will never cower before any master
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect.
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say:
This, with God’s help, I have done
All this is what it means
To be an Entrepreneur.
Self-improvement – Learning
The best results from Quality x Quantity
The Joy of anything…
Suppose our Lord had measured His life by whether or not He was a blessing to others. Why, He was a “stone of stumbling” to thousands, actually to His own neighbors, to His own nation, because through Him they blasphemed the Holy Ghost, and in His own country “He did not [do] many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58).
If Our Lord had measured His life by its actual results, He would have been full of misery. We are not here to win souls, to do good to others; that is the natural outcome, but it is not our aim, and this is where so many of us cease to be followers. We will follow God as long as He makes us a blessing to others, but when He does not we will not follow. The joy of anything, from a blade of grass upward, is to fulfill its created purpose—that we should be to the praise of His glory.
Reflection Questions: How do I measure my life? Do I use God’s measurements of faithfulness and godliness or the worldly values of popularity, productivity, and efficiency?
Oswald Chambers
My Pondering
Oswald hit the proverbial nail on the head squarely here, don’t you think?
Breathe, Believe and Battle
What does it take for evil to flourish?
My Pondering
Evil deeds are like weeds. It’s going to grow regardless because our world is infected at its core by sin. We read of this in the beginning of the Bible, right up front we fall.
But God saw us fit to continue. That He, and only He, could save some of us from ourselves.
On the other hand, flowers 💐 are delicate and beautiful. They take care to grow yet God sees to them, as there are both wild and curated types.
Have you ever thought about that sometimes even weeds look pretty and sometimes flowers look wilted 🥀 ?
This is the dichotomous conundrum of life.
Our call is to love all and do all we can. To live love and succeed in his eyes. I love this poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
If we each do our part we can count on God doing his and leave this world better for we lived love in it.
Joy maxed, life abundant
“Joy is the result of the perfect fulfillment of what a man is created for. It is continually necessary to revert to what the New Testament asks us to accept about ourselves. Our first accepted vocation is not to help men, but to obey God, and when we accept that vocation we enter into relationship with the despised and the neglected.
God is so immediately near and so immensely strong that I get more and more joyous in my confidence in Him and less and less careful how I feel.” – Oswald Chambers
So in other words, mine specifically: God created us, each and every person in His image. That includes you and I, should we accept the mission.
Therefore, we have attributes of God, at least on a micro scale. Our level of joy – to the extent we are fulfilled in living the ‘abundant life’ as Jesus spoke of in John 10:10, relates to the level we maximize our God given talent and potential.
This is accomplished chiefly by doing three primary things which are found in Scripture. They are:
- Loving, trusting and obeying God.
- Loving and helping other humans.
- Maximizing our time, talent and treasure while being good stewards of ourselves and our environment.
We best achieve the desired result when we employ a mindset in which we are dependent upon God, interdependent with others and strive to be independent from the tyrannical control of sin.
The closer we fulfill our purpose, the closer we are to God. Therefore, we gain max joy by living the abundant life; no matter what as described by Romans 8:28.
Conflict Resolution
Give… Luke 6:38
My Pondering
Givers gain and we can’t out give God.
He dares us to test Him on this, which is an exception to His norm regarding testing vs trusting Him.
Here are SIX keys to successfully giving:
1. Give to God 1st
then your… Savings 2nd, Necessities 3rd, Charity 4th, your Comfort 5th and last.
Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil
Exodus 23:19
to the house of the LORD your God.
This is concert with loving God first and foremost as our #1 Command
2. Give boldly and test God
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure.
Malachi 3:10
3. Give joyfully or don’t give at all
Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not out of regret or compulsion.
2nd Corinthians 9:7
For God loves a cheerful giver.
4. Give in secret
So that your giving may be in secret;
Matthew 6:4
and your Father, who sees in secret,
will give you your reward.
Don’t give for men’s praise but rather secretly for God’s goodness and reward.
5. Don’t be greedy and hoard
13Someone in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus, Luke 12
14But Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed Me judge or executor between you?”
15And He said to them, “Watch out! Guard yourselves against every form of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
16Then He told them a parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced an abundance. 17So he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, since I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and will build bigger ones, and there I will store up all my grain and my goods. 19Then I will say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry!” ’
20But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be required of you. Then who will own what you have accumulated?’
21This is how it will be for anyone who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God.”
6. Be a good steward of what God has entrusted you
8The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the sons of light. 9I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.
Jesus, Luke 16
10Whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11So if you have not been faithful with worldly wealth, who will entrust you with true riches? 12And if you have not been faithful with the belongings of another, who will give you belongings of your own?
13No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and money.”
Certainly there a other principles regarding giving but I think this is a good start. What would you add or takeaway?
Chance favor the prepared… Louis Pasteur
May we each see…
