Is the resolution working? Then try this

Is the resolution working? Then try this.

  They say the percentage of people who achieve their resolutions are about 8%.  You may be thinking this is going to be one of those blogs that will fire me up to work harder to achieve my resolutions or one that reminds me that I have failed once again. I can throw out statistics that say if you do A+B=C every time (yeah sure it does, NOT)   you will do better.  We have been smothered with work harder, do more, do it better, that when we fail we say, well I guess I am just can’t change.  Well we do know if we quit we do not have to measure up to everyone else that seems to be succeeding.  One reason I love the gospel is that I was not good enough, and Jesus fixed that problem for me! No more having to do better, I get to do better!  You don’t have to do better at whatever your resolution is, but you get to do better if you want.  Don’t compare your problem, your progress or your success to someone else.  We all move at different speeds and handle things differently.  If you have ever taken a DISC profile you know that we have different personalities, and react differently in life situations. One of the animals they use to describe different personality types is a lion for the strong type A personalities.  For the more stable and lower keyed faithful types they use a golden retriever.  We all know that a lion and a retriever will react differently and handle things differently.  Neither personality type is wrong, they are just different. We need all the different types in our lives! 

So what should you try?  Whatever your resolution is write it down and create steps, baby steps, to achieve it.  Don’t make it to large, such as I am going to get my finances straight. That is very broad because you are dealing with, saving, spending, getting out of debt, paying off the mortgage, retirement, college etc.  That can overwhelm you when the Christmas bill comes in and it will make you want to quit on your resolution.   Start in one area, if all of the areas overwhelm you. Start with just a budget. Write down everything you will spend and try to trim those numbers. The big thing is to try and stick to the number you determine to spend and track it. A budget takes about 3 months to begin to work right, so stick to it. Make sure you spend what you save wisely, savings or applying it to debt.   Sit down at least once a week and see how much you have actually spent vs. what you have written down.  Depending on your personality, you can either live on the bare necessities or trim things slowly but surely.  The more you sacrifice the faster you reach your goal. But if you don’t like the idea of going too fast you may sabotage yourself and quit before it works.  Go at a speed you can handle.  You did not get into the financial shape you are in overnight and you will not get out overnight.  Be patient and take one step at a time.  Let me know if you want my help.

     Let me know if I can help!

Tim West

Go West Coaching 1-11-14

Tithing, offering and giving part 2-what is the right amount?

Tithing, offering and giving part 2

Last week we learned the difference between tithing, offering and giving.  Tithing is the giving of 10% of your income to your local church that you are a member of.  Offering was that which is presented in divine service; an animal or a portion of bread or corn, or of gold and silver, or other valuable articles, presented to God as an atonement for sin, or as a return of thanks for his favors, or for other religious purpose; a sacrifice.  Giving is the bestowing of money, time or something of value to you to someone else in need.  I will try to answer, in this blog, how much we should give to God.  As Christians we want to be obedient to God and honor Him.  We humans love to have rules, because we feel like we are doing what is good and acceptable to God when we follow them. We also set up an unwritten rule that God likes you more when you follow all of the rules.  This is our default mode, to follow the rules better than others and make God smile at me more than you.  There is probably not an area in our lives that we do not do this, but I will talk about the money part.  First the idea that we give God money is insane. It’s His money, which he gave us the intelligence, ability and resources to acquire and manage it for Him.  God needs nothing, He is self-sustaining. God needs nothing from us, but He lets us give, because He is a giver and made us in His image. When we are giving it gives us a break from thinking about ourselves.    Also as far as the rules are concerned Jesus fixed that issue for us, He followed all of them, perfectly, and we got the credit as if we done it ourselves and He got the punishment that we should have.

 When it comes to managing Gods money for Him, it starts with the tithe.  Our tithe should be giving 10% of our income to our local church where you are a member.  Yes I heard the next question, on the gross or on the net.  I would ask you the question, what’s in your heart to give? Tim Keller states in his book Counterfeit Gods- ‘I’ll tell you why you don’t see the tithing requirement laid out clearly in the New Testament. Think. Have we received more of God’s revelation, truth, and grace than the Old Testament believers, or less?’ Usually there is uncomfortable silence. ‘Are we more ‘debtors to grace’ than they were, or less? Did Jesus ‘tithe’ his life and blood to save us or did he give it all?’ Tithing is a minimum standard for Christian believers. We certainly wouldn’t want to be in a position of giving away less of our income than those who had so much less of an understanding of what God did to save them.

  So where do we go from there?  The tithe should be a starting point or the minimum standard as Tim Keller states. He gave it to you to manage and gives you a clue of what to do with the first 10 percent.  If a Christian is sold out for the purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ, they will give up every endeavor and pour all of their effort into it, worshiping Him. They would also manage their resources that He gives us to manage into where He directs us.  Don’t get to upset none of us starts totally sold out for Jesus.    Heck Peter, the rock which the church was built upon denied Him three times.   When we are afraid of giving because we might need the money, we obey what our bank account says. When we make money an idol we make it an ultimate thing. When we put money in this position it becomes everything to us such as security, joy, peace and comfort.  We can fear because we base our security on what we see in our bank account (idol.)  As Dudley Hall stated, the best way to fight poverty is with generosity.  Once you give a lot and see your security, well-being, joy peace and comfort is not in your money you can give and not worry.  If you have a clinched fist with your money, none can get out, but none can get in either.  Remember, if you have not met the mark in your giving, Jesus met it and you get the credit for it.  This doesn’t mean that we do what we want with His money and resources. If God has done a work of grace in your life and your relationship is growing with Him you will want to give not because you have to because you get to give.   We get to give something acceptable to God because Christ death burial and resurrection made it acceptable to the Father. So never let your lack of giving make you think God is not going to bless you because you are not following the rules.  I don’t care how much money you get none of us will ever receive anything close to what Jesus gave us. With that said I think God has fulfilled Malachi 3:10. As far as the most famous question in tithing, do you give off of the gross or the net, the answer is give it all for the gospel! Although this takes time for us to let loose and live our lives this way, we are always a work in progress.  The deeper our relationship with Christ the more he opens our eyes to see more of what He has for us.  My eyes need opening more, and He loves us too much to let us stay the same.    So start where you are, give and enjoy your life because all of your debt to God is paid in full.  He saved us from Him to Him.  We can now live without fear and enjoy participating in subduing the earth.  Let’s give all we can and keep seeking Him and learn to enjoy what He has done, and what He is going to do.

     Let me know if I can help!

Tim West

Go West Coaching

Doing it for God?

 Doing it for God?

  When a person feels like they have found their calling they often feel like that’s what God has put them on earth to do. We feel like we need to do this for God.  I believe that our calling is a wonderful gift from God, but a lot of times we make that our god. We use our calling to define our identity and not who we are as Christians, sons of God. We as men, especially, shape our whole life around our work.   We look to our calling to bring us happiness, fulfillment, peace and joy. Our calling cannot hold up under this kind of pressure, it is not made to carry that kind of weight.   We want Gods power to push our calling on to the next level, to be better than everyone at what we do. Doing your work with excellence is what we should do, but if our work is not worship to a most holy God, we may have the wrong motives pushing us to succeed.  Don’t worry if you’re His child He will fix the problem so that you do not continue on that path.   We may not even be in our calling and we just try to add His power to where we are and say we are doing it for God.  I have, more than once, determined that Almighty God is self-sufficient and doesn’t need me or anyone to “do anything for Him.”   “Jesus didn't come into the world to lend His power to already existing appetites. That's the fundamental mistake of the prosperity gospel. Leave people untransformed in what they crave, and simply add the power of Jesus as the way to get it. That is not the gospel. It is a kind of acclamation that Jesus walks away from. John Piper” So one might ask; what needs to be my motive?  Do I have to do anything with the talents God gave me?  Shouldn’t I use the talents He gave me?  Am I just wasting my talent and passion?  I struggle with this a lot.  But, God will always lead us to where he wants us, teaching us a lot on the way. Humans default mode is generally, we have to do things in this world to earn approval of man. We carry this over in our relationship with God and assume we have to do everything in our life to earn Gods approval.   I have found out that I do not have to use my calling as a way to earn “God points.”  If I mess up it does not do well with man here on earth but Christ purchased my standing with God.  I am accepted and redeemed!  With that in mind this frees me to pursue my God given talents and passions as worship and not as a system to earn a smile from God. Our standing, as Christians, with God is the same as in Christ’s standing with the Father.  I don’t have to work at my calling to be accepted, I get to freely pursue the joy that it brings in my life and if I fail God sees me the same, accepted! The great thing about failure is that it teaches me to win by pursuing my calling in a new way or moves me on to where God wants me.  So, if you are a Christian, you can feel free to take the risk of your calling. If you mess up along the way, and you will, its ok you have nothing to earn with God.  Jesus took care of that for us!    Christ made our work acceptable to God as worship.  So let’s go out and worship with our work and enjoy our talents and remember that God uses our work to bless us and help others! Our calling should be used to worship God not to make God smile. Jesus made Him smile for eternity and we can enjoy it forever.   You don’t have to work, you get too!!      

     Let me know if I can help!

Tim West

Go West Coaching

The problem with Freedom

The problem with freedom I know it sounds strange, that a problem would exist if you are free. I believe that we, as Americans, have a problem with freedom. The problem is that we do now know how to live free! We say we want freedom of speech, freedom from an oppressive government, freedom in our finances, freedom to do work we love, freedom of religion and so on. When we think we have these freedoms we subconsciously begin to go back into bondage in these areas. I believe with true freedom there is a responsibility to make the best choices we can, not the easiest choice. The best choice is the one that leaves us free to prosper. I have come to learn that freedom is not free or an easy choice to make. It cost you something, but the cost is well worth the payment. We think freedom is easy because we define it as doing what we want, not what is best. When things get hard, because we made a difficult choice, we begin to go back to the easy bondage that we were used to before. Take your finances for example; suppose you want to become debt free and you decide to stop using credit, save money to pay for purchases and pay off your debt. We start off like our hair is on fire to reach that goal, but when it doesn’t happen quickly (six months, one year or even two years) we start feeling trapped, we feel like we will never have anything or do anything fun again. Before you know it all you are looking at is what you cannot do without realizing that by paying off your debt. You are becoming less of a slave to the bank you borrowed your money from. You free your money up when it no longer belongs to the credit card company. Proverbs 22:7 says “The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender.” That does not sound free at all. We also do this in our careers, I want a job where I can do work I love and be free to do work that matters. Maybe we decide to open a new business in an area that we love to work and serve others. We jump off into it on pure emotion knowing this is what God called us to do! Well maybe He has called us to do it but we believe just because God called us to do it we cannot fail. We make our calling our god and plan poorly without counsel. Before you know it bills are coming in the way you thought money would be coming in and you panic and decide to quit. You run back to the job that you were in bondage to before. You think it just wasn’t meant to be. Everyone else can do it but me. Remember freedom is neither free nor easy, it is hard and costly, but the return can be out of this world. Don’t give up on what you have been called to do, create a plan, make mistakes, change the plan, and make a bunch more mistakes, keep changing and tweaking the plan till you reach your goal. It will probably take longer that a couple of years, this life of freedom is a process, and it is exciting, crazy, tragic and beautiful. Look at all of the ups and downs the Israelites had going from slaves in Egypt to the “Promised Land”. It was tough but they were learning how to be free. Finally, how about being a Christian. Jesus came to the earth to set us free from the wrath of God. He came and paid the price so we could live free indeed in the Kingdom of God, and enjoy Him forever. Now look He done it for us and we still mess it up. Christ came and lived the perfect sinless life, paid the debt we could never pay, gave us credit just as if we had done it , even though we could not have. What is the first thing we do when Jesus saves us and frees us from the penalty of sin? We start doing good works to try and earn what is already counted as ours. Instead of doing good works because we get to do them, we think we have to do them, earn it, and we enslave ourselves in a works mentality that He died to free us from. We live like if we do enough good things God will like us more. If we work up our faith muscle enough God will smile more at us. If I pray more and read my bible more God will like me better. If you are a Christian He looks at you and sees Christ weather you are doing the disciplines or not. Don’t get me wrong the disciplines are good for you, but we need do them because we are free to do them and not because we are earning righteousness that only Christ can earn for us. There is a joy when you do something because you want to instead of because you have to do it. Go do the hard things that others who don’t want freedom choose not to do!! Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. Ronald Reagan For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. Nelson Mandela Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. Alexis de Tocqueville Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. John Quincy Adams “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ― Benjamin Franklin, “Freedom lies in being bold.” ― Robert Frost Let me know if I can help! Tim West Go West Coaching

Tough Times or Learning Opportunity

Tough Times or learning opportunity If you are human you go through tough times and problems. Dozens of books have been sold with techniques and principles to help you avoid them. But, somehow we still have tough times no matter what advice we follow. If you are a Christian, like me, we sometimes have been led to believe that if we try hard enough or believe more we will be rescued from trouble and tough times. In the book, When Hard times come, Dudley Hall says God doesn’t offer escape as His solution to difficulty, but rather grace. The grace provided through the gospel of Jesus Christ embraces trouble and transforms it into a display case for Gods glory. That is one thing I need to do is embrace trouble and learn to grow from its training. We should look at our tough times as training; instead we view them as an obstacle we cannot get over and begin to count it as an injury and walk with a limp. We make excuses such as; I will save money when I make more. I will look for work I like better, when the job market improves. If you listen to the news as your indicator of when things get better they never will. Bad news makes the headlines juicier. We think everyone who has reached the levels we want to reach did it without many problems. Something encouraging, for me, was Dan Millers Living Loving Working, Dan and Joanne share a lot of problems they faced that prepared them for what they do today. I want to encourage you to look at the problems you have today and recognize that no matter how long you have been going through them that you are getting the strength to handle the success you have been dreaming of your whole life. Another thing I have to recognize is that you are either going into a trial, in the middle of one or coming out of one. Professional athletes don’t have to get in shape one time for their whole career; they have to do it every year and battle through the injuries. Don’t just focus on the problem but on where you are going. If we focus on the problem, that is all we see and it becomes an idol. Keep on keeping on and learn from your tough times. Also share them, it helps us who are going through similar issues and gives us hope!! As Dennis Peacocke says “Power is guarded by Problems.” "The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears." Let me know if I can help! Tim West Go West Coaching