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Here’s a torch You matter and you have a role to play as Jesus’s ambassador to a world whom He loves. This world desperately needs to experience the tangible Goodness and Grace of our Lord and King. And He lives fully and completely in you! (Galatians 2:20). This concludes the first series of entries on this topic. I would value and welcome your comments on how what you have read has impacted you so far. Thank you. Yours truly, Brandon Farr. #leadership #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livingpurposefully #discipleship #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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Paying attention matters Because... The more substance you have to share the more relevant your influence can be. The world is groaning for Authentic and True. Get real with yourself and deal-hard with the things that hold you back. The clock is ticking There is no time left for excuses and mere-intentions. You have the full measure of God in you and there is nothing that is beyond the transformative scope of our Blessed Holy Spirit. Your life will be defined not by the circumstances you were born into, but who you chose to be in the face of the circumstances you encounter! #leadership #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livingpurposefully #discipleship #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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Find your Pearls. Learning how to love when it’s difficult is so valuable because there will inevitably be difficulty in the pursuit of meaningful things! Difficulty isn’t the enemy, the things that cause you to stop when it’s difficult are. For the benefit of the people you will share with, It’s really important to clearly identify very specific details in your process as you expand further into, and embrace the Freedom and Power God has called us into, through His son Jesus. Your experience is needed People will need to hear your message on how to be a disciple after Jesus, and the power of your testimony will change lives. I recommend you focus on removing the impediments to your success. Pay attention to what they are, as it has very practical applications. Im sure you have already discovered, or will shortly confirm that so many of these impediments are common to most of us. Meaning that your efforts to produce Christ-centered solutions are practical and useful - and yet another thing to share! #discipleship #leadership #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livingpurposefully #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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A healthy approach. Notice my approach is not to go after the problem I face, such as “getting my wife to agree with me”. Nor am I asking God to change my circumstances (Thank you Brother Lawrence). I am asking Him to lead me and heal my limitations that keep me from being in complete submission to what my Lord would have me do no matter what that may be. If He can mature me, then my circumstances will cease being a problem and evolve into opportunities. I can promise you that He will always prefer Loving-well over executing on a plan or idea. The latter must never overshadow the former. #leadership #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livingpurposefully #betheexample #discipleship #raiseyourstandards

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The darker side of the same coin. Remembering always that we can also renew our mind to the wrong things! Anything that Jesus shares with us should resonate through the Holy Spirit with the written word of God and the Holy Spirit in our trusted circle of friends and community. (If it doesn’t, then set it aside. - Especially as you start, play safe and take a conservative approach to what you do.) As you become familiar with an exchange with Jesus, over time your confidence and the complexity of your understanding will grow accordingly. Don’t rush this, just do your part by being diligent. Remember that He is alive so consistency and dependability matter to Him as they do to us. #leadership #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livingpurposefully #betheexample #discipleship #raiseyourstandards

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Homework as an adult Because the next step is to take the new truth and as John 15 tells us, “Remain in my words”. I make a point of reading the truth at least once every day for about a month. Usually by that time I can rehearse most of the list by memory, and the truth has had a chance to sink in. Thus I am participating in “Being transformed by the renewing of my mind”. That Paul speaks of in Romans 12. But why share? The sharing is a very important detail as well. I get the opportunity and the motivation to develop real, healthy, and sincere relationships with a select group of people. It causes me to regularly engage in community on topics that truly matter to me. I get to experience knowing people as well as being known, and it helps me stay on track during the process of renewing my mind. #leadership #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livepurposefully #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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Capturing the value When I was satisfied that I had received complete answers to these valuable questions, I would then submit them for review to someone I trusted as an intentional act of vulnerability and then accountability. Homework as an adult Because the next step is to take the new truth and as John 15 tells us, “Remain in my words”. I make a point of reading the truth at least once every day for about a month. Usually by that time I can rehearse most of the list by memory, and the truth has had a chance to sink in. Thus I am participating in “Being transformed by the renewing of my mind”. That Paul speaks of in Romans 12. #leadership #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livepurposefully #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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My answer to this question: I will prefer you in anything, and I will lay down any plans and ambitions I have in submission to you except??? Things I believe God has called me to do. Why? Because I believe I have a destiny to fulfill here on earth, and It’s my responsibility to do my part. Why? If I don’t do my part then I will have missed my chance to do what is right and I will have failed to fulfill my purpose. What’s wrong with that? I will disappoint God and myself What’s wrong with that? I can’t bare the idea of seeing myself as a disappointment, and I can’t be seen as a failure to the Lord who has paid such a price for me. He did his part, so I need to do mine. Why? If Im a dissapointment or a failure I will lose my place of belonging with Jesus. (Bingo-Here is my broken belief system!) Now we unpackage the gift. So even now, as I unpackage this real life example for me it’s clear that 1. I need to get clarification from Jesus around how He perceives me and responds to my failures. 2. I also need to clarify whether my beliefs around disappointments are aligned with His. 3. I can almost certainly say, that because all of this culminates in an insecurity around my belonging with Him, that my perspectives are way off. Responding to what we discover. So this is what I would ask Jesus: 1. How do you see me when I fail? 2. What is failure to you? 3. What do I need to learn about your love for me when I do things that are disappointing to me or you? 4. What do you have to say about the stability of my belonging with you? 5. What specific encouragements do you have for me when I chose to prefer others in spite of believing that I know the right or the best thing to do? 6. How do I limit myself if “I can’t bare to see myself as a disappointment”? #leadership #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livepurposefully #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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Hold on a minute. I want to clarify before going further, the following is a real example of an internal limitation I placed on my relationship with my wife. Because a spouse is one of two covenant relationships that we are likely to make in our life, I place it in very high regard. For the example that follows, If it was not my closest of neighbours, I would not be as flexible in preference to just anybody for something as valuable to me. #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livingpurposefully #livewithgratitude #leadership #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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Look for the exceptions. Here is how I begin to look inward. For material things it’s as easy as asking yourself a question like this. I would let you borrow anything of mine except “this” or “that” ... Then ask yourself WHY? Then ask it again “Why” or “What’s wrong with that?”, for a total of about 5 Whys/Whats. This strategy should get you to the core of the matter. Go on a hunt to discover your own limitations. It is there you will discover the probable places where you will chose to withhold Christian principles to preserve your current perceived valuables. Here are some other questions to help start self discovery: - You can take anything from me and I will forgive you… except… - I will stay in this relationship so long as… - You can do anything to me except… #betheexample #raiseyourstandards #livinggenerously #livecourageously #livepurposefully #livepurposefully #inspiredagileministries

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What the Man did. If Jesus would have lived like I was living He wouldn’t of been able to look past the offence of his treatment in so many instances - never mind the cross. This is the same cross where He was able to declare “Father forgive them they know not what they do”. (Luke 23:34) Jesus didn’t use his expectations of how He should be treated dictate who He would chose to be. If there is a perspective in your life that is keeping you from being able to respond graciously and lovingly even in the face of a terrible injustice - you must for the sake of Jesus, deny yourself and lay to rest that set of expectations! #betheexample #raiseyourstandards #livinggenerously #livingpurposefully #livingwithgratitude #leadership

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Rewind. Hit the rewind button back to Jesus. If He says in (Matt 5:21-30) that what goes on inside a person defines the nature of a person just the same as their actions; Adultery for example is no longer solely an act of the body but an act of the inner-being towards another - separate and apart even from the others participation. And 1 John 3: 14-17 tells us that hate = murder. Therefore we it is important to realize that our inner world matters a lot. No Biggie What I am saying here looks like facing things such as the command to Not Hate, and rearranging your inner world so that’s actually possible. Unwind yourself and see what would be required to ensure you “don’t/can’t” hate someone no matter what. To begin with, I discovered that I needed to stop viewing myself as too valuable to be mistreated - Because Jesus didn’t! I needed to let go of “I don’t deserve...” and my expectations around what “I do deserve….” So long as I regarded myself with expectations about who I was, what I deserved, and concepts of what I needed from others, I was a ‘walking blame factory’ and I was just waiting to partner with the Devil's plan to bring dissension into valuable relationships, and hate into my life #leadership #discipleship #livingpurposefully #livinggenerously #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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Life used it's baseball bat. Thankfully, Life and it’s challenging circumstances helped me to realize that first and foremost my expectations needed to die and get out of the way!- But not just small expectations, Core ones. Expectations that I held as non-negotiable tenets of my human experience. *What I am about to say does not mean that these good things aren’t good and desirable. I will go so far as to say that they should exist as a part of a healthy community. What I am going to address is what happens when they don’t come to pass, which is where my willingness to love ran out. (otherwise known as excuses and justifications). It’s embarrassing to admit. It used to seem reasonable to me to expect to be be treated nicely, especially by my family, friends, and church community. I still think it’s ideal if that happens. But…. what happens when it doesn’t??? For me what used to happen was an internal retaliation that sounded something like “you CAN’T do that!” or “You Shouldn’t Do that - it’s not right!” What happens next was the devil's twist: But because you did… Then i’m off the hook for my responses to you! I can resent you, I can withhold from you, I can allow thoughts of malice to fill my head. (remember - your heart is already full of the Holy Spirit - so you can’t fill it with garbage, it’s just your head that’s under your jurisdiction). #leadership #discipleship #livingpurposefully #livinggenerously #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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Here are some things I discovered along the way: I started with the belief that to deny myself was to be willing to lay down my life - Literally. I imagined extreme circumstances where my faith was at gun-point or there was a child in the middle of a busy street that needed to be saved. I wasn’t ready for the reality that while those circumstances do exist they are too rare to be the standard by which I can live by. I instead came face-to-face with the reality that living “prepared to lay down my physical life for Jesus” wasn’t all that was required of me. #leadership #discipleship #livingpurposefully #livinggenerously #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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Money isn’t the answer to life's problems… Perspectives are! Mark 8:34 from the Amplified Bible: Jesus called the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me]. It has come to me by great surprise that to deny myself is less about actions and more about doing the hard inner work of changing perspectives and denying my impulses. To be honest I could not of imagined the struggle it has been to travel to the end of myself in my inner-world - It’s just so personal! The way I see the world is tied to the center of my belief systems, so changes here come at a real expense. I am advocating that the cost is well worth the Glory that will be revealed! #leadership #discipleship #livingpurposefully #livinggenerously #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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What’s the contingency? What follows next is to address what happens when the intended mutual exchange doesn’t go according to Gods plan, but instead falls short, which unfortunately is all too common. Regardless of the circumstances you face, In Christ you can accomplish and fulfill your part of the great exchange of Love. You are not subject to the actions of others so as to be dictated a course of action outside of the living example of your Lord. Be blessed and be a blessing In Jesus Name. #leadership #discipleship #livingpurposefully #livinggenerously #betheexample #raiseyourstandards

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When the tires fall off. What we need to discuss is when this exchange breaks down. What is implicit in these commands of Jesus to Love, is that there is no limitation to them. Be patient except… be kind until… be gentle unless… does not exist in our holy scriptures. The Lord leads us by example in (Phill 2:8) - being obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross, and frames the command for us like this. “Be faithful even to the point of death” (Rev. 2:10). The Tip of the arrow A point worth noting is that there is no “out” for the generous commands of Love in Corinthians or in Ephesians, or James or Thessalonians, and that some of the primary attributes of love are “patience, perseverance, long-suffering, keeping no records of wrongs”. All of this tells me that Jesus expected there to not only be wrongs, but for them to be long-standing. Otherwise there would be no need for ‘Long’-Suffering! A gift we receive from the Lord is the promise He gives us of attaining Perfection and Completeness that comes through the door of Perseverance (James 1:4) Therefore be steadfast!. Suffice to say that the prize is worth the effort! #leadership #discipleship #livingpurposefully #livinggenerously #betheexample #raiseyourstandards