Philadelphia Church of God: How to Organize Your Life God's Way

you I am sharing with you what is probably the best article I have ever read on personal organization this is my copy of it this was in the PGR last July it's the July 26 2012 PGR I've read this article probably about ten times since it came out and you can see that my my copy is marked up pretty good I actually have it in a little slot next to my desk and I just pull it out every every couple of months and you may find it useful as well this is from the Worldwide Church of God leadership training series and it gives the spiritual perspective on personal organization that is extremely helpful it's very important to recognize the spiritual perspective and I think it's more relevant today than it has ever been so I'm just basically going to go through this article and and share it with you it begins here in this lawless perverse pleasure mad society in which we are living all of us as God's people must constantly grapple with the challenge of staying close to God in spite of the world around us Satan is the god of this world and he has arrayed the entire society against us to distract us and snare us as we seek to draw near to God and serve Him Satan is the world's greatest time waster and he has designed this society and this world to waste your time and your life it's easier to see this now than it ever has been look consider how urgent times are how much world events are fulfilling Biblical prophecy how quickly the nations of Israel are descending how rapidly Gentile powers are rising how quickly the world is changing and yet people are more deluded they're more caught up in pleasures in every imaginable distraction than they ever have been and there's this sort of haze there's a sort of fog of of deception over our world and it's getting thicker mr. Fleury talks about this in the America under attack booklet and he that booklet is just about how determined satan's efforts are to bring down the United States in particular in that booklet he he quotes mr. Armstrong talking about this communist plot against the United States and its really a satanic plot it really is Satan trying to undermine this country so it's a kind of warfare we don't understand or know how to cope with it uses every diabolical means to weaken us from within this is how Satan operates he goes after us in a way that weakens us from within sapping our strength perverting our morals sabotaging our educational system wrecking our social structure destroying our spiritual and religious life weakening our industrial and economic power demoralizing our armed forces and finally after such infiltration overthrowing our government by force and violence that's what's going on mr. Arendt or mr. florea in that booklet he talks about the fact that he whether or not it's communists that are doing that we know that Satan is doing it Satan has tried to do that and he's used every means that he can and he he does the same with us individually in our lives he tries to find ways to weaken us from within that's where the the big battle is waged in our personal lives this article how to organize your life God's Way says the world is filled with a glittering array of alluring sensually appealing diversions and material things which are calculated to devour our time our energy and our lives the reason I think this is so important this is bringing in the spiritual dimension this isn't just a matter of wow there's just a lot of different ways that you can spend your time this is a calculated strategic effort to weaken us primarily right it weakens this country it weakens the people in this world but the primary targets are God's people we're the primary target these things are calculated to devour our time and this article is it talks about the fact that this is the time where God's work has more power more means to spread God's truth we've never had such incredible ability to proclaim God's message to this world the tools that God has given us are absolutely spectacular and yet it's right now the article says Satan has increased the pace of society and jammed the frequency with materialistic distractions he has littered the world with every conceivable gadget activity pleasure and late-night entertainment to keep mankind active and busy quote unquote from the time he wakes up in the morning to the time he falls into bed exhausted late at night there is simply no time to stop and ponder the purpose of human existence and where all this is leading and it's talking about the world it's talking about the people that we're trying to reach with the websites with the key of David program with the magazines and the publications and all the other means that we have to reach people those we're dealing with a distracted world but as this article brings out the same applies to us if we're not careful we get wrapped up into that vortex of distractions the same as the people in this world do where we're not really thinking it's not really a thinking religion it's not really the deep things of God that are penetrating our minds the way they should it's not hard to see what this article is talking about I think about that lecture that I gave on sleep a little while ago was for the student body and just learning about how rampant sleep deprivation is like everybody is walking around kind of zombie like because they're only getting they're getting two hours of sleep less than they need every night how are we spending our hours and how much of what we're spending our hours on is actually important how much are we stopping and pondering what occupies our meditation time the previous paragraph in this in this article this is a really important statement this is the end of the second paragraph God's purpose for giving us life which is just a span of time is for us to build godly character everything in our lives that does not lead to that purpose is vanity it is utterly worthless that's a pretty clear perspective and it's one that it's easy to forget everything in our lives that doesn't lead to building godly character is worthless it's vanity let's just look at first John - this is middle of the first paragraph here the second or second column in this article it goes through a few scriptures here we'll just turn to a few of them first John - you know these verses but this is something we cannot forget that this is our priorities are established right here in this passage first John 2 and verse 15 love not the world neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world it's of Satan's world and again like this article said it's calculated to pull us away from God it's it's strategically created to undermine our spiritual linked life verse 17 and the world passes away and the lust thereof it's all going to go away but he that does the will of God abides forever this article says all of the interesting pleasurable pastimes of this world which Satan has set before us will pass away only the character we are now building will remain for eternity it also quotes there Matthew 6 and verse 20 24 which says no man can serve two masters you're rather going to hate the one and love the other or you're going to hold to the one and despise the other you can't serve God and Mammon you can't serve God and wealth and so if you say well I want to really love God and I want to devote my life to God then you've got to structure your life in a way that enables you to really devote your time to the things of God it's not easy to do that let's turn to Titus 2 this the next scripture that it uses here Titus 2 and verse 12 teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts okay this is where it starts denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly that word soberly if you look that up it comes from a word that means of a sound mind sane or in one senses so I mean you just think about the the party spirit and the kind of mindlessness that that exists in so much of the world this says soberly this means you're sane you're of a sound mind you're in your senses and the second meaning of this word is curbing one's desires and impulses self controlled temperate and really those two things are hand in glove and it's really the opposite of the spirit of this world teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope this is where our minds need to be need to be on the future it needs to be on the end goal that we're striving for and the glorious appearing of the Great God and our Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us think about his example think about how structured his life was there was never any moment in his life where he put his own desire above that of his father where he said you know what I just need a little me time I just needed to unwind a little bit the way that we do in this world today he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works this is what we're really excited about you know and if we live this way and this is what this article brings out if we're if this is the way we're living if these are our Gordy's we are going to stand out this really distinguishes God's people from everyone else in this world in quite a astounding way here's another quote this is the last paragraph of that second column some brethren still desire to be as much like the world as possible without actually being a part of it but they're kidding themselves in an attempt to be balanced quote unquote many spend hours watching TV going to movies shopping playing cards and games having a beer socializing shooting the breeze and just staying up late their standard for balance is the world's not gods and great amounts of time and money are wasted each week on such pursuits for no lasting purpose that's the first point of four that this article brings out of five six five five points the sixth is not a point but the this second point here is the solution really keep your life simple keep your life simple and it starts off with this wonderful analogy talks about David going out there to fight Goliath and it brings out the fact that at the point when David was ready to fight Goliath that Saul had been rejected God had rejected him and he said he was going to raise up a king after his own heart so in this example Saul was actually being used as an instrument of Satan and he tried to help David quote-unquote help him by burdening him down with all this armor that that was it was unwieldy it was heavy it was it wasn't right for David and David realized well you know other people might consider this armor helpful but this is actually a huge encumbrance to me this doesn't help me at all it just weighs me down all he needed was a slingshot and a few stones and God's help so he took off all of that armor all of that non-essential clutter he got rid of it this article says in the same way Satan has surrounded us with all kinds of material things to quote help us enjoy life while these things of themselves may not be wrong it is impossible for us to serve our Creator and at the same time to overly gratify our senses in seeking the creature comforts and pleasures of this world we must unclutter our lives we must unclutter our lives where's the clutter in your life where's the clutter some of the things that just think about the things that aren't getting done in your life and then think about some of the things that are occupying your time and ask yourself can you could you get rid of some of the clutter to make sure that the important things are getting done now this this article again this was this was for the ministry this was an article for the ministry in the Worldwide Church of God and you know the idea that they were distributing this information to I don't know what year this was that this that this one out do you do you have any idea mister leaf when they were distributing this to the the leadership training series now I think what they're talking about here if God's ministry had followed what this is saying if they had really devoted themselves to the work of God the way that this is talking about I mean what what power God would have been able to I mean any minister that applied it would have really brought a lot more of God into his life right as I would as I've been reading this and I've been studying this and it's been on my mind there was a point during the days of unleavened bread that I thought you know what I think everybody in the editorial department could could use this information how much more effective with the Department be how much more effective would god's work be if we applied ourselves in the way that this is talking about with the ministry keep your life simple i want to read a a couple of paragraphs from the orison Swett Marden book pushing to the front he said this one hour a day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits and profitably employed would enable any man of ordinary capacity to master a complete science I'll read that again one hour a day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits and profitably employed would enable any man of ordinary capacity to master a complete science one hour a day would in ten years make an ignorant man a well-informed man an hour a day might make all the difference between bare existence and useful happy living an hour a day might make nay has made an unknown man a famous one a useless man a benefactor to his race consider then the mighty possibilities of 2:4 yes six hours a day that are on average thrown away by young men and women in the Restless desire for fun and diversion and then mr. Martin uses this analogy on the floor of the gold working room in the United States Mint at Philadelphia there is a wooden lattice work which is taken up when the floor is swept and the fine particles of gold dust thousands of dollars yearly are thus saved so every successful man has a kind of network to catch the rasping Xand pairings of existence those leavings of days and wee bits of hours which most people sweep into the waste of life he who hoards and turns to account all odd minutes half hours unexpected holidays gaps between time and chasms of waiting for unpunctual persons achieves results which astonish those who have not mastered this most valuable secret he's just talking about treating time as the valuable commodity that it is time is life as we've heard many times this article references first Peter 2 and verse 9 which says that we're to become a peculiar people a holy people to God and it says we must take time to be holy it takes time to be holy the third point in this article is to put God first it quotes of course Matthew 6 and verse 33 seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness putting God first it says most of us tend to stay up too late at night and get up too late to really seek God first in the morning and here's where the world has it so upside-down it makes it makes all the interesting stuff happen at night you know that's when the sports happens and movies and parties and entertainments and we have these electronics we have all of these gadgets that we can keep on for hours after the Sun Goes Down when I was studying for that lecture on sleep I found this one set of tips on how to fall asleep if you're having trouble falling asleep and it said that one of the one of the things that gets us most wound up is screens like those the screen actually simulates the kind of light that you have the experience during the daytime and your brain thinks well wow it's still 3 o'clock in the afternoon even though maybe the Sun set four or five hours ago but you're staring at this bright glowing object and one of the things that it said is you avoid the television before you go to bed avoid the computer use before you go to bed cut off your internet access in the late night hours and even adjusting just adjusting your exposure to screens late at night can help you in there there was one one article that I read that suggested this app that actually turns your screen orange after a certain point it's like it kind of naturally simulates more of the sort of candle light actually I have it on my computer and automatically at when it when the Sun sets then my computer strip my computer screen turns orange and so there's like a it's a different kind of a light you can adjust the thing to like you can go fluorescent which is o or you can go to candle light or I forget there's like four or five levels you put it on the highest level it's practically like you're looking at the moon on the horizon at a distance when it's a harvest orange but it's actually it makes it so that it doesn't it's not stimulating your brain in the same way I've actually found it quite helpful if you want to find that app you can find that at stereo stereopsis ste our EOPS is comm slash flux FL UX if you want to find that I found it useful but this article says we should schedule our lives according to the daylight period as much as possible this is basic wisdom that that people have known for many years you know before electricity became so widespread when the Sun set you went to bed there wasn't a whole lot to do I mean you you can only sit and read by a candle for so long before your your eyes start to get heavy and you doze off what happens if the power goes out you know you tend to go to bed if it's dark you go to bed this says the early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise this is like this is what Ben Franklin said this is what people have been living by for a long time but it says today you are thought of as peculiar if you one go to bed early I'm putting in these numbers it gives five things here to get up early three avoid late night activities and entertainment four emphasize family type get-togethers and activities and five put prayer and Bible study before all else in our lives but this is precisely what we must do if we're going to finish this work and become members of the very family of God that's five excellent pointers right there this is like benchmarks for a godly organized life go to bed early get up early avoid late night activities and entertain emphasize family type get-togethers and activities and put prayer and study before everything else excellent excellent points and remember and this article brings out God's day begins at sunset the day begins at sunset that's very different from Satan's world in Genesis 1 when God was creating recreating the earth he said there was the evening in the morning and that was the first day it was the evening in the morning if you look in the Old Testament sacrifices when they would do the daily sacrifices the continual sacrifices they're called evening morning it would the first sacrifice was done in the evening because that was the beginning of the day let's just look at another verse it references Psalm 55 and verse well verse 16 as for me I'll call upon God and the eternal shall save me evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry out and he'll hear my voice so he says I'm praying three times a day and the first prayer is the evening prayer and then it's the morning prayer and then it's the noon prayer we have to begin to organize our day when the day starts which is in the evening this article says how we use our evenings will determine how the entire day will go for us we must begin in the evening to organize our day to seek God first again this is this is how to organize your life God's Way and his day starts in the evening so that's when we got to get ourselves organized and again this shows the importance of bedtime this says normally we should get to bed reasonably early and get up early so that we can wake up alerts zestful and ready to draw near to God each morning there are a lot of things in this world that are pressuring us to go to bed late but our ability to go to bed when we should go to bed this is almost like 0.1 on having godly character I need to go to bed this is what I'm going to go to bed because it it sets the clock for the everything else it determines how you feel when you wake up in the morning if you have it if you've got got enough sleep it's going to affect your prayer life most of all how alert you are when you're praying in the morning going to bed late really starts a bad cycle and it gives a couple of scriptures here that show Christ's example and how he would wake early to pray everyday the only time you ever see Christ staying up late is to pray that's a pretty amazing example so we we need to get most of our prayer in in the morning before all the pressures of the day start crowding into our minds this article suggests at least thirty minutes I set a goal with during the days of unleavened bread to get 50 minutes of prayer done before lunch like whatever I didn't do shy of 50 minutes in the morning I get done before I go to lunch just because I found that it's harder to do later on in the day it's hard it's harder for me to devote 20 or 30 minutes of time and prayer at the end of the day like I there's just too many things that interfere with my thinking and this article also suggests stewing part of your Bible study in the morning as well so that your mind is filled with God's Word when you're going through your day this will help us think God's thoughts rather than our thoughts it says but but remember the key to starting your day right is not getting to bed too late to get a good night's sleep and then the fourth point it gives here is schedule your time make a schedule to help you plan your time I'm sure most of you have have some kind of a schedule and this gives a sample schedule and I'll just point out a couple of things here notice that the paragraph right before that schedule begins this is on the fourth page of this article notice that the key note is keeping your life simple and uncluttered and putting things of God first and that's really the key to everything that we do keep it simple and uncluttered and put God first so notice here the schedule starts in the evening it has dinner and family time including family prayer and study it includes time alone with your spouse which is very important that's very easy to neglect in bed by 10 o'clock it includes seven hours of sleep it's probably better to get seven and a half or eight which if you want to get to but if you want to get up at five then you might have to go to bed earlier it includes time for prayer in the evening in the morning in the noon and at noon 15 minutes at noon and notice right after that it says 4 things 1 going to bed on time two getting up on time 3 praying and four studying are the basic essentials in organizing your time those four things this is a way of life make this your way of life and it's also really important it doesn't talk so much about this but also organizing your time that you spend at work becoming an expert at making the most of the time that you spend in the office we've talked about this a lot among the the managers or the supervisors in the editorial department but every day that you come in to the office come in with a plan come in with a plan for the day and every day that you leave you know if you can get the most important things done on that plan then you can leave satisfied with what you were able to get done you never wonder where the day went the basic the basic plan gets back to the very same principles that we're talking about in everything else here and that is get the most important stuff done first keep it simple focus on what's most important you know the the first thing that you do when you come in go after the hardest project that you have to do like I mentioned in a sermon recently it's it's very easy to get distracted on something that it's work you know it's it's something that maybe you should do or you have to do at some point but I if I just if I made my email inbox my to-do list I get emails constantly that it one email can I can spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half just dealing with that one thing and whether that's the most important thing the most really important crucial thing that I have to do or not it's almost never almost never is something that just pops in there the most important thing but it might be like oh oh I can just take care of that I can just do that in we all know what it's like to sort of go down the rabbit hole of those little things that you need to do at some point or maybe you don't really need to do them or somebody else could do them but they eventually the day is over and you just think what in the world where did my day go and those important things get sidelined again the principles of being productive at work are exactly the same as everything else that we're talking about cutting out the clutter eliminating the distractions doing what really is most important putting that first okay the fifth point that it gives here is to go to God for help what we're talking about organizing your life this is not an easy thing to do you recall Benjamin Franklin saying that he worked his whole life to organize his time but he never fully succeeded and it's it's difficult because you know what we're really up against we're up against our human nature organizing our life is a matter of basically bringing our human nature to task and we face a lot of obstacles and we are going to stumble but we do have God's help let's just look at Romans 7 romans 7 and verse 23 but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members this is something that with each one of us this is D railing us from getting the using the maximum using our time to the maximum this says we can make resolutions to use our time better but of ourselves we cannot do it realize that we must go to God for help you know John 15 and verse 5 where Christ says without me you can do nothing you can't do anything without God's help anything of any real value let's look at Hebrews 4 Hebrews 4 and verse 16 let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need this article says it is God's will for us to learn in order to to learn to order our lives around him God really wants this of each one of us this is his will and he will provide the help we need if we go to him for it but we must be in earnest and notice this we must go all-out to put forth the maximum effort on our part as well that's a really crucial point you know we need God's help but then we also have to go all-out inch in putting forth the effort mr. Hiyama talked in his sermon a week and a half ago about seeking a full reward actually having the spiritual ambition to run to win the prize to take first place that's all of our effort and it is it is a cooperative effort between us and God but let me just remind you of something that mr. Fleury wrote in the science of spiritual Fair article when you have to tackle a problem concentrate everything you have on that problem bring everything possible to bear on solving it do you lay siege to your big problems a siege is a military blockade of a city or a fortified place intended to compel it to surrender it is a persistent attack to lay siege means to pursue diligently or persistently how about preparing a siege against your laziness or your lust or sense of inferiority or vanity or whatever problem you face lay siege on it go right at the heart of it with everything you can muster destroy its will decimate your old man's will to rise back up and you will conquer it that is how we can win battles against our serious problems this has been one of the the big lessons that I feel like God impressed on my mind from the days of unleavened bread this year you know you just look at Jesus Christ's example and that guy he was not casually marching toward his reward he was exerting every ounce of energy that he possibly could to the point where he was sweating blood I've really been just meditating on those verses verses 3 and 4 in particular of Hebrews 12 the first four verses there but the third verse says consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself and then it says in verse 4 you have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin you haven't done that yet you haven't gone as far as he did he put every ounce of his energy into fulfilling the job that God had given him to do it was hard it was hard he was pushed right to the limits and I when I just evaluate myself or if I hold myself up to the stand up to that standard I think man I cave in way too easily if I just say oh I just don't have the energy it's too hard I just don't feel like doing this I give up too easily I haven't yet resisted unto blood I know of a few cases where you know maybe somebody like they came into the church and they've been a smoker for thirty years and God just one day took the desire away from them they just said god I just don't want to do this anymore and then God just the temptation or that that habit was no longer a desire I've seen a few people that were like that the rest of us it's not like that it's it's something that you really have to fight it's something you really have to work for I think about that sermonette that mr. burns gave where he he was talking about how he just prayed that God would help him to have the right attitude going into the basketball game and what did God do two seconds into the game he put the very thing that he was struggling with right in his face and said you deal with this I want you to make a different choice you make a different choice I'm not going to just pave the road and just make everything all wine and roses and bouquets and chocolate from this point forward you actually have to do something hard that was the the big lesson God is going to put us in that situation to test us and he wants us to show some backbone he wants us to make a better choice now maybe you you have laziness maybe a bad habit maybe the way you use the internet or some weakness in a particular area because you've made the wrong choice over and over and over you know eating Reese's peanut butter cups so I just can't help myself when I smell that delicious Reese's you can you can I fall asleep during prayers I can't help it yes you can and you must you have to do something different you have to make a better choice God says look I'm trying to bring you into my family I'm allowing you I want you I'm inviting you to marry my son so I want you to stand up and demonstrate some character that's what God is telling us let me just read a little quote here from up this was a sermon that mr. Armstrong gave in 1982 and he was talking about how how awesome how great it would be to become God and we make so much of this life and and it just doesn't amount to anything none of it matters compared to what God is offering us and we've got to get our minds on what really matters and he says I want to arouse you to think we've just been taking things for granted we've just been stupefied we haven't been awake I wish some of you would show a little more energy brethren I wish you'd get a little more earnest about this thing do you put earnestness in your prayers I think most of you don't know how to get stirred up into earnest it's going to take more energy more Drive more dynamic energy than that if I can put it in in my 90th year as I have been doing how much more could some of you do because he's 90 years old and he's looking around at all of these younger people and he's saying that's all you can do seriously can you imagine being shamed by a 90 year old who's so much more energized in his spiritual life could you stir yourselves up a little more than you have brethren I only say this because I want you in the kingdom with me and I to wonder how many are going to be there pretty amazing statement we know nobody can make it into the kingdom of God on their own energy but as we show God that we're really passionate about it and we really put some effort into it and he sees us working hard to structure our lives to put him first to be organized so that we're really using this short time that he's given us and we're battling those forces within us that want to give in to our baser desires or to be lazy or to not really pour ourselves into it battling those things putting energy into our prayers really prioritizing our relationship with God every single day and driving ourselves to go after him with all of our heart like mr. mr. Herman was talking about those those parables that Jesus Christ gave where he actually rewards us according to our works this is the our eternal reward hinges on what we're doing every day that's a phenomenal truth for us to keep in our minds and as God sees us going after those things and really devoting our energies into loving him and loving his family and and putting our hearts into doing our jobs in this work guess what he's going to amplify those efforts he's going to give us the help we need he's going to give us more spiritual power we're going to be more effective in our jobs one last scripture this is at the end of this article revelation 22 and verse 12 this ties in just perfectly with what mr. hammer was talking about revelation 22 and verse 12 and behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be this article says Jesus Christ is coming quickly to reward those of us who catch the vision now who are willing to change discipline ourselves and endure hardness as good soldiers of his those of us who will set ourselves to organize our time his way putting the things of God first in fervent prayer diligent study and regular fasting and who will begin to put on our spiritual armor stop making provision for the lust of the flesh and stop entangling ourselves in the Feres of the affairs of this life will soon receive our reward our full reward that's what mister here moe is talking about that's what Jesus Christ wants to give us a full reward not just scraping in so that we can be the doorkeeper but being right there in the headquarters temple ministering to our husband and serving as his help me for eternity this quotes Matthew 25 and verse 21 and it says this is what we're striving for men to have God say to us well done you good and faithful servant if we will organize our time in our lives God's Way we will enter into the joy of God's kingdom if we grow produce and really bear fruit now we won't just be in God's kingdom we will qualify for the highest reward that we can attain to in his kingdom

Channel: Philadelphia Church of God

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Length: 45min 53sec (2753 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2013