Living Life in Abundance, Health and Prosperity -3

Abundance is a State of Mind, but It’s Also Planning and Acting

This is #3 in the series of GOALS articles I’m doing. Links to the other articles are at the end.

Abundance and the abundant life are terms that are kicked around like we knew what they meant. I’m ‘The Gospel Coach,’ and I know this is like the ‘gospel.’ Everyone has heard it but most are hard-pressed to define it.

Abundance is About Learning

Do you realize we can never run out of things to learn about? We live in what is called ‘the information age,’ and if you only look on the internet, you’ll find more things to learn about than you can imagine.

There is a saying I’ve always applied to my life, “If anyone thinks he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know.” No matter how smart we ever get to be, there are always people smarter, and things we could know more about.

I’m a lawyer and I like to joke: “I’ve been educated beyond my intellect.” Just because a lawyer is highly educated doesn’t mean they’re smart.

Learning includes having a focused mind. We’ve must focus on things that interest us. My wife Eileen is an accountant and has been for many years. She loves to work with numbers. I can’t stand numbers — they drive me crazy.

Even if at times I must focus on things like profit and loss statements, balance sheets, etc., I don’t like it. So I focus on what I like which makes learning easier. I don’t want to learn about numbers, so I don’t :-).

Abundance is About Being Grateful

There are basically two ways to approach life: (1) by grumbling, (2) by being grateful and thankful. No, I didn’t say to be grateful for what you have. I just said the key is being grateful in attitude, no matter what you have or don’t have.

We all want things we don’t have. We all want ‘more.’ It’s like we have a tapeworm inside of us that keeps us craving things we don’t have. The Bible calls this ‘coveting.’

I try to take daily walks when I have time and weather permits (I live in the state of Colorado, USA: “Rocky Mountain High” as John Denver sings — (‘the poet laureate of Colorado.’) I love the mountains and I walk viewing them and being grateful for them each time I walk.

We also have a wedding venue: EvergreenRedBarn.com, which is in the mountains, and I spend a substantial amount of time there too. Mountains make you grateful, just being in their splendor. The beach also does this for me. I look for things in God’s vast nature to be grateful for.

I’m grateful for so many things and just don’t like grumbling.

Abundance is Having a No-Limits Attitude

Often we think in terms of what we can’t do. I have never been mechanical. Eileen says I’m mechanically retarded. But I do several things well, and this is my focus and attitude in life. Psychologist Wayne Dyer has a book: The Sky Is the Limit.” The book is fairly good, the title is even better.

He has another book I like better: “Gifts From Eykis.” It’s about, negative, limited thinking we engage in and how to overcome it. He wanted to title it “Get Your Head Out of Your Anus,” but the publisher said no.

But his point is solid: the sky is the limit. We have no limits on our thoughts, and on what we can accomplish, except bad thoughts we produce in ourselves that cripple us more than enable us.

We are often our own worst enemy:

Abundance is Sharing Your Testimony

We all have a story or a testimony in life and we should be willing to share it more. People are touched by stories, usually more than by facts and figures. The Bible speaks of ‘the testimony of God,’ and ‘the testimony of Jesus,’ which is his gospel truth. I used to speak at a men’s testimony club. All they wanted was my testimony — my story about life. If I taught they fined me.

We all grow in life — either upwards or downwards — and I hope we all choose upwards. But the point is our testimony changes, so it never gets stale. I’m amazed at what I used to believe about the Bible 30 years ago. I’m amazed they didn’t put me in jail for lying. It wasn’t intentional: I was just ignorant.

But our testimony is simply about where we have been in life, where we have been, and where we are going.

I’m a singer. A song I like to sing (that I didn’t write) is: “Don’t Ask Me What I’m Gonna Be, Ask Me What I Am.” People want to hear the good stuff — and the bad. I’m suspicious of testimonies I hear only about all the GOOD stuff God does. I think it leads a lot of people into a false perception and expectation. Yet, this is what ‘sells’ on T.V.

Abundance is About Active Exercise

I’m a firm believer in this, even though I do less and less of it. 25 years ago I was ‘power walking’ about 5–7 miles a day. No one passed me up except the runners. Then it decreased to just 5 miles. Then 4 miles. Then 3 miles. I still do about 2 miles a day which takes me about 40 minutes. And a lot of people pass me up. I used to do a 15–16-minute mile. Those days are gone.

We can all only do what our body allows, but push your body too.

The point is that only a 30-minute nice walk a day is deemed to be sufficient for most people to keep them at least fairly healthy.

Abundance is Dreaming Big

I’m sure you’ve seen some articles about how our dreaming is just too small. We make it too easy to accomplish and don’t push ourselves here either. I’ve always been a big dreamer, and I’ve accomplished a fair amount. Have I done all I could do? NO!

I’ve never done one thing in my life I couldn’t have done better at. And I have not done one thing in my life that someone else hasn’t done better.

But this doesn’t really matter. We just need to compete against ourselves, not about each other.

The Bible says if we compare ourselves to others we’re not wise. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t COMPETE, but just don’t COMPARE. We are all so different in everything in life. Comparing is a fruitless endeavor.

Abundance is Health and Prosperity Thinking

As ‘The Gospel Life Coach,’ I focus on this a lot. The Bible tells us if we simply believe and live God’s gospel truth, that health and prosperity is much more likely to occur than if we don’t.

This doesn’t mean life will be great — a bowl of cherries — a rose garden.

Jesus promises we will have (1) problems in life, and (2) problem-people in life. We are all sometimes more easily offended than we should be.

The Bible even speaks of suffering. I loved my brother Tim, but he died of a heart attack almost 20 years ago as write this. My daughter Shawn has a tumor in her abdomen that has resulted in heart surgery. This should be happening to me, not to her. I lost my mom to lung cancer. I understand suffering.

But the more we live the way God says to live in his gospel, the more health and prosperity we experience. This doesn’t mean living by law (as the Gospel Coach this is far from my mind). In fact, the Apostle Paul says we need to live as being DEAD to the law. If we live by it, we’re under a curse today.

Abundance Is Taking Inventory of Reality

All of us have more than we think we do. But psychology says most of us live in what is called ‘a deprivation mindset.’ We live life looking at shat we don’t have opposed to what we do have.

The song says, “Count your blessings instead of sheep.”

Most of us have a lot more to be grateful for than we do to grumble about. Sure, we all can grumble. There are things we want to see changed for the better in our lives. We all pray for ‘a better life.’ It’s just human nature. But it’s also true that life itself is a gift to take inventory of.

Abundance is Living in the Gifts Jesus Offers

Jesus offers us his unconditional love, not dependent on what we do. Jesus offers us the gift of hope. Jesus offers us the gift of faith — even his faith, not just ours. Jesus offers us peace — with God, that produces peace with others.

(And as a P.S. to this, we are told that knowing God’s love in us eliminates fear to a large extent, and produces more faith in us. What a good deal).

And Jesus offers us GIVING: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Yet the GOSPEL talks so much about us receiving from God.

You see, God knows that what we receive is what we give out. God is smart! He knows if he plants apples in us he won’t raise pumpkins — if he plants love and faith in us, this won’t produce fear and anger.

“Pay it forward” is a common expression. We are not meant to be a reservoir. Jesus calls us ‘rivers of living water.’ We are a flow, not a cistern. ‘The Dead Sea’ in Israel is dead because no water flows out of it. We can’t be like this.

We should focus on the positive things of the gospel. If you’re not spiritual-minded then the gospel is not your ‘bag’ as it is mine. But none of us are islands in ourselves. We all RECEIVE from something.

There are three aspects of enjoying life to the fullness: (1) We need to RECEIVE all God gives to us, which is his whole Kingdom. (2) We need RELGATE what we receive in our own lives. (3) We need to then RELEASE what we’ve received to others.

The Apostle Paul says, “The LORD make you increase and abound in love one toward another.” First, God gives us his love if we will simply receive it. Then we ‘INCREASE’ in it. This is relegating it to our lives and filling up with God’s love until we’re like a balloon so full we are ready to pop. Then we ABOUND over onto everyone else we can — we release it to others.

It works this way with all of God’s limitless gifts. Love is just an example.

We’re told that it is by means of the GOSPEL, that we plant good ‘fruit’ — good things — into the lives of others. Thus the Apostle Paul defines the gospel as ‘good news of good things.’

My TESTIMONY (from above) is just that the gospel of Jesus has produced so much ABUNDANCE in my life that I want to share it with others. “PAY IT FORWARD.” Jesus says, “You have freely received, so freely give.”

We can't focus on poverty, and on grumbling and on coveting what we don’t have. And we all lack, according to someone we know. Or we can focus on prosperity and health and all the other good things the gospel freely gives us.

I choose the latter. As we lawyers say, “The defense rests its case.” Jesus says, “He who has ears let him hear.” We all have ears but don’t all hear the same way. Thanks for listening to ‘The Gospel Life Coach.’

PREVIOUS ARTICLES ON GOALS: Goals Introduction Goals 1. Good Goals 2. Offer