Be Rich in Good Works
What are your goals for the new year? Are you focused on obtaining more things or do you want to obtain more lasting wealth? I encourage you to consider a personal goal that is of more value than material wealth. Focus on obtaining the kind of wealth that will provide you with a firm foundation for your future. Wealth that no one can take away from you. Try to be rich in good deeds.
Goodwill
1 Timothy 6:18, 19 suggests that performing good works is how people add to their spiritual treasury. Good acts create positive equity, a reserve that sustains them in the future. Through good acts, a person can grab hold of life. This is how they can make life more abundant. By performing good acts a person intentionally earns an asset referred to in accounting as goodwill. Goodwill is your established reputation. It's yours and no one or thing can arbitrarily destroy it. It does not succumb to market pressures. You alone decide when and where to use this reserve. Invest in your reputation, in yourself, in your future.
Be Content
Some people view success as the accumulation of material things. They will do anything to obtain them. This kind of desire to get rich at all costs often results in people doing harmful things to others and themselves. It may sound counterintuitive in our present culture but contentment in having the essential needs of life satisfied is the real success. Understanding and appreciating the real moment in which you have obtained success allows you to enjoy the abundance that exceeds that moment. Be content with the success you have obtained so that you don't compromise your principles to obtain the excess that should be a blessing.
Pursue the Finer Things in Life
The advice to avoid the pursuit of money in favor of pursuing loftier goals is repeated throughout the Bible. The admonishment to readers is to become the type of person upon whom material wealth is not wasted as opposed to the type of person that is wasted by material wealth. Wealth can ruin you, that is if you are not prepared to receive it. That is the story of the prodigal son who demanded his inheritance before his father had the opportunity to fully prepare him to receive it. He left the guidance of his father and squandered it all. Seek to adopt these higher ideals first and then you will be prepared to receive every and anything that may come afterward.
By Their Fruit you will Know Them
The character traits of a good character are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Adapted from Galatians 5:22, 23)
The higher ideals that are worthy of pursuing are the traits of a good character referred to in the Bible as the fruit of the spirit. A person's character is represented by the tree and their character traits by the fruit. Fruit are the perfect symbol for the product of growth. They are the enticing, edible vessels for the seeds of the tree. A person of a particular character will produce particular character traits that are attractive to others. This results in the reproduction of the same character traits within them. As this cycle of reproduction repeats it will result in exponential growth in the number of people who have these traits. So much so that you might just call them a kingdom.
Visualize your Ideal Character
It is helpful to visualize anything you are seeking to achieve. Visualization is a simple technique of creating a strong mental image of future goals. If your goal is a good character, visualize it! In Chapter 14 "The Sixth Sense" of the book "Think and Grow Rich" Napoleon Hill describes a process he used and called Creative Imagination. He visualized a council of 9 men whose lives and life-work impressed him. They embodied his ideal of success. Nightly he spoke with them as a council with the intent of having them guide him in rebuilding his character. His process is very similar to a religious person's prayer life. Christians for example have God and Jesus Christ as their ideals of characters. They also presumably have years of practice in prayer, council meetings with God. They need only to direct the focus of their time with God to direct requests for guidance in obtaining the desired character traits. They would find, just like Napoleon Hill's experience with his imaginary council, that God will direct their path.
Be a Doer
The human brain is a highly complex system of hardwired neural connections that control all of the activities of the body. These connections are made throughout our lives through learning and experience. By adulthood, they are well-established networks that determine how we respond in particular circumstances. The neural connections are formed and strengthened through repetition. The brain automatically follows these established paths which is why habits are so difficult to change, however, these neural networks can be reconfigured. These changes must be made in the same way the initial connections were formed, through repetition. You have to identify the moment that your brain chooses a particular course of action. This needs to be repeated until this new way of reacting becomes the default course of action for your brain. You can't just think about the change you have to be a doer in order to imprint the change as a new neural connection in your brain. So as you seek to adopt new character traits and root out undesirable ones you must deliberately prepare to identify the moments that the new traits must be used and use them. Be a doer.
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