“How long, you whose lives have no purpose, will you love thoughtless living? How long will scorners find pleasure in mocking? How long will fools hate knowledge?” Proverbs 1:22
The last few days or weeks the Lord Yeshua is showing the opposite of what it takes to be successful. In other words, what do you need to do to be unsuccessful or not successful? In my years of really coming to understand the Lord and who he is and what he expects. He shows me things on such a deep level, using my own faults and mistakes I made that he corrected. But also in watching other people and the mistakes they make. Because the simple truth is that our decisions are what makes us and breaks us. There is no exception.
Our decisions affect the three main things in our life, our health or lack of. Our wealth or lack of. And our spiritual life or lack of. In my post, telling what Yeshua shows me, all these things are discussed or will be. But today it is simply about what to do if you want to not be successful.
As I write this, I have a young man in mind, a relative of sorts. Over the years I have talked with him about success and the opposite what makes you unsuccessful, even using examples. Making the point to him, do you want to have what my wife and I have, or what these other people have or how they live? I used examples of men who are almost my age still living at home, getting drunk and high and do not have a thing. Obviously he said like my wife and I.
So I would tell him simply, then you must stop doing what they do and do what I do. But either he never got it or really did not care, or believes this lie you can keep doing the same thing and get different results, the definition of insanity.
So the things he does, summed up. First he does not care about nothing. Give him his phone to surf the internet and a I-pad and he is good. Second, find a job which requires little effort and just enough to get by. Do not think about future things one might want to save money for. Instead spend what little extra money you have now on silly things.
Like having a personal taxi pick you up and pay $500 pesos to get somewhere instead of $20 pesos and walk a little. Order in food from ubber instead of grocery shopping and cooking yourself. Have a car sitting in the garage you have not driven in over 2 years because you are too lazy to get plates for it and insured to drive, a fairly expensive one at that. Wear your hair long, with ear rings and tattoos all over, looking like a bad guy. One that a person judges as not trustworthy simply because of how he looks.
Do not pay attention to anything. Leave your keys and billfold and clothes just wherever so you cannot find them when you need them. Spend your time when you have down time trying to find entertainment instead of doing things to gain a career. Gossip with people about nothing except gossip. Watch TV and spend extra money to go to movies. Play video games, go out drinking with friends. Travel as much as you can… Anything and everything except working on a career and to be smarter or have more wisdom. Do not worry about eating right to take care of your health, just enjoy the trash foods at will. And for sure do not spend anytime alone with God listening to him and then obeying what he shows you to do.
I am missing a few things, but you get the idea. Because successful people do the opposite and get good results 100% of the time. While men who practice what he is doing get bad results 100% of the time.
Successful people tend to be boring to most people, because most people are not successful and choose entertainment over personal development which will help their relationships, business or sales… The successful pay attention to the way they look and how they dress, wanting to make a good first impression. They also want to look good for their spouse and keep the sexual relationship strong. Plus they want to be pleasing to God and keep their body subject to him as well, which then also takes care of their health. So they also research things to make sure they are good in that respect.
Successful people also ALWAYS pay attention to the fruit they are bearing. Is the outcome of their actions keeping you in peace, are your finances in order, is your family relationships good, is your business good and making money, yet at the same time you are not idolizing the business and success but only see it as doing the Lord will?
A little on that from what the Lord showed me a few years back. He pointed out the story of the talents, and made it clear the three men were managing the masters wealth. It was not theirs, but they were to grow it for the master. We must keep this view point with the money and wealth we accumulate, it is not ours. When we die it does not go with us and it does not buy our way into heaven. It belongs to God and stays with God, although we also get to enjoy the fruit of our work.
A simple example using real estate, being it is my career. I have learned that buying some cheap piece of land and building a cheap home is not going to grow your wealth much at all if at all. Where buying the right land (location, location, location) will grow your wealth. I shared the story of where we live these days, in a nice oceanfront condo, custom made and unique. Because of deals I made and how it was done, I have about $200,000 in a condo worth about $500,000. When I die it does not go with me, but the views and sunsets we have are amazing.I get to enjoy it, and grew what God gave to me all at the same time, instead of spending the same $200,000 on some small property in a bad neighborhood without a view, because these days you cannot get much for $200,000 dollars.
Keep in mind to be able to do this, it took a lot. It was not a simple little gift for nothing. It took many years of working on building up relationships to the point where the right people trusted me to make this happen. To understand the cost to build (even though the cost went through the roof with inflation when we were building). And the actual work over 2 years of building it, dealing with workers, materials and money… It was not easy and involved a lot of stress at times. All things which made me even stronger and better in many ways.
This is how the Lord works, how his system works. He expects us to hear him and obey him, then do what is right and not looking at how much you will make and how wealthy you will be. It is almost like you are on the outside looking in on someone else and how their wealth grows. And you are amazed.
Another story is how I used to be an investment advisor, and when I lost that career it dumbfounded me. I thought what a waste it is. But now I know it was not a waste, although I can no longer manage money for other people, it is invaluable to me with investments and advising other people. We really do not need an investment advisor taking a lot of fees from us. We just need to pay attention to things instead of going to happy hour and or watching movies and sports on TV wasting our time.
As an example about 5 years ago in 2020, I invested in silver. I had read and seen many times over how it is used in industrial things like solar panels, AI, robots, car batteris… Many conductive things. And this is up and above just being a form of money and jewelry. On top of it with the lock downs and printing of money through the pandemic I know inflation would soar and it did.
Both silver and gold have done very well over the past 5 years with gold out performing the first few years, but now we are running out of silver and there is a serious squeeze going on and silver is up over 150% so far this year, up 10% or $8 dollars on friday alone. If it repeats or does even better next weer, which it could easily. We might be up 200% this year. It just seems to be gaining steam daily instead of selling off. And there are many reasons for this, ones I have learned because of spending time researching these things, listening to people smarter than me, but also not just accepting what they say but doing my own research also.
So in doing this, I get to watch this small amount of money grow significantly. I only have about $15,000 invested, and last week it went up to $79.39 from $68.98. This increased my position by $6,650 or about 44% on my initial investment. That was in four days as we passed christmas. I knew it would do this, and I know it is not over yet either and to let it run. I will know when it will be time to take profits, if that day ever comes. It is fun to watch your investment grow like this, knowing the effort or work you put in to make it happen, same with the condo and all our real estate investments over the years.
The fruit I am bearing is because of the things I do, not because I am lucky. It is choices the same as the outcome or lack of good fruit the young man has, is because of his bad choices. But I also know these things will not go with me when I die, and they will not buy my way into heaven. However I also know I will be judged favorably because the talents God gave me, I grew and more than doubled. While I kept my eyes focused on him and his will and not focused on the money. In other words it is not about the money and or wealth, it is about the process and learning the skills to grow it. Those same skills are what God will use to give you your position in heaven (assuming you get to heaven as most will not). Because the man turned 4 talents into 8 he will hear the Lord say “‘Excellent! you are a good and trustworthy servant. You have been faithful with a small amount, so I will put you in charge of a large amount. Come and join in your master’s happiness!’” Where the one who had one and hid it will hear “‘So you knew, did you, that I harvest where I haven’t planted? and that I gather where I didn’t sow seed? Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, so that when I returned, I would at least have gotten back interest with my capital! Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten. For everyone who has something will be given more, so that he will have more than enough; but from anyone who has nothing, even what he does have will be taken away. As for this worthless servant, throw him out in the dark, where people will wail and grind their teeth!”
My prayers daily are always about doing the Lord will at the highest level, growing his Kingdom in his way. Making sure I do not fall and do it wrong. I want to be a blessing to him, and my family in all ways. Celebrating the success achieved because I do it right in him by making my decisions in him. He is perfect and anyone doing what he says will also be perfect in him. You cannot fall short in him, it is not possible. We fall short when we do not abide in him and do it our own way because we ignore his voice or do not even think we can hear him in the first place to listen.
Living your life according to his perfect way will bear good fruit, good to get into his Kingdom and good to have a good way to live life. As it is written, the second half of the life of Job was better than the first, and so it is with me. We both learned many things going through some seriously tough times (mine self inflicted, Jobs were not). But in the end that is why Yeshua died, so that no matter where you came from you can be forgiven and made whole. No matter how bad you were. YOur salvation is not about how good you were your whole life, the sins are gone the moment you are truly born again into the Spirit. But the truth of being born again is you hear and obey God until you achieve righteousness. It is not because you simply believe or said a prayer or did confirmation, or whatever nonsense your man teacher tells you and you believe in. It is not easy.