Kenneth Olson.org

Under The Influence

I was thinking recently about how to live an effective life, one that fully expresses God's character and steadily accomplishes His purposes. The more I thought  about it, the more I realized it wasn't a matter of working harder or becoming more diligent - although, without a doubt, those are important attributes.  

What occurred to me, is there's a way to do life smarter, a lifestyle that leads to a more consistent, fruitful and effective life experience. It's interesting, just before the end of Jesus' earthly ministry, He said, "it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but If I depart, I will send Him to you." 

He was saying there was something better than Him being here in the flesh, something more beneficial for us personally, that being, of course, God the Holy Spirit. God in Spirit form, called inside us to give us a personal and distinct advantage in life!

In the process of designing our lives God never intended for us to live a single day apart from being Spirit-led and Spirit-empowered. His plan was for us to perpetually live under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Not some chemical substance, possession or relationship, but the Spirit of Jesus.

It's essential to live conscious of the indwelling Spirit, to recognize His mission is to super-empower you with wisdom and ability equal to, and greater than anything you might face in life!

Minutes, Hours, Days

Through the years I've noticed that I go through seasons where I reflect on my life and ask myself questions like, "am I living an effective life, am I true to my convictions, am I fulfilling my God-ordained purpose?" I guess it helps me to periodically be introspective about how I'm living, it gives me a reference point to re-calibrate not only my thinking, but my priorities also.

One thing I've learned, life is nothing more than how you invest your time. How you spend the minutes, hours and days gifted to you by God. It's vital to periodically take a break in the action of life and assess how you're using this most precious commodity. One of the most powerful things you can do is to daily take responsibility for the 24 hours you receive each day.

I love what Ephesians 5:15-16 says, Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposely, and worthily, and accurately...as wise (sensible, intelligent people), making the very most of the time. - AMP

I've noticed that when I talk to God about a miracle in my life, He talks to me about the stewardship of my time. It doesn't seem very exciting or look flashy, but what you give yourself to daily, determines your status in life. Do you ever wonder what your future will hold? Well, your future is created and predicable based on what you do today...and every day.

There are some things in life and the plan of God that can only be obtained or realized by what you do daily. No amount of praying or convincing God will get it done, only intentional, disciplined and focused use of time.

America The Harvest Field

I’ve been so inconsistent with blog writing over the past weeks, but not for the lack of a good reason. I’ve been laser focused on much planning and preparation as we gear up to take the next step for Authentic Life Church.

For some time now, I’ve been excited to dream of ways God is going to bless and move through our efforts to promote the message of Jesus.

 

I recently heard a statistic that less than 7% of those who live in the Twin Cities attend a Bible believing church. That’s a remarkable number to me! That means if we planted 50, 5,000 member churches tomorrow we would still only barely be reaching 10% of the Twin Cities population.

 

It’s easy to be blind to the fact that  America is one of the biggest harvest fields of our time. There are vast numbers of people who don’t recognize the Bible as a source of truth or Christianity as a relevant lifestyle.

If we are who we say we are, God’s people, our hearts should beat with a fierce desire to see people spiritually awakened. For people to come to know the timeless truth of His Son’s offering for sin and offer for a new life.

 

It’s time for us to be moved with a sense of urgency and compassion to do everything within our power short of sin to influence, compel and inspire people everywhere to live for God.

 

I’m beyond convinced that Jesus is already making preparation to gather the whitened the fields into His heavenly storehouse. Don’t forget, our ultimate mission is to serve in our Father’s field, to fervently laboring while there is still time.

 

For these reasons and more, I’m wildly passionate about the local church, about finding relevant ways to bring the message of Jesus in contact with people searching for true meaning, life-transforming power and unconditional love!

God-Ordained Opportunity

I've been thinking much lately about how God empowers us to advance in His plan for our lives. What we can do daily, weekly, monthly that will propel us to a whole nother level. What immediately comes to mind for me is the need to understand we're constantly surrounded by opportunities. 

In fact, your ability to stay on course and keep pace with God's plan for your life directly relates to your ability to see and seize opportunity. Someone once said, you pursue your God-ordained destiny by seizing God-ordained opportunities.

Sound easy, right? We'll, not always because opportunity seldom shows up on a silver platter with a self-help guide outlining five how-to steps to taking advantage of your opportunity. 

In my experience, God-ordained opportunity most often comes in the form of serving, giving, doing the right thing (especially when no one is looking), being diligent, being faithful, facing the tough issues of our lives, tackling the most difficult problem, overcoming our worst failure and never giving up.

But it's these daily and unlikely opportunities God uses to prepare and qualify us for promotion, increase and a whole nother level of His plan and blessing for our lives. 

I love what Colossians 4:5 says, making the very most of the time and seizing (buying up) the opportunity. - AMP

Activating Hidden Power

A couple weeks ago I came across a new word that I was intrigued by. It's the word nutrigenomics, a mouthful for sure. Nutrigenomics is a relatively new field of study in science where researchers are uncovering evidence that all human beings possess dormant genes. Genes that can be activated by the food we eat.

Scientists have recently discovered that eating the right foods enables the expression of certain genes in our body. Interesting huh? Spiritually speaking, there are things such as hidden potential and a greater dimension of God's power, that will remain dormant in our lives unless we do what is necessary to unlock them.

I believe the first thing necessary to activate these spiritual genes is to understand the power of God is available to us right now. The writer of Ephesians expressed that an unlimited and immeasurable supply of resurrection power would be available to and for those who believe.

Secondly, trade religion for relationship. Many people sacrifice God's greater potential and power simply because they're going through the motions. They are living out of ritual and past experience and never consistently connecting with the heart and Person of their heavenly Father. It's so important we seek intimacy and true heart connection with God.

Learn to die to yourself. Not a popular message, especially in America, but honestly, I think it's one of those missing ingredients to revival in the Church today. As long as we're comfortable and satiated with the carnal and material aspects of life, we'll not experience God's power. 

Sacrificing any craving or interest in your life that conflicts with the purpose of God seems counter-intuitive to the human intellect, but trust me, it's one of those higher thoughts and ways in the mind of God that's undeniably effective at releasing power in your life.

In the Kingdom of God, death always precedes life and an increase of power.

Lastly, prioritize God's purposes. Someone once said, God's power is never independent of His purposes. When we look beyond the temporal realm and base our decisions and choices on what matters eternally, we're prioritizing what's important to God. Said another way, when God's "A" issues become our "A" issues, His power will be available to get the job done!

I love what a minster who inspired D. L. Moody once said, the world has yet to see what God will do with, and for, and through, and in, and by the man who is fully consecrated to Him.

Sunday Reflection

Really loved our service yesterday, we enjoyed such a clear and pronounced presence of God. I love those times! There's something about being in God's atmosphere that helps you identify with His heart for you and others. It imparts His perspective and priorities.

For me, I was really overtaken by an experience of supernatural love for God's people. Call it a pastoral moment or whatever, but I truly have a deep commitment and love for those God has called me to serve. Hard to wrap thoughts around it or fully express it in words, but I can identify with something the Apostle Paul once said, It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart - Philippians 1:7 (NIV)

There's nothing like letting God's love in you for people, be the motivating factor of your life. That's my modus operandi for both life and ministry. Even preparing preach, I often pray, Father help me to love people through what you who have me to say and do. 

Love should be our truth north in every aspect of life. Scripture tells us, three things will last forever - faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of these is love. - 1 Cor 13:13 (NLT)

A Mentality for Success

In science there is a law called the law of entropy. It states that everything in the natural world over time tends toward disorder, decay and death. Essentially it's a scientific description of the curse of sin and it's effects in the natural world.

The force of death and defeat are so persistent in our world you can't afford to turn your back spiritually even for a day. This is so true when it comes to our thoughts. 

Without intentional effort it's easy for our minds to drift toward doubt, unbelief and playing out the worst-case scenario. This is exactly what the enemy wants us to do, to spend our time and energy envisioning limitations, what we can't do and how we're going to fail.

Recently, while on vacation, I challenged myself to make a shift in my thinking. I realized If I'm going to go to the next level of God's blessing and plan for my life I need to plant and cultivate some new thoughts. 

When I was a young boy I used to love sitting on an old, rusty tractor seat that was behind an old barn on my parents farm. Because it was shaded, many hot summer days you would find me sitting on that old tractor seat dreaming of my future. I would dream up infinite scenarios of what I wanted to do in life. I would think about all the different ways I would succeed and do something significant. 

That's  a good example of how God expects us to use our imagination. Instead of allowing our minds to run unchecked, dominated by past experience, our physical senses and playing out 1001 ways we're going to fail to reach our goal. I believe God wants our minds inspired by His Word, to run free with expectancy and creativity, imagining the possible ways we'll experience victory, breakthrough, and the dream in our heart.

Be sure to take time to develop a mentality for success, to dream and think of possible ways you're going to succeed in God's mission for your life. Resist and root out every thought and imagination of failure, doubt and defeat.

The Problem With Procrastination

Really enjoyed teaching this past weekend on The Problem with Procrastination. As I was preparing to teach, I was struck by how much the Bible has to say about this subject. 

Procrastination is actually a passive form of rebellion, a sin of omission that erodes at the foundation of our lives and puts us at risk to the enemy's devices. It clouds and confuses God's direction for our lives and diminishes His power to do what He's asked us to do. The devil loves using it because it flies under the radar of most Christian's and is effective at deceiving and de-stabilizing their lives.

I believe it should outright alarm us if we're viewing any part of God's Word or the leadership of His Spirit as optional, something we'll get to when we feel like it or when things settle down. James 1:22 declares, but be doers of the Word (obey the message), and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves (into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth) - AMP 

Procrastination actually has a pretty predictable pattern. When you delay in doing God's Word, your conscience begins to bother you and you are plagued by a sense of guilt. You then begin to justify and rationalize your behavior in order to control negative feelings. However, this only paves the way to procrastinate more and perpetuates the cycle, taking you deeper into deception and sabotaging whatever you want to accomplish. 

Eventually, you'll forget what God asked you to do and be unable to make the connection between problems your experiencing and what's causing them - procrastination.

Putting off to tomorrow what you can do today always comes with a cost. Missed opportunities, stress, sense of guilt, loss of productivity, creation of crisis, inconveniences to others and the most detrimental, in my mind, procrastination is a barrier to realizing your full potential.

I love hearing about success stories, especially the "rags to riches" kind. W. Clement Stone is a perfect example, he was the co-auther of one of the best-selling motivational books of all time, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. At age 6 Stone sold newspapers on the streets of Chicago to help his widowed mother pay the rent. At age 13 he had his own newsstand and later went on to found a multi-billion dollar insurance empire.

During his life he generously shared his formula for achievement and success and it allowed no room for procrastination. His message was, if you want to be successful, don't wait for tomorrow. Just do it now.

He would tell people, When you wake up in the morning, start with the phrase, do it now, do it now, do it now, do it now. He would tell people to repeat those words 50 times in the morning and 50 times before bed.

No doubt, he understood the greatest obstacle to achieving anything remarkable was procrastination. He knew that a journey of a thousand miles always begins with the first mile!

Jesus' Habits

All of us have habits, repeated patterns of behavior that shape us and produce a particular experience of life. So it was interesting when I come across a book recently, entitled The Jesus Habits, it outlines the life habits of God incarnate as He carried out His earthly ministry. It's quite interesting to consider His habits and how He choose to spend His time. Not doubt it was the reason for His power, effectiveness and the revolution that continues to this day!

There is so much we can learn Jesus' life, but even more by imitating Him. Ephesians 5:1 states Therefore by imitators of God (copy Him and follow His example), as well-beloved children (imitate their father). - AMP  Below I've listed the 31 habits or behaviors Jesus practiced throughout His life and ministry - Selah!

 

Seclusion

Building relationships

Worship

Touch

Confrontation

Prayer

Listening

Love

Using scripture

Challenging the status quo

Faith

Giving

Motivation

Obedience

Thankfulness

Honoring the government

Kindness

Acting like a man

Esteeming women

Fitness

Keeping your word

Asking questions

Having fun

Making family a priority

Handling criticism effectively

Fellowshipping

Living for a purpose

Using money God's way

Living by truth

Resting

Fasting

Spiritual Discipline of Fasting

Tonight I've been thinking about the spiritual discipline of fasting. I have to admit my spirit was energized at the thought of what God can do when we give ourselves to this powerful vehicle of God. The late Bill Bright said he believes fasting as it relates to prayer is the "spiritual atomic bomb" that God has given us against the enemy. 

Old Testament (old school) fasting was about putting on solemnity and being sober, trying to convince God to move in the lives of His people. New Testament fasting is all about aligning our lives with what God already wants to do. What He's already committed to do through the redemptive work of Jesus.

In the past year I've made a concerted effort to revive and more consistently practice this discipline in my personal life and like nothing else, it produces results! It brings my life into a peaceful, patient place of faith and positions me to receive what God has already given. When I fast:

• I hear God's voice more clearly and precisely
• My life is re-calibrated to spiritual things vs. "soulish" things 
• I cultivate a strong desire and spiritual hunger for God and His Word
• The reality of God's call on my life is heightened 
• Hindrances, weights, old patterns of behavior are broken off 
• The fire of God is kindled within me 
• Physically I feel refreshed and strong 
• I experience greater spiritual and mental clarity 
• Revelation knowledge of God's Word flows easily

As our church embarks on 21 days of fasting and prayer I'm excited about the possibilities it brings. I believe many will experience personal breakthrough and I'm convinced it will build momentum in our church and position us for increase and promotion.