Today @ The Gathering we brought our current series, “Inspire Greatness” to a conclusion with the message, “You Attract What You Are.” If you wonder why you don’t have stronger friendships and better people in your life, ask yourself this question: “Are the people around me a reflection of me?” What you’ll find if you’re honest, is that you have around you the people that have been attracted to you because you’ve been sending out a certain message. For example:
- If you have people around you who seem calm and collected on the outside, but all fretful, worried and paralyzed by fear on the inside, you’ve attracted ducks. That’s what ducks do don’t they? They look calm floating on the pond, but underneath their little feet are working feverishly, tirelessly.
- If you have around you people who are constantly back-biting and gossiping about each other; if relationships are constantly broken and in need of repair, if someone always is angry and pouting, then maybe you’ve attracted parrots. Parrots are birds that repeat what they hear. If you have gossipers and repeaters around you, maybe you yourself are a gossip. One of the hardest things to face is to realize one day that you are the person who has caused the turmoil because you have spread the lie or a half-truth.
- If you have around you people who have every reason to be thankful, but no power to be so, then you’ve attracted turkeys. Turkeys are the only ones who have to die in order to attend the Thanksgiving Day celebration. In other words, if you’re around people who have found no reason to be grateful, who have a victim’s mentality, it may be that’s what you’re displaying.
On the other hand, if you gather people around you who are inspiring, who bring out your better angels, then you’ve attracted eagles. We talked about the three ways in which you attract good people into your life.
- By becoming a practical model. That is, you model the kind of behavior you seek. That’s what we do as followers of Christ. We have two motivations: love and generosity. We’re teachers at heart. We’re not selling anything. We’re not trying to force people to change or comply with a code. We’re people who are motivated by love. We want to set people free. We want to be generous. We model the behavior that is consistent with who we are in Christ.
- By becoming a practicing mentor. A mentor is a model who you’ve brought close. Models can be people you read about in the Bible or in books, people you’ve seen. But mentors are people who are right around you. They are the people you ask into your life, who come close to speak into the way you spend this precious thing we call life.
- By becoming a principled motivator. The Scriptures tell us we are to spur one another on. A spur is what a cowboy uses to get his horse to advance. A lot of people misread this verse and think that what we’re supposed to do is spar, to argue, to separate, to nag, or to compare. We’re to spur one another on to love and good works. These are the things that motivate us.
The genius of how Christianity has changed the world is found in these three principles: the principles of modeling, mentoring, and motivating. Each one of us is called to carry out these activities. We are called to be models of what it means to be loving, generous, and godly; to be mentors, to engage, to ask people to walk with us, to submit to their counsel, their advice. And also do that for others. We’re to be connected to each other. The simple purpose of The Gathering is to connect people to God and each other for the purpose of changing the world. This is a simple strategy. That’s why we specialize in God simple, not church complicated.