{"id":1489,"date":"2010-02-21T15:19:40","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T21:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.185.166.32\/~davidfoster\/?p=1489"},"modified":"2010-02-21T15:19:40","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T21:19:40","slug":"today-the-gathering-%e2%80%93-accept-no-mediocre-life-i-will-be-the-real-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/today-the-gathering-%e2%80%93-accept-no-mediocre-life-i-will-be-the-real-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Today @ The Gathering \u2013 Accept No Mediocre Life: I Will Be The Real Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s not hard to see we live in a world filled with posers, pretenders, and power-hungry people.\u00a0 Every day we meet people who are trying to sell themselves as what deep down they are not.\u00a0 Let me tell you that after working with thousands of people over a lot of years, there is no joy in posing, or pretending, or trying to be something you\u2019re not.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the road to excellence, you must understand what it means to be fully present and living up to your full potential.\u00a0 So today at The Gathering<\/a> we talked about being the real deal.\u00a0 Being real means that my identity is not in what I have achieved,<\/em> but in my core relationships<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The foundation of every good life is a relationship with God.\u00a0 As a Christian I believe that it\u2019s only possible through the Messiah, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 He alone has loved each one of us as we are, not as we ought to be.\u00a0 His love redeems us from ourselves and from a future more dark and horrible, that even the word \u201chell\u201d doesn\u2019t describe it or do it justice.<\/p>\n

As a follower of Christ, my identity is in the worth that God has placed on me, not on the work that I do; on His love, not on what I am able to own, control, or manipulate.<\/p>\n

Today we talked about living in the pathway of real<\/em>, understanding these four essential ideas:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It is God\u2019s love alone that sets my worth and worthiness.<\/strong> God loved me while I was still hostile toward Him.\u00a0 He chose to pursue me.\u00a0 He is the lover and I am the loved. His love and sacrifice has made me worth more than the world can ever understand, and worthy to be called a man of God.<\/li>\n
  2. My self-worth, then, sets my self-image.<\/strong> I see myself through the lens of God\u2019s love, not through the labels or comparison of those around me.<\/li>\n
  3. My self-image sets my self discipline<\/strong>, which simply means that how I see myself is how I choose each and every day to behave. I see myself as a generous, kind, and loving person.\u00a0 I see myself as a man of faith.\u00a0 I see myself as a one-woman man.\u00a0 This is how I am, and this is how I demand that I behave.<\/li>\n
  4. My self-discipline then sets my self-respect.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Here is a truth that very few religious people will tell you and you will hardly ever hear in church: while you can never, ever earn God\u2019s love, you have to earn your own.<\/em> You\u2019ll never feel good about yourself doing the wrong thing.\u00a0 When you betray the very principles upon which your life is held together, you feel bad.\u00a0 You should<\/em> feel bad. It\u2019s called guilt.\u00a0 And it\u2019s a good thing that drives us to God for confession, cleansing, and restoration.<\/p>\n

    Keeping it real in the world as it is means at least these three things:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. I will live with no secrets.<\/strong> While you don\u2019t need to tell everyone everything, you always need to tell God the deep, abiding things of the soul.\u00a0 It\u2019s called confession.\u00a0 You weren\u2019t made to live with secrets with God.\u00a0 It only cuts you off from His joy and His power.<\/li>\n
    2. I will live with no grudges.<\/strong> This simply means that I\u2019m going to love the way I\u2019ve been loved.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to give away what I\u2019ve been given.\u00a0 God has treated me with grace and generosity and I\u2019m going to treat other people the same way.\u00a0 Again, my self-discipline \u2013 to love people who hurt me \u2013 is set by my self-image; not by what they deserve.<\/li>\n
    3. I will live with no limits. <\/strong> The Bible teaches us that God is able to do far more than we ask or imagine.\u00a0 So I won\u2019t allow my life to be lived by the limits of my past behaviors or people\u2019s judgment of what I\u2019m capable of.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      As the Scriptures say, \u201cIf God is for us, who can be against us?\u201d\u00a0 Let me paraphrase it this way.\u00a0 “If God is for us, who cares about who lines up on the other side against us?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      It\u2019s not hard to see we live in a world filled with posers, pretenders, and power-hungry people.\u00a0 Every day we meet people who are trying to sell themselves as what deep down they are not.\u00a0 Let me tell you that after working with thousands of people over a lot of years, there is no joy … Continue reading “Today @ The Gathering \u2013 Accept No Mediocre Life: I Will Be The Real Deal”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}