<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n You have two choices in life, it seems to me: one, be a taker, the other, be a giver.<\/p>\n The takers are easy to spot.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen them, been abused by them; some of us are even married to them: people who just seem to wander aimlessly through life, taking what they need without regard to why they need it, or without the feeling to give anything back.<\/p>\n In this series, we\u2019ve been talking about living beyond the level of mediocrity.\u00a0 It\u2019s at this point that mediocrity becomes easy to spot and well-defined.\u00a0 The person who is a taker, self-centered, selfish, and makes life all about them will always live somewhere in the mediocre middle.<\/strong> They never awaken to the fact that life is a gift, that our Creator created us in His image so like Him, we could make something of our lives.<\/p>\n Anyone who understands a life well-lived, understands that generosity is at the core.\u00a0 People who are generous succeed.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve said many times, life severely punishes the lazy but lavishly rewards the diligent.\u00a0 The diligent are those who get up and pour into life, who give of their time, talents and treasures to make something of themselves; to connect to other people who are making something of themselves.\u00a0 The only question that the giver has is, \u201cWhat is my noble cause?\u201d<\/p>\n A noble cause can be defined this way:\u00a0 A noble cause is anything whose motivation is love and whose ultimate mission is freedom.<\/strong><\/p>\n Two things I\u2019ve found to be true in my life and the lives of others are: love is the power that truly sets you free and, once you\u2019re set free by love, life begins to expand and open up limitless possibilities on how you too can love others for the purpose of setting them free. <\/strong> Free from what, you might ask?\u00a0 Well certainly political freedom is important.\u00a0 Financial freedom seems to be essential.\u00a0 But I am talking about a freedom at the core of our soul where we\u2019re set free from fear, doubt, and the dread that life has no meaning.<\/p>\n This morning we talked about the importance of the four loves.\u00a0 These four loves are so important, I think you need to download the podcast, and listen to the mp3 here online to really understand what it means to express the four loves.\u00a0 Remember what we talked about: the love of self for self\u2019s sake, the love of God for self\u2019s sake, the love of God for God\u2019s sake, and the love of self for God\u2019s sake<\/strong>.<\/p>\n We also talked about the three freedoms, and there have to be three.\u00a0 Just like a milk stool needs three legs to stand up, freedom needs three important understandings to truly be freedom.<\/strong><\/p>\n We ended with the Renegade mantra: Live free, have fun, change the world.<\/em> This is what all of us crave and what we blossom under when we live it out every day.<\/p>\n Make sure you join us next week for Easter<\/strong> as we begin a brand new series called HOW: Learning how to close the gap between belief and behavior. <\/strong> During this series we\u2019ll give you practical steps on how to put feet on your faith.\u00a0 Also be sure to sign up for our Gathering 4 Guys<\/a> beginning April 6th<\/sup>.\u00a0 I announced today where we\u2019ll be meeting.\u00a0 And also check out our \u201cMaking Marriage Fun Again\u201d<\/a> web site and register for this live event on April 30th<\/sup><\/strong>, just a little over a month away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You have two choices in life, it seems to me: one, be a taker, the other, be a giver. The takers are easy to spot.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen them, been abused by them; some of us are even married to them: people who just seem to wander aimlessly through life, taking what they need without regard … Continue reading “Today @ The Gathering: I Will Serve a Noble Cause (or wander aimlessly through life, bored, broken, beat-up and bitter)”<\/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\/1750"}],"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=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i355.photobucket.com\/albums\/r472\/barbaramcgee\/flyers\/ANML_Icon.jpg\"){kind=icon}
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