The Posture of Your Life

 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

You believe what you want to believe.

Belief is a demonstration of the posture of your heart. When your heart is directed toward God, you will believe what is clearly seen about Him and His love for you. When your heart is turned away from God, you will not believe in Him no matter how much you know about Him. Knowledge and truth do not lead to belief; the desires of your heart direct your beliefs. You indirectly direct your beliefs by directing your heart, and you direct your heart with time. Jesus took the time to come to earth and demonstrate God’s heart to restore humanity’s relationship with Him. Biblical history is an account of God giving mankind time to demonstrate His belief that He wants to restore mankind’s relationship with Him. It is often noted that the longest living man,  Methuselah (age 969) died in the flood waters as God gave people time to repent. The Egyptians were given 400 years to repent (the time Israel was among them see Genesis 15:33, Acts 7:6), and the Israelites were given 40 years to repent and Nineveh was given 40 days to repent. God gives everyone time to change their heart, and when their heart is changed, they will change what they want to believe (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-25). 

Prayer is a posture. 

You can pray without ceasing even when you are asleep because prayer is the posture of trusting God to work things out for your good. Prayer is doing life with God, which requires a heart that is stayed in God. you need to have the same mind that was in Christ—a mindset that doesn’t waiver from its focus on God. Even though Jesus was capable of doing life on His own, He continually humbled himself, not doing life by His own wisdom, but following the will of the Father in Heaven. The more you focused you are on making God’s will done on earth by doing life with Him, the more assurance you will have. And just as Jesus walked all the way through the cross and out the tomb, you can walk through the valley of the shadow of death when you are focused on God.

Your ability to lead is directly proportional to your ability to endure pain.

Leadership is primarily a posture of one’s life. The more zealous one is to a belief he holds, the better of a leader he will be. If your posture of leadership is to promote yourself, you will stop leading when life gets hard. The more you have the goal of serving others as your purpose for leading, the more pain you will be willing to endure because your experience does not change your goal. The earlier a person quits when pain arises, the more the vision was about serving self than serving others. If you are truly focused and determined to serve others, you will ignore the pains that try to pull you away from that vision. You decide what you are going to believe and how you will hold on to that belief as you continually posture yourself in a position of dependence on God.