Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
Beyond Criticism
Developing self-discipline might be one of the most overlooked aspects of Christian growth. While we eagerly embrace God's promises and blessings, we often miss our responsibility in the spiritual transformation process. Danny Mac unpacks this crucial truth through scripture and a compelling personal story that could change how you approach your daily habits. Take control of your thought life and you might be surprised by the abundance that follows. Give it a try—God will bless your efforts, and the results might transform more than just your day.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mac. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax and let me help you start your day right. I'm going to tell you I am so glad that I have God in my life. He is such a good God and I'm so glad that he loves and accepts me despite all of my weaknesses. Yes, god is good to us all of us and as Christians, god also works in our lives to help us learn to do and be what is the very best for us and for Him. We sometimes forget that two parts of the relationship. We always remember what God says about what he wants to do, the good things that he wants to put into our lives, but we sometimes forget about the fact that we are responsible as well to change our lives. We are to, as the scripture says, renew our minds to change our thinking, but we're also to develop some discipline into our lives. So we are to, as the scripture says, renew our minds to change our thinking, but we're also to develop some discipline into our lives so that we can live as God wants us to Over. In 2 Timothy, chapter 1, verse 7, it says God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline. If you look over in the fruit of spirit, in Galatians, chapter 5, it talks about self-control. Self-control is self-discipline, and sometimes we think that it's God's job to make us self-disciplined when in reality it's not. It's our job. It's our job to learn how to discipline our minds and our lives and our actions so that God can work in us.
Speaker 1:I came across a story from Catherine Marshall that tells us about this. You see, she had a problem common to most of us. She found it was way too easy to be critical of others. Well, one morning, as she meditated on Romans 14, verse 13, the Living Bible says don't criticize each other anymore. Well, catherine became aware of the Lord nudging her not to be critical for one day. Of course, she tried to shove it off, but she couldn't get it out of her mind. So she tried to rationalize her critical attitude. After all, aren't we to use the intelligence God gave us to analyze and evaluate, even though the result is not always positive? But still, this nudging continued right through the debate, going on within her mind until she finally agreed to give the experiment a try, but just for one day. She would fast from criticism. For most of the morning she kept wondering what the result would be.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, the lunch with her husband and friends was normal, except for the unusual silence of one person, catherine. She had not committed to silence, just to not criticizing. It surprised her to realize how much of her conversation was usually critical and judgmental. She was silent only because she couldn't contribute to the conversation without judging, so she kept quiet and no one seemed to notice. It was a sting to her pride as well. It wasn't until mid-afternoon that something special began to happen. The floodgate of ideas began to open and creative thoughts flowed through in a way that she hadn't experienced in a long time. At the end of the day she marveled at all that had transpired simply because she refused to entertain a critical attitude. Insight into praying for a college student seeking her child's forgiveness, all filtered through her freely, because there were no negative thoughts to stop them.
Speaker 1:Catherine's one-day experiment became a lifetime habit Self-discipline, learning to control our thoughts, our minds, particularly the negative aspects of that.
Speaker 1:When we get control of the negative, it makes room for God's positive power and influence to work in our lives. God wants us to stay on the positive side of life and he wants us to have a life full of joy and positive impact to the people around us. Everybody has a negative habit, but we also have the ability to choose not to let that habit rule and run in our lives. So I encourage you, just like Catherine did, try for one day just to not be critical or to get angry, or to shout at the kids or to whatever your negative habit is. Be disciplined within yourself, to let God begin to speak to you on the positive side of your negative actions. God will bless you and it may surprise you what you learn at the end of the day. Have a great day, my friends. We will talk again tomorrow. Thank you for joining us today and I invite you to join us every Monday to Friday, right here at Starting Right, with Danny Mac.
