INSIGHT #18

Insight #19: Habits You must AVOID for a great future

This week we’re going look at some habits that you must watch out for on your way to the top. Let me first warn you, these habits look tiny and insignificant but are extremely deadly. Just like the bible says, “…little foxes spoil the vine”. Make sure you constantly pray against these habits, they must never be in your life at any point in time.

The first negative habit we’ll be studying this week is that of procrastination. Procrastination is a big problem for our generation. It’s always attractive to put work off till some other time, especially when you’re having a great time. The main danger of procrastinating is that you end up having a pile of work at the end of the day. This will lead you to rush and obviously, you won’t do it as well as you could have. A good way to get rid of this habit is to write a list of the things you have to do during a day and allocate your time in order of how important they are. As easy as this sounds, it’s just step one. Step two involves discipline which you’ll need someone else for. Get someone you trust, respect and listen to, show them a copy of your schedule and tell them to remind you and perhaps force you if necessary to do what you’re supposed to do.

The second habit we’ll be looking at is that of mistreating people. A lot of people, especially teens, treat people based on their status and wealth, For example, a schoolboy who treats all his teachers with respect but mistreats the cleaners and security guards at his school is still guilty of this. Always remember that God said in Romans 12v10;

10) Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honouring each other (NLT).

The danger of this habit is a serious one, not only does it lead you into breaking God’s law in the scripture above but it also reduces your favour. If you look at Joseph’s life properly, you’ll see that everywhere he found himself, he always let respect go before him, He treated everyone well and even when he was in prison he treated every one so well that when those two guys had dreams, it was him they shared it with and ultimately that was what brought him into pharaoh’s presence. Have you ever imagined what would have happened if they came to tell him their dreams and he told them to “get out” or to “stop disturbing him”. They would never have told pharaoh about him and he might have spent more time in prison or might even have died there. Once you get rid of this habit, you’ll begin to experience an amazing new dimension of favour with people and God in your life.

Next, we’ll be looking at the negative habit of dishonouring our parents and those in positions of authority in general. Exactly what do I mean by “dishonour” Dishonour can mean a wide range of things, right from disobedience to downright spite. This is when you do anything to annoy your parents on purpose, examples are, when they talk to you, you act deaf, or when they tell you to do something you argue or complain. I don’t need to go any further because we all know those things we do. Now the danger attached to this one is very grave; Curses. If people in authority over us in a field or the other use their tongue negatively towards you because you dishonoured them, the consequences will be horrible. Let’s look at what God says in Ephesians 6v2-3;

2) Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise ;)

3) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

(KJV)

From the above, we can see a “silent danger” which is “If you dishonour your parents, it wont be well with you (in life, academics, health e.t.c.) and you won’t live long on earth”…WOW! This is a very serious consequence that a lot of us toy with on a daily basis. I’m sue we don’t want this, so make sure that as from now on, you don’t dishonour your parents , for this is the first commandment with promise (and also consequence). Keep this in mind and everything will be well with you.

Join us next week as we examine the other negative habits we must guard ourselves against. Be sure to put these things into practice. Don’t forget our motto:”BE A DOER”. God bless you.

PRAYER; Lord, Help me to take myself seriously and to guard myself against negative habits that will hinder me from the great future you have for me. In Jesus name. Amen.

FOR ENQUIRIES: jareogun@yahoo.com

+234 0806 398 0730

INSIGHT #11

Insight #18: Habits You must develop for a great future

This week, we’ll continue our on-going study on habits we need to develop in preparation for the great future God has for us.

#3: the habit of consulting God before taking any actions.

This must not be mistaken for habit 1(strong spiritual life) because it is possible to pray, read your bible and not consult God in the day to day running of your life. Here’s a good way to start; before you go anywhere, ask God for his guidance, you’ll be surprised how often you’ll here God speak to you, this way, you’ll never be involved in accidents, and you’ll always be ahead of your mates. Also try this when you read; ask God what you should read for your exams. Personally this worked well for me in school, every time there’s a test or exam; I’ll ask God to show me the areas which I should focus on, he does, I read it and go to sleep while my mates stay up late. The next day I score 10/10. This works. The main benefit of this is that you’ll live a true “spirit lead life”. You also need this in choosing friends and those you relate with. This will set you on course for the great plan God has for you.

#4: the habit of Thinking BIG and dreaming BIG.

This isn’t just a habit, but it’s a way of life, it’s an orientation, a way of looking at things. Let’s look at Jeremiah 29:11

11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. KJV

Always bear it in mind that God has a great future for you, and he’s given you the potential you need to achieve this goal but a lot of us aren’t thinking or dreaming big enough. Don’t forget that dreams aren’t supposed to be realistic, so don’t be afraid to dream (of course your dreams must be spiritually correct). Make sure that whatever you get involved in will grow into something big, don’t waste the potential God has given you by limiting yourself to only small things. This habit comes with another one, which we’ll study next.

#5: The habit of setting GOALS and planning ahead.

After you’ve had your dreams, you must put forth practical plans to achieve them hence the habit of setting goals and planning towards them. How this works is that you take your God given dream, or idea or thought and convert them into goals and put a time limit on them. For example, if your idea or dream is to be a millionaire by age 25, then you need to convert it into goals like; a job/ jobs, a functional saving plan, school degree, expert advice on money .et.c . Calculate the time and allocate a time slot to each goal e.g. how long it will take you to get a job or your degree and work towards it. To effectively master this habit, you must exercise discipline and practice planning for everything including your school work; put yourself on a reading schedule and plan your time. This is the second part of this habit. You can’t be an effective planner if you joke around with your time. Start doing everything on time intentionally. Stop wasting time on frivolous things like gossip and so on. Take active control of time and put it to good use. Make sure that you can account for every minute of the day.

#6: The habit of respectfulness.

This is something that’s very important to your future. Make sure that everywhere you go, respect goes before you. Treat everyone you meet with due respect. Be respectful to everyone, whether cleaners or presidents, treat every single person you meet young or old with respect, no matter how hard it might be. This will be one of the most important habits you can ever have; it will take you to places you normally can’t go to.

# 7: Always keep a journal.

Set aside a notebook in which you’ll write in at the end of each day, in this book, you’ll give a brief account of the significant events that took place during the day. Also you’ll write a quick list of things you want to accomplish the next day. As a starter, you may start from every other day” then slowly climb up to doing it every day. This is important because it will always remind you of where God brought you from. Also it will help you give detailed advice from your experience to those coming after you. This is a common habit of great men.

Join us next week as we examine negative habits you must avoid if you want to have a great future. God bless you.

PRAYER; Lord, Help me to take myself seriously and to develop healthy spiritual and physical habits that will prepare me for the great future you have for me. In Jesus name. Amen.

FOR ENQUIRIES: jareogun@yahoo.com

0806 398 0730

INSIGHT #17

Insight #17: Start preparing for your future now

This week, we’ll be discussing something that’s ignored quite often, which is “preparation for the future”. I assume that by now, most of us already know what we’ll like to be later on in life, doctors, engineers, lawyers, e.t.c. As good as they sound; ambitions aren’t what we’re discussing today.

You might be wondering what exactly I’m talking about and I’ll tell you; what I mean by preparing for the future is preparation in a general sense, which entails all aspects of our future; every responsibility we’ll be expected to pick up at various points in the future. Such as parenthood, marriage, responsibilities in our future workplaces and church.

The mistake most teens make is that of a mindset of procrastination. Note that this is different from the actual act of procrastinating in that the “mindset of procrastination” in this case is thinking in a way that deceives you into believing that when the time comes, you’ll suddenly be responsible enough to fill those roles. LIES, all LIES. Consider this example of a guy who’s exams are coming up in 3 months, if he doesn’t prepare for it adequately(involving prayer as well), He’ll fail beautifully and extensively, He might keep telling himself, “I’ll read later, at least I still have 3months till my exams”. With this sort of mindset, he’ll never be ready when his exams come around.

God gave all of us the same amount of hours in day; 24. It’s up to us to spend it as effectively as possible. It is also very important to note that this period of time (teenage years) that God has given us, was given to us in order to prepare fervently for our great futures. Lets see what the bible has to say in the book of Proverbs;

Proverbs 6:6-11 (New Living Translation)

⁶ Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise!
⁷ Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work,
⁸ they labour hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.
⁹ But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up?
¹⁰ A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—
¹¹ then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.

This can be applied to what we’re talking about, because here God shows us the danger of not preparing for our future and playing with our present. This danger is that of poverty, regret and a life of disappointment.

Now, let’s quickly take a look at the steps we can take in order to prepare for where God’s taking us.

(i) Develop Healthy habits

This is a very important point which you need to take note of because your habits will ultimately determine how successful you’ll turn out to be later on in life. Healthy habits range from Spiritual ones to physical ones. Here’s a list of some and how to go about them;

· Strong Spiritual life: You develop this by making the effort to spend time with God on a regular basis, in prayer, reading the word and active participation in church activities.

· Evangelism: Don’t forget that every Christian, no matter your profession is an evangelist. So make sure you develop the habit of sharing the gospel with at least one person a week. You can’t go wrong this way!!

Unfortunately, that’s all we can discuss this week, join us next week as we look at more habits we need to develop and those we need to get rid of. Don’t forget to be a DOER and not just a hearer of these things you’ve learnt today and start taking yourself seriously. GOD BLESS YOU.

PRAYER; Lord, Help me to take myself seriously and to develop healthy spiritual and physical habits that will prepare me for the great future you have for me. In Jesus name. Amen.

FOR ENQUIRIES: jareogun@yahoo.com

+234806 398 0730

Notification

Hey People.....This is to inform everyone that we're going to take a break from our current series to deal with certain issues that are really pressing on my heart. THANKS :)

INSIGHT #10

INSIGHT

By Joshua. O Areogun

FOR YOUTHS OF ALL AGES…

Welcome to yet another edition of insight, a weekly write-up for teenagers and young adults for the purpose of enlightening teens on God’s plan for their lives and also to help them handle various situations they go through everyday. At insight we believe that even though kids might be the future, teens are the immediate future, so I strongly believe bless you as you read.

This week, we’ll continue our lesson on standing strong in school. Last week we saw two ways in which we could achieve this; avoiding bad friends and being truthful. Today we shall consider the third one.

(iii) Do what Jesus would do in any situation. This particular step has become so cliché that people often take it for granted. I mean we’ve heard of the acronym “WWJD” which means “what would Jesus do” but how many of us who say these statements actually lives by it?

Now, I think the only way we can live by this is to first understand exactly what Jesus would do in any situation we find ourselves. Let’s examine the statement “what would Jesus do?” First and foremost, this means that you mustn’t follow the crowd. Even though sometimes the crowd might seem right or maybe intimidating, if you are to successfully do what Jesus would then you must never follow the crowd. So before you take any decisions or make any choices, God wants you to stop, think and listen to the deepest part of your heart and do what God would have you do in such a situation.

As simple as it sounds, there’s a lot of hard work required on our part. This might be a shocker but not everyone can know what Jesus would do talk less of doing it. What I’m saying is that we all have to work seriously and sincerely on our hearts by praying earnestly everyday, praise and worship, by spending significant time studying God’s word and by avoiding sins such as lying, stealing, cheating and disobedience. When we are successful at doing all things, then our spiritual sensitivity will be increased and only then can we know what Jesus will do in a situation.

The second thing we can see from the statement is that God wants us to involve him in our decision making. God wants us to not only search our hearts before taking a step, but to also ask him before making any decisions. No matter how well we’ve developed our sensitivity, we must always remember to give God the honour of asking for his opinion because we can be wrong sometimes. None the less, if we don’t first prepare our hearts as we saw in the preceding paragraph, the whole process will be ineffective. So let’s be careful.

Next week we’ll continue our lesson on standing strong in school. Don’t forget to spend at least 30 minutes praying everyday and read at least 2 chapters daily. This will help you start off your journey to spiritual sensitivity well

PRAYER: Dear father, please help me to develop my spiritual sensitivity and live the right way so that I may know what Jesus would do in every situation I find myself. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

GOD BLESS YOU.

FOR ENQUIRIES: jareogun@yahoo.com

+2348063980730