Thursday, September 19, 2013

Matthew Kelly: Becoming the Best Version of Yourself


What’s Your World View??

1/100 people go to college
1/3 of the world is dying from hunger
1/3 of the world is dying from over eating
à  What did you eat for dinner?

We need to be challenged to re-determine our world view

How is the best way to live?
-          You want what you believe will make you happy
-          We all have an overwhelming desire for happiness; that is how God made us
Grace builds on nature: The supernatural life does not negate or destroy the natural world. Rather, grace sanctifies, elevates and renews nature.

Grace also works through nature. We are not just temples of the Holy Ghost, but instruments of the Spirit as well. We are collaborating with God in extending the boundaries of His Kingdom on Earth of love and peace.

-        Our culture says happiness = pleasure
o    This is WRONG
o      Pleasure can’t be sustained beyond the activity producing it
§  Stop eating, pleasure stops
§   What else in our lives cause use momentary pleasure but not lasting happiness?
-          Happiness – is sustained past the moment producing it
o   Come home from a hard day and don’t feel like working out, you just want to lie on your couch and be lazy. But you convince yourself to get up and go to the gym, after you work out you may be tired, but you will always be glad you went. Where if you were to lay down and watch TV and eat cheese dip you will enjoy it for those two hours and then after feel like crap and regret it.

  What is the best way to live?
-    It’s not the attitude: ‘what is the least I can do and still get by/ still get to Heaven’
-   To look at this we have to detach ourselves from our culture for a while.


If we look into our lives we get a sense that something is missing.


Matthew Kelly was presented with a challenge as a teenager

-          Stop by church for 10 minutes on your way to school each day.
-    After a few days of walking by the church, he finally went in and it actually felt peaceful
-     First few days he just went in and planned the rest of his day
-     Then he decided to “actually” pray and just started listing off all the things he wanted from God that day -> instructions for God
-   Then one day he had a rough morning and was worried about the day and when he sat down he started talking to God and asking what God though he should do with his situation.  
o   This was a huge turning point, releasing your life into God’s hands because he knows what is best for you.
*** Our lives change when our habits change.

We become out habits:
-   Your actions determine your habits; habits determine your character; your character determines your destiny 
-   Reverse this; think of your destiny; WHO do you want to be in the future?
o    Now decide your habits so they will help you reach that destiny

Silence will change your life – take time to sit in silence every day; determine who you really are, your hopes, your dreams, the areas in your life that need changing.
-   Often we try to block this out with noise and business, but it leads to unhappiness.
-   No one plans to live a life of quiet desperation

GAME CHANGER:
1.    Get yourself in a classroom of silence.
2.    Understand that we live in a relativistic culture – the idea that there is no real truth.
a.    Tolerance: (the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with)
                                          i.     --the supreme virtue of secularism
b.    Fact: you don’t have to tolerate good things.
c.    Challenge: look for the truth in everything, it’s there
d.    The knowledge of who Jesus is; is disappearing.
                                          i.    We think we know Jesus – we don’t.
e.    What does society say about Jesus
                                          i.    That He was a nice guy. – this can’t be true.
                                        ii.    Jesus claimed to be the son of God. If he isn’t, then he was a HUGE liar.  You can’t even say he was a good teacher
3.    Words have value based on who speaks them
a.    Someone with high character says something you don’t agree with, you are going to rethink it and try to understand their view.
4.    A question everyone must answer: WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS?
a.    So why don’t we follow him?

Jesus had radical teachings---
-   Problem: most of us think we know the Gospel: we don’t.
-   “love and pray for your enemies”
o   Do we?
-   Culture wants us to live a shallow life: to simply be a consumer
-   God’s vision: for us to become the best version of ourselves.
o   He created us with something in mind.
o   There are 1000 + moments in our day when we have the choice to choose to be the best version of ourselves.
o   Just takes thirty seconds: will this make me the best version of myself?
-   Who were our best mentors and coaches?
o   The ones who brought out the best version of ourselves.
-   We get more fulfillment when we work to get better character.
-   Goal of marriage?
o   To help wife/husband & kids become the best version of themselves.

5.    Want to make your life better?
a.    Look at your goals and meaning of your life.
                                          i.    Will you not be happier as the best version of yourself?
                                        ii.    What in my life will sooner or later strike me down? What is my rattle snake?
b.    There is no rubbish of “I didn’t know it was wrong”
                                          i.    99.9% of the time we know the right answer and if we choose it:
 We will be happy

THE WORLD NEEDS CHANGING (DUH)
-   God has given us the ability to choose, the ability to dream.
o   We can see bigger and better in the future and can see what we need to do now to reach that dream.

-   2 excuses: I’m too old. I’m too young.
o   Mozart was eight years old when he wrote his first symphony
o   Dimitrion Yordanidis was ninety-eight years old when he ran a marathon in seven hours and thirty three minutes, in Athens, Greece
-   Age is not an excuse not to change your life.

-   The world today is more interested in self-expression than having a self that’s worth expressing.


God, things are a mess: how can I help?
-   most people overestimate what they can get done in a day and underestimate what they can get done in a week.
o   When we say yes to the stuff that isn't for us, we miss out on the stuff that is just for us.
§  The only thing staying in a relationship you know isn't leading to marriage does, is stop you from meeting the perfect person God has planned for you to marry.
§  Being overly involved in too many activities only takes away from the quality time you were supposed to give to someone to help them through some of life’s tough problems.
-   When you leave this room, don’t not do anything.

How do you get out of your own little world?
-  ----> > Become the most generous person you know.

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