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BOB JONES

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BREAKING THE WORRY HABIT BEFORE IT BREAKS YOU Uncategorized

BREAKING THE WORRY HABIT BEFORE IT BREAKS YOU

Its not as though there aren't things that are worthy of worry. If you start with financial pressures, work expectations, cutbacks, relational strains, health crises...where do you stop? However, over half of Canadians report irritability, anger, fatigue or sleeplessness. Worry can be a bad habit...the most deadly one. Worry kills more people than work because more people worry than work. How To Break The Worry Habit Before It Breaks You 1. Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth and refuse to give it more. If you don't worry at all, that is living in denial. Worry has a productive function. It motivates you to take constructive action. Habitual worry paralyses you, causing you to slow down, pull…
Bob Jones
November 20, 2013
A Life Saving Practice Uncategorized

A Life Saving Practice

How do you start your day? I begin mine with the Bible (and a coffee.) Reading the Bible has been more than a good habit. It saved my life. Distress. I went through a serious encounter with distress in the third year of my career as a pastor. For almost two months I was awakened in the middle of the night unable to breathe. My lungs felt like they were shutting down. If you've ever had the wind knocked out of you, that's how it felt. My doctor said it was not physiological. He asked me what was going on in my life. "Your body is under distress and is shutting down to protect you." Awakening. One morning, after the…
Bob Jones
November 18, 2013
Powering A New Habit Off the Launching Pad Uncategorized

Powering A New Habit Off the Launching Pad

In October we encouraged people at North Pointe to become a "Minute Manager (MM)." The commitment was to form a habit of praying one minute everyday. We manage minutes...God manages miracles. Managing minutes is a way you can experience the power of "praying without ceasing." (1 Thessalonians 5:17) How are you doing with your habit of prayer? Have you had lift-off? How are you doing with any new habit you've started? "Breaking and making new habits is like the launch of a spacecraft like Apollo 11. To get to the moon those astronauts literally had to break out of the tremendous gravity pull of the earth. More energy was spent in the first few minutes of lift-off and the first…
Bob Jones
November 6, 2013
IS THERE A STARMAKER? Uncategorized

IS THERE A STARMAKER?

The numbers are in and they are out of this world. According to a study released by astronomers from the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Hawaii, there are likely "tens of billions" of Earth-like planets in our Milky Way galaxy. Consider that the Milky Way is just a typical galaxy within our universe, which contains hundreds of billions of galaxies. With tens of billions of Earth-like planets in each galaxy, our entire universe must contain billions of billions of Earth-like planets. Wow! (That’s the best scientific response I can give.) How The Numbers Add Up 1. Maybe we're not alone. Andrew Howard, astronomer at the University of Hawaii, says the new estimate of planets means there are 40…
Bob Jones
November 4, 2013
5 COMMITMENTS YOU NEED TO MAKE TO YOURSELF Uncategorized

5 COMMITMENTS YOU NEED TO MAKE TO YOURSELF

* Do you put off doing things that you need to do? * Can’t imagine how you could ever deal with so much clutter on your desk or in your closets? * Don’t know how to choose the perfect work-out program? * Wanting to read and pray everyday but can't find the right time? So you do...nothing. I’ve been there. Everyone has. But not everyone STOPS there. The secret to getting ahead is getting started. 5 Commitments To Make To Yourself TODAY: COMMITMENT #1: Today, I will take responsibility. Nothing in your personal, physical, professional and financial life will change until you start making changes. People are really, really good at self-deception (lying to ourselves keeps us from pain). The…
Bob Jones
November 3, 2013
11 INSIGHTS TO PERSONALITY AND TEMPERAMENT Uncategorized

11 INSIGHTS TO PERSONALITY AND TEMPERAMENT

Dating couples always lie to each other. They don't mean to. They just want to put their best face forward. That's why people who are dating should keep both eyes open before they marry and then keep one eye closed after they marry. Assessing personality and temperament is one way to keep both eyes open. Assessments aren't a perfect science but they do provide valuable insight into the people who are closest to you (and why you love'em or not). Personality Types 1. The Golden Retriever (Peaceful Phlegmatic) is steady, reliable, balanced, content, loyal and carries others burdens, resists change, is unenthusiastic, and can be boring. 2. The Lion (Powerful Choleric) is confident, assertive, competitive, decisive, domineering, independent, self-reliant and…
Bob Jones
November 2, 2013
11 Sayings to Fuel Your Fire Uncategorized

11 Sayings to Fuel Your Fire

All fires need fuel. Self-motivation is the key to success. How do some of the world's most motivated and successful people do it?   11 Sayings to Fuel Your Fire: 1.  "Are you gonna fuel your faith or fuel your fear? I'm all about fueling my faith, especially when it's hard to do so." Carrie-Anne Moss 2. "I am building a fire and everyday I train I add more fuel. At just the right moment I light the match."  Mia Hamm 3. "We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey." Kenji Miyazawa 4."The brain God gave you is intended to throw fuel on the fire of your affections for God. It's really good at it if…
Bob Jones
November 1, 2013
Personal Transformation: Making the Changes You Want Uncategorized

Personal Transformation: Making the Changes You Want

My life revolves around transformation. I help people change their beliefs and their thinking. All of the success I’ve seen involves faith, love and hope. There have been some instantaneous, miraculous examples of change but mostly they've been from persevering, intentional, daily choices that lead to change. What do you want to change? 1. Change happens when we know enough to want to or hurt enough to have to. For most, it’s the “hurt” factor. Pain is a powerful motivator. That’s just the way life is. Pain can be a good thing. It’s one of God’s ways of getting our attention. C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain.” You may be reading this because…
Bob Jones
October 30, 2013
Guest Post – Why Are We Afraid to Embrace the Different? Uncategorized

Guest Post – Why Are We Afraid to Embrace the Different?

This is a guest post from Cindy Keating. Cindy is a singer-songwriter, worship leader, blogger, speaker and a long time attender of North Pointe. She loves to create conversation at redcarpetlife.me – an online community premised on the belief that we are all leaders of worship. By finding our true contentment in Christ, we can experience everyday “red carpet” moments simply by seeing our day-to-day tasks as our greatest opportunities for worship. "It’s the eye contact that lingers a little too long, the hug that squeezes a little too hard, the handshake that practically rips your arm off, the pause that befalls a conversation where we feel the need to say, “Anyhow…” It’s that fake sentence that has become a…
Bob Jones
October 27, 2013
The Minute Manager of Prayer Uncategorized

The Minute Manager of Prayer

  You'd be amazed what you can accomplish in a minute. What holds a lot of people back from prayer is the feeling that if I can't go into isolation and completely focus and pray for an hour, my prayer won't count. As a pastor, my typical day is formed around minutes, not hours of prayer. As a pastor I live in the shadow of men like Martin Luther who is quoted as saying, "I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer." (Rev. Luther may have done that only a few times in his life, but his quote has become a benchmark regarding the priority of prayer, especially for pastors.) Luther also…
Bob Jones
October 23, 2013
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