The Law of Concentration

 The Law of Concentration makes you use your ability to imagine a situation, circumstance, or reality that you have never experienced in the past. It is your gift for seeing the future, as well as your capacity to create what you have seen in your mind into a visible manifestation that others can see. Your endowments of imagination and creativity are proof that you have God’s DNA within you. It is also evidence that the Law of Concentration is immutable—it cannot change or be changed.

The Law of Concentration teaches you to focus the attention of your imagination to create your own future. Your destiny is determined by disciplining your thought life. Thus, disciplining your mind to concentrate on the definite goal or object that you wish to achieve is an urgent matter.

The Law of Concentration teaches that you must focus your mind on whatever your goal or object is until the circumstances that will manifest that goal or object are firmly in place and your goal or object has been realized. This means that you must place your desired goal or object into your unconscious by repeatedly holding the image of your goal or object in your mind, waking and sleeping. In addition, it means moving beyond just thinking about your goal or object and actually feeling what it would feel like to have already obtained your desired goal or object—i.e., you must emotionalize your goal or object to such an extent that you experience enjoying the feeling of having achieved your goal or object in the present moment.

Placing your desired goal or object into your unconscious mind and forming the habit of practicing this thought-life habitually are the two pillars upon which the Law of Concentration stands.

Your subconscious mind stores whatever you repeatedly think and practice. Then it acts silently and relentlessly to bring about the realization, in concrete form, of the object of your imagination. Thus, concentration is the habit of fixing in your mind the thoughts, desires and creations of your imagination and insisting on their reality. You can do this because of the DNA of God that is within you and because of the unchanging nature of the universal Law of Concentration.

You must believe that what you concentrate on will happen for you. This principle of calling things not yet in being as though they now already exist is content-neutral. It doesn’t matter what the object of your concentration is. For example, if you believe and keep concentrating on the idea that you are sick or inept or clumsy, then you will eventually get sick, be inept and become clumsy. If you believe and keep concentrating on the idea that you will fail in business, then you will fail in business. On the other hand, if you believe and concentrate on the idea that you are well, strong and able to succeed in business, then you will ultimately be well, strong, and you will succeed in business and in life.

The Law of Speech

 One of the open “secrets” of success that can be of enormous help to entrepreneurs is the Law of Speech. The Law of Speech says that whatever you speak about yourself, your family, circumstances or situations will come to be because you have God’s DNA, His power of speech. Everything that was created by God, except humankind, was created by God’s word—His speech. Speech is more powerful than anything else because it creates out of nothing whatever is consistently spoken.

Speech does not follow religious guidelines or moral laws. It is a universal law that is morally neutral. It is available to you and everyone else. Those who use the law well, prosper. Those you don’t, fail. What this means is that whatever you speak continuously will come into existence, whether the spoken thing is good, bad or indifferent. The Law of Speech is one of the central laws that drive systems, products and service innovations. New systems, products and services begin their existence as non-material ideas that people have the courage to speak again and again. Invention begins with speaking the rearrangement of known created things into a new form. It is the power source that God has placed in your hands that allows you to create your own future.

This understanding of the Law of Speech teaches you to promote your own health and welfare. Such positive speech sets the atmosphere in which all the powers in the universe are unleashed to create for you what it is you continue to speak. But there is more.

The Law of Speech requires that you not only speak wholeness, but also commit your active intention—your focused life-force—to the object of your speech. In other words, your speech must be accompanied by specific actions that are aimed at realizing or manifesting what you have spoken. Speech without deeds is useless in the same way that faith without deeds has no value. It is positive speech that must overcome the inertia of the status quo to produce the desired new outcome. That is why focused attention (intention) is the catalyst that brings about the birth of the created thing that has been set in motion by positive speech followed by positive action.

   

You must understand that successful entrepreneurs do not have in their vocabulary such phrases as I can’t, it’s impossible, I don’t deserve and I don’t believe. These are the limiting negative words that people who don’t have the courage to take responsibility for their own lives and livelihoods use to justify their enslavement in a prison of self-loathing, self-doubt and unbelief in their own unlimited possibility as creators, inventors and innovators.

If you are looking for a way to free yourself from the economic and social limitations that are affecting your life, then use your positive speech and create the future you want for yourself. Speak your dream, write it down, and then work toward it!

What is your experience with the power of speech? Does the concept make sense to you? Has it worked, or not worked for you? Leave a comment below and let’s have a conversation about it.

The 12 Components of True Wealth

 True wealth is much more than financial wealth, although financial prosperity is definitely a significant part of it. The first and most important component of true wealth is having a positive mental attitude. People who lack a positive mental attitude are miserable, despite whatever money they may have accumulated, while people who maintain a positive mental attitude attract wealth to themselves.

The second and next most important component of true wealth is sound physical health. You can lose all your money and recover more than you lost, but if you lose your health you’ve lost something that may never be regained. Spend time on maintaining and sustaining your health by eating healthy food and exercising often.

The third component of true wealth is harmony in human relations. Harmonious and peaceful relationships, both in the family and then with business associates, lead to good will, a good reputation, cooperation and peace of mind—a personal state of well-being.

The fourth component of true wealth is freedom from fear. No fearful person can enjoy life or its perks. Fear robs you of the ability to enjoy life to your fullest capacity and imprisons you in a dark place where there is no peace of mind or joy in being alive.

The fifth component of true wealth is the hope of future achievement. It is this component that gets you out of bed every morning to pursue your dream of success. Without hope for the future, you are poverty-stricken even if you are sitting on millions of dollars.

The sixth component of true wealth is the capacity for applied faith. The capacity for applied faith is your ability to believe in the dream you have for success to such an extent that you actually do something to make it happen. Applied faith is acting to make your dream a reality, while unapplied faith is merely wishing for something to happen for or to you without doing anything to make it happen.

The seventh component of true wealth is the willingness to share your blessings. You cannot have true wealth if you’re stingy and completely self-absorbed. The truly wealthy person gives to and helps others achieve their goals.

The eighth component of true wealth is to be engaged in a labor of love. True wealth is only experienced by those who are doing something good that they love. There is nothing in the world more satisfying than being able to do what you love and know that what you are doing is benefitting other people.

The ninth component of true wealth is to have an open mind on all subjects and toward all people. The truly wealthy person does not think that the world is only as she believes it to be. She is open to learning from others, listening to their opinions, and not judging them for not seeing the world as she does or believing in the same things as she does. She accepts people for who they are, not for what she believes they ought to be, in her opinion.

The tenth component of true wealth is complete self-discipline. The truly wealthy person is self-directed. He is not driven by the whims and demands of other people, but by the goals he has set out to achieve. That is why he has mastered complete self-discipline: he refuses to allow any outside influence to distract him from the task of achieving his goals.

The eleventh component of true wealth is wisdom with which to understand people. Your life in the world, in your family and in your business consists of interacting with people. To gain true wealth, you must first study the people with whom you interact. But studying them will not give you the wisdom to understand them. The only way you can gain the wisdom to understand people is to put yourself in their place and deal with them from their—not your—point of view.

The twelfth and final component of true wealth is financial security. It is not an accident or an oversight that financial security is the last component of true wealth. Every component that comes before it paves the way for financial security and guarantees that once you have the financial status you desire, you will be able to maintain it by treating everyone by the standard of the Golden Rule.

True wealth begins on the inside spiritually before it manifests outside materially. Strive to accumulate spiritual wealth internally, and as you do, you will accumulate material wealth externally.

Exhibit Patience and Self-Control

 Exhibit patience and self-control. You must develop and nurture this principle because countless frustrations act as landmines on your road to success. To exhibit patience and self-control is to deactivate these landmines and allow you to continue unharmed by your own words and behaviors in times of stress.

Your patience is extremely necessary when you’re dealing with people who either do not see the same goal or direction that you see or who see it and make serious efforts to derail the process of moving forward.  

Self-control keeps you from blurting out negative statements that will only make matters worse by closing off any opportunity for negotiation. What you will learn is that many people who seem self-confident, poised and in control are actually frightened and threatened by any change to their life’s routine. So, the thought of change—even for the better—brings out words and behaviors from them that would frustrate anyone who is not afraid or threatened by change.

Take the opportunity to address people’s core concerns. You do this in a non-threatening, empathetic manner when you exhibit patience and self-control. Many times, the resistance that people give  to new ideas or pathways has more to do with their concerns about the impact on them than it does the merit, usefulness or even necessity of the change. In most cases, your ability to exhibit patience and self-control tends to calm people down and provide them the space to slowly open up so that their fears can be alleviated in a way that affirms their dignity and personhood.

Your motivation to exhibit patience and self-control is that you need people to help you achieve entrepreneurial success. When you exhibit patience and self-control and invest the necessary time in building the relationships with people that are required, you are investing in yourself and your own future success.

Champion a Noble Purpose

 One of the major keys to personal success is choosing, finding, discovering, or otherwise creating a noble cause or purpose that does not benefit you personally. Service to others is a prerequisite to your personal success. Your genuine concern for others, demonstrated by your giving of your time, talent, and resources to a worthy endeavor, becomes a catalyst for moving you toward your own destiny.

As you invest the best of yourself in a noble purpose that has no visible strategic relationship to your personal or business goals, you are planting the seeds of your own business success. However, the motivation for your service to others must be pure: you must serve with no expectation of receiving anything in return—no award, reward, recognition, press coverage or opportunity to network with persons whom you believe could forward your personal agenda—not even your desire to hear a simple “Thank you.”

Your reward for championing a noble purpose is your willingness to serve others from a God mindset. Such a mindset seeks the best for others with no concern to gain personal benefit. To serve from a God mindset is to choose to consider the welfare and interests of others over your own welfare and interests to such an extent that you can freely and happily give others your time and resources that you could profitably invest in service to your own agenda. Thus, serving from a God mindset is not being patronizing or condescending to others, but putting others on an equal footing with you. The energy you use to benefit others is at the same level of intensity as that which you use to benefit yourself.

You can only provide this free, no-strings-attached service to others when you realize that you are a child of God who has an unlimited supply of resources to bless others without the possibility of exhausting those resources in a manner that could possibly be detrimental to you.

Many people serve others for the wrong motives and, therefore, serve from a position of weakness. To serve others because you are compelled, either by job title, contract, or forced, uncompensated servitude is to serve from a position of weakness. To serve others from a God mindset is to serve from a position of strength. Your service is not coerced, purchased or otherwise performed because you’re seeking an advantage, relationship, strategic alliance or other consideration that will inure to your personal benefit later on down the line.

Your God mindset service to others originates in and operates from a position of strength—your knowledge of who you are and Whose you are, as well as the inestimable value that your presence and personal involvement bring to others just because of your divine connectedness.

Because championing a noble purpose is directly related to your own personal destiny, you must choose it carefully. You may not be called to support a popular charity or heart-string-pulling charitable endeavor. It may be your lot to serve a noble cause that is not recognized as such by many. Indeed, the noble purpose you end up supporting may be one in which you have no passionate interest.

  

So, you must consider what your motives are when you choose a noble purpose to embrace and/or support. It is at this point that self-examination, criticism, and self-criticism will bring you back to the Law of Iron Will.

You cannot know your true motives for doing a thing or choosing a particular path. But you can challenge yourself to examine your motives and seek guidance from above, as well as from others around you. This is true not only for what motivates you to choose a worthy purpose to champion but also applies to the choices you make in every other area of your life.

Choose What to Give for What You Want

 When you decide to go into business for yourself, you decide that you want to actively control how much money you earn. Once you’ve made that decision, you must decide what you are willing to give in exchange for your desire to be your own boss.

There are only two commodities that you have to offer people: goods and services. In either case, you must give something to receive the money you intend to earn. It should not surprise you that many people in business give the least of themselves to gain the most for themselves.

But the secret to success and its companion—wealth—is not giving the least, but giving the most. So, just what does giving the most mean? It means giving everything you have to the business you choose, regardless of the compensation you receive for your work.

This idea is a problem for business people who are not doing well in their chosen field, but it explains what separates the barely surviving from the abundantly thriving business person. The person who gives little only gets little in return, while the one who gives much receives much in return.

It is the Law of Reciprocity—what you give comes back to you in the same measure that you gave it except for one big thing. When you give the least to be compensated for the most, then you receive much less than you gave.

On the other hand, when you give more than what you expect to be compensated for, you receive back much more that is pressed down, shaken together, and running over in abundance.

As you think about the goods and/or services that you will be offering people in the business you choose to engage in, remember that you must give the best of yourself to that business to succeed, grow, and prosper.

The days of the mom-and-pop proprietary business are gone. Today any business you engage in must be pre-programmed to grow larger, develop people who can run it successfully, and provide you the opportunity to hand it off or sell it later at a significant profit. This means that you should choose the business you intend to own wisely, considering the future of its related industry and the potential growth possibilities it offers.

You should also consider what that business brings to the table to make people’s lives better. One of the greatest feelings you can have as a successful business person is to know that while you are making profits, the people you are serving through your business are benefitting from the goods or services that you are providing.

Understand the Law of Concentration

 The Law of Concentration makes you use your ability to imagine a situation, circumstance or reality that you have never experienced in the past. It is your gift for seeing the future, as well as your capacity to create what you have seen in your mind into a visible manifestation that others can see. Your endowments of imagination and creativity are proof that you have God’s DNA within you. It is also evidence that the Law of Concentration is immutable—it cannot change or be changed.

The Law of Concentration teaches you to focus the attention of your imagination to create your own future. Your destiny is determined by disciplining your thought life. Thus, disciplining your mind to concentrate on the definite goal or object that you wish to achieve is an urgent matter.

The Law of Concentration teaches that you must focus your mind on whatever your goal or object is until the circumstances that will manifest that goal or object are firmly in place and your goal or object has been realized. This means that you must place your desired goal or object into your unconscious by repeatedly holding the image of your goal or object in your mind, waking and sleeping. In addition, it means moving beyond just thinking about your goal or object and actually feeling what it would feel like to have already obtained your desired goal or object—i.e., you must emotionalize your goal or object to such an extent that you experience enjoying the feeling of having achieved your goal or object in the present moment.

Placing your desired goal or object into your unconscious mind and forming the habit of practicing this thought-life habitually are the two pillars upon which the Law of Concentration stands.

Your subconscious mind stores whatever you repeatedly think and practice. Then it acts silently and relentlessly to bring about the realization, in concrete form, of the object of your imagination. Thus, concentration is the habit of fixing in your mind the thoughts, desires, and creations of your imagination and insisting on their reality. You can do this because of the DNA of God that is within you and because of the unchanging nature of the universal Law of Concentration.

You must believe that what you concentrate on will happen for you. This principle of calling things not yet in being as though they now already exist is content-neutral. It doesn’t matter what the object of your concentration is. For example, if you believe and keep concentrating on the idea that you are sick or inept or clumsy, then you will eventually get sick, be inept, and become clumsy. If you believe and keep concentrating on the idea that you will fail in business, then you will fail in business. On the other hand, if you believe and concentrate on the idea that you are well, strong and able to succeed in business, then you will ultimately be well, strong, and you will succeed in business.

Regrouping and Relying: Fourth and Fifth of 7 Spiritual Pillars

 The secret to changing your mindset from accepting the way things are on other people’s terms, to taking full responsibility for your own life on your own terms, requires that you build 7 Spiritual Pillars, the fourth and fifth being the Regrouping Pillar and the Relying Pillar.

You build your Regrouping Pillar by being willing to change direction when circumstances demand it, even if you are close to the destination you started toward. Your Regrouping Pillar can only be built by paying attention to your gut instincts—your intuition—that alerts you to your need to make a particular change in plans immediately.

Your ability to shift gears, regroup, and move in a new direction is a gift from God that not only allows you to be flexible enough to change your plans when needed but also allows you to get up and keep going when life knocks you down. The Regrouping Pillar that you build is especially necessary when you suffer from accidents, illnesses, financial losses, or the death of a loved one.

But, here’s the caveat: you cannot build your Regrouping Pillar if you have not already built your Renewing Pillar. When you build your Regrouping Pillar, you are acting in faith and demonstrating in practical and observable ways that you constantly renew your mind and daily trust God no matter what you face in life.

The fifth of the 7 Spiritual Pillars is the Relying Pillar. You build your Relying Pillar by persevering under trials and hardships, knowing that you can rely on God to empower you to get through anything.

This does not mean that whenever you are opposed, you will come out on top, but rather, that whatever happens to you, you will have the power to come through it. It is through your worst experiences that you learn to stop depending solely on your own strength, your own abilities, and your own instincts, and to fully rely on God.

So, you must build your Relying Pillar so that when times get tough and you can see no way out of the predicaments that come to you, you will rely on the grace and mercy of God to empower you to stick it out until God discloses to your mind the path that is the way out for you.

The Renewing Pillar: Third of 7 Spiritual Pillars

The secret to changing your mindset from accepting the way things are on other people’s terms, to taking full responsibility for your own life on your own terms, requires that you build 7 Spiritual Pillars, the third being the Renewing Pillar.

You build your personal Renewing Pillar by understanding that life moves and you must move with it. Whatever you thought yesterday may not be relevant, useful or otherwise appropriate for the issues that confront you today. You must constantly have a fresh, new mindset that refuses to think in stiff, staid and stupid mind-atrophying stereotypes. Rather, you are to be renewing your mind continually—opening it up to new ideas, new truths that God wants to impart to you, truths and ways of thinking, being and doing that only a daily, committed and vibrant walk with God can afford you.

You have to train your mind to think only of the good, the positive, the true, the beautiful and the beneficial and refuse to think of the negatives that, like weeds, attempt to surround, subdue and strangle your positive thought life.

You must add to your Bible study the reading of great literature that reflects your historic struggle to be free, as well as the cultural creations that your people produced as a result of their life struggles.

In other words, you must fill your free mind time with positive learning and thought material that will help you grow in a well-rounded way so that you can relate to your people by being informed about their positive interests. How better can you make disciples—recruit and train people for Jesus’ counter-hegemonic struggle to bring the kingdom of God to this earth—than by engaging your sisters and brothers in conversation about the issues, concerns, good ideas and mutual areas of interest that matter to them and you.

The Renewing Pillar is the most difficult of the 7 Spiritual Pillars because it requires constant struggle within your own mind to refuse to think about the negative thoughts that come to you. Your mind is constantly being assaulted by all kinds of thoughts—most of which are negative or otherwise of no use in moving you forward toward the goals you have set for yourself. Seek and accept the Holy Spirit’s help to win the battles raging in your mind.

 

The Remembering Pillar: Second of 7 Spiritual Pillars

 Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.

Romans 12:2 CEB

The secret to changing your mindset from accepting the way things are on other people’s terms, to taking full responsibility for your own life on your own terms, requires that you build 7 Spiritual Pillars, the second being the Remembering Pillar.

You build your Remembering Pillar by continuously calling to mind what God has done for you in the past. It is this kind of remembering that moves you to be thankful to God and express your gratitude to Him for how He has brought you from where you began with Him at birth to where you are now.

You should remember both the bad times and the good times with God. You should remember the bad times because if you remember well, you will recall that it was God who brought you through every single bad time you have ever had. And you should remember the good times, because it was God who blessed you with every really good time you have ever had.

It is through building your Remembering Pillar that you are comforted when all hell seems to have broken loose in your life, and it is this Remembering Pillar that encourages you not to quit, but to keep on going forward. Your Remembering Pillar teaches you that everything that you go through—no matter how burdensome or painful—will work out for your ultimate benefit.

The easiest way to build your Remembering Pillar is to start keeping a journal from day to day. Without a written record of what you have been through, it is easier for the enemy of your soul to lie to you and tell you that following the Golden Rule Way has not been beneficial to you. But when you can open your journal and read your own personal bible of the situations you were in and how God brought you out, you are empowered to encourage yourself in bad times, and enjoy reliving good times.

The Relating Pillar: First of 7 Spiritual Pillars

 And do not be conformed to this world [any longer with its superficial values and customs], but be transformed and progressively changed [as you mature spiritually] by the renewing of your mind focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His plan and purpose for you].

Romans 12:2 AMP

The secret to changing your mindset from quiescent (accepting the way things are on other people's terms) to self-liberative (taking full responsibility for your own life and growth) requires that you erect 7 Spiritual Pillars, the first of which is the Relating Pillar.

The Relating Pillar is always three-dimensional: it includes how you relate to God, yourself, and others. You build your Relating Pillar toward God by focusing on obeying the Golden Rule Way—treat other people the way a mentally healthy and psychologically whole you would want to be treated.

As you practice treating people with respect, listening to them, seeking to understand them from their point of view, and accepting them as they are—despite their differences from you, in thought, word, and deed—you will have an opportunity to consider how God relates with and to you.

If you are aware and take that opportunity, you will begin to think of how good God is and has been to you, despite your differences from God in thought, word, and deed. You may be led to think about how God has brought you out of the trouble into which you have behaved yourself, and how gently and lovingly God hangs in there with you despite your rarely getting everything right.

Your contemplation of God, as you focus on living out the Golden Rule Way, may lead you to thank Him for His kindness and mercy toward you. If you persist in thanking God habitually, you will begin to feel an emotional attachment to God. That feeling of attachment will slowly turn into a feeling of love. As that love of God grows in you, you will begin to want to please God, not out of your duty to relate to people according to the Golden Rule Way, but because you simply want to please God.

You build your Relating Pillar toward yourself by focusing on the fact that God loves you, and if God, who is greater than you, thinks enough of you to love you, then you must think enough of yourself to love you. In the same way that you relate to God based on the deal He has cut with you—the Golden Rule Way requirement—you must cut a deal with yourself. You must treat yourself with respect, listen to yourself, and seek to understand and accept who you are and why you are the way you are.

In building the third dimension of your Relating Pillar with other people, you must make sure that the same terms and conditions—the Golden Rule Way requirement—apply. You have been chosen by God to go in the Golden Rule Way, so your personal relating to other people must model how you expect them to relate to others in the same Golden Rule Way as well. You must ask God for wisdom to determine with whom you will share your life as a friend, lover, and close associate. As you are making this determination, rely on Jesus’ words of wisdom: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

The Revolutionary Content of Jesus' Resurrection

 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15: 20-22 NIV

True revolutionaries in the Jesus Movement willingly admit that Jesus died in their place to completely dispense with the issue of their ever having to be held personally liable to be condemned or adjudged guilty by God for any negative being or doing acts or omissions in their past, present, or future.

However, it was God’s raising Jesus from the dead that gives life, purpose, and direction to those elite revolutionaries who willingly lay down their lives for the poor and oppressed by engaging in the counter-hegemonic struggle for the liberation of the oppressed and social/economic justice for the poor.

God was in the man Jesus when he came to rescue humankind from not only physical and spiritual death, but also social, economic, political, philosophical, psychological, and theological death—all that humans have produced in rebellion against God. That God chose to act through a human being whom He raised from the dead is a sign and signal to the Jesus Movement revolutionary that God will raise her/him up from death in all its earthly manifestations.

Because Jesus conquered death, so will the revolutionary who follows Jesus’ revolutionary path—a path that calls for disruption of the status quo, subversion of the Eurocentric world system, and merciless assault on the bastions of false Eurocentric-oriented Christian religion.

God’s raising Jesus from the dead also announces the hope that the last, least, and lost can be raised from their spiritual, social, and economic death and given new life that manifests itself in their active engagement in counter-hegemonic revolutionary struggle.

Because God demonstrated his ultimate power in raising a very dead Jesus to life—a life that will never die again—the Jesus Movement revolutionary believes that God will use that same mighty power to raise up the millions of people of color who are dead in trespasses and sins and shrouded in the grave clothes of the myth of white supremacy.

On Embracing the Contradiction

 For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us!

2 Corinthians 5:21 TLB

African/Edenic people have always lived a life of duality in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois first articulated our “double consciousness” in his 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk: “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

In the 21^st century, I have reformulated and further developed Du Bois’ concept of “double consciousness” into the Quiescent/Self-Liberative Contradiction.

The quiescent/self-liberative contradiction in African Americans is a form of social/psychological schizophrenia that manifests itself in how we choose to self-actualize. This contradiction forces us to wrestle with choosing between accommodating the racist world system (quiescent behavior) and revolting against the world system to overthrow it (self-liberative behavior.) For us, there is no middle option.

All too often in the past, the calming, accommodationist voice of the Black Church has been enlisted by Eurocentric racists to control the thinking and behavior of the African American masses so that we would not develop our ability through Jesus to be transformed from accommodating, non-critical, incoherent “common sense” people to Afrocentrist-conscious “organic intellectuals” who are willing and able to engage in effective social change struggle.

Jesus understands the quiescent/self-liberative contradiction first-hand because of his two-ness as both God and man. As man, Jesus died in our place so that we could be in right standing with God, the Father. As God, the Son, Jesus chose to become the very embodiment of sin so that we might become the very embodiment of righteousness before God. In sum, Jesus became his opposite (sin) so that we could become our opposite (righteousness). 

It is our embracing the contradiction of Jesus’ two-ness that radicalizes our thinking, speaking, and behaving, provides us with critical understanding, and midwifes our self-transformation into Jesus Movement revolutionaries who are committed to bring the kingdom of God to this earth, in our time, on our watch--by any means necessary.

A Meditation on Violence

 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Matthew 11:12 KJV

Every physical and mental motion or action dislodges, dislocates, and destroys the inertia that must be overcome to act. Inertia is an enemy that only action can move. Motion and action are always violent because only violence can move or act against the negative force of inertia. To act is to engage in violence to overcome inertia. To refuse to act is to allow the violence of inertia to overcome the self. Therefore, the issue is never whether one likes, dislikes, chooses, or declines to choose violence, but rather the further investigation of the nature of violence itself.

The violence of childbirth cannot be equated with the violence of cutting off someone’s head. Neither can the violence of building a house for a homeless family be equated with the violence of bombing a village to extract the minerals found therein. In the same manner, the violence of freeing oneself from a kidnapper cannot be equated with the violence of enslaving millions of people for their sale to the highest bidder. Nor is the violence of laying one’s life down for another comparable to taking the lives of innocents to demonstrate one’s power to do so. Thus, the false issue of violence versus “non-violence” must give way to the real issue: positive violence versus negative violence.

Positive violence is that powerful word or act that aims at the liberation of enslaved peoples, while negative violence is that powerful word or act that focuses on keeping enslaved peoples enslaved.

The perfect example of negative violence is hate—hate that selfishly takes, enslaves, kills, destroys, and steals from those who believe themselves to be powerless and vulnerable.

The perfect example of positive violence is love—love that gives itself unselfishly to free the last, least, and lost people enslaved by poverty, economic exploitation, and discrimination.

The motive, purpose, use and intent of violence determine whether it will be classified as positive or negative. Every thought, act or behavior that is motivated by hate is negative violence. Contrariwise, every thought, act, or behavior that is motivated by love is positive violence.

The Righteous Struggle

 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12 KJV

The counter-hegemonic struggle that revolutionary followers of Jesus are engaged in is not a crass struggle for power over and against people, but always a principled struggle against evil, corrupt political, social, and economic systems, demonic power structures, and the bastions of a Eurocentric nationalist religion that support and encourage global exploitation of the many so that untold riches accrue only to the few.

For revolutionary followers of Jesus, one major battleground for counter-hegemonic struggle is located in the Eurocentric Nationalist church itself and its support of racist policies, politics, and politicians, in general, along with its insistence on portraying Jesus as a European who is the idol set up to be worshiped, in particular. The message that God is European (white) drummed into the heads of Africans and other people of color—as well as Europeans who already have an inordinate sense of entitlement and racial privilege—has no place in any 21st-century body of people who claim to confess Jesus as Lord.

The second major battleground is in the Eurocentric-oriented Neo-Colonialist Churches of color and their refusal to call Eurocentric churches out for their denial of the gospel of Jesus, and their own complicity in the oppression of people of color, in general, along with their refusal to proclaim the revolutionary gospel of Jesus for liberation of the oppressed and economic justice for the poor, in particular.

Only such a revolutionary message, made flesh by radical action, true to the biblical mandate, has the power to set the masses of people of color, poor white people, disenfranchised returning citizens, and abandoned U.S. veterans free from the grip of poverty and alienation that destroys them.

The most relevant radical action we can take now is to support the struggles of the last, least and lost of us for basic human rights. This "us" includes immigrants who are fleeing from oppression and war. By engaging in this righteous struggle, we have an opportunity to model what the kingdom of God looks like in very concrete terms, as we walk together, proclaiming every person’s right to enjoy the basic necessities of life: healthy food, state-of-the-art healthcare, decent, affordable housing, and livable wage employment.

Ode to Freedom

 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 NIV

As an African/Edenic person living in a Eurocentric-oriented racist society, I understand that Jesus is the only Revolutionary I can follow because He came to earth to set me, and people of all hues who are similarly situated, completely free from every vestige of slavery and its attendant indicia of bondage. The freedom that Jesus offers us is three-dimensional.

First, it is physical in that it affects how we function. Second, it is philosophical in that it affects our understanding of the world and how we process ideas that counter reactionary and backward-looking Eurocentric assumptions that have previously usurped our independent thought processes. Third, it is psychological, affecting how we think about ourselves, others, and God.

True freedom, at its most fundamental level, is that state of being in which a person, without being enslaved, dominated, or otherwise held under constraint, restraint, duress, or undue influence, can of her or his own volition make decisions, plan courses of action consistent with those decisions, have unlimited access to and control over resources, and exercise the necessary power to concretely actualize those decisions.

Given this definition of freedom, it is manifestly clear that the last, least, and lost of African/Edenic and similarly situated people in America have never experienced true freedom. Despite this, Jesus is offering all of us an unfettered freedom firmly rooted in the truth and in reality.

The truth is that, without a revolutionary relationship with and understanding of Jesus, we are slaves in a world-system matrix inimical to our best interests, opposed to our limitless capacity for personal human growth and development, and bent on our total destruction.

The reality is that the only road to freedom is our connecting with Jesus and submitting ourselves to his radical leadership so that we can effectively engage in counter-hegemonic (revolutionary) struggle to develop our critical understanding—our ability to be transformed from non-critical, incoherent “common sense” people (objects) to kingdom-oriented “organic intellectuals” (subjects) who are willing and able to provide principled revolutionary leadership for establishing the kingdom of God on this earth.

Why Growing Yourself Matters

 

In the very first chapter of his classic book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, John Maxwell stresses the point that personal growth is not natural, nor is it automatic—in fact, personal growth does not happen unless a person becomes intentional about desiring to grow and then makes and follows a plan to grow.

He gives eight specific reasons why people avoid being intentional about growing themselves. The first reason is that they assume that they will automatically grow mentally and spiritually inside as they have grown naturally and physically outside. The second reason is that they don’t know how to grow. The third is that they don’t think that now is the right time to grow. The fourth is that they don’t want to make the mistakes that are part and parcel of growing. The fifth reason is that they want to find the best—the perfect—way to grow. The sixth is they don’t feel like growing. The seventh is that they believe that other people are better than they are; and the eighth reason is that they discover that it’s harder to grow than they realized.

If you use any of these reasons, or others I haven’t mentioned, that keep you from being intentional about your own growth, then you have built yourself a prison from which you will never escape—you will forever keep yourself from all that God has created you to be, do and have in this life. When you allow any reason to control you, you can never move beyond being stuck where you are, doing what you do now, and having only what you have now—or even less than you have now. Because if you’re not expanding, you’re setting yourself up for contracting.

Being intentional matters because without it you will stay stuck, dooming yourself to a life of mediocrity without any hope for living the life you were created to live.

Here are some serious questions that you should ask yourself right now: Where do you want to go in life? What direction do you want to go in? What’s the farthest you can imagine going? How long will it take? If you haven’t spent time with yourself to wrestle with these questions before, I can guarantee you that the experience will give you a headache, but it will be the best headache you ever had!

This is because asking yourself these questions will help you raise your sights on living a more fulfilled and satisfied life on the one hand while raising to the surface the five fears you must face and overcome on the other. These fears include fear of failure; fear of trading security for the unknown; fear of being overextended financially; fear of what people you know will think and say to you about what you’re doing; and fear of rejection by the people you value most—your friends and family.

You alone must decide which emotion is stronger: your desire to change, grow and reach your potential, or your fears that are there to keep you stuck and forever afraid to move forward and become your highest and best self.

My Mind and My Thinking

 “My mind is a center of Divine operation. The Divine operation is always for expansion and fuller expression, and this means the production of something beyond what has gone before; something entirely new, not included in past experience, though proceeding out of it by orderly sequence of growth. Therefore, since the Divine cannot change its inherent nature, it must operate in the same manner in me; Consequently, in my own special world, in which I am the center, it must move forward to produce new conditions, always in advance of any that have gone before.” -Thomas Troward

Troward begins by making a spectacular announcement: “My mind is a center of Divine operation.” He speaks for himself and for me here. (You alone must decide whether he speaks for you.) My mind is a center—a deliberately chosen central place—where God has actively chosen to live and operate in me—to be, do, and perform His Divine purposes through me. Troward doesn’t suggest that God’s presence in my mind is there because I asked for it, or because I went through some elaborate set of tests, trials, and examinations to make me worthy of God’s activity there. He states it as an unquestioned fact, inerrant, sure, and as absolute as Eternal Law. I AM worthy because I AM created in the image and likeness of I AM that I AM. My worthiness preceded my birth on this planet. It is an eternally closed issue.

Building on this unalterable truth, Troward goes on to describe the Divine operation as always seeking expansion and fuller expression. Thus, just as scientists have discovered that the universe is constantly expanding, so also the Divine operation or working within and through me is expanding and seeking further expression in me and through me. This expression is manifested in my desire to be, do, and have more—that nagging sense of restlessness I feel that accompanies my settling for the status quo of mediocre sameness and its attendant ennui. Spirit is forever expanding, enlarging, and evolving into what is new, different, distinct from what was and what currently is, although it has grown from what was and superseded what is.

In the same way that Spirit works in an ever-expanding universe, it works in me by the Law of the Spirit of Life—Eternal Life; life ever more and more abundant ad infinitum. Consequently, Spirit must move in me to make me grow, expand, increase, and manifest a better me, a fuller me, a more productive, loving me. Thus, if Spirit is in me, I cannot remain the old me: I must become a new creation, an enlarged creation at every level of my being. This means that I reflect the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ—i.e., I look more like Jesus and act more like Him. I think like God thinks because I have the mind of Christ who has the mind of God. I love like He loves because I AM one with the Father and the Son. My compassion towards people is His compassion towards people. I AM that I AM because I AM that I AM has made me thus.

Because I AM that I AM, I AM creating new external conditions that manifest themselves through the working of God’s Divine operation within me. These conditions are manifested first in Spirit and then are transmuted into material forms—forms that are different from the old, past forms; forms that are new creations from new ideas, new thoughts, new creative musings that are the operating, working, and constructing principles of God at the very center of my being.

All that I AM is in my mind (heart, Spirit). And what is my responsibility in all this? I must work the works of God (operate God’s operations), think God’s thoughts after Him, and manifest the material conditions of those God-thoughts while I AM conscious and aware that today is still today. The night is coming when I will no longer be in this space, on this plane to function as the Son of God in the center of my mind. I must show forth the praises of Him who has brought me out of darkness into His marvelous light, and I must be who I AM so that others are drawn to the light of Christ within me. Only then will I be able to make disciples—disciplined ones—who will maximize their development and highest and best use of themselves, the resources they receive, and the resources they create for themselves and others. In short, I AM to be an agent of Transformation to manifest God’s creative and redemptive purposes on this earth.

Who are YOU, and what is YOUR purpose?

Clarify Your WHY!

 Many people talk about wanting to own their own business one day. Their reasons go from wanting to be their own boss to living the lifestyle to which they want to become accustomed. But most people who talk about owning their own business one day will never do more than talk about it.

People, who are serious about owning their own business, research different business opportunities, read up on the businesses they have an interest in, and begin the process of deciding which business is most compatible with who they are as people. This work of investigation that they do helps to focus their desire to own a business and to fuel their enthusiasm to find the right business to own.

This is the process that most business owners go through. They use their minds, they get the facts, and then they make a definite decision about which business option they will choose. What many people leave out of the process is an understanding of WHY they go into a specific business in the first place.

It has been estimated that 96% of all businesses started will fail within 10 years. With such an alarming statistic like this around, one wonders why anyone would go into business against such odds. If everyone who started a business believed that she or he had only a 4% chance of success, there would be no new businesses started and the economy would immediately grind to a halt.

However, people are going into business every day, going against the odds that they will probably fail. It would seem that the 4% who succeed in business over the long haul know something that the 96% don’t know—they know their WHY and it guides them to prosperity.

When you talk to successful business people, you will find that their WHY is greater than just wanting to make money or to become a millionaire. If the reason you are planning to go into business is just to make money, you will probably end up in the 96% failure group. Although earning money is important and necessary, it is not enough of a WHY to get you past the 96%.

Your WHY must come from inside you—it must be greater than merely making money. It must be so deeply thought through that it will sustain you in hard times and difficult circumstances. Your WHY must be so strong that it motivates you to get up every day, face the “no’s” and other rejections you will face, and yet empower you to get up the next day and the next day after that until your business blossoms, buds and thrives.

Knowing your WHY is so powerful that it will catapult you into success, regardless of the odds against you. So, invest the necessary time in thinking about your WHY and make sure it is large enough to see you through to success.

Learn to Persevere

The most difficult growth stage that all truly successful people must face squarely and master is that time which inevitably separates the here-and-now uncomfortable place of interminable struggle from the then-and-there elative state that is what you believe to be a success. This is the period—often long and disappointing—when nothing seems to be happening and you feel stuck in a quagmire that borders on hopelessness.

This is the stage when self-doubt and the doubt of others around you very nearly cause you to give up. Most people who have gained success will not talk much—if at all—about this period of the dark night of the soul.

Everyone who achieves personal success has had to pay their club membership dues in this very difficult, and yet defining place. No one has arrived at the successful destination without having collected some scars (and been part of the collateral damage) along the way. So, to expect to be successful without incurring some suffering—whether at the physical, mental, psychological, or emotional level—is to expect to build muscle mass without painful daily exercise; play the piano as a virtuoso without perfect practice over long periods; or win a world boxing title without having to train relentlessly and take some knock-out hard punches without succumbing to them.

In fact, the role of suffering in your life is the discipline that makes you strong and prepares you to manage the wealth that will ultimately be yours. This is the growth stage where you must use the period of personal suffering as your rehearsal and perfect practice space for behaving as the successful person you aspire to become while in the throes of personal pain.

This is the place where, despite the pain of adversity, hardship, and extreme difficulty, you begin to take on the behaviors and attitudes associated with living the life you have focused on since the beginning of your quest for success. It is here that you learn that you are, in this pain-filled moment, what you have always determined, aspired, and struggled to become. You have so envisioned yourself from an Entrepreneurial Mindset of success that you are successful long before it is apparent to you or anyone else!

What you will learn in this very tight, uncomfortable place is that success and acclaim are not one and the same. If you are not lauded for the depth and breadth of your accomplishments and the value you have already created for others, then that failure of others to recognize what you have done is completely unrelated to your personal success. You are what you think, believe, and behave that you are, regardless of your present circumstances.

Your challenge as an entrepreneur is to live as if the future were in the present, without regard for the physical and visible impediments that currently belie your future status. To reach the threshold of the series of events that will catapult you into the manifestation of all that you have worked for, you must manage well the most difficult and discouraging period of deep suffering that comes inevitably at the crossroads of your present situation and your future goal. And it is at this precise moment that you need to learn that perseverance is your best—and oftentimes only—friend. This is not the time to give in, give out, or give up.

This is the time to persevere!    

 

Champion a Noble Purpose

 One of the major keys to personal success is choosing, finding, discovering, or otherwise creating a noble cause or purpose that does not benefit you personally. Service to others is a prerequisite to your personal success. Your genuine concern for others, demonstrated by your giving of your time, talent, and resources to a worthy endeavor, becomes a catalyst for moving you toward your own destiny.

As you invest the best of yourself in a noble purpose that has no visible strategic relationship to your personal or business goals, you are planting the seeds of your own business success. However, the motivation for your service to others must be pure: you must serve with no expectation of receiving anything in return—no award, reward, recognition, press coverage, or opportunity to network with persons whom you believe could forward your personal agenda—not even your desire to hear a simple “Thank you.”

Your reward for championing a noble purpose is your willingness to serve others from a God mindset. Such a mindset seeks the best for others with no concern to gain a personal benefit. To serve from a God mindset is to choose to consider the welfare and interests of others over your own welfare and interests to such an extent that you can freely and happily give others your time and resources that you could profitably invest in service to your own agenda. Thus, serving from a God mindset is not being patronizing or condescending to others, but putting others on an equal footing with you. The energy you use to benefit others is at the same level of intensity as that which you use to benefit yourself.

You can only provide this free, no-strings-attached service to others when you realize that you are a child of God who has an unlimited supply of resources to bless others without the possibility of exhausting those resources in a manner that could possibly be detrimental to you.

Many people serve others for the wrong motives and, therefore, serve from a position of weakness. To serve others because you are compelled, either by job title, contract or forced, uncompensated servitude is to serve from a position of weakness. To serve others from a God mindset is to serve from a position of strength. Your service is not coerced, purchased or otherwise performed because you’re seeking an advantage, relationship, strategic alliance or other consideration that will inure to your personal benefit later on down the line.

Your God mindset service to others originates in and operates from a position of strength—your knowledge of who you are and Whose you are, as well as the inestimable value that your presence and personal involvement brings to others just because of your divine connectedness.

Because championing a noble purpose is directly related to your own personal destiny, you must choose it carefully. You may not be called to support a popular charity or heart-string-pulling charitable endeavor. It may be your lot to serve a noble cause that is not recognized as such by many. Indeed, the noble purpose you end up supporting may be one in which you have no passionate interest.

  

So, you must consider what your motives are when you choose a noble purpose to embrace and/or support. It is at this point that self-examination, criticism and self-criticism will bring you back to the Law of Iron Will.

You cannot know your true motives for doing a thing or choosing a particular path. But you can challenge yourself to examine your motives and seek guidance from above, as well as from others around you. This is true not only with respect to what motivates you to choose a worthy purpose to champion, but also applies to the choices you make in every other area of your life.