K.J. Masters's Blog, page 4

Five Ways (and then some) to a Happier Life!

I’ll be the first to admit that I have read articles with a similar title as this one most of my life. I’d say I’ve spent numerous hours trying to discover the secret to a happy life.

I’ve searched books, articles, blogs—everything possible to become a happier person, willing to follow any advice necessary.

I was looking for someone to tell me what steps to take in order to transform my surroundings into a better existence. It’s as if I believed there was some kind of happiness bucket I could dip into and pour over myself, and BAM … my life would be a happy place—instantly!   
 
But in my quest for a happy life I discovered instantaneous gratification isn’t everything. And having a positive attitude can only go so far. Changing negative thoughts and words (as many life coaches/writers/counselors advise us to do) is not the secret to happiness.

I've learned “choosing” to be happy doesn’t make me happy at all. If one wants to be happy, his or her life may need some major transformation before happiness is available, and all the positive words in the English dictionary will make no matter.

But even more importantly, I discovered that although change is usually necessary to become happy, happiness—TRUE BLISS—comes from God! The Holy Spirit is Who provides true soul-moving happiness!

Galatians 5:22-23 tells us: But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There it is … JOY! God provides every good attribute. We search, ponder, strive, and fight to find love, joy, peace, patience … self-control … doing everything possible to be the person we long to be—the happy me that exists underneath the miserable me.

And instead of eventually finding this earth-shaking happiness we’re told we can obtain by just uttering a few positive words over our day, what we discover is that we cannot find, declare, proclaim happiness over ourselves any more than we can wish ourselves a ten pound weight loss by Friday! (Though I wish the latter were possible!) (Big sigh here!) (And another!)

“There is no law against these things,” verse 23 goes on to say.



That means it’s okay to be happy and at peace with ourselves without having a guilt complex to go along with it. Don’t let guilt crush your joy!



Guilt is something Satan loves to heap on us when we’re taking time to enjoy the fruits of the Spirit. Guilt has no place in this list of fruits. So kick it to the curb the next time it shows up to crush your spirit.



Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying we can live, think, and speak any way we want and it won’t affect our well-being, quite the contrary. Every action has a reaction. With that being said, let me give you some pointers I’ve learned along the way in my own quest for happiness.





SOUL-SUCKERS:

A very wise man once taught me that if you want to have a happier life, you have to get rid of all the soul-suckers dragging you down. Whether it be family, friends, acquaintances, or even non-living objects—such as social media sites (a-hem)—you’ve got to get rid of them!!! Your happiness depends on it! You cannot thrive in a chaotic atmosphere! PERIOD!  



PAST-DWELLERS:

I cannot stress enough how vital it is to your level of happiness to let go of the past. You will NEVER move forward if your eyes are stuck looking back. When you’re focusing on what’s behind you, you’re not paying attention to what’s in front of you.



It’s like trying to move forward in the dark. You’re missing out on great opportunities because your focus is in the wrong direction. You can’t have a happy future if your mind is focusing on a sad past.



FUTURE PREDICTORS:

Stop worrying about your future. Only ONE Person knows what tomorrow will bring. Put your hope, dependence, problems, goals, wishes, and desires in God’s hands, and then sit back and enjoy the ride knowing He already holds the solutions to tomorrow’s problems.



How much more reassurance do you need? Nothing could be more comforting than knowing God has got your back!



WALL BUILDERS:

Get a new attitude, friends!!! Break down those goal-limiting walls! Stop speaking defeat over your life by using words like, “I can’t…” Yes, this is OLD news! But it’s good news, and it’s good advice! When you say you can’t do something—you believe you can’t—therefore, it becomes a fact, and you won’t!



I discuss the self-defeating walls we create in our lives in my new book, God, Fix it!, and how we can break these walls down for good. One method is to keep in mind that we serve a God who knows NO limits. We are allowed to ask BIG, believe BIG, and live BIG! Now, get going! Start living a life that has NO limits!



REGRET MONGERS:

Let go of regret! Did you get that? Stop regretting everything you’ve done and every mistake you’ve made! Did you know chances are the majority of the things you regret in your life are the exact same things God has used to make you grow, learn, become wiser, and stronger! It’s these regrets that have molded you into the person you are today! Without them, you could not be YOU!



God is the God of turnaround! He makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). This means those things you regret in your life have already been used by God to prosper you! So stop dwelling on regrets!

If we want to be happy, we have to stay focused on the TRUE source of happiness, which is God!





Every positive, satisfying, fulfilling emotion comes from the Lord and cannot be obtained on our own.



Sure, we may be able to experience momentary bliss in things like eating cake, a great massage, a nice vacation, and so forth…. But lasting joy, love, peace, hope, and happiness lay in our Father above!   

 

Once we discover a blissful life is provided by God, and that it is He Who is in control of our futures, we can learn to RELAX! Let go and let God! Be at peace with peace! It’s not against the law to stop stressing about every thought that shoots through our ever-so-busy minds!



If we keep our focus on loving and glorifying the Father, we will learn that happiness

will FIND us!



“Delight yourself also in the Lord: and he shall give you the desires of your heart” ~ Psalms 37:4



“… whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he” ~ Proverbs 16:20



“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” ~ John 14:1



“Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” ~ John 16:24



“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it” ~ Luke 11:28

New Book "God, Fix It!" Coming in November

Have you ever experienced a “dry spell” in your life where you feel like you’re just going around in circles, but never quite getting anywhere? Do you feel like you can't find your purpose in life? Encountering that dreaded “desert place” can be brutal, but it’s your attitude during this dry season that will make you or break you. Having the right outlook will help you to walk successfully through the difficult times in life. These dry periods do not have to be a place of lack and stagnation. Instead, you can treat them as a place of growth; growing wiser, growing stronger, and becoming more disciplined.   



When you face the desert place with an attitude of abundance, you will come out of it with miraculous blessings! In "God, Fix it!", Karyn Masters shares with you her personal walk in the desert and how she came out on top stronger, wiser, healthier, and more blessed than ever before. 

 

           She explains how:

-fasting brings enlightenment

-praying bolder than ever gets results

-the wilderness is a time of increase and reward

-staying hopeful is possible-even when faced with a bleakness of spirit

-God brings you into the wilderness in order to bless you

 

Become confident that God will make a way where there is no way. Know He has special plans for you, in fact, He says they are "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jerimiah 29:11. Masters demonstrates how to rejoice, even in times of darkness.

Freedom in Slavery

 

The other day I was talking on the phone to someone who is on the fence with the whole God-thing. He’s been agnostic for most of his life, but lately has started questioning Christianity. During our conversation he made a pretty profound statement, or maybe it would be more appropriate to use the word observation. He said, “To believe in Christ is to, literally, become a slave! A SLAVE! That’s pretty powerful.” My mind flashed back to the day I first understood my servitude to Christ and I bowed down at His feet and made Him Master of my life. If we choose to follow Jesus, are we indeed giving up ourselves so completely that we literally become His slaves? Simply put, yes! Yet, it’s this complete surrender of ourselves, and our total servitude to Jesus, that gains us freedom in every area of our lives. A freedom that is heavenly and cannot be accessed through any other means, but by Christ. Becoming a slave will set us free! How awesome is God?!

First Corinthians 7:22 tells us, “For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave.” Slavery to Christ sets us free!

Now, was I a little worried when my phone buddy, who’s teetering along the lines of God-or no God, becomes completely turned-off at the thought of being a slave? Um, well, yeah! I didn’t think he was going to jump at the chance of being a slave to anyone. Yet, being a slave to Christ is about the best way to define a Christian. But when we look at the language in contemporary Christianity, you’re not going to find slave-talk. Far from it! It’s about freedom, personal liberation, health, wealth, personal fulfillment, living out your dreams, deliverance from all bondage. We’re told God wants to fulfill our every ambition, desire, hope, dream, etc. How can so much freedom come with being a slave to someone?

So, now we come to the question of what does it mean (exactly) to be a slave for Christ? I can give a pretty good example right now of what it’s like to be a slave to Christ. I’m an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kinda gal, but tonight God decided to wake me up in the middle of the night to come write in my BLOG about “slavery.” I pretended like I didn’t hear Him, and when that didn’t work, I put up a pretty good fight…. So…. Here I am….. 3:00 AM. Yeah, so, I call brewing a pot of coffee in the middle of the night in order to write a message for Christ, when He wants it, being a slave to Him. Oh, but this is only one of the many ways I serve Him. And don’t think I’m complaining. It feeds me to serve Him, or should I say, it FREES me!

So, what does it mean to be a slave to Christ? Simply put, slavery to Christ is doing what He says and doing what pleases Him. That’s what a slave does. Whatever the command from his master, a slave obeys. When there’s no direct command, a slave will do what he or she feels will please their master. In Titus 1:1, the Apostle Paul refers to himself as, “Paul, a slave of God.” He’s not alone; James says, “I am James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” James 1:1. He could have tried to elevate his status and rightly refer to himself as “James, the half-brother of Jesus,” but he didn’t. Instead, he called himself “James, the slave of Christ.”



That’s why in 4:13-15 he says, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’” That’s slave-talk, my friend. That’s what it means to have the mindset of a slave. The spiritual elite: James, Paul, Peter, Jude all happily and joyfully identified themselves as slaves to God and slaves to Christ. We see this throughout the New Testament.



In 2 Timothy 2:24, Paul identifies those who teach and lead the church, as slaves. These were not low-level believers. The most noble authors of the New Testament took this signification to themselves and conferred it upon the noblest of their brotherhood. We are slaves of God and we are slaves of Jesus Christ! In the book of Acts, believers are referred to as slaves several times, as well as the book of Revelation.  



Being a slave to God is beyond any kind of slavery known by anyone. This Master adopts us into His own family, giving us all the rights of His own sons, makes us joint-heirs with Christ, takes us to Heaven where we will sit alongside Him at His throne. He pampers us with lavish gifts and riches forever, and ever…and ever… for our joy and His glory.

Now, I ask you the question, do you want to be a slave for Christ? Must you take the time to think about your answer? I fall at His feet and call out, “God, let me be Your slave and serve You all the days of my life.”