“Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example.” Philippians 3:17
We are who we are today largely because of the examples we’ve had to look up to in life. Recently, my pastor was talking about parenting and he said, “If you don’t lead your kids, someone else will lead them by default.”
That is what happened to me. Until I was 18 years old, I did not have anybody intentionally come into my life to mentor me and be an example of what I could be. As a result, I was led by others who were not great examples.
In my teenage years, my examples modeled:
- Drinking and doing drugs as a great lifestyle
- How to blow money
- That not doing well in life was cool
- How to live for the moment
When I was 18, several people came into my life that provided a different example for me. They intentionally got involved in my life and they modeled:
- How to be a Godly man
- How to be a Godly husband
- How to live with honor and integrity
- How to work hard
- How to handle money
- How to raise a Godly family
- How to be successful
My life changed when my examples changed. Had I not had good examples come into my life, I do not even want to think about where I would be if I continued down the path I was headed.
The Lessons:
1.) If you are not living a life you are proud of, you need to change your examples – You got to where you are because of the examples in your life. To get to where you could go, you are going to need to completely change the examples you have in your life. You are going to have to leave behind the bad examples and find good ones. Where can you find them? There are a lot of places, but I recommend starting in a church. Start going to church every week, get involved, and ask God to bring Godly examples into your life. If you’ll do those 3 things, good examples will be headed your way.
2.) Be an example to the example-less – If you have had the privilege of having great examples in your life, it is your responsibility to be an example to others. You could change the direction of someone’s life forever if you would just start intentionally finding young men and women with poor examples and start showing them another way.
So I leave you with this challenge: Change your examples and change your life or be an example, change someone else’s life.
Questions:
- Where have the examples in your life taken you so far?
- Do you need to find some new examples? Where can you go to find them?
- Pick a church and plan on attending this weekend. Ask God to bring Godly examples into your life.
- Do you need to step it up and start intentionally being an example to others?
- Who are 1-2 people you could bring into your life and start mentoring?
Thoughts? Comment below!
If this post helped you and you believe it could help others, please recommend it on Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, and the other social media sites listed below. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts on this post. Leave a comment below! Thank you! I would also encourage you to subscribe to this blog via RSS feed or e-mail! You can sign-up for e-mail by typing your e-mail address in the box on the left hand side of this site that says “E-mail updates”.
