Action Step #1: "Develop a Daily Morning Meditation Time with Jesus" by Matthew Linehan

 Action Step #1: "Develop a Daily Morning Meditation Time with Jesus"

My first Action Step in my Transformation while I was at the Salvation Army was to develop a Daily morning meditation time with Jesus.

So, what did this look like? Well I knew that I had to change. I knew that I had to have new habits. I based my life on the first and primary scripture about seeking Jesus FIRST! Jesus said in the book of Matthew 6:33:

“Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God, and His Righteousness and ALL these things will be added unto you!”

For me that meant that if I strived to learn the love of Jesus and how to live like Jesus. To show kindness and Grace. To show mercy and love. To help hurting people. To learn to serve with a grateful attitude. To trust in HIM and trust that Jesus had me in the palm of His hand. That my way was wrong, and Jesus’ way was the ONLY WAY…then ALL THINGS (The desires of my heart) will be added (I will receive them) to me.

This came by having a wake-up call in the morning that was an hour earlier than everyone else. See if I wanted to change, I had to be different from everyone else. I perceived most of the men at the Salvation Army were repeat offenders. What I mean by that is that the SA enables the men to keep graduating, relapsing and coming back in there. It was a vicious cycle that those men would get on. This cycle that was hard to get off of. Once you got on this cycle you would continue to relapse and continue to get readmitted in there and start over. I on the other hand obviously had had enough of treatment centers. I wanted something different. The only way I knew how to be different from these guys was to do different things than they were doing.

I asked a guy named John who worked in the books department in the warehouse if I could get a bible. He introduced me to “The One Year Bible”. The One Year Bible took you through the bible in one year. Each day it has you read one chapter of the old testament, One chapter of the new testament, one chapter of psalms and one chapter of proverbs.

I would get up at 5:00 am and go down the hall to the library. I would first say a prayer and try to get in a spiritual mood. Then I would read the scripture for that day. I would try to do some sit ups or push ups to get my body in shape. I developed a daily routine. Did you hear what I said, “Develop a daily routine to “Seek God First” and then you can prioritize that first and then everything behind that. Life is tough enough dealing with the world and all the stresses and drama that come with the everyday routine. Start each day our seeking the truth and then hopefully the foundation can be set.