David understood one of the essential qualities of a leader, as we see in 2 Samuel 23:3. Anyone who wants to lead well must fear the Lord. When we talk about fearing God, we are not talking about a wrong kind of fear. We are talking about the reverential fear that causes us to bow in His presence and even to prostrate ourselves before Him and say, “My God, there is none like You; Whom shall I fear? If You are for me, what can man do to me?’

The apostle Paul wrote something in Galatians 1:10, He said, “Now am I trying to win the favor of men, or of God? Do I seek to please men? If I were still seeking popularity with men, I should not be a bond servant of Christ (the Messiah).”

We know Satan firsthand uses rejection to prevent us from going forward with the call of God on our our lives. Have you ever been attacked with rejection? The devil uses this very effective tool to keep us from making progress.

How many of you have gone to the bank to get a loan for your business and were turned down? Wanted more money to expand? Wanted to hire a few more people? How many people were skeptical when you told them you were starting a business, or joining a partnership with someone, or told you all of the reasons why they failed in business and why you would too? It’s very difficult to go on when you are being rejected by someone you love and care about or others who have the power and ability to help but do not buy into your vision. I know what that feels like when you take the leap of faith and do what you believe you have been called to do. I shudder to think what I might have sacrificed had I bowed down to the pressure and the weight of rejection. Everywhere I went for help they told me no, or I didn’t qualify, but thank God I didn’t give up.

Have you ever been in a situation when the devil leveled an attack against you at the same time when God was trying to promote you into the next level of what he has for your life?

Anyone who is going to do the will of God must have more fear of God than of man. We all want acceptance and for others to support our dreams. It takes courage to live your dreams. And you have to be willing to lose everything to do it. What does that mean? The trials and storms of life will come. They must. Do you stay and fight for the dream and the desire that you believe God has placed on the inside of you, or do you turn in defeat because it’s just too hard?

Anyone who is going to do God’s will must remember what Jesus told His disciples: “A servant is not greater than his master…If they persecuted Me, they will also persecut you” (John 15:20). He was saying, “If they reject you, in effect they are rejecting Me.” I believe the Lord takes it personally when people reject you because you are trying to do the right thing. He knows how you feel about being rejected, because He felt the same thing. He is your Vindicator; your reward comes from Him, and you must reverentially fear and honor Him more than anything or anyone else.

As you have made the decision, for God I live, and for God I die, know that God is equally commited to the promise as well. Romans 8:31,32 “What then shall we say to [all] this? If God is for us, who [can be] against us? [Who can be our foe, if God is on our side?] [Ps. 118:6]

32 He who did not withhold or spare [even] His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all [other] things?

God approved of you before anybody else ever got a chance to disapprove. Do not spend your time playing it safe in the illusion of a down economy (because millionaries are being made everyday, banks are still giving corporate execs million dollar bonuses) don’t buy into the hype! Safety is very comfortable, but it may keep you from God’s perfect plan for your life.  If we want to continue to succeed in this environment, our focus must be customer focus coupled with outstanding customer service. Not because it will keep your customer and repeat business, but if you never see them again, the honor and privilege is in being in a position to serve.

Trust His Word and keep your heart willing and ready to obey. Be willing to try new things, especially if it is something you have never done before. You will find throughout your life that God regularly calls us out of our comfort zones and into new places of faith and growth in Him.

On the way to your destination, enjoy the journey.

Linda Dillard

Founder/CEO & Relationship Strategist for Power In Progress, LLC & Creator of the “CEO Method”

How many of you are just like me, Class A+ Procrastinators?

Did you know having good intentions can still be a form of disobedience? Procrastination is very deceptive and Proverbs 3:27,28 instructs us not to do it. Often, we do not see putting things off as disobedience because we intend to obey God; it is just that we are going to do it when–when we have more money, when we are not so busy, as soon as Christmas is over, after we get the kids in school/college, when we return from vacation, after the snow is gone, etc. Remember, the best intentions do not produce results. Ask God to help you take action in a timely manner in every situtation.

So, what are some strategic solutions to helping Class A+ Procrastinators; Proverbs 4:5 instructs us to get “skillful and godly Wisdom,” and here are some of the results that you can expect as you apply wisdom in your life.

Wisdom will always lead you to God’s best. Wisdom teaches that you will not keep friends if you try to control and dominate everything that goes on in your life and theirs. You will not keep friends if you talk about them behind their backs or tell their secrets. Wisdom says, “Do not say things about others that you would not want people saying about you.”

Wisdom will guide you in money matters. You will not get into debt if you do not spend more money than you make. A lot of people never have fruitful ministries because they think they can run a ministry without good business principles. The Holy Spirit does not need to speak in an audible voice to tell us that we cannot have more money going out than we have coming in. Wisdom tells us that we will get in trouble if we do that.

Wisdom will not let us get overextended in our commitments if we listen to her. No matter how anxious we may be to accomplish things, wisdom says we need to take time and wait on God to give us peace about what we are to do and not do. It has been very difficult for me over the years to learn to say no to certain speaking opportunities, but I have learned that it is not wise to wear myself out trying do to so much that I end up not doing a quality job.

To God, quality is more important than quantity. Many times wisdom leads us to say no to things we would like to say yes to. Wisdom may also lead us to say yes to something to which we would like to say no. Having an opportunity that will stretch you outside of your comfort zone may cause you to say no, because you are afraid you might fail. But Wisdom may be telling you that you can do all things through Christ that strengthens you, and although you may have never done this or that, or tried this or that, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try. How do you ever grow beyond what you are capable of if you never put yourself in a situation where you know exactly what you are made of. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Wisdom is our friend; it helps us not to live in regret. I think one of the saddest things in the world would be to reach old age and look back at your life and feel nothing but regret about what you did or did not do. So many people are playing it safe. In case you haven’t noticed, “You can’t get out of life ALIVE!” It’s always more fun on the field than it is in the stands. Failure is merely feedback. The sorrow is not in the falling down, the tragedy is in never having tried in the first place. Wisdom helps us make choices now that we will be happy with later.

A word of advice to all my soon to be reformed Class A+ Procrastinators, don’t put off for tomorrow what you can to today, maximize your moment!

Be Encouraged. [Excerpts from Joyce Meyer Amplified Bible] 

Linda Dillard

Founder/CEO & Relationship Strategist for Power In Progress, LLC

Here are a few of the main editorial guidelines for posting content on TheProsperMagazine.com.

Your content:
1. Should be at least 250 words, with an ideal size of 400 or more words. Articles under 400 words will most likely NOT appear on the index.
2. Must be original and be created by you and must not have been submitted or posted elsewhere on the web.
3. Must not be a sales document, advertisement or any other type of promotional document.
4. Must be written in proper English with correct spelling, grammar and structure.
5. Must not be derogatory, hateful, pornographic or defamatory in any manner.
6. Must not have external links in the first paragraph. Links to other The Prosper Magazine content is ok.
7. Maximum of 2 self-serving links per article.
8. Must include biblical references from the bible, either scripture(s) or a parable(s) in each article, except product reviews.
9. Topics can range from personal development, personal finance, business management and spiritual development.

If you follow these simple steps your article should have no problem getting published. For more in depth description and complete list of rules please visit the The Prosper Magazine Editorial Guidelines.

Suggested Reading:

Do the Web Write

Dan Furman. Self Counsel Press 2009, Paperback, 180 pages, $11.98

Content Rich

Jon Wuebben. Encore Publishing 2008, Hardcover, 270 pages, $12.51

Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies

Bruce Clay. For Dummies 2009, Paperback, 768 pages, $23.52

Editorial Guidelines for Submitting To TheProsperMagazine.com

These editorial guidelines are designed to help you understand what we accept and don’t accept for inclusion in our site. Before you submit to TheProsperMagazine.com, we would appreciate if you would please read this page first.

1. TheProsperMagazine.com Editorial Guidelines: (CONTENT QUALIFICATIONS)

To Be Qualified For Our Site, your Article:

a. MUST BE AN ORIGINAL ARTICLE WRITTEN BY YOU. Only submit content that you have written and or hold the copyrights too.
b. MUST NOT BE AN ARTICLE YOU TOOK FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN OR PURCHASED. If you used a ghost writer to write your articles, you MUST have an EXCLUSIVE LICENSE that *only* allows your name to be associated with the articles produced for you. Do not waste your time or ours by buying article packs that have non-exclusive licenses as we reject those articles. We will never publish an article that has already been published elsewhere.
c. MUST BE informative and share your expertise. Include tips, strategies, techniques, case-studies, analysis, opinions and commentary in your articles. Do not waste time by submitting mostly quoted material, we are looking for unique content.
d. MUST NOT be a press release, advertisement, sales letter, promotional copy, or blatant and excessive self-promotion or hype.
e. MUST HAVE proper English, spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization and sentence structure. If English is not your first language, get somebody whose native language is English to proof read your article. If your article does not exhibit good English it will not be accepted.
f. MUST NOT contain: pornography/adult material, hate or violence-oriented, suggest racial intolerance, advocate against any individual or group, have insulting, obscene, degrading tone, or contain profanity.
g. MUST NOT contain information on: Hacking/cracking content, bomb creation, support for terrorism/ radicalism/ religious fanaticism, illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia, steroid use or advocacy, weapon/ firearms/ ammunition/ balisongs/ butterfly knives or brass knuckles, or the promotion of hard alcohol/tobacco-related products or prescription drugs.
h. MUST NOT contain any content that is a violation of any law, be considered defamatory, libelous, or infringes on the legal rights of others.
i. MUST NOT be a submission of the exact same article as one that you already submitted. Some authors have submitted the same article multiple times with only a few words changed in the body — we reject these and ban authors who engage in this practice.
j. MUST NOT include a reply to a personal email, letter or other correspondence.
k. MUST NOT contain excessive and/or bolded keywords/ phrases. Please limit the amount of bolding and italicizing in your content.
l. MUST NOT contain any other religion content than Christianity.

2. TheProsperMagazine.com Editorial Guidelines: (FORMAT)
1. ARTICLE TITLE:
i. Your Title MUST Be In Upper and Lower Case Letters With The First Letter of Each Major Word Capitalized.
ii. We will not accept your TITLE in all CAPS.
iii. It is not required that you capitalize common words such as “a” – “the” – “to” – “for” etc, we accept these either way.
iv. We do not accept QUOTES around your entire TITLE.
v. Do NOT end your TITLE with a period.
vi. Please do not submit Microsoft Word smart quotes in your TITLE. This includes quotes, apostrophe’s, double dashes, and 3 dots in a row. Replace smart quotes with standard quotes/apostrophe’s/double dashes/or 3 periods in a row.
vii. Refrain from excessive repetitive punctuation in your TITLE. One exclamation “!” or question mark “?” is enough to make a point.
viii. We do not allow HTML tags of any kind in your TITLE.
ix. Your TITLE must begin with the first word flush to the LEFT of the TITLE submission box.
x. We do not allow your AUTHOR NAME or any WEBSITE URL to be in your TITLE.
xi. Your TITLE must not be keyword stuffed (too many redundant keywords used over and over again), but rather should read as a natural language TITLE that any human could easily appreciate. Do not over-optimize your TITLE please.
xii. We do not accept One Word as the article TITLE, a MINIMUM of two unique words is required.
xiii. We do not accept articles that use slang terms or profanity in the TITLE.
xiv. We do not accept articles that do not deliver on the article title. You must deliver in the article body on the promises made in the article title.

2. ARTICLE BODY:
i. Must be a minimum of 250 words and no more than 5,000 words. For us, an ideal article size is 400-750 words.
ii. Please do not repeat your TITLE and AUTHOR NAME at the top of the ARTICLE BODY. A sub title is fine, but do NOT repeat the exact title.
iii. Copyrights must be at the bottom of your article. If you put it at the top of your article, we will move it to the bottom of the article body.
iv. If you sell hard in the ARTICLE BODY by including your URL or product pitch or blatant self-promotion, we will toss your article without notice. The SIGNATURE BOX is where you get to pitch yourself or your website address.
v. Your article body MUST deliver on what is promised in the title. We do not accept teaser links or phrases that require a reader to click away from the article or reference another source in order to receive the full benefit of what has been promised.
vi. At the very END of your ARTICLE BODY, please help us by removing any excess vertical spaces and do not include any HTML tags that would create or force the creation of additional vertical spaces after the end of your ARTICLE BODY.
vii. Your article MUST be single spaced, MUST use appropriate paragraph breaks, and MUST use correct formatting for bulleted or numbered lists. We will not accept articles that are not single spaced, that do not use paragraphs to appropriately break up the body text, or that provide bulleted or numbered lists that are not formatted correctly.

3. WEBSITE LINKS/URLS There is a total limit of (4) active or inactive links allowed in the article, which consists of both the BODY and the SIGNATURE BOX. Links to other content on InfoBarrel do NOT count towards this limit.
i. Maximum of (2) “Self-Serving” active or inactive links/URLs to a website that you own, control, or have an interest in.
ii. Avoid “Self-Serving” links in the first paragraph of articles. This is subjective and up to the discretion of your manager. If you choose to place a link in the first paragraph of your article your article may be approved with the link removed from your content.
iii. Maximum of (2) active or inactive non-self serving links/URLs to a website that you do not own, control, or have an interest in which adds value to the article.
iv. Confine your self-serving links to your SIGNATURE BOX unless the link provides value to reader. The article BODY is your “GIVE” and the SIGNATURE BOX is your “TAKE.”
v.
vi. We do not accept links that use HTML to add style attributes to the link, URL, or text link description.
vii. We do not accept links formatted with Smart Quotes by using MS WORD.
vii. We will auto format valid URLs included in your SIGNATURE BOX.
ix. We will NOT auto-format URLs that are included in the BODY of your article.
x. Your links MAY NOT contain a file to be downloaded of any type.
xi. We do not knowingly allow any URLs in any of our articles that are banned by Google or if your website engages in questionable SEO practices — we may reject your articles.
xii. We do not accept articles that have the same ACTIVE link more than once. Do not submit duplicate URLs.
xiii. We do not allow articles which have strategic keyword anchor text links in the body to your domain that do not add informational value to the article. Any use of anchored text links to websites that you own should add value to the article topic rather than stand out as an obvious abuse of anchored text link. The goal with this policy is to be a good net citizen by only allowing articles that add value with the anchored text links rather than for pure SEO reasons. Please limit your anchor text link length to 3 words.

Example: Within your article, you link the word “bird dog” to an article that you wrote about bird dogging. This is a good example of an anchored text link vs. linking the same text to your home page as it doesn’t really add value.

xiv. We will not accept articles with links (in the Article Body or Signature Box) to adult-oriented websites, including but not limited to websites that include pornography, adult-oriented sexual content.
xv. We do not allow links to websites that are under construction. Websites must be active and have content in order for you to link to them from your article. We will reject your article if it contains a link of this nature.

4. TAGS: Adding the top keywords related to your article helps us to bring more traffic to your article.
i. Please make sure you put a line break between each TAG.
ii. Ideally, your tags should be optimized based on the most commonly searched keywords as published by Google.com for your particular niche. It helps to use a good keyword research tool to help you determine which ones are best to use.
iii. You should have a minimum of 2 Tags and a maximum of 5.
iv. We do not accept tags that are completely unrelated to the content of your article.

5. CATEGORY:
i. ARTICLE CATEGORY or SUB-CATEGORY: Please choose the best category or sub category based on the theme of your article and not the theme of your business. Here are some general hints on how to select the best category for categories that are often confused.

3. TheProsperMagazine.com Editorial Guidelines: (AFFILIATE PROGRAMS):

Affiliate links will be NOT allowed if the link is to a domain name you own which forward/redirects to the affiliate link from the top-level of the domain name. Any link that links directly to an affiliate link will be reviewed for appropriateness. If we find that the link is inappropriate or hazardous to the user it will be removed.

Suggested Reading:

Do the Web Write

Dan Furman. Self Counsel Press 2009, Paperback, 180 pages, $11.98

Content Rich

Jon Wuebben. Encore Publishing 2008, Hardcover, 270 pages, $12.51

Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies

Bruce Clay. For Dummies 2009, Paperback, 768 pages, $23.52