Milepost One: Right Motivation
In the second chapter of I John, the beloved apostle wrote to the young men because they had overcome the wicked one. He warned them that even though they had overcome the wicked one, they still needed to be careful that they would not have the love of the world in them. He explained that the love of the world can be the pride of life, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes — all of which could trap them.
One of the snares and entrapments of the devil is the pride of life. Concerning the pride of life, we want to be careful that none of our accomplishments — even for the kingdom of God — are because we want to be seen or known. On the other hand, we need to be successes because God has given us good gifts and we want to use those good gifts to shine as testimonies to the God who lives inside us. Jesus said that we don’t light a candlestick and put it under a bushel, but that we light a candle and put it on a candlestick so that it can be seen by all men. (Matthew 5:15) We are the light of the world, and we should do good works so that men can see our good works and glorify God because of the good works that are produced in our lives. Therefore, we want our lives to be on the candlesticks and our accomplishments to be exalted — not so that we are to be exalted, but so Jesus and the Holy Spirit working through us are exalted. Therefore, it is important that we understand the biblical principles of success.
Milepost Two: Getting God’s Direction
The next step toward success is to find God’s plan for your life. Joseph was a success because he found and followed God’s plan for his life. From the moment he began to have dreams, he was on his way to a successful life — even when his present condition didn’t look very promising. He knew what God’s plan for his life was, and he believed that it would eventually be fulfilled. We, too, can know the will of God for our lives — and when we do, confidence will be birthed inside us.
This is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will he heareth us and if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. (I John 5:14-15)
When we have that confidence from knowing that we are acting according to God’s will, our prayers and actions will take on a whole new dimension. Let me give you an example: I can’t go around confidently praying, “Lord give me a Rolls Royce,” because I don’t know that is God’s will. However, I do know it is God’s will to heal my body; so if I get sick, I can confidently pray, “Heal me, Lord,” because I know the will of God in that particular relationship.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)
To be able to clearly hear and recognize the voice of the Lord, we have to be sheep. We have to be mature in our position — not just lambs — but sheep. As we mature in our faith, we will be able to hear Him more distinctly and, therefore, develop more and more confidence in our ability to walk in His will for our lives. As we understand His directions for our lives, we need to have a plan — actually, a lifestyle — that will allow us to fulfill those directives.
Milepost Three: Focus on Jesus
The author of Hebrews told us that one of the keys to running the race of life is to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. (verse 12:2) I find it interesting that the previous verse says, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” This section is actually a continuation of chapter eleven where the author listed the great roll call of faith and told us about all the great men and women of faith in the Old Testament. We might be able to condense the opening verses of chapter twelve to read, “Now seeing these men and women of the previous chapter as witnesses, we need to look to Jesus if we want to successfully run the race ourselves.” We can glance at other people’s faith, but we need to stare at Jesus because He is the author and finisher of our faith — not only of Moses’ faith and Abraham’s faith, but ours as well. We must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. He is the goal; He is the target. Having seen God at the top of his ladder, Jacob had a focal point to direct himself toward. We have to visualize ourselves directly headed toward our goal — not so much the top of the ladder, but God who stands at the top of our ladders.
As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations. Before him whom we believe, even God who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things that be not as though they were. (Romans 4:17)
From the day that God changed his name from Abram, Abraham continued to refer to himself as “Abraham,” a term that means “the father of many nations.” When Paul was addressing the Romans, he explained that the life of faith was like Abraham’s saying, “I call myself Abraham, the father of many nations, even though I am not yet the father of anything.” He saw himself calling things that were not yet as though they already were. He visualized himself as a father, and he kept proclaiming it as if it already existed. This is one of our keys. We have to see ourselves already with Jesus at the finish line! We must visualize those things that are not yet as if they already are — all the while running toward that goal because we can’t miss getting there to bring the vision that we have into reality.
Unfortunately, there has been a fundamental shift away form this focus on Jesus among modern Christians. I recently watched a full hour television broadcast by a prominent Christian leader who never mentioned the name of Jesus once during the entire program. He talked about God and used some generic spiritual terminology, but never specifically referenced the one name by which men can be saved. (Acts 4:12) Such use of deliberately vague language is a hidden form of universalism, which essentially throws out true Christianity and embraces spirituality in general rather than true conversion through the blood of Jesus. Even secular researchers have noted this damnable trend. A 2008 survey by the Pew Forum showed that sixty-five percent of us — including over one third of white evangelicals — believe that any religions can lead to eternal life, and a Newsweek article entitled, “We are All Hindus Now,” summed up recent research by reporting that although three quarters of Americans continue to identify themselves as Christians, the polls indicate that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like Christians in the ways we think about God, ourselves, each other, and eternity. As individual believers and as the church of Jesus Christ as a whole, it is time that we shake ourselves from the innocuous seeker-sensitive “gospel” we have been preaching for the at least last two generations and begin to embrace solid teaching of the Word that grapples with the meat of scriptures and opposes the invasive philosophies and religious ideologies that have turned our focus away from Christ alone. (Jude 1:4)
Milepost Four: Set a Course
Not only do we have to see our goal, we have to see the path that we are to take. I believe in making a list of things that we are going to do and see ourselves working through the list. We have to plan our work and then we have to work our plan. I think it is important not only to see the goal and make a list of the things we want to do to get there, but I think it is also good to keep a log of what God has done. We should keep a log of our answered prayers and keep a log of the progress that we have made toward our goal. There are a number of things that I have felt that I want to do in my life — rather, things that I believe that God wants me to do. I have written them down so that every now and then I can go back and I check to see how I am progressing through the list. I keep a log, and when God answers a prayer, I mark it off. I find it encouraging when I see that God does one thing on my list because I believe that now He is ready to do the next item on the list. This helps me to always keep my faith on the growing edge.
It is important not to get sidetracked. Dr. Sumrall quite often said, “Make sure you don’t get involved doing what is good when you could be doing what is best.” One of the most promising young men that I ever remember having in Bible college already had some experience in the ministry; when he preached people responded because he had an anointing. However, when he came to Bible school, he took a job at a restaurant across the street from campus to pay his bills. He did such a good job that they offered him the assistant manager’s position. I asked him if he knew what the assistant manager’s job consisted of. When he replied, “Oh, yeah, it is more money, and I need more money to pay my way through school,” I explained, “No, sir, that is just a way for them to pay you for forty hours and get sixty hours of work out of you. You must remember that you are taking that job so you can go to school. If the job becomes a sixty‑hour‑a‑week deal, you will not be able to go to school.” He ignored my advice because he needed the money. Almost immediately, he started missing his assignments; before long, he started missing classes; eventually, he had to drop out of school. Of course, he did well for himself at the restaurant, but he totally lost sight of his goal of coming to school; he was sidetracked. That happens in many of our lives. Many times we let a girlfriend or a boyfriend, a job, or entertainment sidetrack us from the thing that we have set before us. Luke 9:62 says that if we look back, we are not worthy to be the plowman for God anymore. It is important for us to set our goal, keep that goal always before us, see ourselves along the path, make a plan, plan our work and work our plan, and keep a log of the success so that we keep on track all the way.
Milepost Five: Take Action
Another important key for success in life is to take action. James 2:17 says, “Even so faith, if it hath not works is dead being alone.” We have to act; we have to put our faith to work; we have to move with our faith. We can’t just “believe” ourselves into a success, we have to work our way into it. Notice the biographies given of each of the faith characters in Hebrews chapter eleven. Each one says that action was taken by faith. Yes, they had faith, but that faith was made alive through acting upon it.
An old saying says, “An idle mind is the devil’s playhouse, and idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” If we don’t want the devil to have a place in our lives, we have to keep busy. We have to put aside is laziness because God won’t bless laziness.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you that if any would not work, neither shall he eat. (II Thessalonians 3:10)
For a period of time before I was married, I was housefather over several Christian college students at a home that served as a ministry to the secular university where they were all students. The young men began to call me by the nickname, “The Ant” because when I would catch anyone slacking off, I would always quote Proverbs 6:6-11:
Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer or ruler, provided her meat in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, oh sluggard, and when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall thy poverty come as one that travaileth and thy want as an armed man.
I was hoping to develop in them some self-motivation and self-direction so that they could function effectively even if there was no one standing over them every minute saying, “Do this. Do that. Do the other.” Just because nobody is barking orders doesn’t mean that it is time for you to sit down and say, “Oh great, let’s see what’s on the tube!” We need to keep our lives in an active mode. We need to keep our lives in a directed mode. We have to be the ant. Because the ant — even when she has no guide or master over her — keeps herself busy collecting and gathering and preparing for the harvest and preparing for the wintertime. We, as Christians, need to go to the ant. We will not be successful unless we are self-motivated. Otherwise, poverty will come on us as an armed man. We will not be successful unless we do our work just because it is there, not because there is someone forcing us to do it.
Milepost Six: Jettison Junk
We have to lay aside all the weights and hindrances. We have already mentioned the first verse of the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, but there is another important truth that we must glean from this verse. Obviously, we have to lay aside sin, but we also have to lay aside weights. There are many things that are not necessarily bad, they just aren’t good for us. They aren’t necessarily sinful, but they just aren’t healthy. As weights, they hold us down, keeping us attached to this world rather than allowing us to press forward toward the heavenly goal. As such, we must lay them aside if we intend to make it successfully to our goal.
Some of those things can involve negativism.
Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philippians 4:8)
If we are thinking on negativism, defeat, bickering, or discontentment, we are not thinking on what God has told us to think on. If we have those negative things in us, they are going to come out. What is in the abundance of the heart will eventually flow out of the mouth. (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45)
Milepost Seven: Forego the Applause
I once heard a man say something that sounded as if it ought to be biblical, “There is no limit to what a man can do when he doesn’t care who gets the credit.” Sometimes we are so proud of ourselves that we want to have all the credit for everything that we do. But if we just do it because it is good, because it is right, because it needs to be done, or because it is for God — and we don’t care if it looks like somebody else did it or if somebody else gets the credit or is praised for it — that’s a major key to success. We can do a lot of great things when we don’t waste our time worrying about how we are going to get recognized for doing them.
The Bible tells us that the first are the ones who are going to be last and the last are the ones who are going to be first. (Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Mark 9:35, 10:31; Luke 13:30) When Kathryn Kuhlman was alive, she held some of the most powerful crusades and healing campaigns imaginable — so powerful, in fact, that you didn’t just go to one of her meetings; you had to “arrange” to be there! You couldn’t just open the door and walk in; you had to plan to be there several hours in advance and stand outside waiting for the doors to open. On one occasion, four or five of my friends and I had made all the necessary “arrangements” to be in a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting. We had been waiting in line for an hour or so when we noticed some people in wheelchairs and crutches who really needed to be healed. I turned to my friends and said, “Those folks back there who really need healing are so far back in the line that they aren’t going to get in. Why don’t we give them our spot?” They took our place in line and we moved to the back of the line. When the doors opened, they went in and we were left standing outside because there were more people in line that there were seats in the auditorium. Then an amazing thing happened — the head usher came up and said, “If you don’t mind sitting on the floor, I’ve got a place for you.” He brought us in and seated us in front of the front row. We could have reached out and touched Miss Kuhlman! That was one time when the last really did get first place. When we were willing to give up our places so somebody else could have a guarantee of getting into the building, we wound up being in the front of the front. When you don’t care who gets the credit, God always sees that you get the reward.
Milepost Eight: Take Someone with You
You have to put aside grudges.
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you your trespasses. (Matthew 6:15)
Those are the very words of Jesus Himself — written in red in our Bibles. If we don’t forgive others, God cannot forgive us. We have to get rid of grudges because they stand in the way of our success.
We have to be careful not to exalt ourselves. If we exalt God, then God will exalt us. Never step on others to get to the top. The world’s program for success is called “climbing the corporate ladder” — we find the person whose position we want, we do what he has done and try to take the credit for it, you take his position from him, and we try to climb over him to get to the top. God’s system is totally contrary to our popular theory. In God’s economy, we don’t climb over others; instead, we bring others with us to the top — even push them up ahead of us! The popular saying is, “It’s lonely at the top.” But it doesn’t have to be. We can bring plenty of people with us on our journey to the top — and if we do, we have lots of company when we get there. The key to our success will not be that we climbed over others to get on top of them, but that we pulled and pushed everybody that we could to the top because at the top, there really is room for more than just one. The Bible tells us that we are called to edify one another, to build one another up. (Romans 14:19) By building others up, we become successful.
Therefore, all things whatever you would that men should do to you do even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:12)
If we would want others to help us to get to the top, then we have to help them get to the top. Dr. Sumrall said something very poignant one day when I had first come to work for him. He turned to me and said, “Surround yourself with bright people.” Typical of the prophet that Dr. Sumrall was, he didn’t explain it; instead, he left me to get the revelation of what he was saying. I took that thought and meditated on it until I came to realize what it meant. We have to have bright people in the front of us to inspire us. When we are with people who are thinking a little bit sharper than we are, when we are with people who are analyzing a little bit more clearly than we are, when we are with people who have more insight than we do, they inspire us, they teach us, they encourage us, and they challenge us. That will cause us to want to go one step more because we have somebody out in front of us who is drawing us forward. On the other hand, we have to be “surrounded,” meaning that these bright people must not only be in front of us — they must also be behind us. If we have bright people behind us, they draw out the best in us when we are tutoring and instructing them. If they are really bright, they are still standing there wanting more when we have given out everything that we have. Their hunger will make us draw more deeply from the Spirit and more deeply from the Word of God so that we will have enough to continue to give. Having somebody who is pulling everything we have and then still wanting more will make us grow because when they want more, we have to get more.
Surrounding ourselves with bright people causes us to advance; however, if we surround ourselves with people who are satisfied with status quo, we will become satisfied and “stuck in the mud.” If we surround ourselves with people who are progressing, the ones in front of us will pull us to where they are and the ones behind us will push us beyond where we are. We will begin to grow and excel. Someone has said that we are the sum total of our friends. Someone else said that we are the product of our environment. I don’t know that these statements are necessarily totally true, but it does bear a certain amount of truth because if we are around bright people, we will become bright. We will challenge ourselves, and we will force ourselves further than we would otherwise.
Milepost Nine: Let Your Gift Guide You
When thinking about our goals, one of the main things we must remember is to not let the pride of life attitude get into the picture. We have to keep our goals in perspective, making sure that our goals never overshadow God.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)
Sometimes we get so interested in the goal that we are seeking the goal and success. Jesus said that if we seek His kingdom first, then success and goals will find their way into our lives.
Praise, worship, and thanksgiving are factors that we need to keep very strong in our lives because they help keep our eyes and our hearts focused toward God rather than our goals. Even though we are going for a goal, the praise, the worship, the thanksgiving bring us back to the reality of the One for whom we are striving for that goal.
Too many people in striving to be great in the kingdom of God do “flaky,” absurd, and bizarre things; but we don’t have to be that way. My simple advice is to be sensible. God uses sensible people. Yes, some of the Old Testament prophets did some strange things, but basically their ministries were very sensible. When we read the stories of their lives, we will see that they occasionally did a really bizarre thing to draw attention, but basically their lives were lives that were sensible, profitable, and productive. Their lives were examples to the community.
First Timothy 3:7 tells us that we should have a good report among all men. If everything we do is bizarre and “flaky,” the world is not going to view us as men and women of good report. When we try to say something, they are going to think, “Well, that freak! Obviously he is saying something stupid.” On the other hand, if our lives show forth a standard of excellence, when we do the thing that God tells us to do — even if it seems a bit bizarre — people are going to take a second thought about it instead of just thinking that we should be hauled off by the men in white coats.
We have to use the gifts that God has given us. Proverbs 18:16 says that a man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men. Each of us has a gift. Our gifts all differ according to who we are and what we are destined to do in the Body of Christ. Those gifts are important, and they make a place for us. We have to find what we can do. We have to find our place and we have to fill that place.
When I was “growing up” in the ministry, I was involved in the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship. One of the things that characterized their meetings was an over abundance of announcements and almost unending preliminaries. That was the standard joke that their speakers wouldn’t speak until 10 PM because they had to do all those preliminaries and make all their announcements. Everybody who went to one of those meetings deserved to get their miracle if they lived through all the announcements and preliminaries. So I told the Lord, “If I ever have to be in the place where I have to make announcements, it’s not going to be like this.” So I determined that whatever announcements and whatever preliminaries I had to do, I was going to make them enjoyable, interesting, lively, and quick. One day, Dr. Sumrall asked me to talk about one of his books. Instead of saying, “Here is a good book, you ought to buy it,” I made the announcement lively, exciting, and quick. Bro. Sumrall was so impressed that he turned to me and said, “That’s your job. You’re going to do all the announcements from now on.” One of the leading evangelists in America heard me make announcements when he was a guest at our church and came up to me after the service saying, “Brother, if they don’t treat you right here, I’ve got a place of you.” He was joking, of course; but it was true that I had made an impression. All the great evangelists who came to preach for Dr. Sumrall remembered me when they came back the next year because they were intrigued with the ability I had to make a fool out of myself while I made announcements. It was a gift. Stupid as it may seem, getting up and making people laugh when I was trying to sell books was a gift that made a place for me and brought me before great men. If God could use that simple little gift to make a place for me, just imagine what He can do with all the great gifts that He has placed inside you!
It doesn’t matter what it is. It might be as trite as making announcements; but whatever your gift is, use it because God gave it to you for two purposes. First, it will make a place, or a niche, slotting you into place for success. Secondly, it will bring you before great people and bring other people in your path. If we are operating in our gift, people will notice us and gravitate to us. Among them will be the great people who will pull us up. We all have spiritual gifts, natural talents, and personal gifts that we need to use to their fullest.
Milepost Ten: Four “P”s
Another important key to success is patience. Luke 21:19 says, “In your patience possess ye your souls.” Galatians 6:9 adds, “You will reap in due season if you faint not.” Hebrews 12:3 tells us that we should not faint in our minds. Hebrews 6:12 directs us that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. We have to have patience because our success is probably not going to come overnight. If we continue with patience and with endurance, we will eventually come to our place of success.
Whatsoever things that were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scripture might have hope. (Romans 15:4)
There are four “P”s in Romans 15:4 that can be helpful to us. Learning is preparation. We are to build upon the cornerstone of Christ and the apostles and all the other teachers. Whatsoever things that were written beforehand were written for us. The things that we received in church or school are not for our entertainment. Too many times we go to church to be entertained, to shout, to dance, and to see somebody with a vibrant message run around on the platform. We go home having been entertained, but did we really learn any solid truths. Paul said that all those things are not just for our entertainment, but they are for our learning so that we can begin to prepare ourselves for our important assignments on the earth.
The next key is patience. In the story about the little train who is trying to go up the hill, the little engine said, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” until finally he got to the top and said, “I knew I could, I knew I could, I knew I could!” He was patient. When he first started up that hill and found out that it was a very difficult climb, he didn’t give up but kept plugging away at the task. Patience means diligence — taking life a bite at a time. The little saying goes, “Inch by inch, life’s a cinch; taken by the yard, it is really hard; taken by the mile, it’ll take you a while.” Take the tasks set before you one bite at a time — the same way the Africans say they can eat an elephant. With this kind of diligence, we can keep at our assignments until we eventually succeed.
The seminary I attended had quite a colorful staff: Dr. Green, Dr. Black, and Dr. Brown. Dr. Green told a story about how he learned Hebrew. He got so frustrated because he just couldn’t seem to learn or comprehend the language that he took his Hebrew book and threw it out the open window of his dormitory room. Since this happened during the days before air conditioning, there was a screen on the window to keep the flies and mosquitoes out. When the book hit the screen, it bounced back, landed right at his feet, and flopped open to the page he was supposed to be doing for his homework assignment that night. Taking this as a sign from God, he picked up the Hebrew book and very diligently began to plow into that Hebrew until he never made less than an “A” all the way through his Hebrew studies in his masters and doctorate degrees. Eventually, he could read Hebrew as fluently as he could read English. The advice I learned from his little lesson was to avoid frustration in life. When you are ready to throw it all out the window, let God bounce it back at our feet. Say, “I’m going to keep on. I’m not going to give up. I’m going to be diligent and be a success.”
Paul went on to speak of “comfort” which can also be called peace. James told us that the wisdom that comes from above is first of all peaceable. (verse 3:17) Isaiah tells us that if we wait on the Lord, our spirits are renewed. (verse 40:31) Restoration can be seen as comfort and peace. The building process in our lives can be painful, but we can maintain our peace during this time, letting wisdom, restoration, and edification work in us. The process can be painful, but there has to be an attitude of peace about it. The Word gives us satisfaction. Suppose that the Lord has called you into the ministry, but you enroll in a secular university to study engineering instead of heading to Bible school; in that case, you won’t be peaceful because peace and tranquility are part of being in God’s will.
Paul went on to say that through patience and comfort of the scriptures we can have hope. We all know from I Corinthians chapter thirteen that there are three things that abide: faith, hope, and love. Hope is very important; it’s one of the big three in Corinthians! If we understand that hope is a promise, we will recognize that it is also one of the big four “P”s in Romans: preparation, patience, peace, and promise. Through the Word, we have a hope; we have a promise that we will do something worthwhile — changing men’s destiny. The end result of our preparation is that we can change men’s eternal destinies. Going back to the illustration about being called to the ministry but preparing to be an engineer, we can see the difference. As engineers, we might change men’s environment, but we will not change their souls. Of course, if we are called to be engineers, what we do will be significant in its own right and will change men’s destinies as well. The value of our hope lies in our calling.
Milepost Eleven: Good Success — The Good Book
The book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. But thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou might observe to do all that is written therein. For then thou shall make thy way prosperous and then shalt thy have good success. (Joshua 1:8)
If you want to have “good success,” the only way to do it is that the book of the Law does not depart from your mouth day or night. We have to keep the book of the Law foremost before us — in our thinking, in our actions, in our talking — all the time because we have to do it God’s way. If we do God’s assignment by God’s plan, we will get God’s success.
The Lord told Joshua that this book of the Law should not depart out of his mouth but that he should meditate upon it day and night. That meant that he should constantly focus on its application to every situation in life. The passage goes on to say that he should consider how to observe to do all that is written in it. In other words, he could not just apply some parts and ignore others. Many Christians consider the Bible to be a cafeteria where they can pick and choose the parts they want and the parts they want to pass up. According to this promise to Joshua, it is when we decide to do everything that the scriptures instruct that our ways will become prosperous and we will have good success.
Milepost Twelve: Watch Out for the Glass Ceiling
Another point that I would suggest is that you not be held back by imaginary chains. There have been a couple of occasions in my life when I have heard prophecies that were genuinely the word of the Lord. Even after twenty years, I could tell you word-for-word, breath-by-breath what happened and what was said. One of those words that was an unquestionable word from the Lord was, “The yoke has been broken from off thy shoulders; therefore, lift up thy neck and hold up thy head.” An animal with a yoke on its neck has his head down while plowing because of the heavy yoke. If you take the yoke off the animal, he may not immediately lift his head because he has become so accustomed to having that yoke on his neck and shoulders. Even though the yoke is gone, he doesn’t think to lift his head up. We Christians can be just like that. Because we have carried yokes so long, we have a tendency to fail to lift up our heads and act like we are free even after the bondages have been broken. All too often, we continue to walk around with our heads down and our hearts heavy as if we are still under the bondage of the world and the devil. We need to renew our minds to the fact that we are free. We need to get rid of the symptom as well as the actual cause. We need to learn a lesson from the great behavioral psychologist researcher Ivan Pavlov. By feeding his dogs every time he rang a bell, Pavlov proved that physical responses can be brought by mental images. Eventually, he was able to cause the dogs to salivate when they heard the bell ring even though he was no longer offering them food. In a psychosomatic response, the dogs’ minds had taken control over their bodies. Unfortunately, we can continue in a similar syndrome of responding to mental images of bondage even after Christ has set us free.
A friend of mine kept his dog on a chain because it loved to chase cars. When a car would come down the road, the dog would jump up and go growling and howling out to the road. When he would get to the last link of his chain, the chain would jerk him back so that he couldn’t get out to the road. The dog did that often enough that he learned where the end of the chain was, and he learned to stop at that point to prevent getting jerked to a halt. Eventually, my friend took the chain off; however, the dog never seemed to realize the difference. He had learned not to go beyond a certain point. When a car would come, the dog would jump up and go running and howling all across the yard, but he would stop where the chain used to arrest him. The barrier was his mind — not a physical chain.
All too often, we Christians are just like these conditioned dogs and the animal in the prophecy; we need to go beyond our imaginary bondages. Christ has set us free — and if He has set us free, we are free indeed! (John 8:36) Jesus has given us the sky as our limit; there is nothing that can stop us. But we think, “I cannot do this because I am a woman” or “because I’m black,” or “because I’m poor,” or “because of my past,” or “because I don’t have any money,” or “because I was born on a Tuesday,” or any other imaginable excuse. We have all these imaginary bondages that we must go beyond so that we can enter into reality. Christ has broken the yoke off of us, so let’s raise our heads high and straighten out our shoulders.
I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that you shall not be their slaves. I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you to walk upright. (Leviticus 26:13)
We need to walk upright and realize that there is no limit to what we can do if we really start taking hold of God’s principles. When a young man in the Bible school sent me a suicide note, I went to talk with him and found out that his problem was that he thought that he was a failure. He was behind in his tuition and thought that he would be kicked out of school because of poor grades and his unpaid bill. The problem is that he didn’t know that just a day or two before I had received a gift from someone to totally pay off all his school debts. A note informing him about the scholarship grant was already in the mail coming to him, but he just hadn’t gotten his mail yet. His miracle had happened, but he just didn’t know about it. His grades weren’t nearly as bad as he thought; in fact, he wound up making the dean’s list that semester! He just thought that he was flunking out. Can you imagine? He was going to kill himself over two things that were both wrong information. He was so totally wrong, and he was going to end his life over two misconceptions. But we do the same thing with our lives all the time — we kill our futures over misconceptions because we don’t know the truth and because we are living under the bondage of imaginary limits.
Milepost Thirteen: The Holy Ghost
The Navy says, “The difficult, we do immediately. The impossible may take a little while.” The Marines say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Think of how POWs withstand torture but refuse to give away military secrets. Now remember one thing about the Navy, the Marines, and the POWs: they are doing their great exploits in their own human ability — they don’t even have Jesus, much less the Holy Spirit. Paul said, “I can do all things though Christ who strengtheneth me.” (Philippians 4:13) If the Navy and the Marines can do great things, how much more can those who know their God do exploits. As Spirit-filled believers, we should be people who see no limits or barriers, who take off all the bondages and say, “I’m going for the gold! I’m going to do something great for God and through God.”
In 1985, Jerry Taylor from Boulder, Colorado, walked across America from San Francisco to New York City. The interesting thing is that he has cerebral palsy and had to walk on crutches. He determined to make the full transcontinental journey and no limit could hold him back. I can’t help but think of him when I see able-bodied folks pull into handicapped parking places because they don’t want to walk across the parking lot. Jerry Taylor had a different spirit about him. He was able to get beyond his limitations while those folks in the parking lot couldn’t even get to the store with their perfectly good legs. If we want to be successful, we must do what God has given us to do — whether it makes sense and looks feasible or not!
A few years ago, one man took four days, two hours, forty-eight minutes, and seven seconds to complete the New York City Marathon. The reason: both his legs had been amputated, and he pulled himself by his hands. Regardless of what it took, regardless of the pain, he said, “I am not going to be stopped.” We need to do that same thing about the assignments that the Lord gives us. Who cares how long it takes, how many obstacles we must overcome, or what it costs as long as we get across the finish line! (Ecclesiastes 9:11, I Corinthians 9:24, Hebrews 12:1)
I used to live in Yosemite National Park and did lots of hiking and exploring and a bit of rock climbing. I can’t imaging the number of times that I looked up the face of El Capitan, a thirty-two-hundred-foot vertical cliff, and thought, “Gee, I’d like to climb you,” but never tried. You can imagine how embarrassed I was in 1989 when I read about Mark Welman’s climb up the monolith with one arm. If we want to accomplish things for God, we can’t let the things that look like handicaps stop us. We have to decide that if we are going to be successful, there is no barrier — no matter how real it seems — that can stop us. We have to be careful not to abort the mission that God has given us.
Milepost Fourteen: Don’t Abort
There are several things that can cause us to abort the mission that God has given us. The first is apathy. History tells us that Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned. Apathy, the attitude of just letting things go as Nero did, will abort the mission. A lot of people say, “I don’t want to get involved. I don’t want to put my neck on the line. I don’t want to take a risk. My vote doesn’t count. What can I do against such a great challenge?” Probably more detrimental are those who say, “I’m going to do it! — Tomorrow.”
Another abortion technique is called “busyness.” We can simply be too busy, doing trite, little things while missing the main point. The Jews missed the weightier issues of the law by being busy taking care of their little tithes and offerings or whatever. We need to always be careful not to get so busy that we miss the forest by looking at the individual trees. (Matthew 23:23)
In the Bible we read of four things that are labeled as “impossible.” One of them is that it is impossible except that offenses come. We are all going to get offended. No matter how sweet we are, no matter how generous we are, no matter how nice we are — somebody is going to offend us. We just have to accept the fact that somewhere along life’s journey we are going to be offended. But, more importantly, we must remember to not accept it. Offense is just like poison — it is only dangerous when it is swallowed. Just keep doing what God has told you to do even when people offend you.
We are to be careful about apathy, we have to be careful about getting involved with too much busyness, and we have to be careful about being offended. We also have to be careful that we are walking in the reality of God’s call. We have to make sure that we don’t get off on the wrong thing because everybody else is doing it. In fact, we sometimes get detoured onto the wrong road and find that the going is actually fairly easy there. It’s at that point that we need to remember that the devil won’t try to stop us unless we are on the right road. If you are on the wrong road, he is not going to give you any troubles, he is not going to try to stop you.
Have you ever noticed that Indiana Jones never gets into trouble until he is just about to find the treasure? Life can go along quite nicely for him — until he is about to find the lost chalice or whatever. Then, all of a sudden, all hell will break loose. That is the way it is with our lives as well. So when troubles come, remember that the prize must be within grasp. Don’t let troubles stop you.
Apathy
Busyness
Offenses
Reality
Troubles
If we let these things get into our lives, they will abort the vision and cause that God has given us.
