Persistence: The Key to Your Success

Exo 17:11 – 12 And it happened when Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.  But Moses' hands became heavy. And they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur held up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side. And his hands were steady until the going of the sun.

Success is a battle you cannot you cannot afford to lose. Even in moments when it seems you are losing you must persist. In the text above, the Israelites won the battle due to the persistence of one man – Moses. He chose not to give up even when his was worn out.

Persist in your struggle to succeed so long as you know that you are fighting the right battle. In moments when you realize you can fight alone don’t hesitate to call for support. Moses had help from Aaron and Hur and his hand remained up till the end.

Until you see the result you want, let your hands be up. Never let your hand down.

Take Up Your Challenge

2Co 12:7 - 9 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

There is no glory without a cross; there is no success without a challenge. Every position we occupy in life comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. Accepting the advantages will mean accepting the inconveniences as well. Refusing to accept the challenges will mean denying the opportunities and the benefits.

That is why you must always accept to face the challenges that come your way. There are certain challenges that will not go away as we will want it. You can only manage them. That is what the thorn in the flesh mean.

These kinds of challenges are there to make us humble in the successes we make. Without them, there will be no meaning to life. Success in itself creates negative pride which leads to destruction. The challenges that come with success are guard rails that hold us in check so that we don’t go overboard.

Every leader has his own Judas Iscariot, in one way or the other. If you discover your Judas, then know that you really are in leadership. Just as Jesus did not throw out his Judas, but kept him in the fold even though he (Jesus) knew very well that Judas is the one going to betray him, you must also accept your challenges and move along with them.

You Are What You Think

Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.

The mind is the source of all that we do. There is nothing that we do that was not first conceived in our minds. Even the most impromptu actions we undertake are only after a very fast process of conception. That is why those who wish to control people try to take control of the minds of people. Once the mind is under control the body is fully under control.

You must strive hard to be in control of your thoughts and you will be in control of your life. A quote from Proverbs 23:7 says “for as he thinks in his heart, so is he”. The way you think makes you what you are. A person’s life is the product of his thoughts.

When you spend all your day thinking about what will make you good, you will surely become good. If you spend your whole life thinking about how bad you are or will be, you end up being bad. Our thoughts have tremendous power. If you think always about how difficult it will be to succeed in any project, you fail to find the many reasons that make success possible in that project.

If this is so, then the best thing each person should do is to think only about what is good, what is positive and what is progressive. If you want to make a change in your life, then begin to think the change. That is what it means by being transformed by the renewing of the mind.

If you succeed in changing your way of thinking, your life will change in response. So what are you thinking about now?

THINK SUCCESS, SEE SUCCESS

Let Go

Heb 12:1 Therefore since we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us

As we journey through life, we pass through many situations and challenges. These surely leave various impressions on us. We form habits, some good some bad. There are certain habits that we know are bad and we must just let go. But because they are habits, we find it difficult to let go. There is nothing best for us but just to let go. Letting go will free us and give us the opportunity to move ahead without any sense of guilt coming from self examination.

There are other things that, though they are not bad in themselves, prevent us from forging ahead in order to achieve our goals. That is where the difficulty comes. But, in order to move ahead, we must let go.

The passage chosen for today’s message talks about weights that draw us back. Those who desire to move ahead must by necessity throw away the weight they carry. When you watch athletes in an Olympic race, especially women, you realize that they throw away all the heavy jackets they wear just before the race starts. This they do to give them extra advantage to run as fast as they can. You cannot imagine any athlete running in suits today.

That is what your life is about. There are certain things in your life today; there are certain people you are holding to, there are several things that you consider good for you; but those are the very things, the very people that draw you back or slow you down. For the sake of progress, tell yourself when you realize: “It is time to let go”.
Take time and search for such unnecessary baggage and LET THEM GO.

Watch Out

1Peter 5:8 Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

Don’t be deceived that you will have a smooth road as you move towards your goals. Those who think like that usually get the rudest shocks of their lives when they come against roadblocks in their way. There is one thing you must know: achieving your goals will create a disadvantage for someone. If you are that person, you will do everything possible to stop the dream. That is why you need to wide awake as you make your journey through life.

The road of real life is not smooth; it is rough and tough. There are many traps on the way. Watch out for the baits in these traps. The aim of the trap is to stop you from going ahead and if possible draw you back, in fact destroy your dream. The bait has a simple aim: lure you into the trap. You must watch out for baits because not bait is ugly. If you want to more explanation about this, look at a mouse when caught in a trap.

Not all offers that come your way in life are good for you; in fact the same offer might be good for someone else but not you. Taking a particular offer might mean giving up your dream. The story of hungry Esau is a great illustration. When Jacob made the offer of food for birthright, Esau did not take his brother serious. He only realized the seriousness when he lost his blessing.

As you fight on, watch out for such deals that will affect your future. Avoiding such deals and forgoing such some obvious advantages of today will guarantee a brighter tomorrow.

In a race between the tortoise and the dog, the tortoise made sure to scatter juicy bones on the road knowing very well that the dog will not like to leave those bones uneaten. By the time “fast dog” finished the juicy bones, “slow but smart tortoise” had crossed the finished line. Choose which one you want to be.

WATCH OUT.

Look Ahead

Luke 9:61 – 62. And another also said, Lord, I will follow You, but first allow me to take leave of those in my house. And Jesus said to him, no one, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

The story of Lot’s wife reminds us all about one thing. The past will make you freeze, to the point that you can’t move forward. That is why in your walk towards achieving your goals, you should seldom look back.

Life is a race. What this means is that until you cross the finish line, the distance covered is not as important as the one to be covered. One thing is certain about athletic races. Runners who look back too often mostly do not complete the race; even if they complete it is most unlikely that they will take the crown.

There are many reasons why you will want to look back. One of them is to see the successes you have made at a point in time. But your successes can constitute a drawback to your progress. There are many people who take pride so much in what they have achieved in the past that they forget about what they must do today. In the past are also your failures and regrets. Looking back refreshes all those memories which make progress difficult.

For that reason, once you have decided to do something, don’t look back. Look forward to. Concentrate on your aim and achieve it. Until you see the result you want in what you have started, don’t look back. Those who drive know that you cannot keep looking in the mirror as you drive. The result of that action is obvious: you will crush. But when you look into the windscreen, you see the road ahead.

Therefore let this be your motto: Forward ever.

Be Focused

Mat 14:28 - 31 And Peter answered Him and said, LORD, if it is You, tell me to come to You on the water. And He said, Come. And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But seeing that the wind was strong, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me! And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him; and said to him, Little-faith! Why did you doubt?

Doing a long term project comes with a lot of challenges. Once you decided on what to do, then you start receiving signals as to why you might not succeed. There are also signals about other options of doing the same thing. Those who are married will attest to the fact that after they made their decision on a particular person, other equally capable candidates came up; some of them even “better” than the person they have chosen. There are many people who fell time and time again to these “better” options.

All those signals and options are what we call distractions. You should be focused once you’ve decided to do what you want to do in order to avoid the distractions that come your way. In the Bible story above, Peter decided to walk on the sea. He started well and he was marveled by his own performance in the beginning. Then at a point he realized that he was sinking.

Why did Peter start sinking? The answer simply is that he lost focus. When he started walking on the water he was looking at his destination which is where Jesus was. That was his motivation for the project. But he took his focus away from the motivational factor and started looking at the distractions that surrounded him. Then he realized how impossible what he was doing was. One thing that might have made Peter to look at the winds was his friends back in the boat who were making all kinds of noise in amazement of what was happening.

Be assured that there will be a lot of distractions as you aim at achieving your long term goals. Don’t take your eyes off the target – your motivational factor. Don’t mind what people around you are saying so long as you know you are moving on the right track. You have a target; you have an aim; you must succeed. Be focused.

HAVE A BLESSED WEEK.

Please leave a comment if you’ve been inspired by this.