Today we continue our series entitled, “Pursuing Grace-Based Success!”
Here are our foundational scriptures:
(Ephesians 2:8-10 ERV)
8 I mean that you have been saved by grace because you believed. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.
9 You are not saved by the things you have done, so there is nothing to boast about.
10 God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would spend our lives doing the good things he had already planned for us to do.
(1 Corinthians 1:30,31 NLT)
30 God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.
31 Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”
(2 Timothy 1:9 NKJV)
Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
Today we will also look at this verse:
(3 John 2, AMP)
“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in every way and [that your body] may keep well, even as [I know] your soul keeps well and prospers.”
So what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. Your thoughts control your life, so put in the effort to think like God.
This series is about success and how to pursue it in God’s way. In our last message, I drove home the point that success, for the believer, starts on the inside. You will never have external success until you can see that success internally. What I said before was, “Your legs wll never take you where your soul has never been.” This is why you must meditate and medicate on the Word of God.
Your thinking is critical and central to your living. The Word of God will help you to think like God. Solomon said, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov 4:23). That’s the traditional King James Version. I like more modern translations. The Easy to Read Version (ERV) reads, “Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life.” If you can think like God and believe what God believes about you, then it will only be a matter of time before what you SEE on the inside will manifest on the outside!
2. You have to reprogram your autopilot to a setting that will keep you aligned with God and His plans for your life.
In 3 John 2, the Apostle John is praying for his friend, Gaius, that he would prosper and be in good physical health to the same degree as his soul was prospering. The key is the connection between his soul prosperity and his total life prosperity. Pastor Bill Winston said, “Inside every one of us is an image I call an “invisible fence,” which dictates how far we can go and what we see ourselves doing and being. It is an invisible wall between you and God, holding you back and keeping you from stepping out and doing what seems impossible. If you attempt to go outside this fence, your subconscious mind brings you back.”
I agree with what Pastor Bill Winston said. He calls it a fence. I call it your “autopilot.” Think of a plane. Once the plane has the autopilot engaged, the autopilot will keep the plane set in a certain direction and elevation. Now, the pilot can grab the yoke and override the plane for a few minutes. He/she can change the direction and the elevation, but as soon as the pilot releases the controls, the plane will GO RIGHT BACK to the direction and elevation it was “SET” to. Why? Because it was PROGRAMMED that way!
If you can understand that, then you can understand how your soul is your autopilot or invisible fence. It is designed to keep you on course with your self-image. Now, like the pilot who takes over the controls for a few minutes, you can SEE and BELIEVE beyond your self-image (the internal programming of your soul) for a few minutes when you are in church or a few minutes when you are in your prayer closet. These experiences may cause you to get excited and emotional, but if your internal programming (your soul) does not change, when the emotions wear off, your life will go right back to your autopilot. WHY? Because you are PROGRAMMED that way! Your soul contains your programming.
Said another way, you will never routinely go beyond your level of thinking. You may get pushed by God or someone else, or you may even push yourself from time to time. On those occasions, you will venture out beyond your invisible fence, but if your soul is not renewed and transformed, your autopilot will bring you back before long. Therefore, to maximize your divine purpose and potential in life, you must develop a prosperous soul. You must be deprogrammed and then reprogrammed to think and act like God and to believe what God believes about you!
3. Becoming prosperous in life begins with developing a prosperous soul.
— Right thinking produces right living. Divine success begins on the inside. The measure of success you experience in life will come as a result of the measure of divine success within your soul.
— The prosperous soul believes in God’s limitless dreams and relies on God’s limitless power. Meditating on God’s ability to accomplish the seemingly impossible will propel you beyond your natural strength. You cannot accomplish God’s will for your life based solely upon your own power. Which is why you must meditate and medicate on God’s grace. God’s grace will empower you to do what you could never do without Him!
— You should not have a limited view of success (or prosperity). If you see limits, it is because this world taught you about them. But the more you meditate on God, His grace, His goodness, and His plans for your life, the less you will see limits because there is nothing God can’t do!
— If you feel like you are prospering in life, please don’t fool yourself into thinking you are succeeding on your own. Many times believers get confused, thinking they are accomplishing things without the grace of God. Grace can be described as God adding His super to your natural, causing the supernatural to occur in your life. James said, “Every good and perfect gift comes from above” (James 1:17). Acknowledge God’s blessing and thank God for His grace. Don’t ever get “the big head.” You are who you are by the grace of God!
— The prosperous soul loves God, not money. If you give God first place in your life, He will see to it that you receive all the resources you need to accomplish His will on earth. But it is dangerous for a Christian to put material prosperity ahead of their spiritual maturity. Paul warned, “But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.” (1 Tim 6:9,10 NLT). Conversely, when you do things God’s way, the Bible says, “The blessing of the LORD makes a person rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.” (Proverbs 10:22 NIV).
*** God wants you to succeed (prosper) in life. You were not born to fail. But God does not want you to pursue success in life in ways that are not pleasing in His sight. If you simply die to self, yield to the Holy Spirit, believe what God believes about you, and then pursue God’s plans by faith, God will make you a success in life. When He does, since He did it His way, this success will be graced-based, it will keep you on the path to your destiny, and you will be able to ENJOY everything placed in your hands because He adds NO SORROW with it!
That’s enough for today.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You for teaching me about grace-based success.
I am convinced that You love me. Since You love me, Your desire is for me to be successful in life. It is Your will that I prosper. I was not born to fail.
I was born to succeed, and this success can only be found in Your divine purpose for my life. So I make a concerted effort to submit to the process of mind renewal. I deprogram my mind from the ways of this world, and I reprogram it with Your Word.
I purposely change the way I think to line up with Your thinking, to see myself the way You see me, and to believe what You believe about me!
I think of my future the way You do. I align my plans with Your purpose. I take every limit off because You are a limitless God. Once I factor You in, I can factor out every limit because there is nothing You cannot do.
As I see myself the way You see me on the inside, it is only a matter of time before it manifests on the outside. I am prosperous in life because I have a prosperous soul. My God causes me to prosper, and He adds no sorrow with it! I know GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
