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.
In our last message, I introduced you to what I call God’s formula for success, Joshua 1:8.
(Joshua 1:8 KJV)
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
As a young man, Joshua was selected as one of 12 leaders who would spy out the land God was giving the nation of Israel. God made it clear to His people, through Moses, that HE was giving them the land. All they needed to do was take possession of it. However, 10 of the 12 spies allowed fear to grip their hearts. Instead of focusing and meditating on what God said, they chose to focus on the opposition, the giants in the land. The 10 fearful spies (leaders) infected millions of Israelites with fear, and a generation died in the wilderness because of it.
40 years later, God was, once again, ready to give the Israelites the land. Joshua was still around, and by this time, he had been promoted to national leader. It was Joshua’s responsibility to lead the nation into the Promised Land. God was giving them the land by grace (unmerited and unearned). But in order to take possession of it, they were going to have to use their faith.
To ensure the new leader remained focused, God said to Joshua, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” (Joshua 1:8).
In one succinct scripture, the Lord instructed Joshua to keep the Word of God on his mind and in his mouth. Further, the Lord made it clear that he was not after lip service. The Lord was not looking for someone who just “talked” a good name. No, the Lord’s instructions to Joshua were to have His Word in his mouth and on his mind but only for the purpose of DOING what it says. In this way, both he and the national of Israel would be prosperous and successful.
So what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. God has plans for you, and His plans are to prosper you.
God loves you so much that He did not allow you to be born without a purpose. He made plans for you before the world began. Once you are Born-Again, and you are able to hear God by His Spirit, He freely offers you the life He planned for you to have. He offers you His best. He does this by grace. Not because you earned it, deserve it, or worked for it. And not because you are so good. God does this simply because He is good.
This is what He did for the nation of Israel. He led them out of Egypt, He made sure they did not come out empty-handed (they came out with gold, silver, and precious stones), and He then freely offered them the land that was promised to their forefathers. In many ways, God does the same for us when we are Born-Again. He begins to reveal to us the blessed plans He made for us before we were even born. Several things are tied to God’s plans for our lives.
These plans contain: a) a blueprint for our success (becuase we cannot be successful outside of God’s will for our lives), b) a roadmap to our destiny (because following God’s plans will lead us to the expected end He set up for us), and c) promises that are tied to the grace of God that is on our lives (meaning that as we follow God’s Spirit and believe His promises, we will tap into the grace to do what we were born to do).
2. Grace does not come BY work, but it does come FOR work!
— While you cannot work FOR grace, you are supposed to work By grace.
— Some mistake the message of God’s grace to mean they do NOTHING. No. Grace does not alleviate you from doing anything. Grace actually empowers you to do more! By God’s grace, you can do all things!
— God offered Canaan to the Israelites by grace. He then required them to use their faith to take possession of it.
— The land was theirs, but it was inhabited by giants. If they were going to take possession of God’s promise, it would require a fight. That’s the way God does us all the time. He gives us a promise. The promise is amazing! He tells us it’s already ours! But we must then have the faith to go FIGHT to take possession of it! This is why it is critical that we meditate and medicate on God’s Word day and night. If we don’t believe God, we will run from the fight. If we do, we will miss out on God’s best, and it won’t be God’s fault.
— Godly success does not mean that you sit around and wait for God to bring success to your door like Uber eats. No! Godly success may require you to do more than you have ever done. The difference is that you are not the one doing it. It is the Father who lives in you! He gives you the words, and He performs the work!
3. What you focus on matters.
— Success and failure both start in the mind.
— You are the way you THINK you are (Prov 23:7).
— If the enemy can cause you to see yourself defeated in your mind, then he does not have to actually defeat you because you are already defeated. You defeated yourself before you ever got started. That’s what happened to the 10 spies and the millions who believed them. They were defeated in their own minds, and they died in the wilderness as a result of their thinking.
— Joshua chose to focus on the promise (Canaan) instead of the problem (giants). As a result, he was able to experience Canaan while millions of his contemporaries died in the wilderness. What will you focus on today? You get to choose what you give your attention to!
— The greatest barrier to God’s blessing is your capacity to believe. The more you can believe, the more God can achieve THROUGH you.
— You are only limited by your capacity to believe God. Nothing is impossible to the person who believes (Mark 9:23).
— As a key to Godly success, when the time came for Joshua to lead the nation of Israel into the Promised Land, the Lord instructed Joshua to meditate on His Word and to do it day and night. Your promise may not be Canaan, but the counsel still applies today. If you choose to meditate and medicate on God’s Word day and night, you will look at your challenges through the lens of faith, and you will see them as small in God’s eyes. There is nothing you cannot do when you are looking at the challenge from God’s perspective.
That’s enough for today.
In closing:
— God made plans for you.
— You have the grace for those plans.
— But you will never tap into God’s grace if you don’t focus on His promises long enough to believe what God believes about you!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You for teaching me about grace-based success.
I know that for me to become the man/woman You birthed me to be, I must align up heart, mind, lips, and legs with Your plans for my life. I must believe what You believe about me! I declare that I do!
I choose to give my attention to Your Word. Your Words are life to me. They are health and healing to all my flesh.
Your Words give my life meaning. Your Words provide divine direction. Your Words build me up from the inside-out.
I meditate on Your Word day and night. As I do, I am literally medicating on it. Your Word ministers peace and power to me.
Like Joshua, You made great plans for me by grace, and You require me to use my faith to access those plans. Because I meditate on Your Word, I am in a position to take possession of every promise by faith.
I enter this day ready to take possession of my Promised Land I, and I am prepared to kill every giant that stands in my way. Living this way, GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
