Mindset For Success

I accepted Jesus into my heart at the age of six after a 5-Day Bible Club being held in our backyard. I remember Pastor Dan Austin leading me in the prayer of salvation in my bedroom after the Friday session of the meeting. For the first thirty-seven years of my spiritual life, I was, by all outward appearances, a good person living a good life. I was raised in a wonderful Christian home with parents that loved Jesus, were faithful in church attendance, and lived out their faith every day. To anyone watching, I looked like a model Christian: dependable, moral, disciplined, and engaged. But inside, something essential was missing. My faith was steady but stagnant—alive, yet not growing; obedient, but not fully surrendered. I often describe it this way: I was like a dead fish floating downstream. I wasn’t rebelling or making trouble, but I wasn’t swimming against the current either. I was drifting through life, guided more by habit than by the Holy Spirit. My faith was more about checkin...

You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. - John 4:22-24 (LSB) To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God. - William Temple And so the Lord says, “Since these people say they are mine but they do not obey me, and since their worship amounts to mere words learned by rote, therefore I will take awesome vengeance on these hypocrites and make their wisest counselors as fools.” -  Living Bible) For the reverence and fear of God are basic to all wisdom. Knowing God results in every other kind of understanding. - Proverbs ...

Blessed [forgiven, refreshed by God’s grace] are those who mourn [over their sins and repent], for they will be comforted [when the burden of sin is lifted]. - Matthew 5:4 (Amplified Bible) For [godly] sorrow that is in accord with the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but worldly sorrow [the hopeless sorrow of those who do not believe] produces death.  For [you can look back and] see what an earnestness and authentic concern this godly sorrow has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves [against charges that you tolerate sin], what indignation [at sin], what fear [of offending God], what longing [for righteousness and justice], what passion [to do what is right], what readiness to punish [those who sin and those who tolerate sin]! - 2 Corinthians 7:10-11 (Amplified Bible) As long as we live on this earth as kingdom people, we will have an overwhelming sense of spiritual poverty, and we will say with Paul, “In my flesh dwells no good thi...

Blessed [spiritually prosperous, happy, to be admired] are the poor in spirit [those devoid of spiritual arrogance, those who regard themselves as insignificant], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven [both now and forever]. - Matthew 5:3 (Amplified Bible) To be poor in spirit is to acknowledge one’s spiritual bankruptcy before God. It is the opposite of the self-reliance which the world applauds. We are not spiritually self-sufficient. We cannot merit anything from God. Poverty of spirit is the first step toward the kingdom because it opens the heart to grace. - John Stott What area of my life must I remove pride or self-sufficiency to fully acknowledge my spiritual bankruptcy before God? The high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: I live in that high and holy place where those with contrite, humble spirits dwell; and I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts. - Isaiah 57:15 (Living Bible) Only those who have completely surrender...