Introduction

How can you accomplish the things that you want to accomplish?? What does the Bible teach us about succeeding in life?? You might have some of the following questions or similar.

• How can I succeed in college?
• How can I succeed on my job?
• How can I succeed in my business?
• How can I succeed in my marriage?
• How can I succeed in raising my children?

Life deserves more than the monotony of going to work and returning home.? What about your goals and dreams?? What are some things that YOU want to do?? Are you on your own in accomplishing them or is God somehow and someway on your side to ensure success?

Well in this lesson we are going to talk about these things.? We are going to discuss what it takes to succeed with the assumption that we are in God?s will.? I am going to introduce three concepts that I believe is important in accomplishing your God given tasks.? That last point is very important.? Here are the conditions that we will assume in this study.

1. You are walking in God?s will to the best of your ability and knowledge
2. What you are trying to accomplish comes from God

Now I believe that many desires that we have is a direct result of the Spirit of God within ourselves.? We grow and become more tuned to God?s will and subconsciously if you will, begin to respond to that inner voice that guides us in God?s way.? Anyway, the three points I would like to present to you are as follows.

1. Experience
2. Attitude
3. Effort

Experience

Have you experienced God?? Do you experience God or is God the Sunday morning deity that you must appease by attending the religious services?? It is very important that we experience God because experience is where true knowledge (knowing) comes from.? For example, you know your spouse because you have experienced him or her.? You know what our best friend would probably do in a given situation because you know him or her intimately.? You know him or her intimately because you have had intimate experiences with him or her.

The same applies to God.? We need to experience God so that we would follow him.? However, we must follow God in order to experience Him.? There is a catch 22 if I ever saw one.? However, God revealed himself to us in the Holy Scriptures so we could start from there.? Also, we should consider the testimonies of others in our first attempts to venture out and trust God.? For example, you are more apt to purchase a particular item when someone tells you how much he or she enjoys it than if you had no other information to go by.

So experience involves three things.

1. Obedience
2. Trust
3. Testimonies

Obedience

You cannot experience God is a positive way if you do not obey Him.? Consider the following scripture.

Joshua 1:8 (NKJV) “{8} This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

This is a very straight forward scripture that highlights the importance of obeying God.? Here we see that success would come from doing what God says.? The same is true even today.? Besides, why would you expect to have success going contrary to the will of God?

Isaiah 55:11 (NKJV) “{11} So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.?

It is in our best interest to do what God says because what God says is what will be accomplished.? Therefore, if you want to have success then you need to do what God says.? Consider also the following scripture.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (NKJV) “{13} Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man?s all.?

Trust

There are a few reasons that we might obey God.? We might obey him because we are afraid of him as one would be afraid of a bear.? We might obey him because we trust him and know that doing so would be to our best interest.? We might also obey God simply because we love and respect Him.? As we grow in experience with God we will come to do what he says because we trust him.? We would discover that God is true to His word and that He is therefore trustworthy.? Consider the following scripture.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV) “{5} Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; {6} In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. “

Trusting God means that we cannot depend on our own understanding.? That doesn?t mean that we do what is not reasonable.? It also doesn?t mean that we should abandon human reason.? The fact is that we should not rely on these as our faith in God supercedes these.

If you trust God then you will do what he says.? You trust your doctor, mechanic, or contractor and you therefore do what they say.? Our trust in God likewise should be established to the extent that we would do what he says with confidence of success.? This comes by experience.? Trust will lead to more experience because more trust leads to more obedience and more obedience leads to more trust.? Where is your trust leading you today?

Testimonies

Testimonies are also important in obedience because they tend to help build confidence.? The testimonies of others will help you see how faithful God is.? Sure it is not you that experienced that faithfulness, but a trusted friend would serve just as well.? Consider the following scripture.

Deuteronomy 6:4-12 (NKJV) “{4} ?Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! {5} You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. {6} ?And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. {7} You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. {8} You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. {9} You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. {10} ?So it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, {11} houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant? when you have eaten and are full? {12} then beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

These testimonies can be in many forms.? People could talk about God?s wonderful works, they could write them down, and they could tell of God?s great works to their children to pass down to future generations.? Testimonies help us to see God working in the lives of others, which would prompt us to trust and obey Him as well.

Experiencing God is very important because we learn that He is all that He says He is.? We come to know God intimately if we experience Him intimately and personally.? If God is no longer the object during a Sunday morning religious service then you are missing far more than you think.? God should be integral to your very life and not just a religious object to server on Sundays.? We must experience God the way we experience other things in our lives and of which we consider to be real.? God is real and His reality will become more evident when we experience Him.

Attitude

What is your attitude towards those things that you want to accomplish?? Are you one of those, ?I can?t do it? people or do you meet a challenge head on with confidence of success.? This confidence must be more than mental ascent that is to psyche you up.? It has to be based on your real experience with God.? After this you could have confidence and a can do attitude toward what faces you.

I like to use the example of a boxer here.? A boxer has to believe that he can win the fight else he might as well not get in the ring.? He has to have a good attitude towards success else he would work against himself.? If he has the wrong attitude then he would become his worse enemy.? However, if he has the right attitude then he is more prepared to win the fight.

Of course a boxer?s attitude alone will not bring victory.? He still has to go through the rigors of training and preparing for the fight.? The same applies to you.? You might psyche yourself up for a particular situation, but if you are not prepared then you will most likely not succeed.? This is why experiences are so important.? With that said we could say that attitude is based on the following.

• Experience
• Preparation
• Confidence

Now we already talked about experience above so we won?t discuss it here.? However, we see that experience will set the stage for confidence because we will see how great God is and how faithful he is.? Being with God is a ?sure thing.?

Confidence

Now confidence comes when we know that we are in God?s will.? Consider the following scripture.

1 John 5:14-15 (NKJV) “{14} Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. {15} And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

We have confidence when we have gone through the thing in the past or if we have prepared ourselves for the task ahead.

Preparation

We should not think that we can sit around and let God do the work.? We should not feel as though we will simply go on a ride through life as God drives us through.? We are going to have to work and therefore we are going to have to prepare ourselves for the success that we want.

Now preparation is not always specific to the task.? For example, preparation might involve going to school, taking classes, or experimenting.? However, it might also include Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and meditation on the word of God.? Consider the following scripture.

Psalm 1:1-3 (NKJV) ” {1} Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; {2} But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. {3} He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. “

Meditating on the word of God will help guide you as to which way to go and what turns to take.? It will help you identify opportunities that come from God and those that come from someone or somewhere else.? Preparing yourself means that you are in the process of setting the environment that would lead to your success.? Sitting around will not prepare you.? Well placed activities will help to prepare you for the success that God has in store for you.

Effort

You must work to obtain success!? As a matter of fact, success implies work.? It implies that you were actually doing something and were successful at it by accomplishing your goals and expectations.? Consider the following verses.

Ecclesiastes 10:18 (NKJV) “{18} Because of laziness the building decays, And through idleness of hands the house leaks.”

Proverbs 10:4 (NKJV) “{4} He who has a slack hand becomes poor, But the hand of the diligent makes rich.”

What are you doing about your goals?? Are you actively involved with moving towards accomplishing your goals or are you waiting for God to drop it out of the sky.? We must be willing to work with the confidence that God has already provided for us.

The important thing here is to realize that God has paved the way for you, but you don?t know where the path is.? If you begin to actively pursue the success that you want, which is God?s will, and then you will find it.

It is important that we work towards the things that we want with the confidence that God is right there with us.? If God is with us then we can have much confidence for success.? Consider the following scriptures as well:? Proverbs 6:6-11, 10:4-5, 13:4, 14:23.? The bottom line is that you must get involved in obtaining your goals and dreams even if all you can do is pray, which you should do anyway.

Conclusion

Achieving what you want is simple in principle, but difficult in practice.? Life has a way to make things so uncertain that we wonder where we are going and what we are doing.? We all want to accomplish something, but how should we go about it and maintain our relationship with God and preserve the calling that he has on our lives.

Obey God.? The key is to obey God and develop confidence in Him through your experiences with Him.? Grow in faith and confidence.? Above all, be with God and you will have success.