The key to success is not the absence of mistakes or failures, but the ability to learn from them.
As we travel the nations and work in new cultures, we have opportunity on a regular basis to make mistakes, as well as see others make mistakes. I actually carry a notebook and write every decision or incident that went wrong. Why do I spend time doing that? Two reasons. First, I do not want to repeat the same mistake twice. Second, I do not want to repeat the same mistake twice! Memories can fade so it’s good to keep a written memory of the day’s decisions. The learning curve teaches us that haste is the forerunner to mistakes.
Haste has ruined many a budding love story and many prosperous business partnerships. We live with a God who has planned the universe and He has some long range plans for you. Build your life with an expectation that He is building it with you, and don’t get in a hurry and take the detour of mistakes!
Proverbs 28:20
A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.
For many years in Russia we gathered as a missionary team each morning from 9 AM – 10AM. Our times were spent praying for the harvest. We were expecting the Lord to provide strategies for us as a team, and to develop divine opportunities for us to make known the mysteries of the Gospel. We discovered great value in these seasons of team prayer.
I remember specifically one morning the Lord highlighted a city on the map called Ust-Kut. We had never even heard of this place but began to pray for it fervently. A few weeks later we were ministering in Nerungry, deep in the Russian forest approximately 6 time zones to the east of Moscow. Getting to this destination took some concerted effort as we flew over about 8 hours of dense, wild Russian forest, traveled on back roads and weathered freezing temperatures. While conducting this conference in Nerungry, a Pastor from Ust-Kut approached us and told of his church planting efforts in his very isolated area off the coast of Lake Baikal. We were so excited to meet the pastor and learn of his work! Soon after this meeting we found ourselves in his region conducting a leadership conference and planting churches in towns that had never heard the Gospel before. WOW! What a testimony to the power of prayer!
Let’s remember: The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results! James 5:16b
In one of our large events in Africa, we were told by the organizers not to expect to start on time. “Here in Africa the opening night is just a test run where we work out our problems.”
Can you imagine? There are 75,000 people preparing to gather. People are already standing on the field hours before the meetings are to begin! Yet, the expectation of a group of adult men was, ‘don’t worry if we don’t start on time, well, we never do…’ So, in other words, failure is acceptable!
Ask yourself a simple question: Where have I set the standard for my life? Is failure my expectation, or is overcoming the impossible where I set my goal in life?
How would you handle a situation like this, if in just a matter of an hour you were to address this crowd and you had no lights and no sound?
Action was required, so we fired the 30 organizers and asked for 40, 14-year-old male volunteers. Why? They had not yet experienced failure! They would climb where no one else would climb, lifting lights and scaling poles! Are you willing to scale insurmountable odds?
If those 40 boys had not stepped to the line, what would have happened that night? Those 75,000 people who came looking for hope, searching for a miracle, and expecting good news would have left empty and disappointed!
When I began global ministry I had two part-time jobs and attended Bible school full-time in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, but the key was my passion to begin ministry. One day the school had a guest come with a list of all the opportunities available in the world. I looked at the list, then looked at the $50 in my bank account, and decided I could make it as far as the Nevada desert where the Paiute Indians were considered a mission field.
The school said I needed to have $500 and a car in three weeks, and I told them I would have them. A few nights later I was watching Christian TV with my mother. I thought I heard a voice say to give the $50 I had to the preacher on TV. I said, “NO! I need the $50 more than he does!”
I thought about it the next day and decided that if it was God Who said to give, then there would be a blessing in obeying. If it was just emotion saying to give, then if I gave my $50 in faith with joy, there would still be a blessing. So I gave.
What happened next? Nothing. Nothing happened the next day, the next week, or the next 10 days. But after two weeks I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it, standing there was a divorced, single mother who worked at the school. She handed me an envelope with $500 in it, saying she needed to sleep. For two weeks God had been waking her up every night and telling her to give $500 to Kevin McNulty. I asked her if it was a Wednesday that He first spoke and she said yes…the Wednesday I gave the $50! Well, that got me on my way to the desert and around the world, and I haven’t stopped since!
Joseph, the man appointed second in command of all Egypt, could not be denied prosperity because he kept his heart right. If God could make a man like Joseph, who was in the chains of slavery, prosperous, then surely he can fill your life with success.
Joseph is a study in right attitudes and right believing. In the midst of tremendous trials he never lost sight of the dream established in his heart. Joseph started in a pit, thrown there by his brothers. He landed in prison when falsely accused, but he didn’t finish there.
It doesn’t matter if you start in a slum, an orphanage, a lousy home or no home at all. What counts is where you are going! And what you are doing with the dream that God has placed in your heart!
Jesus started in a manger, but he didn’t stay there!
Rome did not fall because of war, but from boredom and avarice. Alexander the Great did not die in battle, but from boredom in a drunken stupor. We are not designed to live in the safe harbor, but on the high seas. The pastors and leaders of society that fall today do not do so in the effort and struggle to succeed, but in the boredom of their success. Do not allow the hardships you may face today to reveal a crybaby within you, but rise to the task at hand and discover the way to overcome.
The great businessmen of yesterday were not those who waited for retirement and watched a clock. We don’t remember the great spiritual institutions of a different era, but we do remember and are inspired by the men and women who pioneered them in the heat of battle. There is no life marked solely by success, but by failures which rose to success.
Friends, do not dream of a safety net, but of a net that can catch fish. Your safety is in your courageous heart to pioneer new projects and new dreams. Some of you will be the tip of spear in the battle, and others will be the force behind the spear that gives it power to thrust forward. All the positions are important when you go to war.
Jesus did not pay a price for you to be weak.
Jesus did not become your substitute so you would fear.
Jesus did not fill you with His spirit for you to run from the battle.
This is your greatest hour. This is our time! Do not let the winds of adversity howl in your ears driving you to hide behind safe doors. The world is waiting to hear your voice speaking peace to the storm!
Several years ago while driving across the farmlands of Southern Ukraine we stopped to buy fuel. Our team leader decided to ignore the sticker that said our car required high-octane fuel, and proceeded to fill the car up with the cheaper gas. Fortunately for us our car had a special shut off valve, and after driving just a few miles the car shut down. We were grateful that our Russian team was familiar with syphoning gas, enabling us to transfer this fuel to another car and walk back to the station for a new container of high-octane gasoline. Reality set in for this team—there was no substitute for the real thing!
In our lives, let’s remember, time spent with God is time spent fueling your high-performance engine with the most efficient, cost effective, eco-friendly power source available! Lord, we ask you to inject us with your heavenly fuel today!
“The Spirit is a help to our feeble hearts… And we are conscious that all things are working together for good to those who have love for God, and have been marked out by his purpose” (Rom 8:26a, 28 BBE).
Have you ever had the question arise in your heart of why something happened to you that you did not want or expect? Does God want our hearts to be broken or our energy diminished? No, He does not. He said that in this world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer, He has overcome this world. It is clear that the world with all its circumstances and people can throw unexpected curve balls at you, but be of good cheer!
All that you are is not based on all that you have. Your value is based on the image God has of you as His righteous, holy, empowered son or daughter. The great apostle Paul went through shipwreck, near drowning, and two weeks of being tossed like a ball on the ocean before he was finally delivered and made it to land. You would think angels would have started a chorus of praise as Paul arrived safely on the shore, but instead he gets a snake bite! What does he do? Should he get mad at God for adding insult to injury? No, he just shook it off! He had places to go and people to meet!
Whatever happens to you, SHAKE IT OFF!
After we have accepted Jesus Christ’s gift of salvation and are enjoying the freedom of the redeemed, we would be wise to do a little checkup to make sure we haven’t unconsciously slipped in any way from redemption into religion.
The following are 5 differences between Redemption and Religion:
- RELIGION is a “got to” way of life; REDEMPTION is a “get to” way of life.
- RELIGION is a door you must pass through in order to get into God’s presence;
REDEMPTION is an open door that is held open by Jesus, and no man can
shut it.
- RELIGION is man’s attempt to satisfy a holy God; REDEMPTION is God’s
attempt to make us holy by the sacrifice of a holy substitute.
- RELIGION is a shadow of the things to come without substance or power;
REDEMPTION is the reality of things to come through the substance of our
flesh and our words.
- RELIGION is form, a ritual, a tradition that acts like an empty shell, containing
no life or revelation within itself; REDEMPTION is an inner realization of the
Kingdom of God in the temple of our bodies that needs no form, ritual, or
tradition, because the King Himself resides within us!
James 3:4
“Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.”
There are very few Christians that would blatantly ignore the will of God if they knew what He wanted them to do. Does God speak to people? Yes! Have people heard His voice? Yes, I believe they hear His voice. Why then do people often say they knew what to do but just didn’t do it? The problem is not in the speaking or in the hearing—the problem is in the doing.
If we believe that the God has a destiny for each of us, then it is important to connect with Him and not waste our time. Once we connect it is important to hear the direction, desire, peace, word, counsel reading, or whatever other way you picked up His signal. The third part is the hard part: acting out that direction.
James the Apostle says we are like ships at sea. When we get instruction on where we are to go then we are to set sail for it. But if the rudder on our ship is broken, then we are at the mercy of the wind and water. Most people live at the mercy of the immediate circumstance. They rarely reflect on where they want to be 10 years from now, or what their heart is calling them to be.
We must fix our rudder in order to reach what is in our heart. What is the rudder? James says the tongue is the rudder of your ship. Broken rudders speak of today’s problem and today’s bad news. Use your rudder (tongue) to guide you to your destination. Shipwrecks are not in God’s plan!
