Biblical Success - Running Our Race With Our Helper's GiftsChikamu

“Sow a thought and reap an action, sow an action and you reap a habit, sow a habit and you reap a character, sow a character and you reap a destiny.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

What is your definition of a successful life? The pace, and largely the outcome of our race, is set in our minds in our thought life as we discern the hundreds or even thousands of thoughts and impressions that impact our thinking that lead to our definition of success. That definition drives our actions.

Thoughts lead to actions. Thoughts that rise up as we spend time in God’s Word with God’s Spirit often lead us to godly and God-inspired actions and reactions. The discernment that we desperately need to succeed in our race comes from the inner voice of our Helper as we experience the impacts of living a real life and seek His help to sort through them.

Every sin and every godly act of obedience begins with a single thought. Think about that. Every sin and every righteous act begins with a single thought. Thoughts that we entertain lead to more thoughts along a path toward action. Each step, each thought, requires a choice to continue the process, put it aside, or stop the process.

Thoughts and impressions come from the world, the flesh, the devil, or our Helper. This is the heart of our spiritual battle. It’s not about demons hiding behind every bush and much much more subtle than a horned being with a pitchfork (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).

The Spirit leads us from within in a place where some say our conscience and intuition mingle in our minds and our heart. Many refer to it as our “soul” or “essence.”

Our life decisions come from this place and bringing God’s influence here is the Spirit’s purpose and joy. He provides every believer with gifts to be used in God’s plan and seeks to guide us in using them as we live out our lives as Ambassadors to the world around us, running the race He sets before us.

And in the end, our lives reflect the outcomes of the thoughts that we have entertained and acted on as we have run the race of our lives. We will all have a mix of results, of course, only Jesus got it all right. There is no better or more important arbiter or editor of our thoughts than our Helper. Taking our thoughts captive to Him and asking Him to sort them out is key.

It is also super important to understand that God never forces His will or His gifts on His children. Never. Nor does He just spin us off into a purposeless existence of trying to scratch out meaning on our own. The Helper is God manifest as Spirit. He lives in us. (1 Corinthians 6:17) God does. The Almighty Creator of all that was, is, or ever will be, Jehovah lives in us and desires to live His life through us in Jesus. But we must choose to do so, He’ll never force us and it is not meant to be accidental. Understanding this truth will have an immense impact on our eternal effectiveness.

We are here for a distinct and unique purpose; to do what God designed and sent us here to do in this crazy and fallen world at this very time and in our own way, in us as us, to bring the gospel to life in the world around us. Can we nurture our understanding and use of our gifts and God-given abilities? Of course, we can we are designed to grow (Hebrews 5:12-14) We grow in the use of our gifts “by reason of use.”