Mastering Success For Life!

Mastering Success For Life!

Jeremiah 29:11

We are in for an amazing journey to find the keys to mastering success for our lives!

Joshua 1:8 “Study this Book…continually. Meditate on it day and night so you may be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed.” NLT

Rarely does anyone stumble into success! Success comes when one plans, prepares and is persistent about it!

The million-dollar question: What is success? If we were to stand out in front of Wal-Mart and ask that question, how many different answers do you think we’d get?

In order to answer that question we must first determine what success is not!

Success Is Not Found In…

a. Attaining Riches.

Ecclesiastes 5:10 “Whoever loves money never has enough money; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.” NIV

Ben Franklin said “Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. This is a true proverb of the wise; “Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasures and trouble therewith.”

In 1923, a group of the wealthiest men gathered in Chicago. At the time these men controlled more money together than did the treasury of the Unite States.

27 years later listen to what the results just 7 with the most money.

· Jesse Livermore, Wall Street baron, committed Suicide.

· Leon Frazer, the president of a huge banking company, committed suicide.

· Ivar Kruegar, Businessman, committed suicide.

· Charles Schwab, president of the largest steel company, the last 10 years of life he lived broke and bankrupt.

· Arthur Cutten, a great Wheat speculator, died penniless.

· Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange, convicted of a crime and went to Sing Sing prison.

· Albert Fall, a member of a president’s cabinet, was pardoned from prison so he could die at home broke!

All these men knew how to make the money but it could not buy them success! Not could it teach them how to enjoy a successful life!

Many wealthy people live and die in a lonely world of their own making!

LifePoint: Money can bring you tons of people to your life, but money cannot buy the treasure of one true friend!

b. Success Is Not found In Attaining Goals.

People say that retirement is when they will just sit on the porch and kick back! I have met many retired men that thought retiring was the pinnacle of success only to find that reaching that goal was not so! Boredom and aches and pains set in and it was down hill from there!

If that’s your goal be very careful that you have hobbies, friends and new goals to challenge yourself with!

Reaching a goal can destroy a person by way of stagnation deception!

Motivated people are successful in challenging themselves to new and higher personal goal.

Charles Hughes wisely said, “One of the most important lessons in life is that success must continually be won and is never finally achieved.”

Churches can learn from this truth! Many times they set goals in membership and then say to themselves, “we’ve arrived! That’s dangerous for any church! Stagnation sets in and before long the church starts to decline and that’s the story with most churches in America today!

According to the North American Mission Board of the SBC…

· Only 11% of their churches are experiencing healthy growth. That means 89% are stagnating as we speak!

· 7 out of 10 people in North America do not know Christ.

If we don’t begin to get God’s vision I assure you that this church will stagnate! Obviously we have no more room on this property so do we settle for this? Or do be begin to believe that we can reach our community with a wider vision?

Do you get the picture; a church is not healthy unless it is successful in overcoming complacency!

c. Success Is Not In Attaining Power.

Adolf Hitler had complete power over his people. His demonic dream of slaughtering 6 million Jews dragged the world into a bloodbath.

On April 30, 1945 he blew his brains out and ordered his body to be burned so no one get hold of his body.

Saddam Hussein had complete power over his people by way of terror and torture. Palaces of marble and gold were his to revel in. Billions of dollars in his many bank accounts lined with dirty and swindled money through the United Nations.

Until finally through the leadership of our President and the heroics of our brilliant military we brought Saddam from a palace in the desert to a pit in the sand!

Hitler and Hussein both had absolute power but were not in any way are they models of success!