How to Succeed at Being Yourself, Part 2

In order to succeed at anything, we must have confidence, but first and foremost it must be confidence in God, not confidence in anything else. We must develop confidence in God's love, goodness and mercy. We must believe that He wants us to succeed.

God did not create us for failure. We may fail at some things on our way to success, but if we trust Him, He will take even our mistakes and work them out for our good.

Just because we are destined to do something does not mean that it will automatically happen. Confidence is definitely required for any of us to truly succeed at being ourselves. Confidence is actually faith in God. We must learn to be consistently confident, no occasionally confident.

Be confident about your gifts and calling, your ability in Christ. Believe you hear from God and that you are led by the Holy Spirit. Be confident that people like you, and you will discover that more people do. Be bold in the Lord. See yourself as a winner in Him!

Sometimes our confidence is shaken when trials come, especially if they are lengthy. We should have so much confidence in God's love for us that no matter what comes against us, we know deep inside that we are more than conquerors. If we are truly confident, we have no need to fear trouble, challenges or trying times, because we know they will pass.

Whenever a trial of any kind comes against you, always remember: This too shall pass! Be confident that during the trial you will learn something that will help you in the future.

Without confidence we are stifled at every turn. Satan drops a bomb, and our dreams are destroyed. Eventually we start over, but we never make much progress. We start and get defeated, start and get defeated, start and get defeated, over and over again.

But those who are consistently confident, those who know they are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, make rapid progress.

We must take a step of faith and decide to be confident in all things. God may have to correct us occasionally, but that is better than playing it safe and never doing anything. Confident people get the job done, they are fulfilled because they are succeeding at being themselves.

If we don't believe in ourselves, who is going to? God believes in us, and it is a good thing too; otherwise, we might never make any progress. In our lives, we cannot wait for someone else to come along and encourage us to be all we can be. We may be blessed enough to have that kind of support, but we may not.

Confidence is something we decide to have. We learn about God - about His love, His ways and His Word - then ultimately we must decide whether we believe or not. If we do believe, then we have confidence. If we don't believe, we live in doubt about everything.

Self-doubt makes us double-minded. A person cannot go forward until he decides to believe in God and in himself. I encourage you to take a big step of faith and stop doubtin yourself. You have more capabilities than you think you do. You are able to do a lot more than you have ever done in the past. God will help you, if you will put your trust in Him and stop doubting yourself.

Like everyone else, you will make mistakes - but God will allow you to learn from them and will actually work them out to your good if you will decided not to be defeated by them. When doubt begins to torment your mind, start speaking the Word of God out of your mouth, and you will win the battle.

When we are confident and free from tormenting fears, we are able to develop our potential and succeed at being all God intended us to be. But we cannot develop our potential if we fear failure. We will be so afraid of failing or making mistakes that it will prevent us from stepping out. When we are insecure, frequently we will stay with what is safe and familiar rather than taking a chance on stepping out and failing.

When God is ready to move in our lives, we need to believe that He will equip us with what we need at the time we need it. Our problem is not honestly feeling we are not ready for the next step, it is pridefully feeling we are ready when we really aren't. Pride always causes problems and ultimate failures. Humbly leaning on God leads to success. I believe God calls us to step out when we don't feel ready so we will have to lean on Him totally.

Insecurity, self-doubt and fear can totally prevent us from ever reaching our full potential. But if our confidence is in Christ rather than in ourselves, we are free to develop our potential, because we are free from the fear of failure. Potential cannot manifest without form. There must be something for it to be poured into, something that will cause it to take shape and become useful. What stands in the space between potential and manifestation? I believe it is three things: time, determination and hard work!

The amount of undeveloped, wasted potential in the world is pathetic. God places a part of Himself in each of us. We are created in His image, and He is filled with potential - with God nothing is impossible. All of us have potential and many of us want a manifestation of it, but too often we are not willing to wait, be determined and work hard at developing that potential. We have a lot of "wish bone," but not much "back bone."

The development and manifestation of potential requires faith, not wishful thinking.

I hope you have a dream or a vision in your heart for something greater than what you have now. If we are not thinking, hoping or asking for anything, we are cheating ourselves. We need to think big thoughts, hope for big things and ask for big things.

I always say, I would rather ask God for a lot and get half of it, than to ask Him for a little and get all of it. However, it is an unwise person who only thinks, dreams and asks big but fails to realize that an enterprise is built by wise planning. Dreams for the future are possibilities, but not what I call "positivilies." In other words, they are possible, but they will not positively occur unless we do our part.

Far too many people take the "quick fix" method for everything. They only want what makes them feel good right now. They are not willing to invest for the future. Don't just enter the race for the fun of being in it - run to win! There is a gold mine hidden in every life, but we have to dig to get to it. We must be willing to dig deep and go beyond how we feel or what is convenient. If we will dig down deep into the spirit, we will find strength we never knew we had. Quite often we look at a task and think there is no way we can do what needs to be done. That happens because we look at ourselves when we should be looking at God.

If God promises to be with us - and He does - that is really all we need. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Whatever ingredients we are lacking in the natural man, He adds to the spiritual man. We can draw what we need out of the spirit. Most of the things that are truly worth doing are never easy - we are not filled with the Spirit of God to do easy things. He fills us with His Spirit so we can do impossible things!

If you want to develop your potential and succeed at being all you can be, keep your eyes on the prize and press on! It won't all be easy, but it will all be worthwhile.

Most of those who blame everyone and everything for their failures had potential but either did not know how to develop it or were unwilling to meet its requirements.

When things don't work out in our lives, it is not God's fault. He has a great plan for each one of us. It isn't really circumstances that are to blame, because they can be overcome with faith and determination. It isn't other people who are the problem because Romans 8:31 says, ...If God is for us, who can be against us?...Even though people do come against us, and Satan does use them to hinder and torment us, they cannot prevail. If God is on our side, it just does not matter who comes against us; they are not mightier than He is.

The truth is, when things don't work out for us, and we feel that we are sitting on the sidelines somewhere with life passing us by while everyone else is successful, it is because we have not obeyed God, not pressed on and been willing to take giant steps of faith. We have not been willing to look foolish, to be judged and criticized, to be laughed at, to be rejected and labeled radicals who need to calm down and just "go with the flow."

The world wants us to conform, but the Lord wants to transform us, if we will do things His way. He will take us and change us into something more than we could have ever dreamed - if we will refuse to give up and just keep running the race that is set before us.

To develop our potential and succeed at becoming what God intended us to be, we will have to lay aside other things. To be a winner in life we must do those things that support our goals and help us fulfill our purpose. We must learn to say "no" to well-meaning people who want us to get involved in endless things that ulitmately steal our time and produce no fruit.

We must make up our mind and get into agreement with God that we are going to be excellent, not mediocre. We must take an inventory of our life and prune off anything in it that entangles us or simply steals our time. We must be determined, work hard, and refuse to quit or give up - drawing strength from God and not depending on ourselves. If we will do these things persistently, we will eventually have victory.

Those of us who intend to run the race to win must conduct ourselves temperately and restrict ourselves in all things. We cannot expect someone else to make us do what is right. We must listen to the Holy Spirit and take action ourselves.

Self-discipline is the most important feature in any life, but especially in the life of the Christian. Unless we discipline our minds, our mouths and our emotions, we will live in ruin. Unless we learn to rule our temper, we can never achieve the success that rightfully belongs to us. We must resist negative emotions. These include anger, bitterness, depression, despair, discouragement, envy, greed, hate, impatience, jealousy, laziness, lust, pride, resentment, sadness, self-pity and unforgiveness.

"Due season" is God's season, not ours. We are in a hurry, God isn't. He takes time to do things right - He lays a solid foundation before He attempts to build a building. We are God's building under construction. He is the Master Builder, and He knows what He is doing. We may not know what He is doing, but He does, and that will have to be good enough. We may not always know, but we can be satisfied to know the One Who knows.

God's timing seems to be His own little secret. The Bible promises us that He will never be late, but I have also discovered that He is usually not early. It seems that He takes every available opportunity to develop the fruit of patience in us.

Patience is vital to the development of our full potential. Actually our potential is only developed as our patience is developed. It is God's way - there is no other, so why not settle down and enjoy the journey!

Find out what you want to do and begin to train yourself for it. Be relentless in your pursuit of reaching your full potential. Whatever your gift and calling, entrust it to the Lord and begin to develop your potential.

In some ways we should improve ourselves every day. We should go forward, letting go of what lies behind. That includes past mistakes and past victories. Even hanging onto the glory of past victories can prevent us from being all God wants us to be in the future. Make a decision right now that you will never be satisfied with being anything less than all you can be.

Jesus understands us when nobody else does. He even understands us when we don't understand ourselves. He knows "the why behind the what." Let me explain what I mean by that statement.

People only see what we do, and they want to know why we are not doing it better, or why we are doing it at all. Jesus knows why we behave the way we do. He sees and remembers all the emotional wounds and bruises in our past. He knows what we were created for. He knows the temperament that was given to us in our mother's womb. He knows and understands our weaknesses (which all of us have). He knows about every fear, every insecurity, every doubt, all our wrong thinking about ourselves.

Once we enter into personal relationship with Him by being born again, He begins a process of restoration in our lives that will not be entirely finished until we leave the earth. One by one He restores to us everything satan has stolen from us.

Jesus understands us, He loves us unconditionally and He is committed to working with us through the Holy Spirit - and He does not condemn us while He is at it.

The world demands that we change. It persistently give us the message that something is wrong with us if we cannot do what is expected of us. On our own, we will never be able to do all that is expected of us. Our only hope is in who we are in Christ.

We must know who we are in Christ. It is our beginning, the place from which we begin the new life. The truth is, our acceptance by God is based on Jesus' perfomance, not ours. When He died on the cross, we died with Him. When He was buried, we were buried with Him. When He was resurrected, we were resurrected with Him. That is the way God chooses to see all of us who sincerely believe in Jesus. We enter into a loving relationship with God because He accepts us because of His own goodness and not ours.

It is freeing to finally see that our worth and value are not based on what we do, but on who we are in Christ. God has assigned value to us by allowing Jesus to die for us.

God cares about our actions. He wants them to be correct. He actually wants us to grow up and become mature Christians who act like Jesus did when He walked the earth. God wants us to do good works - but He does not want us to depend on them to gain us anything. He wants us to do good works because we love Him. He wants our good works to be a response to what He has done to, for and in us. Many people do good works for wrong reasons, and get no reward for them.

Our motives are of utmost importance to God.

We cannot succeed without stepping out in faith, not works. If we believe our acceptance is based on our doing, we will always feel rejected when we fail to do the right thing. But if we put our dependence on who we are in Christ, rather than on what we do for Him, our "who" will fix our "do."

We are usually to hard on ourselves. We would grow faster if we relaxed more. We cannot live by our feelings in these matters. Satan makes sure we frequently "feel" that we are an unredeemable mess or that God is not working in our lives. We must learn to live by God's Word and not by how we feel. His Word states that as long as we believe, He is working in us!

As we step out to be all we can be in Christ, we will make some mistakes - everyone does. But it takes the pressure off of us when we realize that God is expecting us to do the best we can. He is not expecting us to be perfect. If we were as perfect as we try to be, we would not need a Savior. I believe God will always leave a certain number of defects in us, just so we will know how much we need Jesus every single day.

Jesus stands in the gap between God's perfection and our imperfection. He continually intercedes for us because we continually need it.

We receive through the act of believing; what we believe is what we receive, and nothing else. If we don't believe in the grace, mercy and favor of God, then we cannot receive it. If we believe we must do everything perfectly right to be accepted by God, then we will reject His love even though He is not rejecting us. This wrong thinking and believing keeps us trapped. It is like a treadmill that is going so fast we cannot seem to find a place to get off.