“We proceed through rounds of failure because we know success is available if we continue.”
The point is this: I was about to give up. Because “I don’t have the time to sow into this as much as I want.”
Can you imagine if every successful individual had given up when they felt they didn’t have enough time to invest? At the first sight of opposition? If they gave up when their first attempt wasn’t “successful” in their eyes? Remember with success as we know it, often comes failure.
Succeed and continue.
The reality is that inventing a light bulb doesn’t come out right on the first try. We proceed through rounds of failure because we know success is available if we continue.
Why are we wired this way I wonder?
What if I told you that success was available at the start and throughout every round of trial?
What have you been dreaming in your heart? What are you working at? What have you been persevering in? How have you been patient with yourself, encouraged yourself or challenged yourself to succeed and continue?
Notice that sequence…”succeed and continue“.
Isn’t it cool that we are able to do that? The world thinks that in order to succeed, you must first continue. But as children of God we can and should succeed over and over again, therefore giving us everything we need in order to continue. Do NOT make the mistake of trying to continue or persevere until you have come to terms with your success. What am I saying? I’m saying that you were never a failure, and you are actually less likely to experience success if you continue through failure without owning and acknowledging success you already have.
You don’t recognize failure so that you can continue. You can recognize the failure, but what enables you to continue is NOT the failure, but the success.
We actually must succeed before we continue from our failure. If you don’t, the failure may paralyze you and prevent you from continuing.
We chase after the desires of our hearts, the call and destiny God programmed within us, not because we want to be successful in Him, but because we are already successful in Him and are in position to continue, and enter in our greatest success. Our greatest success is an inheritance that has already been purchased.
When we choose to give up on anything; on someone, in a relationship…on a dream we’ve been cherishing…on a word the Lord spoke clearly…or even in our life in the good fight of faith, it’s not because we gave up after failure, but because we failed to succeed, we failed to recognize the success we already have.
A strange paradox, but isn’t grace? We choose success and the subsequent benefit for our soul, and our labor and works, is continuing in everything God has for us and manifesting success. Because true success isn’t in anything we achieve, but what we were given.
When you think about God’s original intent for humanity, and our restored place with Him, it was always God’s intent that in our very nature and character, we are successful.
We are designed in the image of God. We cannot be failures. Now, we have to continue in our success to reap success and see its harvest, but only by giving up and relinquishing success are you made a failure.
So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.
-Galations 6:9
Can I paraphrase that verse in an interesting way? “So let’s not be discouraged or quit acknowledging our success in Christ as we labor. At just the right time we will reap a harvest, an inheritance of God-success.”
The bottom line is this: you must discover in your heart that you ARE someone that succeeds. Success is who you are, not something that you do. Just like failure isn’t something that defines you, but instead, failure illustrates to you a problem that still needs solving. We must come to Jesus in our hearts to realize the success we’ve already obtained, and from this place of reckoning, we are enabled and motivated to fulfill His promises. We are inspired to continue in success that we don’t have to work for, and instead of striving in works, we are fulfilling a given purpose, a given destiny, or a given success. You receive success, and you approach the failures you experience with an objective position, from an outside perspective. Just like you stand righteous with God, you stand in your success, in your inheritance. Think about what motivates you to live righteously. Is it recognizing that you are a sinner, or is it in recognizing that you’re already in right-standing with God? Aren’t we motivated to righteous living and obedience because of His love and mercy? How much more effective will you be in overcoming the disappointments of failure, and in the consistency of your faithful success, if you are motivated by the truth that you are already successful and have everything that you need to live out your success?
The cool thing about this succeed-continue-succeed system is that our rewards and our end result is not a worldly success or something that will fade away. If it’s God breathed, it’s God sustained. We’re continuing in the eternal success of Alpha Omega.
Your very core, successful in Christ for eternity, continues in labor and confident hope, and is rewarded and honored eternally in blessing.
You’re not just on the earth to fail until you succeed or try, try again. You are here to represent success from your heart, in deed and in laboring everything unto Christ, while receiving rewards everyone will see and recognize from the Lord God Himself. You are here to inherit and partake as a co-heir in everything that He plans.
So, how do we “choose” success first? How do we continue and not give up?
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
-Romans 12:2
It’s a renewing of your mind. And doesn’t this verse prove that when we renew our minds, we’ll enter a proving of His good and perfect will?
When we let go of the way the world does things, we can have a perfect success. When we left the desert and entered into “God-success” in a land of giants, we received everything that was promised to us.
It did not look like what we thought and we were scared and resistant to God’s will at first… But this surrender, this renewal and this continuing in His success released His goodness, His perfect defense from our enemies and defeat over them, and His will for our successful inheritance.
In fact, denying success in Him and giving up only means we fail to receive His blessing as soon as we could! We choose success by remembering everything Christ has done for us, placed in us and promised us.
This enables us to continue, it enables us to keep doing good and to find strength, it enables us to see a harvest of blessing.
You are already successful through Christ.
Acknowledge that while work and labor are required, Christ has already given you success and your job is to inherit or continue inside of it. As you remain in Him, in all His successes for you, He makes a path for your dreams, an anointing for your gifting, a favor for your working and a grace for everything in between.
So begin by thanking Him for every success, the seen and unseen. Thank Him for all He’s done, in heaven and here below. Thank Him for making your crooked places straight and giving you wisdom.
Thank Him that you are already successful, and that you have all you need to continue. That you cannot fail if you run. the. race. He has given you success, He has given you life, He has given you eternal water. Drink up.
And can I just say also that your gifts make room for you? When you pour into something that fuels you and fuels others, into something that pleases the Lord…it grows.
When the light bulb finally worked the way it was designed to function, mankind made another…and another, and another. Now we all benefit today from the fruit of that one person continuing in a somewhat inevitable (I use that word loosely) success.
You see an inevitable success doesn’t mean it was meant to happen, or that it would come about no matter what as fate determined.
This inevitable success I’m referencing is the success that comes to fruition when someone continues in the work. When you continue through “failure”. Failure is as subjective as fear.
Continue to sow into the gifting, the desires and the areas that your heart yearns to weave into God’s story, a beautiful glory as creation unto Creator.
And remember that within time and space, all the dimensions of heaven and all those in between: you matter eternally and you impact eternally.
Pour out your heart in every way the Lord has inspired you. It’s a perfume offering that no one else has, unique and expensive in its kind. And we all love your offering because we love joining with you in your giving to our great Lord.
Unto Jesus: we give You our desires and we’ll be patient with ourselves as You are with us. We can’t wait to see what You’ll do.
Through it and until it, we’re here with You…continuing in Your success and laughing over tomorrow.
JP-
This blog is inspired by my brother-in-law, Jonathan Smith. Thank you brother, for your encouragement. Let me say that this man is full of compassion. Love and kindness are garments he always wears.
The other day, he just mentioned that he was encouraged by my blog. This mattered so much to me because I very recently was thinking about how little time I had to write or post music and how ineffective and rather pointless my blog was.
You see, my intention with this blog was to share the outpouring of my heart that the Lord sifts and lifts up. I once had a vision of my journals, my handwritings in the hands of others. They were reading the vulnerably scribbled cursive that spilled out of my heart at every rate.
And while some of the words, some of the pages were unnecessary…it all mattered because the Lord was full in its pages. His response to my needs, the testament of His faithfulness and goodness in my life was thick in the black ink.
I don’t have time to transfer these ramblings onto a blog. Especially not all of them. I have several drafts in my blogs that I never finished or moved on from too quickly. God sometimes moves too quickly for me to captivate.
He moves too powerfully for me to record in words, much less to diligently bottle up and spill over again for others. But as best I can in my blog writings, in the worship recordings, it has always been my intention that I could capture the ways God ministers to my heart and allow others to be ministered to through His glory in every one of those deep places.
It’s not just seeing how He moves in my life, but it’s welcoming and inviting Him to come into the deep of your own heart. Deep calls unto deep and you’re drawn into your own divine drink, your own divine communion dance.
But I found myself thinking, “Everyone has a blog now. The internet is vast. How does my little domain gain anything?”
First and foremost, it fulfills the desire of my heart to write and sing about what the Lord is doing and speaking. Secondly, there are those who can fill up their cup alongside me in communion with our Father. That is all I ever intended. That was all I ever wanted to gain.
Do not despise the day of small beginnings. The sower doesn’t always know how he reaps. Your job is just to sow. So, don’t give up.
Thanks brother for your never ending kindness, your encouragement to all around you and the thoughtfulness of your heart. Thank you for your steadfast faith that is evident in your life. And thanks for your encouragement. This one’s cause of you. ❤️
