Latest / WholeHeart Conversations / A Biblical Blueprint for Success
Transcript
- 0:00Constance Lavonice: How do you define success?
- 0:03Constance Lavonice: Is it financial freedom, helping others reach their goals, having a family, having a stable job and being able to spend time with your family?
- 0:15Constance Lavonice: Having an impact on society.
- 0:19Constance Lavonice: A good health report.
- 0:22Constance Lavonice: Success involves accomplishing something that we desire.
- 0:28Constance Lavonice: Success is personal, and its meaning changes over time and at different stages in our life.
- 0:37Constance Lavonice: The prophet Jeremiah received a word from God for the ancient Israelites who had been exiled to Babylon in Jeremiah 29, 11.
- 0:50Constance Lavonice: God said, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.
- 1:05Constance Lavonice: God's desire is the same for us today.
- 1:09Constance Lavonice: God has a simple three-point blueprint for us to make our way prosperous and have good success.
- 1:22Constance Lavonice: You're listening to Whole Heart Conversations, a podcast for women discussing biblical faith, mental health, and whole heart, spirit, soul, and body resilience.
- 1:37Constance Lavonice: I am your host, Constance Lavonice.
- 1:41Constance Lavonice: Welcome.
- 1:43Constance Lavonice: God's blueprint for us to prosper and have success is found in Joshua chapter one verse eight.
- 1:54Constance Lavonice: It says This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.
- 2:14Constance Lavonice: For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
- 2:23Constance Lavonice: Good success.
- 2:27Constance Lavonice: The success that only God can give.
- 2:31Constance Lavonice: First, do not let the word of God depart from your mouth.
- 2:38Constance Lavonice: That means speak God's word.
- 2:42Constance Lavonice: Secondly, meditate on it continually.
- 2:48Constance Lavonice: Thirdly, act on God's word.
- 2:53Constance Lavonice: The result you will make your way prosperous, flourish and thrive, and as a result you will have good success.
- 3:06Constance Lavonice: The success that only God can give the abundant life that Jesus talked about.
- 3:15Constance Lavonice: The first point, speak God's word.
- 3:20Constance Lavonice: Before we can speak the word, we have to know the word.
- 3:25Constance Lavonice: We know the word by meditating on it.
- 3:31Constance Lavonice: And meditation is not just reading God's word, but this scripture points to meditating on it, which means to study God's word, to ponder it, mull over it, personalize it.
- 3:50Constance Lavonice: What is it saying to you?
- 3:53Constance Lavonice: Meditation places us in the presence of God.
- 3:58Constance Lavonice: Isaiah 26, 3 says, He will keep us in perfect peace whose minds are stayed on him.
- 4:07Constance Lavonice: When we meditate on God's word, we build our faith.
- 4:12Constance Lavonice: And our faith involves thinking and speaking.
- 4:18Constance Lavonice: God spoke the world into existence, and we reinforce our faith by speaking God's word and God's promises.
- 4:33Constance Lavonice: Jesus said, Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted to him.
- 4:54Constance Lavonice: Proverbs eighteen twenty says from the fruit of the mouth a person's stomach is filled with the harvest of their lips, they are satisfied.
- 5:09Constance Lavonice: Words produce fruit, and our words manifest what we believe.
- 5:18Constance Lavonice: If I believe that I'm inadequate, not as good as other people, I'm going to manifest that in my behavior, sabotaging myself.
- 5:30Constance Lavonice: What I say and how I speak is going to reflect what I believe.
- 5:39Constance Lavonice: It's going to produce results that I experience and that other people can see.
- 5:51Constance Lavonice: Our words have consequences.
- 5:54Constance Lavonice: In verse twenty one of Proverbs eighteen, it goes on to say the tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
- 6:10Constance Lavonice: What fruit are you ingesting?
- 6:14Constance Lavonice: When we speak God's word as a result of meditating, it bears good, life affirming fruit.
- 6:23Constance Lavonice: Hebrews four verse twelve says the word of God is alive and active and it penetrates to our soul and spirit.
- 6:35Constance Lavonice: Speaking God's word, which is renewing our minds, rewires the neural networks in our brain with the truth of God's word.
- 6:50Constance Lavonice: And like I said before, where our focus goes, having God's word in the forefront of our minds, our actions follow.
- 7:04Constance Lavonice: It's like what we call cognitive restructuring in therapy.
- 7:13Constance Lavonice: It's important to know God's word and to speak God's promises.
- 7:19Constance Lavonice: If I know that God says He will keep me in perfect peace, Isaiah 26 3, it makes a difference.
- 7:29Constance Lavonice: Jeremiah 29 11 says God has plans to prosper us and not to harm us.
- 7:36Constance Lavonice: We do have an adversary, but it's not God.
- 7:40Constance Lavonice: God's plan for us is to prosper us.
- 7:45Constance Lavonice: Romans 8.28, God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
- 7:58Constance Lavonice: God's promise, we have the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness.
- 8:05Constance Lavonice: God's promise in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3.
- 8:12Constance Lavonice: We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
- 8:18Constance Lavonice: We are seated with Christ and have already received spiritual blessings through the Holy Spirit with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
- 8:32Constance Lavonice: God also says that our bodies is the temple of the Holy Spirit, God's dwelling place.
- 8:41Constance Lavonice: It changes everything about the way we experience life.
- 8:49Constance Lavonice: When I meditate, for instance, on the fact that in my relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit, that I am loved by God and God sees me as holy and blameless, that He forgives me of all of my sins, that I am loved, favored, and lavished in His grace.
- 9:18Constance Lavonice: When I meditate on my identity, it's a faith builder, and my faith changes circumstances.
- 9:28Constance Lavonice: Finally, whatever the word says, obey it.
- 9:33Constance Lavonice: Act accordingly.
- 9:36Constance Lavonice: The more we meditate on and speak God's word, the more we desire what God desires.
- 9:45Constance Lavonice: God's word says that we are loved, we walk in love, and we see other people through the eyes of love.
- 9:55Constance Lavonice: What does it look like to act on God's word?
- 10:02Constance Lavonice: If I need wisdom, I know that God's word says that we have the Holy Spirit within us and that Spirit gives us wisdom.
- 10:16Constance Lavonice: And if we need wisdom, we can ask God.
- 10:20Constance Lavonice: That means I consult with God first after the doctor's report and recommendation, not friends first or even the pastor first.
- 10:33Constance Lavonice: I ask God.
- 10:36Constance Lavonice: Do I need assurance, confidence?
- 10:41Constance Lavonice: God's word says that I am a child of God.
- 10:45Constance Lavonice: God says he will never leave me or forsake me.
- 10:50Constance Lavonice: How do I act upon that?
- 10:52Constance Lavonice: I release my worries and cares upon him by meditating on his word, actively aware of it, moment by moment, speaking it.
- 11:05Constance Lavonice: God, you have not given me the spirit of fear.
- 11:09Constance Lavonice: God, you said that you will keep me in perfect peace as I keep my mind on you.
- 11:16Constance Lavonice: Speak God's word, meditate on God's word, and act on God's word.
- 11:25Constance Lavonice: Then you yourself will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.
- 11:36Constance Lavonice: And if this message resonated with you, subscribe and share this episode with a friend.
- 11:43Constance Lavonice: And don't forget, text the show and let me know what's on your heart.