Success is a mind game. If you’re not in the right frame of mind, your chances of success are diminished. What you think and believe will play an important role in your success. The devil will do what he can to make your best efforts fail by playing mind games with you.
The devil wants you to live in fear. All of us have attacks of fear. You may be afraid to try because you are afraid to fail. I believe that not trying is the biggest failure of all. If God told you to do something, you’re better off trying to do it and failing than not trying at all! You will never succeed if you give in to the fear of trying. Successful people overcome the fear of trying.
When you’re tired, you can make some wrong decisions. Elijah became exhausted and made the wrong decision. He had just experienced the power of God like never before: He called down fire on Mt. Carmel, had the prophets of Baal killed, prayed for rain, and then ran 20 miles in the mud from Mt. Carmel to Jezreel (1 Kings 18). But when Jezebel threatened to take his life, he ran off scared; he left the revival that had started on Mt. Carmel. Why? I believe it was because he was physically tired. He wasn’t thinking straight, or he wouldn’t have feared Jezebel’s threat. So, God put him to sleep. You will be up to the Lord’s work if you are physically sound and mentally alert; don’t sacrifice good judgment to fatigue. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is sleep!
We are living in the “Information Age,” and with all this information comes what I call the “frenzies.” It’s easy to get into a state of panic if we look at all the negative things going on around us. But, Paul told us not to walk as the gentiles walk “in the futility of their mind” (Ephesians 4:17), but to “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23). When Paul was dragged outside the city of Lystra, stoned, and left for dead (see Acts 14), the disciples could have gotten into a frenzy of anguish; instead, they said, “Paul, in Jesus’s name, get up!” Their faith brought Paul back to life. Don’t surrender to frenzy; surrender to faith!
Our minds won’t let us forget the past—past failures, past hurts, past sins. But God has no trouble forgetting those things as long as we have confessed them and forsaken them. The Bible says that “He will . . . subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). Your past failures are no excuse for your present inaction because God has put a “No Fishing” sign beside the sea of forgetfulness! What He’s forgotten, you need to forget. Don’t let past hurts keep you from present joys—don’t surrender to past experiences of failure!
I believe that this is the beginning of a whole new wave of success for you. Get out there and do what the Lord has told you to do! Don’t let others or the devil lead you down the path to failure. In areas where you have had constant defeat, you are going to see real victory; so rejoice in your newly found freedom.
Excerpt taken from Marilyn’s devotional, Beautiful Inheritance.
