Ok, so a week has passed since God allowed me to share on the topic “What is Your Strategy for Spiritual Success–Part 1”. I encourage you to please read that blog before commencing this one if you can.

Now, to those of you who read part 1, I have a question for you. What happened next in your life? Meaning, were you influenced into action? In certain things in life, the outcome or action can only be binary (either 1 or 0), as in this case. So, after reading the last blog what did you do? Well, there are only two actions. One action would have been to read and do nothing, and another is to read and write your plan for spiritual success. Which group did you fall into? I hope you were not one of the persons who simply did nothing, thereby causing you to remain in the “business as usual category”?

I want to share something personal. There were times in my life when individuals would have given me excellent advice to purchase stocks, land, or take an educational line of study. Because I did not see it as important, I did not embrace or accept the information that was given to me. But do you know what the outcome was? I lived to regret it (true stories on all 3 counts above).

By His Holy Spirit, God had set up encounters (remember there are “No Wasted Encounters”) for me to be in the right place at the right time to get good advice. But how did I respond? I turned and walked away from the blessing the Father had orchestrated. I stated the aforementioned for one reason only my friend, do not simply read this blog series and walk away unaffected and unchanged. Because the encounter with these words, will only lead to bettering your encounters with God.

In the next few lines, I would like to speak about how we can develop a strategy and execute it.

GET A PERSONAL CREDO

A credo is a set of beliefs that influences the way you live. We can also regard this as a set of guiding principles which governs your life. It would be akin to a vision or mission statement of a company. I believe every Christian should have at minimum 2 of these. Examples of spiritual credos might be:

  1. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 – Abstain from the very appearance of evil
  2. Matthew 10:38 ESV  – And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
  3. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 – 13 Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. 14 Do everything in love.
  4. Philippians 1:27 (NIV) – “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ…”

Man, this list can just go on and there are so many scriptures that can be adopted as a personal credo which governs our life. So, when things get tough and we know they will, then your credo automatically surfaces to the top of your head, to remind you of the governing principles you purposed in your heart.

To further cement this, a good approach is to use your credo as a mantra and repeat it frequently and in this way you can help yourself recall it when needed. This reminds me of a woman I heard speaking on the radio once. The woman said, her dad always used to say, “You are a Jackson, and Jackson’s don’t behave in this manner”. Because her dad repeated this so much when she was growing up, whenever she wanted to do something wrong, her dad’s voice would always come back to mind, “Jacksons don’t behave in this manner” and this would stop her from taking sinful courses of action. So, my friend, adopt a credo, it will help!

CREATE A VISION BOARD

You can take that same credo and turn it into a vision or mission statement for your life. Take it and rewrite it as a personal mission statement or by combining several other scriptures that you hold dear, to form one. Then you can place it around your home, similar to how a business places its vision and mission statement around the office. It is interesting that in the office we see the mission and vision statement prominently located. Now in sharp contrast, sometimes we see few scriptures plastered around believers’ homes.

Deuteronomy 11:18-20 – 18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Let me represent this another way. If a thief broke into your house to steal, would he be able to tell that you are a Christian by what he sees? If we truly embraced and applied Deuteronomy 11:18, then clearly the intruder will undoubtedly understand where your heart is and who this home belongs to.

We can describe displaying scripture in this manner as creating a vision board around your home. It is a vision board of God’s word that you want to manifest. The more you visualize is the more you internalize, the more you internalize is the more you can materialize. So, my friend, create a vision board, it will help!

START TODAY!

We typically think that when we put off something for tomorrow, the likelihood of us doing it is higher. However, experience teaches me that this is rarely the case. Well unless you wait so long in executing that after a while it becomes critical. I say to you, “The best way to start tomorrow, is by doing ALL that you can do today!”

Most of us consider money valuable, but if money is wasted, it can be regained, but not so with time. Therefore, which one is more valuable? Use the time you have today and begin drafting your strategy (don’t let Parkinson’s Law affect you). I will not tell you what to put on paper however, you can always use Google to research strategy and relate it to your personal life spiritually.

However, I would say this, at minimum you should list down the time of day you want to pray, read God’s word, share the Gospel, fast, etc. Do not just write the time but also include the location. Creating time and space for the activity help you better setup the context for what you need to do. You can start by looking for free slots in your day and pencilling in the goals and objectives of your spiritual strategy. Having your spiritual strategy as a subset of your current routine, is one way to do it.  

Another way to approach it, is by reversing it and having your Spiritual Strategy first. Then other worldly areas of your life, become the sub-strategy and you look for free slots to insert your secular goals and objectives. In other words flip the scipt, but for now, I suggest applying the former and we will talk more about this in part 3 of this series.

Once this is done, download a habit tracking app and enter your goals as listed in your strategy. Set the reminders for these goals 15 minutes before they start. Now this is important! Once you get the reminder, do not hesitate, stop what you are doing and immediately start your spiritual goal. 

You can even go as far as sharing your strategy with other members of your family. In that way they know the times and places you are engaging in ‘blocked time’. Because they are involved they can support you and also know not to disturb during these sacred moments. Keep sacred moments scared.

So, my friend, start your strategy today, it will help!

I would like to end here for now and God willing, we will continue next week. On a side note, there are many habit tracking apps on the market but I like Habithub. These are the links for HabitHub on the Android and Apple stores for those of you who are interested.  

Note: Part 3 can be found here: What is Your Strategy for Spiritual Success–Part 3

PS: Dane Miller was last seen praying and writing Part III of this series.

Your Brother in the Lord,

Dane Miller | Author

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