Control Your Mind, Body, and Time to Be in Control of Self from the 25 Biblical Laws of Success

I recently read the, “25 Biblical Laws of Success” by William Douglas and Rubens Teixeira.

To be honest, I usually avoid these types of books because “success” books from scripture often horribly misuse the bible to meet the modern day expectations of business and life.  But I was challenged on this approach, and I will be honest, I loved this book.

While it is not completely free of the aforementioned trappings, it does a good job of looking at the biblical principals of work and effort (there are many) and appropriates them well.  I was specifically struck by the simplicity and practicality of one well-known passage.

1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Douglas and Teixeira make these observations about how we approach work, life, and serving God.  To accomplish that which we are called to…

Run like a winner (“in such a way to get the prize”)

Make sacrifices (go into “strict training”)

Have faith and trust (“not running aimlessly”)

Behave in an intelligent and objective way (“not fight like a boxer beating the air”)

Take charge of yourself and have self-control (“strike a blow to my body and make it my slave”).

They go on to say:

“Learning to control your mind, your body, and your time is to be in control of yourself.  Those who don’t control themselves first are in no condition to control anything else.” (108, “25 Biblical Laws of Success).

How true are these principals?  They are true in our service to Jesus and gifted through the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).  They are true in athletic training.  They are true in marriage, parenting, and the workplace.

Our goal in these things?  Trust our security and power in Jesus as we seek to honor Him in all things.  If you get a chance, check out the “25 Laws”, and let me know what you think.

Gordon Duncan

Gospel Rich Books

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“I am so done.” Jesus Knows Exactly How You Feel

Have you ever felt like you just couldn’t go on anymore?

Have you felt like your circumstances were too great to bear?

Have you ever prayed that God would just simply make things better?

You are not alone, and you are in good company. 

Right after Jesus gave His disciples the Lord’s Supper, and right before He was arrested, Jesus got away in order to spend time with His Father.  He spent the night in prayer.  This was a prayer of anguish and a prayer of pain.  

Luke 22 tells us that His prayers were in such earnest that He literally sweat drops of blood.  In fact, Luke 22 tells us that great drops of blood fell to the ground, and we are privileged to hear a few of the words that Jesus prayed that night. 

Now before I tell them to you, ask yourself what you would be praying.  If you had been betrayed by one of your best friends and you knew that you were about to be executed for a crime for which you were innocent, what would you be praying? 

I might be angry, bitter, depressed, or all of the above. 

I might pray for revenge.

Who knows?  Everything would be on the table.

Well here is what Jesus prays.

Jesus says, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 

Jesus, in one of His most human of moments, cries out to His Father.  He, in essence, says, “If there is any other plan for me other than my excruciating death on a cross, then please do that, but what I really want, Father, is your will and not mine. 

I don’t know how much comfort this brings you, but this passage should be one of the most fundamentally comforting passages in all of the scriptures. 

Jesus, our Savior, knows what it is like to anguish over a difficult set of circumstances and Jesus, our Savior, knows what it is like to wrestle with God’s will. 

Many of us right now are wrestling with God’s will as we know it, meaning we are struggling to be joyful and content in situations that we do not enjoy, and the rest of us are struggling with God’s unknown will.  We ask questions about school, marriage, jobs, children, finances, and the like. 

And here we see Jesus doing it in Godliness.  He cries to God asking for any change that is possible but resting ultimately in whatever God thinks is best. 

Our Savior knows our pain.  Our Savior secures for us, not only an example, but a hope through His death on the cross.  And our Savior gives us yet another reason to love Him.  He gets us.

Gospel Rich Books

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5 Steps to Build a Better Legalist

Jesus directed a large percentage of his teachings in the Gospels against the legalism of the Pharisees and other religious teachers of the day. A legalist is a person who thinks they have earned God’s love and affection based upon either how much they know, how many good things they do, or how many bad things they don’t do.

Now, legalism is the human heart’s problem.  Non-Christians can be legalists but unfortunately Christians are the worst legalists.

Despite the definition of a relationship with God as salvation by faith alone, human hearts are always going to be tempted to look at how good they think they are and think that even if God’s not impressed at least, everyone else should be.  The alternative to the life of legalism of course would be making your lone hope for forgiveness the work of Jesus, trusting only His righteousness and His goodness.

Now, when hearing the two side by side (trusting your goodness or trusting Jesus’) you might ask, “Why would anyone trust their goodness when Jesus’ life of love and perfection is so infinitely better?”

Simply:  we don’t see as God sees.  God sees our heart clearly, and we don’t.

He sees our sinful motives clearly, and we don’t.

And He sees Jesus’ work on our behalf constantly, and we don’t.

You would think that the church would fight harder against legalism, especially when Jesus uses such harsh language against legalists, calling them “a brood of vipers” (Matthew 23:33) and “white washed tombs” (Matthew 23:27).

But I’m afraid the church in America is a legalist factory.  We just keep churning them out.  In fact, we are good at it.  Let me show you it’s done.

Here is the 5-point plan for building a better legalist.

One:  Withhold affection when someone sins or makes a mistake.

Two:  Invent rules for Godliness without either the desire to explain your reasoning or explain their benefit.

Three:  Care more about other’s opinion of your performance than you do God’s opinion.

Four:  Assume what you say or what you do gives you a place of superiority or authority.

Five:  Speak often of others who used to be really good but aren’t any more.

We are so prone to these 5 things, we often don’t see that those types of actions actually blind us from grace and inhibit compassion towards other.  We don’t see that those types of actions are traps that lead to self-righteousness, Christian ghettos, and hardness of heart.  Unfortunately, we are all susceptible to these types of thoughts and actions because we just don’t see our hearts and the hearts of others like God does.

1 Samuel 16:7 For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart

Thankfully, God sees differently than you and I see.  That means that God not only knows the things we think and do in secret, but He can also see all the great things that He is going to do in our lives.

So, when we are discouraged or sad, we can trust that God sees things and knows things that we don’t, and that gives us a great hope as we have faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins.