SUCCESS IS A CHOICE; SO IS FAILURE. It's a shocking thought, but believers who fail at life and ministry do so because they have chosen to do so, while others succeed because of an act of their own volition. To say that people who fail do so because they have chosen to fail is to state the case in its simplest terms, leaving unanswered the question, Why would anyone choose to fail? Perhaps the best place to begin is with the answer to this question.

If Romans Seven teaches us anything, it teaches us that every believer has two sets of desires. This is because we have two natures, one received at our first birth from our original parent, fallen Adam; the other received at our new birth when we became partakers of the divine nature (John 3:6). It would have been nice if, having been born of God, we had lost our old nature when we received the new, but it didn't work that way. We will have conflicting desires because of our conflicting capacities until we join the Lord through death or rapture (Galatians 5:17). Frequently we, like Paul, desire to do good only to find that evil is present with us; the old nature wins out (Romans 7:15). That's the bad news. Sometimes we are strongly enticed to do evil, but find ourselves restrained -- we don't always know how (Galatians 5:16). That's the good news. Deliverance is a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the best news (Romans 7:24-25).

An American Indian chief once told his friend, Harry Ironside, that he, the chief, had a good dog and a bad dog in his bosom and that they were always scrapping. "Which one wins?" asked Dr. Ironside. "The one that I feed," replied the chief. The carnal mind (literal Greek, "mind of the flesh") is enmity with God whether it resides in a saved or an unsaved person (Romans 8:7). The spiritual mind can only agree with God.

If I fail at life and ministry, I do so because I have neglected to avail myself of the provision that God has made for my success. It is really as terribly and wonderfully simple as that. Terrible because my failure to act on a simple truth has cost God the glory He otherwise would have had, and myself and others the good we might have experienced. Wonderful because it is a simple matter to correct in the present time, insuring that my life will glorify Him in the future -- benefitting others and myself, as well. If I neglect God's provision for me I am rejecting His revealed will for me, and that is a very serious matter!

God meant all Believers to succeed! His plan for the believer's life is His plan for your life! If your life is anything like mine, it is studded with failures -- too many failures to recall. Failure may even be the best word to characterize our past. The past cannot be altered, but the future can be shaped.

Most people tend to judge us on the basis of our past failures, even though they don't appreciate this type of judgment for themselves. Most in the world, and many in the church, judge King David by his famous sins. God calls him "a man after my own heart" (Acts 13:22). This devotion to the plan of God characterized David's life as God saw it. Men judge him by the exception rather than the rule, and so men judge us. David, however, refused to accept man's assessment of him. He refused to give up. He rose from the ashes of his defeat and returned to his life of dedication to the will of God. He couldn't change his past, but he could shape his future, and so can you and I!

Never accept defeat. The same plan of God that went unheeded yesterday will work for us today. God, in His infinite genius, designed it in Eternity Past knowing that you and I would need it for the Present.

There is no excuse for you and I to fail, simply because God has given us every reason to succeed. God's Word says to weak Christians, "Be strong" (2 Timothy 2:1). Many will read these words whose thousands of repeated failures have brought them discouragement and possibly even despair. Take heart this minute. Just as we can step from God's plan over to our own plans, so we can step from our own plans back into the plan of God. The future begins today!