Old Words for Success

Ours is the day of many, many business consultants, CEO’s, and business leaders. Well, today’s words from 3,000 years ago could easily have come from a Warren Buffet or Elon Musk type of business man. They are words of how to build a successful business, bu more than that, they tell you how to build a successful life.

Let’s read Proverbs 21:5

“The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”

These 14 words cover the question of how to build a successful business. Of course it means whether that business is running a commercial enterprise or a private home. These words tell you three vital truths.

First, Make a Plan. 

Don’t just jump into a project and figure it out later. You can do that, but you will make things a lot harder, slower, and more apt to fail. “The plans of the diligent lead to profit.”

Second, Be Diligent.

Every major translation use that same word, “Diligent.” To understand what is mean by this word, we need to look at the dictionary definition. To be diligent means to be “Marked by persevering, painstaking effort.” In other words, A diligent person sticks to the job, even when things are hard. So make your plans and be diligent to stick to the task. This leads to profit and success.

Third, Haste makes waste.

Don’t lose this old lesson – haste leads to poverty. It is advice against the get rich quick scheme. Just today I saw advertisements for how to become a millionaire in 5 short years. That assurance seems quick. There are too many of get rich quick schemes to warn us about all of them, so just take Solomon’s advice (the wisest man ever) and remember slow down, because haste makes waste.

This proverbs is 3,000 years old, yet completely modern.

“The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”

Lonnie Davis

Our Text for today is:

2 Timothy 1:7

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

I use to think that lightning was beautiful. I remember walking the golf course with my son and seeing the lightning but having no fear. We only left the course when it got really bad. That was before I was knocked down by lightening. With a bolt from the blue my attitude changed.

Later a lightning storm came out of nowhere. I was in a building, but needed to make a run for my car. It was exactly the same run I had made a few months earlier when I had my own close encounter with lightning. As I stood looking through those glass doors I realized I was afraid. I wanted to wait out the lightning, but I girded up my loins and made the run. It only took a few seconds, but it seemed to me like the run was 10 minutes long.  

The earlier faith I had that lightning would not hurt me was gone. Fear was in its place. In this story is a great spiritual lesson: Faith drives out fear or fear drives out faith. 

When you are afraid you will not attempt things. When you are afraid you do not fail in your task, you fail to attempt your task. A fearful man or woman does not have the faith that he can be successful at anything. Faith for success is gone and fear has killed it.

All Godly people should remember Hebrews 11:6:

“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”.

Lonnie Davis 

I love the Biblical story of Philip the Evangelist. On one occasion an angel of the Lord came and called him to do a great work.

“Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road–the desert road–that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (Acts 8:26)

God told him to go and he went! That was Philip, always obeying God. Of course he had an angel to tell him what to do. It is easy for any of us to say that we would happily do what God tells us to do if an angel came and told us to do it. Maybe so, but Philip’s true greatness is not found in this verse but nineteen verses earlier in the same chapter.

“Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there.” (Acts 8:6)

Philip was driven from Jerusalem because of persecution. Finding himself in Samaria he told people about Jesus. The Bible does not tell us that he had some vision in the night, angelic visit, or burning bush to tell him to serve God. Philip served because he was a servant.

Here is a great God principle: God uses people who show they are servants. God does not hunt for some person with plenty of time on their hands and nothing to do. He sent his angel to give a task to a busy man (8:26) who had already shown himself to be a servant.

God still works that way. If you want to do great things for God, start by doing the little things. Ministry does not start with a burning bush, but with a man or woman who is doing what can be done wherever he or she can do it.

Do what you can with what you have wherever you are. God will then use you for bigger things.

Lonnie Davis

Our text for today is one that I have spent decades appreciating.

 Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity.” Proverbs 24:16

 This verse is about what we do with failure. Will Rogers is an example of this.

Americans know who Will Rogers is. Presidents opened their doors to him. Even today speakers everywhere quote him. He did not begin with a goal of being known by politicians and quoted by speakers. Will Rogers’ stage was a vaudeville performer who had a specialty of rope tricks. One day, on stage, in the middle of his act he failed. He got tangled in is lariat. 

How does one get up from obvious failure? Here is what Will Rogers did. Instead of getting upset, he drawled, “A rope ain’t so bad to get tangled up in if it ain’t around your neck.” The audience roared. Encouraged by the warm reception, Rogers began adding humorous comments to all his performances. It was the comments, not the rope tricks, that eventually made him famous.

Even though no one strives for failure, we all fail. We have failed and will fail again. A successful life does not depend on never failing. The secret to success in life is found in God’s Word. Let’s read that verse again.

 “Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity.” Proverbs 24:16

Everybody falls, but righteous people try again. Wicked people fall, but then they just wallow in their failure. Trying again and again is a trait of righteousness.

It is not the falling that defines us. It is what we do next.

Lonnie Davis

Appetite Comes with Eating

Our text is one of the “beatitudes” from Jesus.

Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” 

Once I was teaching this verse when One of the class members asked, “How can you develop a hunger for righteousness?” It was then that my mind ran back to this old proverb, “Appetite comes with eating.”

Let me explain, I recently was reading some old notes about why we ought to read the Bible. The notes were the usual things that preachers share: (1) It is the inspired Word of God, (2) It tells us about God, (3) It contains the answers to life’s question.

To that list I want to add another. “Appetite comes with eating.” The full text of this old French proverb says, “Appetite comes with eating; the more one has, the more one would have.”

That may not seem like a sensible reason to read the Bible or anything other than eat, but after you think about it, it will make sense. When I first read this proverb I too raced through it and did not see the great truth in it. Later I began to reflect on it and realized the life principle in it. Its meaning is simple.

Appetite comes with eating. If you are watching your weight and want to avoid eating a donut tomorrow, do not eat one today. If you want to avoid eating a second piece of cake, do not eat the first piece. “Appetite comes with eating; the more one has, the more one would have.”

Here is a life application. If you want to be more of anything. If you want to build any habit in your life, then start acting that way. If you want to build a great prayer life, start a small prayer life. It will grow. If you want to get into the habit of worshipping God faithfully, go to church next Sunday, then go the next and the next. In time it will seem normal to you. Appetite comes from eating.

 If you want to become more spiritual tomorrow, practice spiritual things today. One does not become a great prayer warrior in one day. One does not go from casual acquaintance with the Bible to deep knowledge in one week. Begin today to make small changes. It will make the big change feel more natural tomorrow.

Appetite comes with eating. 

~Lonnie Davis

Don’t Just Start

Our text is Nehemiah 4:10:

“Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, ‘The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.’”

“Meanwhile?” Our text starts in such a way that it demand that we know what the meanwhile is about.

70 years earlier Israel had been taken captive into Babylon. Their Temple had been destroyed. The walls of the city were broken down. Now a leader named Nehemiah returned to help them start over. They planned, they worked, and got the work going. They started well, but then they struggled. The reason for the struggle is explained in this verse.

1. They were tired. – The people said, “The strength of the laborers is giving out.” 

They started well, but now they are exhausted. Exhaustion kills many good works. We start a good work and then stop because we are tired. The solution to such a barrier is to stop and rest. No one can go and go and go. Sometimes one has to take a step away, refresh, and restart.

2. The rubble discouraged them. – “The people said, “There is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.”

Israel was surrounded with broken down walls, destroyed gates, and rubble everywhere. Because of the great piles of rocks they had delayed starting the work and now that they were working that same rubble made them want to stop. 

We have all been there. We have walked into the garage, a room, or a yard with great intentions of cleaning it up, but then stopped because there was just so much to do. Maybe the rubble is a checkbook that is hopelessly unbalanced. When rubble discourages us we need to do like Nehemiah did. He broke down the work into small pieces and gave the work to people in small groups. One group worked on this part and another on that part.

Israel did not just start the work, they finished it. They were tired and discouraged, but they finished anyway. Successful people do not just start, they finish.

Lonnie Davis

Our text for today is John 12:37:

“But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him.”

Jesus gave sight to the blind, feed 5,000 with a few loaves and fish, cured the lepers, and walked on water, yet many people did not believe in Him. In fact the miracle right before this verse was the undeniable miracle when Jesus raised a dead man. Even his enemies did not deny the miracle and yet, “they did not believe in him.”

Why O, Why?

The truth is that there will alway be those who will hunt a way not to believe in what is obvious. It was true then and it is true today.

It reminds me of the story of the man who build a locomotive. As he began to build it, his neighbor came by and said, “It is too big, you will never get it built.” 

The man worked for months and months and got it built. When it was build, his neighbor came by and said, “That thing is too heavy. You will never get it on the track. Again he worked hard and finally got it on the track.

Again the neighbor came by spewing his negativity. “You’ll never get it moving. It is jus too big.” 

By and by, he got his train moving. The neighbor finally told him. “Well, you will never get it stopped.”

Jesus was surrounded by people who simply were not going to believe. Even as he was on the cross, the unbelievers cried out, “Come down from the cross and we will believe.” No! They would not. They were the unbelievers. That is who they were. 

Those people still exist today. We also must not let them stop us from doing what needs to be done.

Lonnie Davis

I’m going to do a strange thing with today’s familiar text. It is doubtful that there are any words of Jesus which are more quoted than John 3:16

You know the text: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

But do you know the text that comes just after it? John 3:17

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

Today I want to read these two verses to answer a skeptic’s question. The question is: “Why would a loving God condemn anyone to hell?”

The answer is, He didn’t!

I will read those two verses again, but in reverse order and you should see what I mean by “He didn’t.”

John 3:17, 16

17“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 

16“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

No, God didn’t condemn anyone to Hell. He sent his Son to die for us so that we do not have to go to hell. If anyone is lost in eternity, it will be because they did not choose to go to God in eternity.

One well known preacher said it eloquently. If you choose to reject God and distance yourself from him, in eternity God will not force himself upon you.

That is not God condemning man. That is man choosing not to be near God.

Lonnie Davis

Job is a great story. It is the story of a righteous man who was blessed then lost it all and trusted God to work things out.

Our scripture today is Job 1:1-3

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. 

And seven sons and three daughters were born to him. Also, his possessions were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large household, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

So there is the background to this most interesting story. We have a righteous man, blessed to an extent that few people could ever imagine. He was the richest man in the East. Since the East may have been the richest part of the world, then this man was probably the richest man on earth. 

The book of Job is about how Satan took this all away. I do mean the took it ALL. 

7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 Oxen, and 500 donkeys: all gone. But it gets worse. His 7 sons and 3 daughters are also swept away from life.

Job is about how, even in such horror, this righteous man remained faithful to God. In fact, when his possessions were taken away, 

“Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.” (1:20-21)

All I can say this is Wow. Even the death of his children did not cause him to give up on God. Surely God will reward such a faith.

He does! When the test is over, God doubled everything. In the end Job has 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels and 1,000 oxen and sheep. Now he is again the richest man on earth.

But what about his children? In the end, God gives him 7 more sons and 3 more daughters. Why didn’t he double the number of kids? Well, he did! In a few years all of them would be in the house of God in heaven. When he got there he had 14 sons and 6 daughters. You see, he really didn’t lose the first kids. They just went on to heaven to wait for him.

God works everything out in the end. It may not be on earth and it may not be what we think, but our Father knows best and he works things out as we need them to be.

If it hasn’t worked out for you yet, remember it is not the end.

Lonnie Davis

Mark 13:33
“Be on guard! Be alert! 

You do not know when that time will come.”

Carelessness

I heard an amazing statistic. 

In one recent year as people went through the check points at the nation’s airports they took their change from their pocket and put it in a bowl. After they passed through the scanners, they got their change and all other items back. 

Here is the shocking part: More than $400,000 was left at the checkpoints in the airport. People did not leave it as a tip. They did not leave it on purpose. People just carelessly leave it. Hearing this got me to thinking about how many things we all carelessly lose. 

Some people are careless with their health and lose it. Nobody ever sets out to get unhealthy. They just don’t pay attention and then one day are surprised to find they are not healthy. Some lose their families. They did not see it coming, but years of neglect of family and then their family is gone. If they are not gone physically, they are gone emotionally. They are simply no longer connected.

Some people are careless with their faith and lose it.  As Matthew 13:22 says, “The worries of life” grow up around their lives and choke out faith. One must pay attention to the important things or the urgent things of this life will swallow them up. 

Be careful with the things that are important. $400,000 is chump change compared to the important things that we carelessly lose.

Lonnie Davis