GLEANINGS FROM THE SCRIPTURES The Fountain of True Success By Keith L. Estes If you read this article you will learn how to have true success. It may take ten minutes of your time but it won't cost you a dime. I learned this from Bill Gothard and I am going to let you read his story. "My lack of scholastic ability became quite obvious to my teachers and to me as far back as the first grade. It required nine years and a lot of teachers' patience and sympathy to get me through the first eight years of school. At the bottom of those eight passing report cards were those familiar words, "Passed On Probation." Prior to my entering high school, I sincerely purposed to make good grades; but with four to six hours of study each night, I only managed to "achieve" average grades. "Then a Christian friend challenged me to begin a certain "project" in my Christian life which at first seemed quite impossible. However, I diligently worked on this "project" for a semester. At the end of that semester the school grades rose to an A- average! The "project" was continued during the remaining years of high school whereupon I graduated as a member of the National Honor Society. This "project" was maintained "off and on" during college and graduate school. To my amazement, in direct proportion to my faithfulness in this "project", my grades went either up or down. "The project that this Christian friend introduced to me was memorizing and meditating on a chapter of Scripture each week. God does not promise success for memorizing Scripture, but He does promise success for anyone who will meditate in His Word day and night. The continuous mental discipline of memorizing and meditation on Scripture rebuilt my thought structures, refocused my emotions, and redirected my goals. Very logical by-products of this activity were increased memory span, greater ability to concentrate and an improved reading rate. The absence of these had been some of the major causes for poor grades in school. As this project continued many other beneficial by-products began to appear. When it was discontinued there was a noticeable decline in the success of what I attempted to accomplish. "One of the reasons God is able to guarantee success in whatever we do if we meditate on His Word (Psalm 1:3) is that meditation brings a greater ability to discern ahead of time which ventures will be successful and which ones will not be successful. Even before that Christian friend introduced me to the inward exercise of meditation, another friend suggested that I make a decision which would be a big step toward helping me include God's Word in my daily schedule. He suggested that I make a vow to God that I would spend at least ten minutes every day reading His Word. Previously I had made many promises and resolutions to myself that I would be more faithful in reading Scripture, but these never carried the same weight as did a vow to God. A vow to God is a very serious matter- as emphasized in Ecclesiastes 5:4-6. I was urged to consider this before making it. "Shortly after making that vow, I discovered that it did remove one of my bigest hindrances to consistent Christian living- that of getting started in God's Word every day. Once I started reading the Word, the time usually went well beyond the ten-minute minimum. The first big test to this vow came during the week after making it. One day I completely forgot about it until I was in bed and almost asleep. All of a sudden God reminded me about it- as He has faithfully done every day since. I realized that if I debated for even one minute, I'd fall asleep, and the words of Ecclesiastes 5:4 quickly came to mind. "After jumping out of bed I struggled to keep my eyes open for the ten minutes. I didn't get too much from the reading that night, but this taught me a big lesson. Up to that point I was trying to fit God's Word into my schedule rather than building my schedule around God's Word. This became an important turning point in my whole outlook on life." I'm not going to let you off that easy. Please read the following. Wisdom- Psalm. 119:98; Understanding Psalm. 119:99; Joy- Psalm. 63:5; Prosperity- Psalm1:2,3, Faith- Romans 10:17, Life- Prov. 16:22, Peace- Psalm. 119-165; Success- Joshua 1:8; - KJV The Holy Bible. Ref. IBLP Box One, Oak Brook, Ill. 60522. Return to Home Page Return to Current Edition Contact us