We are walking in today: Weekend Meditation: How to Become Your Potential
Witness overcome throughout the Bible: H5381 nasag--to reach, overtake, take hold upon, attain to, cause to reach, to be able to secure, have enough, overtake
Deuteronomy 28:2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake H5381 thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.
The Torah testifies...............
Deuteronomy 28:45 Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake H5381 thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee:
The prophets proclaim..................
1 Samuel 30:8 And David enquired at the LORD, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake H5381 them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely H5381 overtake H5381
them, and without fail recover all.
The writings bear witness...........................
Psalm 18:37 I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken H5381 them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.
1 Thessalonians 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
How to Become Your Potential
What you have done is only a mere fraction of who you are.
Slowly the young man worked his way through the brush and the young trees that had grown up through the cracked foundation of the dilapidated house. Cobwebs filled openings where windows had once been and hornets’ nests clung to the scorched beams of the floor above. A partially burned-out staircase hovered in the corner and a broken oil lamp lay dashed on the first step. Years of dirt and debris littered the floor, with an occasional wildflower providing a discordant note of charm and warmth.
At the base of the staircase, the young man halted. Dared he try to climb the stairs to the main floor above? He doubted the rotted wood would hold him, yet the desire to go higher impelled him cautiously on. For years he had wanted to explore this shell of a house, but his mother had strictly forbade it, reminding him that the forlorn gate to the fence that surrounded the property contained a faded “No Trespassing” sign and warning him that it was not safe.
How long the house had stood this way, he didn’t know, for within his memory it had always been so. Today no one could stop him, however, for only a few hours before he had bought the land on which the house stood.
Moving carefully from one step to another, testing each before putting his full weight upon it, the young man gingerly mounted the stairs. Here and there he skipped a step that threatened to give way beneath him. At the top, he paused to survey the charred remains that surrounded him.
He stood at the end of a long room that appeared to have once been a kitchen. Broken pottery and twisted metal littered the floor.
A warped candlestick lay on the edge of what must have been the family table. Here and there scraps of material waved in the breeze that blew through the paneless windows. Nearly one whole wall of the room was missing, gaping into a room beyond. Though he wondered what that room might reveal, a step in that direction quickly changed the explorer’s mind, for his foot went through the floor.
Light streaming from the room beyond suggested that little remained of that part of the house. Turning to his left, the young man discovered a long hallway with an opening on either side. Here the floor creaked beneath his step, but it did not give way. The opening to the left revealed a room dominated by a massive stone fireplace. Parts of the chimney had tumbled onto the rusted, sooty grate, and the filth on the hearth warned that many birds had built their nests within the chimney’s shelter. The only furniture in the room was the crumbling remains of a small table.
The opening to the right, farther down the hall, revealed a small sitting room with the hulks of rotting furniture leaning against two walls. Strips of blackened wallpaper hung from the ceiling, but the walls contained no gaping holes as had the other two rooms.
Backing quickly from the room when a rat scurried across the floor through the carpet of leaves that had blown through the broken windows, the young man turned to retreat. Suddenly a faint streak of light at the end of the hall caught his attention.
Moving cautiously around the broken boards on the floor, the explorer moved toward the hint of light. As he neared the blackened wall, he realized that a closed door lay at the end of the hallway. The doorknob turned, but the rusted hinges prevented him from opening the door. Though he pushed with all his strength, the door would not yield. Disappointed, the young man retraced his steps through the kitchen, down the rickety stairs, and through the cluttered basement. As he started to climb into his car, the thought came to him: That hint of light must mean an open window or a hole in the wall. Perhaps I could see into the room from the back of the house.
After much effort, the explorer stood at the back of the house, having worked his way under the low branches of old trees and through the overgrown bushes and waist-high weeds that hampered his progress. A single window adorned the back wall. Although direct access to the window was denied by high bushes, a large tree spread its limbs within inches of the cracked, but nearly whole, panes. Inching his way up the tree and out the limb, the explorer gasped with astonishment as he peered through the dirty glass.
This room appeared to have been largely untouched by the fire that had ravaged the rest of the house. Candlesticks stood on the mantle over the small fireplace, the wax from the candles having run down the stone onto the hearth below. Books lay open on the desk to the right and curtains hung at a high window to the left.
Although the walls were yellowed with age and spotted with water, they were not black like those of the rooms he had entered. Who would have thought such a room could exist in the otherwise ruined house?
Excitement coursed through the young man’s veins. Why, this room might reveal what the rest of the house must have looked like before the fire. It might also provide the clues he needed to determine who had lived here and why the house had been left to rot instead of being rebuilt. Perhaps other treasures awaited him in the parts of the room he could not see, untapped resources that would help him to solve the mystery that had always surrounded the house in his young mind. Wildly his imagination soared as he looked into the unexpected chamber that lay before him.
In time the young man withdrew from his vantage point in the tree. His mind was filled with wonder, for the room held possibilities beyond his greatest hopes. Perhaps it would afford him the opportunity to fulfill his boyhood dream of restoring the house to its former grandeur. Already he was busy calculating how he would force open the door at the end of the dark hallway. Then he would know more certainly the wealth of his find.
Potential. The unexposed, untapped, hidden, dormant revelations that lay beneath the accumulated dust and grime of many years. Potential. Strength and beauty that lay unmarred by the ravages of fire, wind, and water. Potential. The possibilities for rebuilding after years of destruction, decay, and neglect.
Our lives are very much like this decaying house. The strength and beauty The Most High gave to men and women when He created them in His image and likeness too often are not evident in us. Our minds are cluttered with impure thoughts and mixed motives, our bodies are weakened by the effects of bad habits and poor decisions, and our hearts are warped by misplaced trust and the absence of love. In many ways, we are empty people working our way through the problems and detours of life with little hope that things will ever change.
This discouragement and dissatisfaction with life is the result of our separation from The Most High, a separation that came when Adam and Eve sinned by choosing to put their own thoughts and desires above The Most High’s commandments and promises. (See Genesis 3.) Every person shares this tendency to establish his wants and will over The Most High’s.
Therein lies the source of our discouragement and dissatisfaction. Our discouragement and dissatisfaction with life are the results of our separation from The Most High! The Most High’s intent for men and women has not changed, nor has He taken from us the strength and beauty He gave us at birth. These gifts are buried within us, covered over by the attitudes and assumptions that prevent us from living the abundant life The Most High planned for us. In effect, many have placed a “No Trespassing” sign over their power, strength, abilities, talents, and capabilities. Because we have obeyed that sign, many of the possibilities with which we were born still exist within us—hidden and dormant, unused and untried.
Treasure in Clay Pots
The great writer Paul refers to this hidden wealth within as “treasure in jars of clay” (2 Corinthians 4:7). The jar may not look like much, but the treasure inside it is valuable and priceless. In other words, what people see when they look at you is not who you truly are. You can become much more than you now are. Who would have thought that Saul of Tarsus, a fervent Hebrew who vigorously opposed the followers of Yeshua, would become Paul the apostle, the greatest missionary the kingdom has ever known?
Certainly not those he persecuted—they did not expect anything good from him (see Acts 9:20–21)—nor Saul himself. Not in his wildest imaginings would he have seen himself as a servant of
the One he despised. Yet, like the old house, Saul contained a dormant wealth that was not evident under the outer trappings of his misguided religious fervor.
That same wealth is present in you. You are capable of more than others expect of you—even beyond your own most extravagant dreams. Unexposed, dormant potential rests beneath the surface of your daily existence, waiting to be discovered and released.
Although access to this great treasure has been clogged by sin, the strength and beauty of your potential can be reclaimed. The destruction, decay, and neglect of years need not continue to hold captive the reality of who The Most High created you to be.
You are capable of more than others expect of you—even beyond your own most extravagant dreams. This untold wealth within you is uniquely yours because The Most High creates no two people for the same purpose. Your personality, abilities, and resources are The Most High’s gifts, bestowed on you before He gave you the breath of life, and they contain the possibility for bringing meaning and fulfillment into your life. They are available, however, only to those who put forth the effort to recover them and to use them according to their Most High-given specifications. Learning to tap the hidden wealth of your potential is the greatest task and the most pressing need of your life because if you do not discover how to expose and use this treasure, you will die with it. This wealth, which is the all-surpassing power of The Most High within you, is never given to be buried.
The Most High wants you to release all He gave you for the benefit of others and the blessing of your own life. Let us use the stories of the ruined house and the life of the apostle Paul to establish some keys you can use to tap into your potential.
Keys to Releasing Your Potential
The explorer in the story of the old house was undoubtedly excited as he backed away from his perch outside the unexpected room at the back of the house. He had received a glimpse of the house’s former grandeur, a prelude to understanding the original owner’s dreams and plans when he built the house. That glimpse suggested the possibility of establishing the necessary link to the house’s past—before fire, wind, and water had caused major destruction—that would enable him to rebuild the house according to its original design.
Know Your Source
No one knows a product like the manufacturer. If you are going to move from who you now are to whom The Most High created you to be, you too must seek to understand the nature of The Most High’s original design for you, before sin ravaged your life. That understanding is not available to you unless you become reconnected with The Most High, your Creator. Apart from Him, you cannot and will not release your full potential because He gave you this potential and He designed you to fulfill it. You must know The Most High, your Source, if you want to experience a satisfying, abundant life.
Saul of Tarsus met his Source on the road to Damascus when Yeshua HaMashiach spoke to him from a bright light that left him blind. For three days he remained blind and did not eat or drink. He simply waited before The Most High, wondering what would happen next. Then The Most High sent a man named Ananias to place his hands on Saul to restore his sight and to bring the Holy Spirit into his life. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. It was
during this period that the purpose for Paul’s life was revealed to him by his Creator/Source. After that, Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus, preaching that Yeshua is the Son of The Most High and proving that Yeshua is the Messiah.
What a change! Few of us will experience a change as dramatic as that which occurred in the man Saul who became Paul, but a change just as radical—from being self-centered to The Most High-centered—must occur in all who would discover and use their full potential.
This is true because the foundation key for releasing potential is always a relationship with the source or maker of a product. You must have a life-changing encounter with the One who made you if you want to become who you were created to be.
Like the young man who could not restore the house to its former grandeur without understanding the builder’s original design and intent, you cannot expose the gifts, talents, and natural abilities that The Most High put into you if you do not become reconnected with Him. All you do and are apart from The Most High will always fall short of the true value and capacity of your potential. Therefore, fulfillment and value are impossible without Him. Only by returning to your Source/Manufacturer/Creator can you hope to unlock His power within you. You must know your Source to become your potential. This is the foundation key.
Understand Your Function
The mode of operation for maximum performance of any product is determined and established by the manufacturer/creator, and must be obeyed for maximum benefit. Thus, the second key to releasing your potential is knowing how The Most High created you to function and applying that knowledge to your life. No builder can successfully restore a house unless he first knows the specifications determined by the builder and the features provided by the original blueprints. A shower, for example, may fulfill part of the designer’s intent for the bathroom, but it cannot match all the functions of a tub. Thus, installing a shower in place of a tub would change not only the room’s appearance but also its ability to provide the intended functions that were built into the original design.
Man was designed to live by faith. The Most High’s original design for men and women calls for them to live from the perspective of faith with eternity in their hearts. The Book of Hebrews defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). This is The Most High’s mode of operation. He is not influenced by outward appearances; neither is His power diminished by seemingly impossible obstacles.
How to Become Your Potential
The apostle Paul learned the importance of looking beyond what is immediately visible and evident. Although he encountered many situations that seemed to stand in the way of his mission to share the good news of Yeshua with those outside the Hebrew world, he persevered by focusing on his Most High-given task and by relying on the Holy Spirit to guarantee the completion of The Most High’s plans. Thus, Paul testified, “[I] live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Your ability to unleash your potential is tied to your willingness to consistently live from The Most High’s perspective, which saw Paul the apostle in Saul the murderer. He created you to share His viewpoint. If you allow the obstacles that clutter your path and the expectations of others to discourage you and to send you on time and energy-consuming detours, your Most High-given talents and abilities will be wasted. Learning to function by looking beyond what you now see to what is yet possible is an important key to releasing your potential. You must resolve to live by faith.
Understand Your Purpose
To fully release your potential, you must discover your corporate and specific reason for existence and the accompanying assignment. One of the first tasks of a builder who wants to restore an old house is to determine the purpose for each room. Although this purpose may not be immediately evident, the rebuilding cannot accurately and effectively duplicate the original building if the purpose for each room is not established.
In a similar manner, you cannot effectively release your potential if you do not discover The Most High’s purpose for giving you life. Your potential and your purpose are perfectly related because The Most High never requires you to do or be something that is not part of His purpose.
Likewise, He never requires something of you that He did not provide for when He created you. Your potential enables you to fulfill your purpose, and your purpose reveals the potential hidden within you.
Your potential enables you to fulfill your purpose, and your purpose reveals the potential hidden within you. From his encounter with HaMashiach on the road to Damascus to the end of his life, the apostle Paul knew that he had been called and saved by The Most High for a specific purpose: “...The Most High, who set me apart from birth and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...” (Galatians 1:15-16). Similarly, the apostle Peter discovered his purpose when Yeshua told him three times, “Take care of My sheep” (John 21:16; see also John 21:15-18). Both remained faithful to The Most High’s purpose, dedicating their lives to its accomplishment and conforming their actions to its fulfillment.
You are like these apostles. You too have a purpose set forth by The Most High and the skills, talents, abilities, and characteristics that enable you to fulfill His plan. Your responsibility is to discover what The Most High designed you to do and how He planned, that you would accomplish it. Until you discover The Most High’s blueprint, you will not have the motivation to uncover the potential that will empower you to accomplish it, nor will you be happy and fulfilled. Discovery of purpose is discovery of potential.
Success without an understanding of purpose is meaningless. Knowing and cooperating with your Most High-given purpose is the third key to releasing your potential. He alone knows why He created you with the specific combination of personality, abilities, and dreams that make you the unique individual you are. You share the purpose of humanity to glorify The Most High by fulfilling your individual purpose and by releasing the power, beauty, and possibilities hidden within you. Success without an understanding of purpose is meaningless.
Know Your Resources
Provisions are given for the fulfillment of vision. Every builder, before he starts a project, both estimates what materials he will need to complete the job and determines what resources are available to him. The Most High functions in a similar manner. As He forms and fashions each person for a specific purpose, He also provides the necessary resources to accomplish His plans.
The apostle Paul knew that The Most High had given him certain resources to help him fulfill his purpose and release his potential. Varied in nature and use, these resources included his tent-making skills, his Roman citizenship, his Hebrew education and upbringing, and, most importantly, his faith in Yeshua HaMashiach and his confidence that The Most High, through the Spirit, had given him a message for the world. (See Romans 15:15-19.)
Paul was careful, however, to view these resources only as tools given by The Most High to accomplish His plans. Therefore, he always treated his resources as being less important than the One who gave them. His education and upbringing as a Hebrew, for example, had to be refined and redirected before Paul could use, not abuse, them. Thus, he came to see the law, which had been all-important to him as a Pharisee, as The Most High’s gift for showing men their sin and their need of a Savior. (See Romans 3:20.) Resources cannot and should not be substituted for the Source.
You too possess Most High-given resources. The proper use of these resources will release your potential, but their misuse will destroy you. Hence, you cannot fulfill your limitless potential unless you learn what resources you have, how The Most High intended them to function, and why He gave them to you. The effective use of your resources is the fourth key to releasing your potential.
Maintain the Right Environment
All potential demands conditions conducive to the maximum fulfillment of purpose. Consequently, all life forms have ideal conditions in which they grow and flourish. The apostle Paul clearly understood that the conditions in which we live affect the nature of our living. Light that is continually surrounded by darkness is in danger of losing its brilliance. Righteousness that repeatedly associates with wickedness may, in time, be tarnished. Thus, Paul writes:
“I [the Lord] will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their The Most High, and they will be My people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for The Most High (2 Corinthians 6:16b–7:1).
Paul’s observations are as applicable today as they were when he wrote them. “For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14b) You cannot consistently spend time with ungodly people, or be surrounded by unrighteous behavior, and maintain your fellowship with The Most High. That’s serious business, since fellowship with The Most High and obedience to His laws and commandments are essential ingredients of your ideal environment. Life outside that environment will destroy your potential because a wrong environment always means death. What realm are you living in? The realm of life, the Torah His teachings and instructions or the realm of death the traditions and rules of men??
Life outside your ideal environment will destroy your potential because a wrong environment always means death. All manufacturers establish the ideal conditions required for the maximum performance of their products. In the same manner, you were created to function under specific conditions established by your Creator. Any violation of the Manufacturer’s specific conditions minimizes His intended effect. The laws of The Most High are given not to restrict us but to protect us by maintaining the ideal environment for maximum performance. Obedience protects performance. Disobedience diminishes potential.
As fish cannot live in polluted waters and plants die in parched ground, so you cannot live in conditions that do not acknowledge The Most High as the central, all-important factor of daily life. Creating and sustaining a Most High-centered environment is as important for your growth and satisfaction as designing houses that fit their climates and settings is for the reputation and the success of an architect.
Maintaining your ideal environment is the fifth key to releasing your potential.
Work: The Master Key
Dreams without work accomplish nothing. The young man peering into the unexpected room could dream forever about restoring the house, but his dream would become reality only if he channeled his excitement and vision into drawing blueprints and doing the work of rebuilding. In a similar manner, the apostle Paul could not have reached the non-Jewish world with the gospel of Yeshua HaMashiach if he had only rejoiced in his new relationship with The Most High, learned to live by faith, surveyed his resources, and sought a healthy environment in which to live. Paul had to work to release his potential and to achieve his purpose.
Dreams without work accomplish nothing.
The New Testament is filled with stories of Paul’s efforts to share The Most High’s gift of salvation with those who had not heard the gospel. (See particularly Acts 13–20.) When one door closed, he looked for another. When his traveling companions interfered with his plans, he parted company with them and looked for others who could share his vision. Not even riots, beatings, and imprisonments prevented him from continually seeking ways to share the good news of Yeshua. Again and again, Paul worked hard—fighting discouragement, misunderstandings, and distrust—to fulfill his commission from The Most High.
You also need to work. The love of work is the secret to personal progress, productivity, and fulfillment because work encourages the release of potential, and potential is the abundance of talents, abilities, and capabilities given to every person. When you refuse to work, you deny yourself the opportunity to fulfill your potential and your purpose, and you forfeit the productivity that could have blessed yourself and others. Therefore, you steal from the world. The greatest safeguard against this theft is both to understand the purpose and the nature of work, and to live from that knowledge.
The Purpose of Work
Most of us are not interested in discovering what we can accomplish when we go to our jobs. We go to work only because we want a paycheck. This view of work is contrary to The Most High’s purpose for giving work. He is more concerned with our use or abuse of the skills and talents He gave us than He is with our financial wealth or poverty. He wants us to be good workers, not good job keepers. This change in attitude requires that we begin to see work as a blessing, not a punishment.
Work as The Most High planned it was given to man before he sinned. It is His tool to make us productive and fruitful. Because The Most High’s assignments and activities always involve work, He designed men and women to share in His creativity by giving them the opportunity to work. Even as The Most High worked through His spoken word to make the unobservable visible, so too we must work to reveal the invisible possibilities that exist in us. Although the conditions of work changed after sin—becoming painful and requiring great effort—the purpose of work did not. Work is not a result of sin.
In essence, work is The Most High’s gift to help people discover their potential. Until you start working to discover what you yet can be, you will miss the blessings inherent in work. This is true because work profits the worker by...
• providing for physical needs,
• building self-esteem,
• teaching that the discovery and use of talents, skills, and abilities is far more important than the acquisition of money,
• developing an attitude that sees a challenge as a cause for rejoicing because it holds the possibility for success,
• offering the opportunity to transform dreams into reality,
• multiplying resources, and,
• revealing the potential that is yet to be exposed, tapped, released, and employed,
• Work also blesses others as we give generously of what we have and who we are.
Work is The Most High’s gift to help you discover your potential.
The Nature of Work
The Most High’s work in creation was to deliver the stuff hidden inside Him. He labored to birth the world. This concept of laboring to deliver is the central factor in The Most High’s perception of work.
Work releases potential and empowers success. It uses innate abilities and natural talents to share experience and proficiency. It also energizes the world’s productive ability and activates man’s creative power. In essence, work brings forth from a man or a woman the possibilities that will die with that individual unless they are activated, performed, produced, and fulfilled. In the absence of work, strength and energy waste away, dreams and visions wither and die, Most High-given skills and talents degenerate, and productivity wanes. In essence, laziness, which is the absence of work, aborts potential and sacrifices possibilities.
Work releases potential and empowers success. Laziness, which is the absence of work, aborts potential and sacrifices possibilities.
Therefore, The Most High’s purpose for giving you work is to bless you by calling forth from you all that He sees in you. He designed you to meet your needs and the needs of others through your ability to work. When you see work from this perspective, and you accept your opportunities to work as the gifts of a loving The Most High who wants to draw from you the wealth of your hidden potential, you will find that work becomes an anticipated pleasure to be embraced as an opportunity to find happiness and fulfillment. Work is the master key to releasing your potential.
These six keys are essential for the release of your potential. If you disregard even one of these principles, you will limit your potential because the violation of a law always incurs a penalty, and history has proven that these laws are true. Commit yourself today to practicing these keys so your potential will not die with you. The Most High wants all He put in you for the good of the world to be released and maximized. Only then can you truly become your potential.
The Most High works the vision in; man works the vision out.
Principles That Govern Potential
1. What The Most High speaks to is the source for what He creates. The Most High spoke to Himself when He created you, so you came from The Most High.
2. All things have the same components and essence as the sources from which they came. Because you came from The Most High, who is Spirit, you also are spirit.
3. All things must be maintained by the sources from which they came. You must be maintained by The Most High, your Source. Apart from Him you will die.
4. The potential of all things is related to the source from which it came. Your potential is related to The Most High’s potential.
5. Everything in life has the ability to fulfill its potential. The Most High built into you the ability to fulfill your potential.
6. Potential is determined and revealed by the demands placed on it by its creator. The Most High reveals what He created you to do by placing demands on you. You are capable of doing everything The Most High asks of you.
Keys to Releasing Your Potential
1. You must know your source. The Most High is your Source.
2. You must understand how you were designed to function. The Most High designed you to operate by faith/obedience.
3. You must know your purpose. The Most High created you to express His image, to enjoy fellowship with Him, to dominate the earth, to bear fruit, and to reproduce yourself.
4. You must understand your resources. The Most High has given you resources of spirit, body, soul, time, and material things.
5. You must have the right environment. The Most High created you to live with Him in a relationship of fellowship and obedience that is established and maintained by His presence, assurance, guidance, and direction.
6. You must work out your potential. Work is The Most High’s blessing to challenge and expose your potential.
Shema Selah we must remain in relationship with our Source and not depend on our resources!!! https://www.facebook.com/fiveam.prayer/videos/2058955460849226/?l=1486418314118617736
What you have done is only a mere fraction of who you are.
Slowly the young man worked his way through the brush and the young trees that had grown up through the cracked foundation of the dilapidated house. Cobwebs filled openings where windows had once been and hornets’ nests clung to the scorched beams of the floor above. A partially burned-out staircase hovered in the corner and a broken oil lamp lay dashed on the first step. Years of dirt and debris littered the floor, with an occasional wildflower providing a discordant note of charm and warmth.
At the base of the staircase, the young man halted. Dared he try to climb the stairs to the main floor above? He doubted the rotted wood would hold him, yet the desire to go higher impelled him cautiously on. For years he had wanted to explore this shell of a house, but his mother had strictly forbade it, reminding him that the forlorn gate to the fence that surrounded the property contained a faded “No Trespassing” sign and warning him that it was not safe.
How long the house had stood this way, he didn’t know, for within his memory it had always been so. Today no one could stop him, however, for only a few hours before he had bought the land on which the house stood.
Moving carefully from one step to another, testing each before putting his full weight upon it, the young man gingerly mounted the stairs. Here and there he skipped a step that threatened to give way beneath him. At the top, he paused to survey the charred remains that surrounded him.
He stood at the end of a long room that appeared to have once been a kitchen. Broken pottery and twisted metal littered the floor.
A warped candlestick lay on the edge of what must have been the family table. Here and there scraps of material waved in the breeze that blew through the paneless windows. Nearly one whole wall of the room was missing, gaping into a room beyond. Though he wondered what that room might reveal, a step in that direction quickly changed the explorer’s mind, for his foot went through the floor.
Light streaming from the room beyond suggested that little remained of that part of the house. Turning to his left, the young man discovered a long hallway with an opening on either side. Here the floor creaked beneath his step, but it did not give way. The opening to the left revealed a room dominated by a massive stone fireplace. Parts of the chimney had tumbled onto the rusted, sooty grate, and the filth on the hearth warned that many birds had built their nests within the chimney’s shelter. The only furniture in the room was the crumbling remains of a small table.
The opening to the right, farther down the hall, revealed a small sitting room with the hulks of rotting furniture leaning against two walls. Strips of blackened wallpaper hung from the ceiling, but the walls contained no gaping holes as had the other two rooms.
Backing quickly from the room when a rat scurried across the floor through the carpet of leaves that had blown through the broken windows, the young man turned to retreat. Suddenly a faint streak of light at the end of the hall caught his attention.
Moving cautiously around the broken boards on the floor, the explorer moved toward the hint of light. As he neared the blackened wall, he realized that a closed door lay at the end of the hallway. The doorknob turned, but the rusted hinges prevented him from opening the door. Though he pushed with all his strength, the door would not yield. Disappointed, the young man retraced his steps through the kitchen, down the rickety stairs, and through the cluttered basement. As he started to climb into his car, the thought came to him: That hint of light must mean an open window or a hole in the wall. Perhaps I could see into the room from the back of the house.
After much effort, the explorer stood at the back of the house, having worked his way under the low branches of old trees and through the overgrown bushes and waist-high weeds that hampered his progress. A single window adorned the back wall. Although direct access to the window was denied by high bushes, a large tree spread its limbs within inches of the cracked, but nearly whole, panes. Inching his way up the tree and out the limb, the explorer gasped with astonishment as he peered through the dirty glass.
This room appeared to have been largely untouched by the fire that had ravaged the rest of the house. Candlesticks stood on the mantle over the small fireplace, the wax from the candles having run down the stone onto the hearth below. Books lay open on the desk to the right and curtains hung at a high window to the left.
Although the walls were yellowed with age and spotted with water, they were not black like those of the rooms he had entered. Who would have thought such a room could exist in the otherwise ruined house?
Excitement coursed through the young man’s veins. Why, this room might reveal what the rest of the house must have looked like before the fire. It might also provide the clues he needed to determine who had lived here and why the house had been left to rot instead of being rebuilt. Perhaps other treasures awaited him in the parts of the room he could not see, untapped resources that would help him to solve the mystery that had always surrounded the house in his young mind. Wildly his imagination soared as he looked into the unexpected chamber that lay before him.
In time the young man withdrew from his vantage point in the tree. His mind was filled with wonder, for the room held possibilities beyond his greatest hopes. Perhaps it would afford him the opportunity to fulfill his boyhood dream of restoring the house to its former grandeur. Already he was busy calculating how he would force open the door at the end of the dark hallway. Then he would know more certainly the wealth of his find.
Potential. The unexposed, untapped, hidden, dormant revelations that lay beneath the accumulated dust and grime of many years. Potential. Strength and beauty that lay unmarred by the ravages of fire, wind, and water. Potential. The possibilities for rebuilding after years of destruction, decay, and neglect.
Our lives are very much like this decaying house. The strength and beauty The Most High gave to men and women when He created them in His image and likeness too often are not evident in us. Our minds are cluttered with impure thoughts and mixed motives, our bodies are weakened by the effects of bad habits and poor decisions, and our hearts are warped by misplaced trust and the absence of love. In many ways, we are empty people working our way through the problems and detours of life with little hope that things will ever change.
This discouragement and dissatisfaction with life is the result of our separation from The Most High, a separation that came when Adam and Eve sinned by choosing to put their own thoughts and desires above The Most High’s commandments and promises. (See Genesis 3.) Every person shares this tendency to establish his wants and will over The Most High’s.
Therein lies the source of our discouragement and dissatisfaction. Our discouragement and dissatisfaction with life are the results of our separation from The Most High! The Most High’s intent for men and women has not changed, nor has He taken from us the strength and beauty He gave us at birth. These gifts are buried within us, covered over by the attitudes and assumptions that prevent us from living the abundant life The Most High planned for us. In effect, many have placed a “No Trespassing” sign over their power, strength, abilities, talents, and capabilities. Because we have obeyed that sign, many of the possibilities with which we were born still exist within us—hidden and dormant, unused and untried.
Treasure in Clay Pots
The great writer Paul refers to this hidden wealth within as “treasure in jars of clay” (2 Corinthians 4:7). The jar may not look like much, but the treasure inside it is valuable and priceless. In other words, what people see when they look at you is not who you truly are. You can become much more than you now are. Who would have thought that Saul of Tarsus, a fervent Hebrew who vigorously opposed the followers of Yeshua, would become Paul the apostle, the greatest missionary the kingdom has ever known?
Certainly not those he persecuted—they did not expect anything good from him (see Acts 9:20–21)—nor Saul himself. Not in his wildest imaginings would he have seen himself as a servant of
the One he despised. Yet, like the old house, Saul contained a dormant wealth that was not evident under the outer trappings of his misguided religious fervor.
That same wealth is present in you. You are capable of more than others expect of you—even beyond your own most extravagant dreams. Unexposed, dormant potential rests beneath the surface of your daily existence, waiting to be discovered and released.
Although access to this great treasure has been clogged by sin, the strength and beauty of your potential can be reclaimed. The destruction, decay, and neglect of years need not continue to hold captive the reality of who The Most High created you to be.
You are capable of more than others expect of you—even beyond your own most extravagant dreams. This untold wealth within you is uniquely yours because The Most High creates no two people for the same purpose. Your personality, abilities, and resources are The Most High’s gifts, bestowed on you before He gave you the breath of life, and they contain the possibility for bringing meaning and fulfillment into your life. They are available, however, only to those who put forth the effort to recover them and to use them according to their Most High-given specifications. Learning to tap the hidden wealth of your potential is the greatest task and the most pressing need of your life because if you do not discover how to expose and use this treasure, you will die with it. This wealth, which is the all-surpassing power of The Most High within you, is never given to be buried.
The Most High wants you to release all He gave you for the benefit of others and the blessing of your own life. Let us use the stories of the ruined house and the life of the apostle Paul to establish some keys you can use to tap into your potential.
Keys to Releasing Your Potential
The explorer in the story of the old house was undoubtedly excited as he backed away from his perch outside the unexpected room at the back of the house. He had received a glimpse of the house’s former grandeur, a prelude to understanding the original owner’s dreams and plans when he built the house. That glimpse suggested the possibility of establishing the necessary link to the house’s past—before fire, wind, and water had caused major destruction—that would enable him to rebuild the house according to its original design.
Know Your Source
No one knows a product like the manufacturer. If you are going to move from who you now are to whom The Most High created you to be, you too must seek to understand the nature of The Most High’s original design for you, before sin ravaged your life. That understanding is not available to you unless you become reconnected with The Most High, your Creator. Apart from Him, you cannot and will not release your full potential because He gave you this potential and He designed you to fulfill it. You must know The Most High, your Source, if you want to experience a satisfying, abundant life.
Saul of Tarsus met his Source on the road to Damascus when Yeshua HaMashiach spoke to him from a bright light that left him blind. For three days he remained blind and did not eat or drink. He simply waited before The Most High, wondering what would happen next. Then The Most High sent a man named Ananias to place his hands on Saul to restore his sight and to bring the Holy Spirit into his life. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. It was
during this period that the purpose for Paul’s life was revealed to him by his Creator/Source. After that, Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus, preaching that Yeshua is the Son of The Most High and proving that Yeshua is the Messiah.
What a change! Few of us will experience a change as dramatic as that which occurred in the man Saul who became Paul, but a change just as radical—from being self-centered to The Most High-centered—must occur in all who would discover and use their full potential.
This is true because the foundation key for releasing potential is always a relationship with the source or maker of a product. You must have a life-changing encounter with the One who made you if you want to become who you were created to be.
Like the young man who could not restore the house to its former grandeur without understanding the builder’s original design and intent, you cannot expose the gifts, talents, and natural abilities that The Most High put into you if you do not become reconnected with Him. All you do and are apart from The Most High will always fall short of the true value and capacity of your potential. Therefore, fulfillment and value are impossible without Him. Only by returning to your Source/Manufacturer/Creator can you hope to unlock His power within you. You must know your Source to become your potential. This is the foundation key.
Understand Your Function
The mode of operation for maximum performance of any product is determined and established by the manufacturer/creator, and must be obeyed for maximum benefit. Thus, the second key to releasing your potential is knowing how The Most High created you to function and applying that knowledge to your life. No builder can successfully restore a house unless he first knows the specifications determined by the builder and the features provided by the original blueprints. A shower, for example, may fulfill part of the designer’s intent for the bathroom, but it cannot match all the functions of a tub. Thus, installing a shower in place of a tub would change not only the room’s appearance but also its ability to provide the intended functions that were built into the original design.
Man was designed to live by faith. The Most High’s original design for men and women calls for them to live from the perspective of faith with eternity in their hearts. The Book of Hebrews defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). This is The Most High’s mode of operation. He is not influenced by outward appearances; neither is His power diminished by seemingly impossible obstacles.
How to Become Your Potential
The apostle Paul learned the importance of looking beyond what is immediately visible and evident. Although he encountered many situations that seemed to stand in the way of his mission to share the good news of Yeshua with those outside the Hebrew world, he persevered by focusing on his Most High-given task and by relying on the Holy Spirit to guarantee the completion of The Most High’s plans. Thus, Paul testified, “[I] live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Your ability to unleash your potential is tied to your willingness to consistently live from The Most High’s perspective, which saw Paul the apostle in Saul the murderer. He created you to share His viewpoint. If you allow the obstacles that clutter your path and the expectations of others to discourage you and to send you on time and energy-consuming detours, your Most High-given talents and abilities will be wasted. Learning to function by looking beyond what you now see to what is yet possible is an important key to releasing your potential. You must resolve to live by faith.
Understand Your Purpose
To fully release your potential, you must discover your corporate and specific reason for existence and the accompanying assignment. One of the first tasks of a builder who wants to restore an old house is to determine the purpose for each room. Although this purpose may not be immediately evident, the rebuilding cannot accurately and effectively duplicate the original building if the purpose for each room is not established.
In a similar manner, you cannot effectively release your potential if you do not discover The Most High’s purpose for giving you life. Your potential and your purpose are perfectly related because The Most High never requires you to do or be something that is not part of His purpose.
Likewise, He never requires something of you that He did not provide for when He created you. Your potential enables you to fulfill your purpose, and your purpose reveals the potential hidden within you.
Your potential enables you to fulfill your purpose, and your purpose reveals the potential hidden within you. From his encounter with HaMashiach on the road to Damascus to the end of his life, the apostle Paul knew that he had been called and saved by The Most High for a specific purpose: “...The Most High, who set me apart from birth and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...” (Galatians 1:15-16). Similarly, the apostle Peter discovered his purpose when Yeshua told him three times, “Take care of My sheep” (John 21:16; see also John 21:15-18). Both remained faithful to The Most High’s purpose, dedicating their lives to its accomplishment and conforming their actions to its fulfillment.
You are like these apostles. You too have a purpose set forth by The Most High and the skills, talents, abilities, and characteristics that enable you to fulfill His plan. Your responsibility is to discover what The Most High designed you to do and how He planned, that you would accomplish it. Until you discover The Most High’s blueprint, you will not have the motivation to uncover the potential that will empower you to accomplish it, nor will you be happy and fulfilled. Discovery of purpose is discovery of potential.
Success without an understanding of purpose is meaningless. Knowing and cooperating with your Most High-given purpose is the third key to releasing your potential. He alone knows why He created you with the specific combination of personality, abilities, and dreams that make you the unique individual you are. You share the purpose of humanity to glorify The Most High by fulfilling your individual purpose and by releasing the power, beauty, and possibilities hidden within you. Success without an understanding of purpose is meaningless.
Know Your Resources
Provisions are given for the fulfillment of vision. Every builder, before he starts a project, both estimates what materials he will need to complete the job and determines what resources are available to him. The Most High functions in a similar manner. As He forms and fashions each person for a specific purpose, He also provides the necessary resources to accomplish His plans.
The apostle Paul knew that The Most High had given him certain resources to help him fulfill his purpose and release his potential. Varied in nature and use, these resources included his tent-making skills, his Roman citizenship, his Hebrew education and upbringing, and, most importantly, his faith in Yeshua HaMashiach and his confidence that The Most High, through the Spirit, had given him a message for the world. (See Romans 15:15-19.)
Paul was careful, however, to view these resources only as tools given by The Most High to accomplish His plans. Therefore, he always treated his resources as being less important than the One who gave them. His education and upbringing as a Hebrew, for example, had to be refined and redirected before Paul could use, not abuse, them. Thus, he came to see the law, which had been all-important to him as a Pharisee, as The Most High’s gift for showing men their sin and their need of a Savior. (See Romans 3:20.) Resources cannot and should not be substituted for the Source.
You too possess Most High-given resources. The proper use of these resources will release your potential, but their misuse will destroy you. Hence, you cannot fulfill your limitless potential unless you learn what resources you have, how The Most High intended them to function, and why He gave them to you. The effective use of your resources is the fourth key to releasing your potential.
Maintain the Right Environment
All potential demands conditions conducive to the maximum fulfillment of purpose. Consequently, all life forms have ideal conditions in which they grow and flourish. The apostle Paul clearly understood that the conditions in which we live affect the nature of our living. Light that is continually surrounded by darkness is in danger of losing its brilliance. Righteousness that repeatedly associates with wickedness may, in time, be tarnished. Thus, Paul writes:
“I [the Lord] will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their The Most High, and they will be My people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for The Most High (2 Corinthians 6:16b–7:1).
Paul’s observations are as applicable today as they were when he wrote them. “For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14b) You cannot consistently spend time with ungodly people, or be surrounded by unrighteous behavior, and maintain your fellowship with The Most High. That’s serious business, since fellowship with The Most High and obedience to His laws and commandments are essential ingredients of your ideal environment. Life outside that environment will destroy your potential because a wrong environment always means death. What realm are you living in? The realm of life, the Torah His teachings and instructions or the realm of death the traditions and rules of men??
Life outside your ideal environment will destroy your potential because a wrong environment always means death. All manufacturers establish the ideal conditions required for the maximum performance of their products. In the same manner, you were created to function under specific conditions established by your Creator. Any violation of the Manufacturer’s specific conditions minimizes His intended effect. The laws of The Most High are given not to restrict us but to protect us by maintaining the ideal environment for maximum performance. Obedience protects performance. Disobedience diminishes potential.
As fish cannot live in polluted waters and plants die in parched ground, so you cannot live in conditions that do not acknowledge The Most High as the central, all-important factor of daily life. Creating and sustaining a Most High-centered environment is as important for your growth and satisfaction as designing houses that fit their climates and settings is for the reputation and the success of an architect.
Maintaining your ideal environment is the fifth key to releasing your potential.
Work: The Master Key
Dreams without work accomplish nothing. The young man peering into the unexpected room could dream forever about restoring the house, but his dream would become reality only if he channeled his excitement and vision into drawing blueprints and doing the work of rebuilding. In a similar manner, the apostle Paul could not have reached the non-Jewish world with the gospel of Yeshua HaMashiach if he had only rejoiced in his new relationship with The Most High, learned to live by faith, surveyed his resources, and sought a healthy environment in which to live. Paul had to work to release his potential and to achieve his purpose.
Dreams without work accomplish nothing.
The New Testament is filled with stories of Paul’s efforts to share The Most High’s gift of salvation with those who had not heard the gospel. (See particularly Acts 13–20.) When one door closed, he looked for another. When his traveling companions interfered with his plans, he parted company with them and looked for others who could share his vision. Not even riots, beatings, and imprisonments prevented him from continually seeking ways to share the good news of Yeshua. Again and again, Paul worked hard—fighting discouragement, misunderstandings, and distrust—to fulfill his commission from The Most High.
You also need to work. The love of work is the secret to personal progress, productivity, and fulfillment because work encourages the release of potential, and potential is the abundance of talents, abilities, and capabilities given to every person. When you refuse to work, you deny yourself the opportunity to fulfill your potential and your purpose, and you forfeit the productivity that could have blessed yourself and others. Therefore, you steal from the world. The greatest safeguard against this theft is both to understand the purpose and the nature of work, and to live from that knowledge.
The Purpose of Work
Most of us are not interested in discovering what we can accomplish when we go to our jobs. We go to work only because we want a paycheck. This view of work is contrary to The Most High’s purpose for giving work. He is more concerned with our use or abuse of the skills and talents He gave us than He is with our financial wealth or poverty. He wants us to be good workers, not good job keepers. This change in attitude requires that we begin to see work as a blessing, not a punishment.
Work as The Most High planned it was given to man before he sinned. It is His tool to make us productive and fruitful. Because The Most High’s assignments and activities always involve work, He designed men and women to share in His creativity by giving them the opportunity to work. Even as The Most High worked through His spoken word to make the unobservable visible, so too we must work to reveal the invisible possibilities that exist in us. Although the conditions of work changed after sin—becoming painful and requiring great effort—the purpose of work did not. Work is not a result of sin.
In essence, work is The Most High’s gift to help people discover their potential. Until you start working to discover what you yet can be, you will miss the blessings inherent in work. This is true because work profits the worker by...
• providing for physical needs,
• building self-esteem,
• teaching that the discovery and use of talents, skills, and abilities is far more important than the acquisition of money,
• developing an attitude that sees a challenge as a cause for rejoicing because it holds the possibility for success,
• offering the opportunity to transform dreams into reality,
• multiplying resources, and,
• revealing the potential that is yet to be exposed, tapped, released, and employed,
• Work also blesses others as we give generously of what we have and who we are.
Work is The Most High’s gift to help you discover your potential.
The Nature of Work
The Most High’s work in creation was to deliver the stuff hidden inside Him. He labored to birth the world. This concept of laboring to deliver is the central factor in The Most High’s perception of work.
Work releases potential and empowers success. It uses innate abilities and natural talents to share experience and proficiency. It also energizes the world’s productive ability and activates man’s creative power. In essence, work brings forth from a man or a woman the possibilities that will die with that individual unless they are activated, performed, produced, and fulfilled. In the absence of work, strength and energy waste away, dreams and visions wither and die, Most High-given skills and talents degenerate, and productivity wanes. In essence, laziness, which is the absence of work, aborts potential and sacrifices possibilities.
Work releases potential and empowers success. Laziness, which is the absence of work, aborts potential and sacrifices possibilities.
Therefore, The Most High’s purpose for giving you work is to bless you by calling forth from you all that He sees in you. He designed you to meet your needs and the needs of others through your ability to work. When you see work from this perspective, and you accept your opportunities to work as the gifts of a loving The Most High who wants to draw from you the wealth of your hidden potential, you will find that work becomes an anticipated pleasure to be embraced as an opportunity to find happiness and fulfillment. Work is the master key to releasing your potential.
These six keys are essential for the release of your potential. If you disregard even one of these principles, you will limit your potential because the violation of a law always incurs a penalty, and history has proven that these laws are true. Commit yourself today to practicing these keys so your potential will not die with you. The Most High wants all He put in you for the good of the world to be released and maximized. Only then can you truly become your potential.
The Most High works the vision in; man works the vision out.
Principles That Govern Potential
1. What The Most High speaks to is the source for what He creates. The Most High spoke to Himself when He created you, so you came from The Most High.
2. All things have the same components and essence as the sources from which they came. Because you came from The Most High, who is Spirit, you also are spirit.
3. All things must be maintained by the sources from which they came. You must be maintained by The Most High, your Source. Apart from Him you will die.
4. The potential of all things is related to the source from which it came. Your potential is related to The Most High’s potential.
5. Everything in life has the ability to fulfill its potential. The Most High built into you the ability to fulfill your potential.
6. Potential is determined and revealed by the demands placed on it by its creator. The Most High reveals what He created you to do by placing demands on you. You are capable of doing everything The Most High asks of you.
Keys to Releasing Your Potential
1. You must know your source. The Most High is your Source.
2. You must understand how you were designed to function. The Most High designed you to operate by faith/obedience.
3. You must know your purpose. The Most High created you to express His image, to enjoy fellowship with Him, to dominate the earth, to bear fruit, and to reproduce yourself.
4. You must understand your resources. The Most High has given you resources of spirit, body, soul, time, and material things.
5. You must have the right environment. The Most High created you to live with Him in a relationship of fellowship and obedience that is established and maintained by His presence, assurance, guidance, and direction.
6. You must work out your potential. Work is The Most High’s blessing to challenge and expose your potential.
Shema Selah we must remain in relationship with our Source and not depend on our resources!!! https://www.facebook.com/fiveam.prayer/videos/2058955460849226/?l=1486418314118617736
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