KINGDOM PRINCIPLES TO DEVELOP YOUR POTENTIAL

2 Timothy chapter 4




Today we are walking in: Kingdom Principles To Develop Your Potential




Job 34:16




If now thou hast understanding, hear H8085 this: hearken to the voice of my words.











UNDERSTAND





Today we look to the word-UNDERSTAND- H8085 shama`--to hear with attention or interest, listen to understand (language)










The Torah testifies...............




Genesis 11:7




Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand H8085 one another's speech.










The prophets proclaim..................




Nehemiah 8:2




And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear H8085 with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.











The writings bear witness...........................




1 Kings 3:9




Give therefore thy servant an understanding H8085 heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?




KINGDOM PRINCIPLES TO DEVELOP YOUR POTENTIAL




Paul’s perception of life, and the responsibility of each of us to maximize life to its fullest potential, is expressed in his final letter to Timothy. To this favorite young student, he wrote: For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith 2 Timothy 4:6-7. Paul likened his life to the ceremonial drink offering administered by the priest in the Old Testament rituals of the temple, in which the priest filled a cup with wine and ceremonially poured it out at intervals in the service until the cup was completely empty. Using this example, Paul gives a very effective illustration of how our lives should be lived. Your life is like a cup of drink served to the world by our great Creator. The drink is the awesome, untapped, valuable, destiny- filled treasure, gifts, and talents of potential buried within you. Every minute, day, month, and year is an interval of opportunity provided by Yah for the pouring out of another portion of yourself until you have exposed all His precious treasure that makes you unique. This is called maximum living. True success is not a project but a journey. The spirit of achievement is guided by the notion that success is an installment plan on which we make daily payments until we maximize ourselves. This success begins when we understand and accept that life is a process of growing and developing. Thus, life is meant to be a never-ending education, a journey of discovery and adventure, an exploration into our Yah-given potential for His glory. What does it mean to maximize? What is maximum? The word maximum may be defined as “supreme, greatest, highest, and ultimate.” It is synonymous with such concepts as pinnacle, preeminence, culmination, apex, peak, and summit. It implies the highest degree possible. Just a brief look at these concepts immediately convicts us of the many opportunities we have abused and forfeited because we have failed or have refused to give our all. This failure to do our best, to go beyond the expectations of others, to express ourselves fully, to live up to our true potential, to extend ourselves to the limit of our abilities, to give it all we have, to satisfy our own convictions, is called mediocrity. Simply put, mediocrity is living below our known, true potential. It is accepting the norm, pleasing the status quo, and doing what we can get by with. Therefore, to maximize is to express, expose, experience, and execute all the hidden, Yah-given abilities, talents, gifts, and potential through Yah’s vision breathed in our souls to fulfill His purpose for our lives on earth. Mediocrity is living below our known, true potential. How tragic that most of the nearly six billion people on this planet will settle for an average life limited only by their unwillingness to extend themselves to the summit of their own selves. Anything less than maximum is mediocrity. In other words, mediocrity may be defined as the region of our lives bounded on the north by compromise, on the south by indecision, on the east by past thinking, and on the west by a lack of vision. Mediocrity is the spirit of the average, the anthem of the norm, and the heartbeat of the ordinary. Mediocrity is so common and pervasive that those who are labeled as genius or exceptional have to do only a little extra.

Remember, we were created to be above average, unnormal, and extraordinary. Yah never intended for success in our lives to be measured by the opinion of others or the standards set by the society in which we live. In fact, the Scriptures instruct us not to “conform any longer to the pattern [standards] of this world, but [to] be transformed by the renewing of our mind” Romans 12:2. To maximize ourselves, we will find it necessary to declare independence from the world of the norm and to resist the gravity of the average in order to enjoy the outer limits of the new frontiers of our abilities. Why do so many of us settle for mediocrity? The answer is found in what I call the curse of comparison. The apostle Paul, in a letter to the Hebrews at Corinth, spoke of the hidden secret wisdom of our destiny that is invested in each of us by our Creator Yah. No, we speak of Yah’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that Yah destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Most High of glory. However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what Yah has prepared for those who love Him” 1 Corinthians 2:7-9. The implication in verse 9 is that no human has the right or the ability to fully determine or measure the capacity of the potential you possess. One of the most significant mistakes humans make is comparison— the measuring of oneself against the standards, work, or accomplishments of another. This exercise is fruitless, demeaning, and personally tragic because it places our true potential at the mercy of others, giving them the right to determine and define our success. True success is not measured by how much you have done or accomplished compared to what others have done or accomplished; true success is what you have done compared to what you could have done. In other words, living to the maximum is competing with yourself. It’s living up to your own true standards and capabilities. Success is satisfying your own personal passion and purpose in pursuit of personal excellence.In fact, you must always remember to perform for an audience of one, the Most High your Creator. True success is what you have done compared to what you could have done. Consciously applying this principle to our lives can do much to free us from the immobilizing culture and environment of our society, which strives to control us through comparison. From the early years of childhood, we are compared to our sisters and brothers, the neighbor’s children, or some other person. This comparative spirit continues on into our teen and adult years, developing into a sophisticated dehumanizing state of competition. The result is traumatizing because we spend most of our lives trying to compete with others, comparing our achievements with those of our peers, and attempting to live up to their standards of acceptance. Instead of being ourselves, we become preoccupied with being who others dictate we should be. If we succumb to this temptation, we will be reminded, just like the Mercedes Benz reminded me of my mediocrity, that there will always be some people whom we exceed and others who outpace us. If we compete with ourselves and not with others, then it does not matter who is behind us or ahead of us; our goal is to become and achieve all we are capable of being and doing, and this becomes the measure of our satisfaction. The apostle Paul, the great leader of the Hebrews, commented on this critical issue:

We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise. We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the field Yah has assigned to us... 2 Corinthians 10:12-13. To his friends in Galatia Paul further reiterates this principle by declaring, If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load responsibility Galatians 6:3-5. These statements strongly admonish us not to compete with others or to compare our talents with their abilities or potential, since we are responsible only for our potential, not theirs. The story of the servants with the talents clearly confirms this personal responsibility Matthew 25:14-30. Therefore, our principal goal in life should be to discover Yah’s will and purpose for our lives and to complete our assignment with excellence. Experience may be defined as “the observation of facts as a source of knowledge and skill gained by contact with facts and events.” By its very nature, experience is a product of the past and is, therefore, limited to and controlled by previous exposure. In spite of the fact that experience may be valuable for making decisions and judgments concerning the future, it is important to know that any significant measurement of growth, development, expansion, or advancement will require experience to submit to the substance of the unknown through faith. Unfortunately, experience has compelled many promising people to cower in the shadows of fear and failure because they were not willing to venture out into the uncharted frontiers of new possibilities. Experience is given not to determine the limits of our lives, but to create a better life for us. Experience is a tool to be used! This is also true of our lives. At any point in our lives, we are the sum total of all the decisions we have made, the people we have met, the exposure we have had, and the facts we have learned. In essence, every human is a walking history book. Nevertheless, we must keep in mind that our personal history is being made and recorded every day, and our past experience was once our future. Therefore, we must be careful not to allow our past to determine the quality of our future. Instead, we must use our experience to help us make better decisions, always guarding against the possibility that it may limit our decisions. Remember, your ability is never limited to your experience. This world is filled with millions of individuals who are capable of traveling at a maximum capacity of 180 mph, but they have settled for 55 mph. Because they have overtaken some folks or have exceeded the expectations of a few others, they have compared their lives to these persons and have accepted mediocrity as excellence. Determine not to let your past experience limit your capacity. Be grateful for the lessons of the past, then accelerate with confidence on to the autobahn of life, being careful to obey only those signs that have been established by your Creator, who admonishes you, “All things are possible if you only believe Mark 9:23. One of life’s great tragedies is that the majority of the world’s population is composed of individuals who have negotiated an agreement with mediocrity, signed a contract with the average, and pledged allegiance to the ordinary. They have resolved never to be more than society has made them or do more than is expected. What a tragedy of destiny. Yah expects more!

Inside of every human being is a deep call of destiny to do something worthwhile with our lives. The urge to accomplish great things and engage in significant endeavors is the germ of purpose planted by Yah in the heart of man. Why then do we settle for so little? Why do we abandon our dreams and deny our purpose? Why do we live below our privilege, buried in the cemetery of wishful thinking and empty regrets? As we have seen, one reason we fail to progress in fulfilling our purpose is satisfaction with our present measure of success. The belief that we have arrived is the deterrent that keeps us from getting to our destination. A second part of the answer lies in the fact that we have accepted the present state of our lives as the best we can do under the circumstances. This concept, “under the circumstances,” serves to imprison us and to immobilize our Yah-given ambition because too many of us have surrendered to the status quo and have become prisoners of the war for our minds. We forget that “circumstances” are simply temporary arrangements of life to which we are all exposed. We overlook or disregard the fact that these circumstances are designed to identify, expose, develop, refine, and maximize our true potential. It’s not what happens to us that matters, but what we do with what happens. Much of the time we are not responsible for our circumstances, but we are always responsible for our response to those circumstances. One key to maximizing your potential is to become dissatisfied with the circumstances that restrict, limit, and stifle your potential.

Many people know that they possess great potential, that they have a significant purpose in life, but they still fail to move beyond good intentions to experience the fullness of their lives. Why? Their comfort is greater than their passion. They are more concerned with fitting in than with standing out. Remember, you will never change anything that you are willing to tolerate. Your Creator wants you to consciously choose to fulfill your purpose and maximize your potential because in so doing you will bring glory to His name. Unfortunately, history gives evidence of only a few rare individuals who, driven by a passion to achieve a cherished vision in their hearts, initiated their own deliverance, rose above the tide of the norm, and impacted their generation and ours. A second significant key to maximizing potential is the unassuming benefits of “crisis.” Crises life’s “wake-up” calls. These alarms are often the catalysts that impel us to become fully conscious of our mediocre lives. An eagle that doesn’t fly cannot fulfill its purpose. Likewise, your life will lack purpose and focus until you discover your wings. This discovery will require both wisdom and courage because the thrill of flying always begins with the fear of falling. Yet you are not left alone to find your wings because Yah, through the prophet Moses, promises to undertake for you. Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Most High alone leads you Deuteronomy 32:11-12. He will give definition to the crises of your life and inspire you to move on into all He has planned for you. Indeed, the greatest gift Yah can offer you is to push you into a crisis of temporary discomfort that requires you to try your wings. This pushing into crisis is His supreme act of love, akin to that of a mother eagle that pushes her young from the nest to force them to fly. Don’t be a pigeon if you were born to be an eagle. Experience Yah’s altitude for your life.