#Livestrong Part 2

Today we are continuing our look at the 8 Steps To Help You Livestrong that we started yesterday. For the first 4 steps read yesterday's post.

God has a place He wants us to go: I believe with all my heart that God wants us to succeed in this life. In fact, I believe that it is an expression of God’s love to us. Now please understand, I’m not just talking about money. Success includes money, but it is more than money. God wants you to succeed in your spirit, soul, emotions and physical body. He wants you to succeed  in your relationships, marriage and job. He wants you to excel toward the promises of God.

God has already done His part. He’s already made lots of things available to us, but if we don’t understand the process that we need to take to arrive at our destination, we could find ourselves making the wrong decisions, having a laps of discernment and in a sense of desperation finding ourselves compromising our integrity and making choices that will forever impact our lives.

Let’s look at the last 4 steps that we can apply to our lives to help us succeed in all areas of our life.

Step 5: Your Actions
Your decisions will determine your actions. And your actions cause the increase. Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). So start acting like what you just decided. Start talking like what you just decided. God weighs your actions (I Samuel 2:3), so start doing what you can. Let your actions show what you believe.

Step 6: Your Habits
Your actions will determine your habits. You will develop in whatever you are doing on a daily basis. So you’ve got to check what you’re doing and saying every day, because what you do and say determines your potential. If you lie, you have a potential to become a developed liar. If you sneak around looking at pornography every day, you only have the potential to develop in that. So make sure you look at your actions because your actions will determine your habits, and you don’t want habits in your life that are out of line with the Word of God.

Step 7: Your Character
Your habits will produce Step 7: your character. Character is what people have come to expect from you. Understand this: You will never rise above the limitations of your character. The character we should desire is, of course, the character of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What was His character? Love. We should begin to develop in the character of agape love so we can learn how to love people with agape love.

Step 8: Your Destiny
Finally, the type of character you develop will determine your destination in life.
What’s your destiny? In John 10:10, Jesus says: “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)” There’s your destiny. Enjoy life! That’s where you’re headed.

The Word produces your thinking; your thinking produces your emotions; your emotions produce your decisions; your decisions produce your actions; your actions produce your habits; your habits produce your character; and your character produces your destiny. Where you end up in life will be based on how you handle that progression.