Formula for success

I’m writing a book on business at the moment and one thing I am writing about is how to accomplish a goal. First you must make a list of what needs to be done in order to accomplish the goal. Next group like things together. Next prioritize the list from the most important to the least, taking into consideration what needs to be done first to last. Use that list to create a plan of action, allocate resources, and then work the plan to completion.

Let us apply this formula to salvation. In order to be saved and born again one must first accept Jesus Christ as the perfect blameless and sinless Son of God who voluntarily took our place and died as a sacrifice for our sins and was resurrected in three days and is alive today; second, repent of, or turn’, away from our sins; and third, publicly follow Jesus and His commands with our ongoing life. It is actually very easy, (1,2,3), to become a Christian and it is amazing to me that more folks do not take advantage of it. The rewards are fabulous and the alternative of being eternally separated from God in Hell is frightening beyond the scope of our imagination.

If one were to apply my businessman’s formula to becoming saved to the repent portion of the formula would require that we first make a list of our sins, group like sins together, prioritize as to the worst to the most minor, develop a plan, apply our resources and work the plan to repent or turn away from the sins in priority order; (all sin is bad, but logically some sins are more destructive to our lives than others and should be addressed first.)

As an example if you grouped some sins together under that terrible’ three letter word sex and that was what you considered to be the biggest sin problem in your life it might look like this:
Sexual sin:
Lust towards a co-worker
Desire to view pornography on the Internet
Watching sexually explicit movies

Steps would be taken in your plan to avoid putting yourself in situations with your co-worker where you would be excessively tempted to sin, and one would pray to God to help deliver you from it. Steps would be taken to address the other items on the list in like manner.

I was thinking about this today while driving in to work and thought about the worst sin in the world. Hmmm What do you think it might be? I happened to think of the most evil person in the world, satan. What got him and 1/3 of the angels kicked out of heaven and mankind kicked out of the Garden of Eden? It was not murder, child molestation, homosexuality, stealing, lying, child abuse, etc. It was pride. Satan wanted to be equal to God. He was not content to be the most powerful beautiful angel ever created; he wanted to be equal to God. He used the same logic to convince Eve to sin. He tried to tempt Jesus Himself to worship him when Jesus was tired, thirsty, and starving after a forty day fast in the desert. Satan promised Him not only food and water, but the entire world. What an egocentric-maniac!

Jesus on the other hand was God and deserving of worship and adulation, and yet He took another avenue which should be the one we try to emulate. He deserved to be treated like the King of all Kings, yet entered the world being born in a manger and was raised as a simple working class carpenter. He, who had every right to be arrogant and prideful deserving of servants, throne, crown, and royalty treatment, humbled Himself at every opportunity. His mantra was and is today to demonstrate a gentle demeanor of humble humility and to serve others with genuine love and He should be our model to follow.

I believe repenting of one’s sins is an important lifelong process for all Christians. We should review our life often and we should all be consciously working on removing sin from our being. I suggest using a systematic approach like I have described. As we list our hit list’ of sins from which we need to repent, we should remember to prominently annotate the sin of pride and work on it methodically and systematically. Remember always: that the one sin of pride changed all of creation as we know it and was the catalyst for pitting evil versus good. Just as a handul of terrorists forever changed air travel in our country, pride changed our peaceful co-existence with God. Fortunately it is not forever, provided that we become Christians.

Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a
fall.