Success Systems: What To Avoid

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

It may sound strange to have an article on real success with a warning on what to avoid, but that seems appropriate here. Many dangers and traps are prepared for those who are seeking success.

Many success methods consist of a mix of New Age Occultism,Cultic Secularism (using language that sounds, on the surface, Christian, intellectual, and scientific) and good sound advice for life and business. They are packaged for acceptance by corporations, governments, small businesses, churches, and education in the form of countless "motivational seminars" or "Learning to Learn skills." They hold out the advice to lure the unsuspecting into the Occult and the Secular fantasies, because people want the success that the advice can bring. People may want candy, but they don’t have to swim up a sewer to get it. Sound advice is good, but the advice in the Bible is far better than that available in many of these classes, multi-media presentations, and books.

Many of the success methods depend on human-generated self-righteousness. Many of them teach all is One--monism--which is used as a way of explaining the occult powers. While the success method attributes these powers to the human mind, the adherents are often actually entertaining demons for psycho kinesis, levitation, and spells. Everything, however, is explained in scientific terms avoiding any mention of occult terminology. In fact, the defense is given that the proponents of the success method don’t believe in demons and that anyone who does believe what the Bible says is insane.

Some success systems are based on existentialism (the claim that individual human beings create the meanings of their own lives), humanistic/existential psychology, and humanism. Many of them are based on Secularism, sometimes called Secular Humanism or Atheism.

Most success systems rest in the power of the human. Only one rests in the power of the divine. The purpose of this page is to introduce you to the one success system that rests in the power of the divine. Other than the humanity-centered nature, there is nothing wrong will a lot of these methodologies or systems or self-defined value systems. Oftentimes we see that there is a subset of the book of Proverbs or the ten commandments in these systems. And yet the dependence is not on the divine but on the human. That's where they fall down because human beings have many weaknesses.

Many success systems are based on a set of rules or laws and the supposed human ability to follow these precepts or principles. Some laws are even based on the law God gave to the children of Israel. The problem is that we can't fulfill these laws. Some success systems instruct each person define his or her own values or principles by which to live. In the final analysis, all of these systems hold out empty promises.

Success is not just winning the battle. It is also taking and holding ground and it is the final complete victory. True success is spiritual and affects every aspect of our lives. We were not created to be driven by a purpose, principles, or values. God created us to be led by the Spirit of God, to yield willingly to His Spirit, and to allow God to do His works and to love through us. God's plan is to create, in us, a clean heart and fully redeem us to Himself so that we always flow with a mighty stream of His love continually. Many have tried to be guided and empowered by such things as rationalism, values, laws, or principles. Many success systems focus on such things and on human effort, and they seem to be able to produce something that gives the illusion of success. Many of these human-driven or principle-driven success systems are denominations and religions. Often, these systems are simply forms and rituals, meaningless and irrelevant. Success is different from that.

While it's perfectly legitimate to promote a success method that is purely mechanical, many of the methods and systems try to cross over into the spiritual without Christ. That always brings them under the law. They speak of values, principles, ethical standards, missions, and visions. These are all spiritual terms. Total Quality Management, as good as it is, has this kind of a pseudo-christian flavor all without Christ. Many of the other systems also project this image of being a sort of a secular religious experience without Jesus. Some get into the occult or New Age techniques. An example would be the book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which gives a description of an exercise that is conjuring of spirits but uses business language to make it seem less dangerous or as if it were a mental exercise.

Success Systems: What To Avoid

How can we know anything about anything

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