STARTING WELL WITH GOD II

Today, I want to share with you a formula for starting over. S.T.A.R.T. I hope you’ll remember this and pass it along to friends when they have failures. Regardless of what kind of failure you had in the past. You may have had a financial failure, or maybe a relational failure, a failure in your marriage. You may have had a moral failure. You may have really blown it and you may have made some decisions you’re so ashamed of and hope nobody ever finds out about. Regardless of the failure you’ve had in your life, here’s how you start over.

S – Stop making excuses.

If I want a fresh start in life, I have to stop making excuses for my failures. I’ve got to stop blaming other people. I’ve got to stop seeing myself as the victim of my circumstances. 

Other people can hurt us, other people can harm us, and other people can scar us. But the only person that can ruin your life is you. Nobody can ruin your life without your permission. You have a choice and that is you can choose how you’re going to respond to those hurts. The Bible says that the starting point is to just be honest and accept responsibility for my part in the problem. 

Proverbs 28:13 “A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. But if he confess and forsakes them he gets another chance.” 

He gets a fresh start. He says the starting point to starting over is to be honest and face up to the problems, that most of the problems in my life, most of the failures, are my fault. 

It is hard to get people to admit when they are wrong. People do not like to admit, “I made a mistake, and I blew it.” God says, “that if we admit the mistake, if we admit our failures, and if we admit our sin, then we get another chance in life.

· The number one reason we fail in life is we don’t prepare ourselves for the problems that we will face in life. 

The Bible say’s (Proverbs 20:7) "A sensible man watches for problems and prepares to meet them but the fool never looks ahead and suffers the consequences."

Was it raining when Noah started building the ark? No. He had to prepare for the coming flood. In fact the rain didn’t come for 120 years. But that’s how long it took him to get the thing built. 

· Because we don’t listen to others. We don’t listen to good advice when it’s offered. 

The Bible says in Proverbs 15 “Plans fail without good advice.” You need to get all the advice you can. Get good advice from people you know you can trust.

Why want people listen to the advice of other people? Because they think they don’t need it. It’s called pride. Ego. Ego stands for "Edging God Out." When a person thinks they know more than God, they push Him out of their life, they’re on an ego trip and that trip leads to a dead end. 

The Bible says, "Pride always leads to destruction." 

An arrogant attitude leads to a fall. When I think I know it all and I can figure it all out myself, I’m setting myself up for failure, if I don’t listen to the advice of others, if I don’t listen to the advice of my pastors/wife/boss/husband/other people around me, if I think I’ll just do it my way. I’ll never get anywhere if I have already arrived. The person that gets too big for their britches, will eventually be exposed in the end. That’s the problem with pride. 

We fail to prepare and we fail to listen to other people and we fail as a result. We give up too soon. These are the three greatest causes for failure. We give up too soon. Proverbs 24:10 "If you give up when troubles come, it just shows that you are weak." 

Failure is the path of least resistance. The problem is that often during trying times we stop trying. We give up.

If at first you don’t succeed, welcome to the human race. If at first you don’t succeed, you’re normal. Very few people make it on the first try. Oftentimes, we give up just when success is around the corner. You’re never a failure until you give up. Sometimes we give up too soon. It’s always too soon to quit. The Bible says we need to stop making excuses, admit when it’s our fault and get on with life. I’ve discovered that people who are very good at making excuses are rarely good at anything else. They spend all their energy thinking up reasons why they can’t do what they’re supposed to do. 

So "S" in START stands for Stop making excuses.

Stay Blessed

To be continued......