I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. If God be for me who can be against me, I shall make you the head and not the tail.

These are just a few of the scriptures that tell me the truth that as a born again believer if I want to be a success in Christ I can be.

A lie that is oft thrown our way as Christians is that aiming for failure is a good option; that poverty and disaster are a sign of Christian piety, that our diseases are a sign of Christian suffering, in order to show us that this earth is an awful place to live in.

I would like to attest to the fact, as I’m sure any of you who have been either poor or a failure or sick would also, that being in poverty is awful. As a child I can remember times where there was nothing left to eat in the house and no money to get anything more than a loaf of bread and jam, where there was no central heating because there was no money to pay the bill.

I’ve been and felt a failure in many instances none of them felt good none of them helped me, in my opinion, to get closer to God, but only produced in me guilt and feelings of withdrawal from God because of my inadequacy and lack. Feeling I would never be good enough or do well enough for him. I know what its like to be ill and be in great pain and seriously suffer, again its no fun and those who criticise the sick don’t understand that sometimes its just not that easy to get healed.

It tends to be a failing in many of us believers that we are as likely to believe the negative carefully and deftly put to us as we are willing to believe for the positive. The devil, unfortunately for us all, is the very, very real enemy of our soul. He attempts constantly to destroy us - the Bible refers to him as like unto a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He is a master of deception as he is referred to as being able in the book of Revelation to deceive even the very elect of God. At the beginning of the Bible in the book of Genesis he deceived the woman, Eve, causing the destruction of mankind’s relationship with God until Jesus’ coming on earth restored us once more to God. How many times have all of us lost the plot and forgotten the good stuff promised us in the word of God, forgotten the teaching given to us on the goodness of God's nature towards us, forgotten the time that we were so moved upon by God's spirit that literally we believed that yes He is real and yes there is a heaven to be gained. It's amazing, isn’t it, how when left alone to our own devices even though we can say we have experienced God we still tend to all to often fall pray to negative forces that tell us that we are nothing, no one, a failure and probably it was all your imagination and there is no God after all. Healing - are you sure it wasn’t the pills you took as well as the prayer that was given? Financial gain - are you sure that it wasn’t just good luck that you were given the money? Don’t be surprised at the varied approaches of negativity thrown at you by the devil. He literally tried to throw every negative possible at Jesus as described in Luke 4.

Whenever any of us decide that we are fed up with mediocrity and want something more out of life, more out of our existence on earth, along will always come the voice of opposition trying to make sure that we are contained within the mindset that we have always been in. What I want to tell you today is that yes we can do it, we can change to become a far more successful person, a far calmer person, a far nicer person, a far healthier person, a far more attractive person. I want to tell you that it is worth the journey of change, to become that altogether better person; you owe it to yourself and you owe it to God to become, your very best you, to not make this journey on earth pointless. I want you to understand how much you can achieve in the time that you are on this earth, Ephesians 1 Verse 18 (KJV) tells us:

That the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

All of us need our eyes opened to be able to see. I encourage you to ask God to enlighten you as to the great possibility that is in your lives. God is an awesome person who truly only wants the best for us but we need to believe in Him and His ability to help us become what He wants us to become in order to activate His power towards us. Without faith it is impossible to please God, faith is the activation. I need you to change your negative thinking and start believing God and all things will be possible. It takes practise but is worth while. I might add that sometimes we don’t always see when we are being negative. Do you know that not believing that God wants to see you be successful is unbelief? We are taught by Jesus, as he made short change of the Pharisees, that our heavenly father only wants the very best for us and knows fine well what we need in life. So, going around denying the power of God for our lives, not taking His word for the fact that yes He is very interested in everything that happens to us and wants only the best for us, is unbelief. I know that any of you who are at all honourable get very hurt if someone does not believe your word. How much worse is it for God himself when he has to contend with us his people calling him a liar? We spend so much time telling God that we are a useless case if we just stopped using our own inadequacy as a reason why God cant do anything for us and just got on with living for God, how much further we would get on this earth!

Everything we need to succeed is already here for us, every component that we need is already here. All we need to do is actually do it; we, yes every last one of us, are winners if we want to be.

Mediocrity, sadly sometimes when you are trying to kick-start yourself into action, seems more attractive to remain in but its not. God doesn’t want as His best plan for our lives failure. He has a great future for each and every one of us; yes we can do it and yes it's so worth having a great relationship with God. If you're in a state of unbelief and discouragement today its time to shake yourself up and start to get serious about the rest of your life. It doesn’t matter how old or how young any of us are today, yes today, is the start of the rest of your successful life in God. I know that a lot of you aren’t living right, aren’t sorted out with a good attitude to God so its time to recommit yourself afresh if necessary so that this journey with god can take on a new light. Let go of everything that has not worked out for you everything that is before this moment all the guilt over things you have or haven’t done. Say with me 'I cannot change anything I have done, I can only ask for help to make sure that I do better today in preparation for tomorrow and I ask for that help from God now in Jesus name.'

Jade Provan