Daily Devotional

Prepare to Succeed

By Joel Osteen
This week's topic: A Life Of Success

As you press on in life, stay hopeful and positive, and make preparations to succeed. We must understand there’s a difference between believing and expecting.

You can believe to have a child and not even be pregnant. But once you go from believing to expecting, you kick in to a different gear. When you are expecting, you’ll furnish the nursery. You’ll buy clothes for a baby that’s not hear yet. You’ll call your friends and relatives and let them know the good news. “Mom! Dad! A baby is on the way.” Even in the early stages of pregnancy, you start making all sorts of preparations. It affects your attitude, what you eat and drink, how you exercise, talk, and think.

You may go several months and say, “I look the same. I don’t feel all that different.” It doesn’t matter what you see or feel. You received a report from the doctor that says a baby is on its way. That’s all you need to know to start making preparations.

You need to do something similar when God puts a dream in your heart. Maybe one of His promises comes alive in your heart and mind, and for the first time, you dare to believe that your family can be restored. You know you can be healthy again. You know you can accomplish your dreams. The first thing is, you have to let the seed really take root. But you can’t stop there. You must move on from believing to expecting.

“I’m doing that,” you might say, “but I don’t see anything happening. My finances aren’t improving. I don’t see any doors opening. My health is slipping rather than improving.”

Scripture teaches, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (see 2 Corinthians 5:7). If you can see everything happening, you don’t really need any faith. But when you have nothing to stand on in the natural—and you start acting as though God’s Word is true, being positive and hopeful—you are putting actions behind your faith. That gets God’s attention. That’s what causes Him to work supernaturally in your life. What happened? You went from believing to expecting.

This excerpt is taken from Joel Osteen’s book Daily Readings from Become a Better You.

Scripture Of The Day: “It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.” - Hebrews 11:6 (NLT)

Joel Osteen is pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas – a vibrant and diverse church that Forbes calls the largest and fastest-growing congregation in America. His books, Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You, quickly became #1 New York Times Bestsellers and are distributed worldwide in several languages. http://www.joelosteen.com…

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