I think my favorite word is success. I truly want with all my heart to be a successful man. The word success is a good word. It is a word that is in the Bible. The best kind of success is when we are declared by God to be successful. To be successful means that we are accomplishing the work God gave us to do. It means we are bearing much fruit. It means we are doing something that matters, really matters, making a difference in the lives of people lots of people. What does it take to be really successful? It doesn’t take above average intelligence, a good education, a charming personality, or great gifts, abilities or talents.

Success is simple, it is basic, and it is not hard to do the things that bring success. But very few people are successful. Why? Successful people do a number of little, simple, easy, disciplines almost everyday for a long time. A penny doubled everyday for 31 days ends up being over 10 million dollars. An easy discipline like reading the Bible 15 minutes a day, spending 15 minutes in prayer with God every day, reading ten pages every day in a good book, examining our lives, and confessing all known sin to God every day, declaring Jesus as Lord of our life every day, telling our wife that we love her five times every day, spending 15 minutes in challenging exercise every day, writing out a dozen significant goals and reading them every day, and writing in a journal every day.

As I said very few people do these disciplines faithfully over time, but they guarantee a fulfilled life so why don’t more people do them, three reasons;

(1) They are easy to do, but they are also easy to not do. (2) Not much happens at the start, you have to be faithful over time, and most want instant success or they won’t try. (3) The individual disciplines don’t seem like that big of a deal that they will bring success; they are so easy to do that it is also easy to dismiss them as not very important.