Transcription
Please open with me to Genesis 41:25 to 49. Sharing this morning on major factors that will affect your fortunes in life. And that implies that these same factors have the factors that affected your parents and the fortunes of your parents.
[Music]
These are factors that affected your elder relatives and is still affecting your elder relatives. These are factors that affected the past generation, and these factors are still affecting the current generation. For so many people today, especially those in their 40s, in their 50s, and above, their level of success can be attributed to these factors. The past results they have had in their journey of life, life can be attributed to these factors. The influence of these factors, their level of excellence, their level of expertise, their level of wealth, the accomplishments they have made so far in different realms of life, the achievements they have made so far can be attributed to these factors. The state of their health, their level of physical fitness, the level of impact, especially positive impact, and their present position in different realms of life, their present position in different fields of life can be traced to these major factors, and that always influence the fortunes of people in the journey of life.
They are. I put them under five different groups, but I have numbered them so it will be easy for you to identify each of them distinctively and yet under their subgroup. And it will also be easy for you to now identify those few that you would need to give more attention to.
The first set of these factors, which I will call group A, the factors include:
1. They are teachers and mentors. The teachers and mentors people had in their journey of life shaped [Music] the lives of these students and mentees positively, prepared them for what was ahead. The impact of knowledge, understanding, insight, wisdom, quality counsel, expert advice coming from the teachers and the mentors. People have been exposed to primary factors are primary factors that now serve as the basis of your beliefs, your mindset, your values, and your principles. So, number one, they are teachers, and they are mentors. So that implies that for those of you who have already grown beyond this stage, then wisdom demands that you ensure that your children are exposed to the right teachers, the right mentors. Because the teachers you have in life, you have in your journey in life, the mentors you have in your journey in life will influence several things in your life. Teachers at school, primary, secondary, especially teachers and preachers at the place of worship.
2. Their beliefs. Their beliefs.
3. Their mindset. Their mindset. The mindset of great achievers played a major role in their success story.
4. Their values and principles. Their values, their principles.
5. Their passion. [Music] Because in a lot of instances of life, how much momentum and traction you would consistently generate into certain things that must be achieved in your life, in your environment, would be influenced by your passion. Once your passion is there, then it becomes a major booster to whatever you are working on.
6. Their level of ambition and aspiration. Their level of ambition and aspirations. Contentment doesn't demand that you settle for mediocrity. Contentment doesn't demand that you settle for very poor standards. No, contentment doesn't demand that you, you know, refuse to aim high and aim and dream big and aspire for great things. No, that's not the definition of contentment. Contentment has a lot more to do with the approach, the approach of achieving the great things that you want to do. When you have a big dream and it's going to take an ungodly or unfair approach to achieve it at that time or in your own circumstance, then contentment demands that you, you stay satisfied with what you have now and wait for a better and more conducive opportunity or approach to, you know, to, to come in your direction for you to be able to achieve what needs to be achieved. So contentment doesn't mean having big dreams. Because many of the great achievers we have seen over and over, we have men and women who had big dreams, they aimed high, they aspired for levels and things that were far above their current level, sometimes for things that had never been achieved before in their family or community background. So their level of ambition, their level of aspiration.
7. Their level of foresight. Their level of foresight. Their proactive steps. Their level of foresight. A lot of these great achievers were men and women of foresight. They saw ahead and they acted wisely with that which they could see ahead. They took proactive steps to prevent, you know, negative things that were obviously going to happen to affect them, and they also took proactive steps to benefit from opportunities that they could see ahead. We are coming very, very soon.
8. Their choice of priorities. Their choice of priorities. At different times for each year in their past. And so if you look at the story of great achievers, you would see that at a particular time, his major priority was a particular thing, and some years after that, his major priority was something else. And if you do a study, a proper deeper study, you discover that, but in most cases, the first priority was achieved, and the moment it was done, something else became the major, the major priority of that same person. So their choice of priorities at different times for each year in the past.
9. Personal initiative. Personal initiative. Because there are so many things that can be achieved if only you will take the initiative. And if you fail to take the initiative, a lot of things will still happen in your life, but certainly there will be some things that could have happened, there will be some achievements that could have been recorded in your life that will not happen because those particular achievements could only have come, could only have started through your own initiative.
10. Aggressive drive. Aggressive drive. A lot of these great achievements have been men and women with a lot of drive, internal drive, aggressive drive.
11. Their past decisions. Their past decisions. So people, when you see a lot of people today, their current experiences in life, the way things are for them, is as a result of their past decisions, including mistakes that they made. [Music] When taking some decisions in the realm of the spiritual, the realm of the marital, in the realm of relationships, and the realm of finances and investments. Their past decisions.
12. Their past choices. [Music] Their past choices. Especially the choice of a spouse. The choice of a spouse. It has affected so many people in life. And if you are not yet married, your choice of spouse will affect your story in life. It will affect your fortunes in life, positively or negatively. Their choice of close friends. Their choice of mentors. Their choice of close friends. Their choice of mentors. Their past choices. So some people are having it well today because they chose the right spouse, they chose the right set of close friends and mentors.
And then there's a second group. Just two of these factors are in that in that group B.
13. Application of the right approach. Application of the right approach. Ecclesiastes chapter 9, verse 15. In verse 14, the Bible tells us that there was a small city besieged by a great king and his army. [Music] He said, but in that small city, there was a poor wise man who knew what to do for them to be rescued. And so they were rescued. That means they sought, they sought the counsel and advice of this wise man. They humbled themselves, even though he was a poor man in the community. They humbled themselves and refused to make the mistake of despising him and his wisdom simply because of his level of wealth. They took his advice. They sought his advice. They took his advice and they implemented what he told them to do. And evidently, they did it on time. And that was how that small city was delivered from a potential, from potential destruction. [Music] So application of the right approach, finding effective solutions on time, and then applying whatever is that effective solution is one major factor that changed the story of many people that have gone ahead of you. It is a reason why many people are living comfortably today. And then there are times where there had to be change of approach. There were times where there had to be change of approach. So for this same set of people, you observe that they put in what we call timely change of approach. So one of the reasons why things are well for the great achievers is because of their timely change of approach in the seasons of change.
14. Adequate preparations. Adequate preparations. One of the reasons why many people have succeeded and many others have not achieved is because the great achievers put in adequate preparations. Adequate preparations. For instance, adequate savings. Adequate savings. Adequate, you know, sufficient buildup of investments and extra streams of income. Adequate trainings. You know, there's some dimensions of training that you must go through in order to get to the top, in order to achieve a level of authority and expertise in what you do. And these people, a lot of the people today that you see are so good in a particular thing, they, they were exposed, they exposed themselves to adequate training. [Music]