Define Your Win

During the cross over service on the 31st of December 2019, my Pastor, the Senior Pastor of all House on the Rock churches, while preparing our hearts for the New Year, gave us five questions that will help us define our existence on earth. The questions are:

Who am I?

Where am I from?

Why am I here?

What can I do?

Where am I going to?

That wasn’t my first time to meet these questions. I’m very much familiar with these questions. I can’t really remember where I first met them though. I think it was during my undergraduate days in the university. I honestly can’t remember, but I know I’m familiar with them. At a particular time, I even memorized answers for these questions. I wanted short and quick answers for them, so I can always recite the answers to myself…from my head. These questions were that important to me. But I didn’t hold on to them forever. I also can’t remember when and how I let go of them, but when I met them yet again on the 31st December 2019, my memory reminded me how dear they were to me. Sadly, I couldn’t and still can’t remember the answers I memorized, way back.

When I heard these questions again, I knew I needed to get answers from the Holy Spirit. Not the old “self-constructed” answers I somehow lost, but new and “Holy Spirit inspired” answers. So, few days ago, I sat down in the place of meditation and prayer and I asked the Holy Spirit to give me an answer to the very first question: “who am I?” The Holy Spirit did, of course. And it was spectacular. In answering my one question, the Holy Spirit gave answers to the remaining four questions. In fact, as I write this, I’m still basking in the personal revelation I got from the Holy Spirit.

Now, you have to understand that with the knowledge I already have as a Christian and as a matured adult, I can just come up with answers from my head like I did years ago…but I didn’t want that. In my walk with God I’ve come to understand that there’s so much power that comes with a Word that is directly from God to me. With my head knowledge, I could have written, “I am precious” in my journal, but it wouldn’t have the powerful effect that comes with hearing from God directly. If it was God that said, “You are precious” it will come with great power. They are the same information, but there’s always so much power, power beyond my ability to explain, in what I hear directly from the Holy Spirit. Plus, the Holy Spirit has a way of addressing us where we are in our journey, so what He said yesterday might not be what He’s saying today. When God called the father of faith out from his father’s land, God called him Abram, but before he conceived Isaac God called him Abraham. I didn’t just want to write out answers, I wanted direct words straight from the Holy Spirit for this season.

Why am I taking my time to explain all of these?

Well, because I want to: 1. Remind or tell you that the place of communing with God can’t be replaced with anything else. 2. Make you understand that when God tells us who we are, it helps us define our WINS!

And more than ever we need to define our WINS…

The world is doing a good job at creating distractions, and it is only natural for us to be lured into a distraction if we’re not very mindful of the leadings and instructions of the Lord. The world portrays some careers as the best and makes some look shabby. So, you hardly see a lady that finds herself in the classroom, flaunting it…while the female makeup artist can’t let a day go by without rubbing her beautiful craft in our faces. Both are good careers, but the world favours one above the other. Sadly, even the lady that has the key that unlocks the next big thing our educational system needs is leaving the educational system to chase a career in makeup artistry. Well, she wants the likes, the attention, and the respect and applauds and the classroom doesn’t have those vibes…at least that’s what we see and believe.

The world also gives us wrong definitions of success. It shows us things that aren’t love and calls them love. It tells us a particular shape is better than others, yet God has created different shapes and sizes. The world is showing us so many pictures and the inscriptions under those images are lies…and lies multiplied by lies. That’s why we need the Holy Spirit now…and always. You the need Holy Spirit to help you answer the question, “Who am I?” and when He does, you need to focus on what He says; every other thing shouldn’t matter. You just have to believe the Holy Spirit.

If the world was the Olympics

Let’s pretend the world was the Olympics and we are all here to participate in different sports. Well, we all know there are some sports that are very much celebrated in the Olympics, like football or say soccer, the different track races, basketball, etc., but there are the others that aren’t so celebrated and some of us not even know they exist until we mistakenly come across them. But guess what? The winners in the “not so celebrated sports” go home with the same quality of gold medal that are given to the basketball winners. That’s life.

We can’t all play basketball because we know most people would prefer to watch basketball instead of the “not so celebrated sport” (notice how I don’t even have a name? That’s how so uncommon those sports are). No, we embrace our gifting and talents and then train to win the gold for our own sport. If reaching for your win means you have to swim in a pool and hold your breath while at it, you have no business in the field with the person that has to win at throwing the javelin. Get yourself in the water and focus to win your win. You need to define your win…you need to let God show you what your win is, and where it is.

There are things you shouldn’t give your time to, and there are things that are worth more than your sleepless night, rest and comfort. You have to define your gold, silver, bronze, metal and wood. You need to define them…you need to let the Holy Spirit help you define them. Metal shouldn’t take the place of gold, and silver shouldn’t stand for wood. Life will be better and more purposeful when we define our win.

Attraction isn’t enough

Yes, you can be attracted to something you’re not called to win at. Let me bring you into my personal world, still on sports though. One of my favourite sports is running…its different kinds. But trust me, even if I have the best coach in the world to help me train, I won’t run in a competition. I just won’t. It’s not for me…at all. I can jog. I actually like jogging, when I have the time to do so, but I’ll never compete with anyone at that. It’s the same with stunts. I really love to watch people play with gravity and just do crazy stuff. I wish I can be like them. I salute their courage and audacity…but you see, I doubt if I will never go sky diving. I really doubt. I always imagine myself sky diving, but I don’t think that imagination will ever be a reality.

So, you can admire and even be attracted to a thing, but it doesn’t mean you chase it down to win at it. I believe God allows us to love things we can’t win at…or to put it better…things we weren’t created to win at, to help us appreciate people that can win at it. It’s like the description of the church in the Bible, according to 1 Corinthians 12: 12-30. The Bible calls us the body of Christ, and went further to explain how we all have our different roles and abilities. We can’t all carry out the function of the hands. My hands are typing these words, and the eyes are watching to make sure the hands don’t just type a bunch of rubbish. The mind and brain, on the other hand, are reciting the words the eyes are confirming as the hands are typing. It is okay for the eyes to admire the well-shaped finger nails of the hands, but the eyes can’t have nails or type out these words…so the eye shouldn’t desire to be the hand. It has its role and so does the hand.

You have your role. I have my role. We can admire, be highly attracted and really love another person’s role, but that’s not enough reason to leave where we’re called to win at, to chase a win that’s not for us. Let’s all stay where our win is…and win our wins.

Magnify where your win is

If where your win is isn’t celebrated or attractive enough, then it’s on you to make it what you want it to feel and look like. The world is waiting on you to accept your portion, work at it, get better at it, and then add value through and with it. When your win adds value to the world, the world won’t ignore it…it will celebrate it, and it will become attractive. It might not be celebrated the way you want it to…it might not be celebrated on the platforms you want, but it will be celebrated…here on earth and in the place that matters most—in heaven.

A celebrity once said, “It’s not just about what you do; it’s about who you are doing it” to that I’ll like to add, “…and how you do it.” We’re Christians…Ambassadors of Christ. That trumps every other thing. We do ALL we do as unto the Lord. If God has given you a place to win at, that should be all that matters. You should magnify it. You should decide to fall in love with it. Yes, falling in love with something or someone is a decision. You should enjoy it. You should find happiness in it. You should be fulfilled in it. You should be content with it.

Before God it isn’t small. Before God it is very important. Before God it is unique and needs urgent attention…and you, dear saint, are the one for the job. God chose you, and created you for that purpose. You have to win, and win BIG.

Win…one day at a time                

The daily “little wins” matters most, because they will ultimately determine the BIG win. Most times God wants us to win in the areas we call “little” because without those areas we can’t get the BIG win. So, while He’s calling us to learn to commune with Him, our focus is on the break we want in our career. Before God, building a healthy relation with Jesus is more important than your career, but when the break in career isn’t coming forth, we become depressed. We call ourselves failures and we just look at God funny. Meanwhile, the areas you so desire to win at aren’t where God wants you to win at…or not where He wants you to win at yet. And most times when we find ourselves in situations like this, we choose to decide our win for ourselves, and just leave God out of the picture. But how can we leave the Giver and Keeper of life out of the picture of our life?

Let God show you where He’ll have you win. Pray for God to make His desires yours…and when He does, hold unto it because that’s where He wants you to win at. The different directions the world is pointing at shouldn’t be your compass, the Holy Spirit is the only authorized, trusted and confirmed person to teach us all things and guard us in truth. Let Him help you define your wins.

In 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27, Paul said:

“Do you know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize? So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours. Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither. Therefore I do not run uncertainly—without definite aim. I do not box as one beating the air and striking without an adversary. But [like a boxer] I buffet my body—handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships—and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit—not stand the test and be unapproved—and rejected [as a counterfeit].”

Paul, again, in Philippians 4:14 said, “I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it on my own [yet]; but one thing I do—it is my one aspiration: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ is calling us upwards.”

Solomon in Proverbs 4:25 said, “Let your eyes look right on [with fixed purpose], and let your gaze be straight before you.”

Do meditate on these scriptures and let the Holy Spirit speak to you through them.

My Prayer for You and Me:

I feel a burden in my spirit, and I feel I haven’t done justice to that burden. So, I pray we see and hear beyond these words. I pray we see ourselves spending time with God and get to hear Him share His heart with us. I pray we accept and fall in love with the areas where our wins are, as the Holy Spirit reveals them to us. I pray that our lives will never remain the same again. In Jesus’ name…

Amen.

Get in the Gym, and

Stay Spiritually Fit.

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