“Brethren, I count not my­self to have ap­pre­hend­ed: but this one thing I do, for­get­ting those things which are be­hind, and reach­ing forth un­to those things which are be­fore, I press to­ward the mark for the prize of the high call­ing of God in Christ Je­sus.” (Philip­pi­ans 4:13 and 14).

When you read this scrip­ture, you can sense the de­ter­mi­na­tion and pas­sion com­ing from the Apos­tle Paul in re­la­tion to what he was or­dained by God to do. He would leave no stone un­turned in his quest to rise to his full po­ten­tial in Je­sus Christ. God has placed in all of us gifts, tal­ents, and skill sets, but it is up to us to dis­cov­er what is in­side that earth­ly ves­sel, tak­ing full ad­van­tage of it as we jour­ney on earth. There is a great pos­si­bil­i­ty that, un­know­ing­ly, we can func­tion be­low our full po­ten­tial, and one of the rea­sons why this takes place is be­cause we have a poor vi­sion of our­selves.

A char­ac­ter in the Bible, “Gideon,” was like this, for we read in the book of Judges, Gideon de­scrib­ing him­self (Judges Chap­ter 6:15). “And he said un­to him, ‘Oh my Lord, where­with shall I save Is­rael? Be­hold, my fam­i­ly is poor in Man­asseh, and I am the least in my fa­ther’s house.”  Gideon had low self-es­teem in the way he saw him­self. Yet the an­gel ad­dressed him, “Thou mighty man of val­our.” Wow! What a com­men­da­tion of pos­i­tiv­i­ty and might.

To­day, be­cause of what you may have been through, your vi­sion of your­self took a beat­ing. I en­cour­age you to change it and see through the eyes of God. What you see can af­fect your speech, for if you are go­ing to rise to your full po­ten­tial, along with hav­ing a pos­i­tive view of your­self, your con­fes­sion must al­so speak the right things. Je­sus said in Mark 11:23: “For ver­i­ly I say un­to you, That whoso­ev­er shall say un­to this moun­tain, Be thou re­moved, and be thou cast in­to the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall be­lieve that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have what­so­ev­er he saith.”

Your con­fes­sion can make you or break you, for “death and life are in the pow­er of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit there­of.” (Proverbs 18:21). I want you to know that you can do all things through Christ who strength­ens you. You are more than a con­queror, and greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.

De­clare what God says about you.

Al­so, if you are go­ing to rise to your full po­ten­tial, at times you need to step out of your com­fort zone. Be­ing un­com­fort­able will not kill you; God wants to ex­pand you, but you must po­si­tion your­self so that He can. I con­clude, have faith not just in God, but have faith in your­self that you can rise to your full po­ten­tial. There are peo­ple out there wait­ing for you to show up; you sim­ply can­not dis­ap­point them. There is some­thing great in you; al­low oth­ers to re­ceive from it. This is your time to rise and shine for God’s ho­n­our and glo­ry.

Stay strong and be blessed, my friend.