The Ticket To Success:

By Adenuga Sunday Joseph

To pursue success and attain to it, you must be sponsored. Success is like a big mountain, climbing it to the top is a task that needs a lot of assistance, help and input from higher powers and forces. You will observe that few people occupy the top positions in life, business, and government; and even in spiritual arena. The bottom position is so much crowded that there is congestion. Getting to the top is strictly by admission or by a power sponsoring you. For instance, the president of your country can make you a millionaire in one day. If you are qualified, and he makes you a minister in his cabinet, and you know what you are doing, poverty may never come near your family again in your own generation.

If your president likes you and you are qualified; clean honest contract may be awarded to you for execution, and if well executed, you get more contracts and in the process, you become a millionaire. How did that come about? It came because your president sponsored you to the top, in other words you got to the top by the connection and invitation of a higher power or force. Getting to the top is not possible without having people who loves you, believes in you, and are ready to help you make it to the top. Spiritually, there are sponsors and forces that help people to attain to the top positions of life. Without a spiritual backup or force behind you it is almost impossible to become successful in this evil world.

Sources of spiritual sponsors:

There are only two spiritual forces in the universe, the forces of GOD and that of the devil. The truth is that the devil can sponsor your trip to the mountaintop of success but I told you earlier, it is not completely free, there is always a very bad string attached to it. Every successful endeavor is either helped to the top by an evil spiritual support or good spiritual support. The good spiritual support is from the Almighty God. He subsidizes and funds people’s trip to the top if invited to do so. This assistance to the top is equally not free; the blood of JESUS pays for it. However we equally have a part to play: we are not to sit down and have Him do everything for us, there are demands. We read the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 11: 29,30

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy; and my burden is light.

The yoke of Jesus is easy, but there is a burden too, but it is light. What is this yoke? These yokes are what God expects us to do, some of them are not easy on the surface, but we are helped from the inside to do them. For instance, giving is not easy, to some it is a yoke, but if you give, the Bible says that you will receive in abundance and God cannot lie. It takes faith and rugged determination to follow and obey this injunction.

Paul told Timothy to fight the good fight of faith. You need to be ready to stand your ground in faith, we shall be persecuted for His namesake, and opposition will rise because of our faith. If you stand fast, you shall get there.
Let me explain this with a real life experience that I passed through at the commencement of my ministry. The Lord had said to me, “Go and teach people how to make a good success of their lives in this difficult world.” We started the Success Dimension Church in earnest, but the people refused to come to our church, after a few months some close people suggested we fold up, but I knew what God told me, it was a fight of faith. I had to stay put to fulfill what He has called me to do upon the earth. It was not a very easy yoke to carry on in those early days, many weak people would have abandoned the work and go after other things. It was not easy for me, after preparing a powerful message, get to church and meet nobody apart from my wife and children; but I knew what it takes and thank God today.
I really thank God today that I was made able by Him to stay in that assignment until today. Psalm 75:5,6

For promotion cometh neither from the east; nor from the west; nor from the south. But God is the Judge: He putteth down one, and setteth up another.

Lasting success is a promotion that comes only from the Lord. If you allow the devil to sponsor you, your end will be very calamitous.

God and the wicked kings of Israel:
Israel was the nation God set apart for Himself to love and to cherish, a nation that would model the plan of God for mankind, a nation that ought to teach others how to serve God. From the Old Testament, we see that the every time a king loved the Lord, served Him with all his heart and follow His precepts and laws; that king always bring prosperity upon all Israel: and that king always ended up becoming very great.
Late King Saul started well, but his failure began the day he disobeyed the Lord. One of the qualities of King David was that he had a heart for God. David was not a perfect man from any angle you may look at it, he committed greater and more grievous sins than even Saul: but David always repented of his sins. He knew how to humble himself before God and plead for mercy. The magic of walking with God is not in being perfect but in knowing how to find grace and obtain His mercy to help in time of need: it is knowing how to worship Him with all our heart, and strength. From the Bible we learnt that the more you know God and serve Him, the more your prosperity and peace. The first official king of Israel was Saul, he prospered as long as he served the Lord with all his heart, and disobedience and lack of total trust in the word of the Lord led him to loose the kingdom to David.
David was wise because he was able to maintain a good relationship with God despite his shortcomings and mistakes. Through humility and fear of God, he succeeded in becoming a man after God’s heart. He walked in God’s way so much that the love that God had for him got a promise for him from God that Israel’s throne will always be occupied by his descendants if they follow and obey like David their father.
Solomon prospered and the whole of Israel enjoyed peace because he loved the Lord and walked in His precepts. As soon as Solomon forsook the way of the Lord, problem began. What was the result? Although Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king, the kingdom of Israel was divided into two, Israel and Judah. Rehoboam’s heart was not fully out to serve the Living God, and so he lost greater part of the kingdom to his servant. Rehoboam reigned over Judah while Jeroboam reigned over Israel.
Those who fear the Lord always prosper. Jeroboam who reigned over Israel after the division of the kingdom did evil in the sight of the Lord, so he did not prosper and whole of Israel was plunged into chaos because their king did not honor the Lord in all his ways.
Thank God for the New Testament: it was sealed with the blood of Jesus our high priest. He went into the real holy of holies in heaven (not the ones built by human hands, which were a pattern of the real/original). He presented his own blood to wash us of all our sins; not like the blood of bulls or any other animal that could not remove our guilt and make us children: His own righteous blood was able to satisfy the righteous claim of God. As he was dying on the cross to fulfill this glorious assignment, the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom, releasing the Holy Spirit from the confinement of earthly holy of holies to the hearts of men and women. He rose again from the dead to become the first person to be born-again by the Holy Spirit of God. You know, he died spiritually, which means He was cut off from God when He carried your sins and mine (and for the whole world). No wonder He cried, “My Father, My Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” God’s eyes are pure and cannot behold iniquity; Jesus was carrying our iniquities, infirmities, sorrow, poverty, diseases etc. He was separated from God, and this was a form or type of spiritual death. He went to defeat the devil and all his cohorts in hell and took the keys of death from the enemy. Hebrews 2: 14,15.

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
He also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death
He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil;
And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime
subject unto boundage.

He died physically (Separation from this physical world), and he died spiritually (separated from God and light), just for the purpose of bringing many sons to glory. The Son of God became the son of man so that through his death and resurrection, He can turn many sons of men to become sons of God. Romans 8:11 is a beautiful scripture, read it carefully below

But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead dwells in you, He that raised Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.

The Holy Spirit worked, and raised up Christ from the dead, He is alive today and forever. He rose up physically, and spiritually was born-again, the concept of being born again actually means re-union of man's spirit with God The Holy Spirit; It means the re-establishment of a rapport that was broken; it means the impartation of God's life into the spirit of man; it means the radiation of God's light or word into the heart of man.
Jesus came to make us a people that the devil cannot ever conquer , We are a set of people that the devil fears and the Angels are envying. If you are a child of God, and you have confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died and rose again the third day, then you are too dangerous for the devil or any of his agents either human or spiritual. There is someone in you that makes you not just different but peculiar. This will only work for you if you know it, believe it and accept it as been true for you as a person.
You are not ordinary, 1John4:4 started by saying that you are of God, meaning you are made of God; you are made of God's stuff or material. The table on which I wrote this book was made of wood, so I can say without any fear of error that this table is of tree. Do you agree with me? Every intelligent fellow knows that any table made of wood can be said to be 'of tree'.
When the Bible says in 1John4:4 that you are of God, He is saying your whole stuff is God's material, there is a rob off of God on you. That verse continued by saying that, "you have overcome them," meaning that you have overcome evil, failure, sickness, death, debt, weakness, sorrow, and so on. You have the power to overcome because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
Success is easy to attain when you love the Lord. No matter what you are going through and the challenges you are facing now, the truth is that The Lord loves you as much as He loves anyone on this planet earth. The secret of enjoying more love from Him than others is the way you respond to this general love, your response to the general love which He has for every human being can make Him committed to you and your course more than many other people's. The more He commits Himself to you, the more prosperity you will enjoy.
What Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, explains my point further, read it below

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Read also the following scripture from Deuteronomy 8:18

But thou shall remember The Lord thy God: for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He sware unto thy fathers as it is this day.

If you neglect the God factor in your pursuit of success, you can never attain to the good success we talked about in this book. God is the one who gives you power to get wealth, to attain to the level of good success. See below what God said in 3John2

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
The will of God is very clear concerning your prosperity and success. It is God's will for you above all things that you prosper tremendously and enjoy good health even as your soul prospers. Dear Reader, get hooked with God! Nothing can replace God's factor in your bid to succeed in life.