The Principle of Consistency

To experience the deeper life, we have to learn that the successful life is not achieved by jumping into the deepest part of it all at once, by leaping from ground-level to the mountaintop in one giant move, but moving there step-by-step. It is what I am calling the Principle of Consistency.

Steve May writes: "We've all heard examples of people performing feats of extra-human strength in a moment of crisis, such as the man who lifted the 500 pound rock off his friend during a mountain-climbing accident or the woman who lifted the car that had fallen on her son while he was changing a flat. It was a momentary burst of adrenalin that got them through the situation, and it's an interesting phenomenon that has been documented several times.  However, none of the people who have experienced this phenomenon are ready to join the Olympic weight-lifting team. If you want to be a world-class weight lifter, you don't get there with one super-human burst of adrenalin, you get there by going through the daily discipline of working out and building strength."

If you lifted a 500-pound barbell from your waist to your shoulders one time (like any of us could actually do that), we all agree that would do nothing to change your physique. But if you lifted 50-pounds twenty times a day, four days a week, after a few weeks you would notice a change in your biceps. It is the principle of consistency.

The principle of consistency states that the actions you take day after day determine the kind of life you create for yourself in the future. Paul refers to this principle in Galatians 6:7, where he wrote, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." You've probably heard this referred to the as the Law of the Harvest. You reap what you sow. Every day you sow seeds of an abundant life, or you sow seeds of mundaneness and mediocrity. The seeds you sow on a daily basis will determine the harvest you reap.

This is what Paul said in verses 8, 9: "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

Paul's talking about the principle of consistency. It is repetition and consistency that determines your harvest.

This week, we are going to look how to develop this principle into our lives, because, again, this principle will either lead you to a life of abundance, or a life of scarcity.