Maximizing Your Potential

everything was meaningless... So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to one who comes after me. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3; 2:4-8, 10-11,17-18; 12:13-14). Work and effort that focus on self are meaningless. It doesn’t matter what you accomplish, none of it will bring you satisfaction unless you give from what you have. Nor will your accumulated riches bring you happiness, for they are useless and meaningless if you don’t understand and seek to fulfill God’s purpose for giving them to you. Work and effort that focus on self are meaningless. You must share what you earn before it can bring you pleasure and satisfaction because sharing ensures that the blessings you have received will be passed on and others will also be blessed. This basic principle of sharing is foundational for maximizing your potential. If you refuse to share, your potential will kill you because you cannot enjoy freedom in your conscience when you are acting against your natural design to give. Pleasure will end, but conscience abides until it has completed its assignment. It works on you until you acknowledge the error of your ways. Only by releasing all God has given you can you have a pure and holy conscience before Him and find meaning in life. Pursuing selfish pleasure always destroys the one who seeks it. In a similar manner, unshared potential consumes the person who seeks to hold it tightly for selfish gain. Selfishness Destroys the Joy of Giving First, selfishness destroys God’s pleasure in watchingyou pass on all He has given you. Near the end of His life, Jesus reminded His disciples that they could not accomplish anything apart from Him. The same is true for our lives. Even as Jesus remained in fellowship and conversation with God throughout His life, so we must abide in Him. Without this consistent association with God, our fruitfulness suffers and we become no more than a branch to be thrown into the fire. The power of potential is gone. (See John 15.) This absence of power hurts both the person who has withdrawn from God and God Himself. He created us to bear fruit that reflects His nature and glory. When we neglect to fulfill this purpose, we grieve the heart of God. God’s pleasure in Jesus was evident when He spoke from a cloud at the time