Three Principles for Success in 2016
Believing that God’s principles for life exist won’t do anything for you. You have to commit to them. You have to put them into practice.

IRON LADY is a film about the late Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain. Meryl Streep gives a brilliant performance, as usual, but the movie had conflicting effects on me.

First it was a bit depressing, because it shows Thatcher as an elderly woman, struggling with dementia, living in flashbacks of her years in politics. And given that the producers are no friend to her conservative principles, the film gave short shrift to her successes emphasizing instead the upheaval caused by her policies as well as the strain her leadership style put on her relationships. Comments like, “When I’m out of politics I’m going to run a business, it’ll be called rent-a-spine,” did not endear her to her friends, much less her enemies.

However, the film couldn’t completely hide her achievements. Thatcher’s principled leadership helped bring down the Soviet Union, rescued the UK’s economy and kept Great Britain from becoming a 1980’s version of Greece, among other things.

In the process of telling that story the movie highlighted something that Jesus said and that the Bible teaches on practically every page: Believing in principles is one thing, but it’s the practice that changes things.

Jesus summed it up nicely in Matthew 7:24-27: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Emphasis added).

We can break down what he said into a four-part formula.

1. God has given us principles to live by.
2. We cannot be passive about them, noncommittal. We have to put them into practice.
3. We can expect a crisis.
4. We will reap a harvest.

Three Principles for a Successful 2016

Financial Security – Work hard. Spend less than you earn. Give away a tenth. Save a tenth. Do it for a long time and you will experience prosperity. (See Luke 6:38; Proverbs 6:6-8).

Successful Relationships – Look for the good in people and they will look for the good in you. But be discerning. Not everyone is worthy of your confidence. (See Matthew 7:1-2, 6.)

Leadership
(See Proverbs 18:13 & 15)
I love the way the late Stephen Covey formulated these: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

The Bible is first and foremost the revelation of God’s plan, through the sacrifice of his son, to rescue his highest creation from the penalty, power, and presence of the most destructive force in the universe: sin. But in the process of that revelation God gave his people bushels of principles for living life on a sin-cursed planet. Tom Minnery, in Focus on the Family Citizen, explained it this way, “[When] I was younger, I tended to believe that certain principles were true because they were in the Bible. But year by year, as I have read much of the social research, I have come to look at this a new way–that certain principles are in the Bible because they are true. They are true and helpful for all people, regardless of whether they accept or reject the Bible’s central claim. ”

The Bible is a book of principles, all kinds of principles for all kinds of life situations and God has been very gracious to give them to us. Put them into practice for 2016 and you will see their fruit for the rest of your life.