Are You Living Up to Your Potential?

One of my favorite passages in the entire Bible is found in Proverbs 4:18. It declares: “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the day is perfect.” I like it because it perfectly captures that sense of profound positivity that permeates all of Scripture. For the children of God, life should be a continually ascending journey, a perpetual movement toward ever-higher levels of maturity and personal development. God has created us to be perpetually capable of improvement, to become better, stronger, wiser, more intelligent and cultured, and more astute at living life each day. God’s purpose is for us to learn even from our failures, to benefit from the ongoing struggle with our shortcomings, and to use every experience, good or bad, as a stepping-stone toward personal greatness.

God, the Bible says, has made us “a little lower than the angels.” That mysterious expression alludes to the innate potential that every human being carries within. In every human spirit lies the seed of greatness, the possibility of doing great things, of scaling unimaginable heights. God’s imprint, the divine genetics, is written within us.

The account of the Fall and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden suggests that this almost infinite potential was cut short by the separation from God that resulted from the fundamental disobedience committed by our first parents, Adam and Eve. But when Christ enters our lives through His Spirit, all the power of the Kingdom of God is activated and mobilized on our behalf. We acquire energies and resources we did not have before. Obstructed paths are cleared before us. The wind of God blows behind our ship. We can confidently embark on the adventure of life. In the spiritual realm, God issues an order for all the resources necessary for our personal success to be released. All the power of Heaven awaits our command to support us when we embark on new projects and visions!

In Ephesians 1:17–20, the apostle Paul prays that the believers in Ephesus may receive “the spirit of wisdom and revelation” so that they can fully understand the magnitude of the power they have received as believers in Jesus Christ. Paul suggests that the greatness of the power we have received is so immense that a direct revelation from God is required to understand the vast capacity every Christian inherits to live a powerful and successful life. At one point, Paul clarifies that this is the same power that was mobilized to raise Christ from the dead. Paul prays that his readers may be enabled to understand “what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power.” Evidently, the power we have inherited through the Holy Spirit is truly astonishing!

Why, then, do so many believers live stagnant, mediocre lives, barely scratching the surface of their potential? Why do most of us never enter into the depths of that vast potential God has placed within us? What keeps us from making the most of that generous divine machinery, ready to be mobilized at the slightest stirring of our creativity?

Recognizing the tremendous adaptability of the human brain and the great expansive potential we carry within us should lead us to adopt an attitude of great optimism and hope. It should lead us to banish from our conceptual vocabulary the words “I can’t,” which so often hold us back when the desire for self-improvement arises within us. Rather, it should lead us to embrace the apostle Paul’s inspiring declaration—“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”—as a program for life, as the governing motto of our existence.

Paul knew that with God’s power on our side, through the unlimited grace He has placed within us through His Son Jesus Christ, we can go far beyond our immediate limitations. With the power of the Spirit dwelling within us, we can transcend the pull of our past, the wounds and deformities caused by poverty and lack of education, and the flaws and deficiencies of our personality. We can reach toward a horizon filled with possibilities, where the only limitation lies in our capacity to believe God and our willingness to pay the price of persistently pursuing our dreams until they become a reality. So take flight, and begin making use of the unlimited power that God has already placed within you.