Press the arrow to listen to Matthew West sing “The Motions” as you read today’s devotion about personal progress.

Scripture
Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked so hard to achieve. Be diligent so that you receive your full reward. 2 John 1:8

Observation
Who invented the grocery store? Ever hear of the A&P? My mom used to shop in one of their small downtown stores with the rooster weathervane on the top. The A&P by the 1930′s was America’s leading grocery store chain, boasting 16,000 stores and $1 billion in revenue annually. Today they have a mere 447 stores and have fallen to number 21. What went wrong? The formula that made them successful killed their success. Their method was to build tidy stores on the edge of downtown. It worked until the supermarket came along. Instead of building bigger stores in the suburbs, A&P kept with the plan and lost all they had achieved.

Success is not stable it is a growing thing. A plant may be perfect one day, but let watering lapse and soon it will be dead. What we have achieved in life is transient. We can lose everything not just by doing nothing but by doing what we’ve always done. It is the choice not to improve that can cost us dearly. The rules that made us successful can be our downfall if we don’t adapt.

Application
My goal in life must be not a great middle but a great ending. There is no place for coasting. It is time to live with the perspective of a start up company no matter how old I may grow. In this little book of 2 John, John is protecting the church from false doctrine not by teaching theology, but by reminding them to really love each other. If there is anything I need to excel at it must be that. I must love extravagantly, even those who do not reciprocate.

Prayer
Father, reinvent me today so that I do not lose what you have given to me. Do not make me something different, instead take me back to the basics of love. Reinvent me backwards to the core of who you have made me to be. Amen.