Every opportunity God gives us demands a steadfast, persevering spirit. Ambition alone is not enough. Many people with ambition never accomplish anything.

To seize an opportunity and bring it to reality, you must be willing to take a risk. You must be willing to lay everything on the line. When you live by faith, times are going to come when you will have to lay everything you have on the line. You must be willing to lose everything in order to seize an opportunity.

You can't hold anything back if you live by faith. So often we say, "I want to live by faith, but I'm not willing to do this or that. I'm not willing to go that far." When you say that, you're making provision for failure.

Ambition—wanting to do it—is not enough. You have to be willing to take risks.

You have to be willing to go out on a limb, trust God and be prepared to fight a good fight.

Real Heroes
Throughout the Word of God, we find men and women who have influenced entire generations. They have influenced entire nations by obeying God, seizing opportunities and turning vision into action.

Hebrews 11 contains the Hall of Fame of men and women of faith in the Old Testament. This chapter reveals the story of people who seized the opportunity to trust God. They were willing to take risks. They were willing to lay their lives on the line. The Bible says some of them even died in faith.

We all want to live in faith. But are we willing to die in faith? People who are willing to die in their faith are not afraid to take risks when they know that they have heard from God.

Source: One Word From God Can Change Your Destiny
by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers