Gregory Dickow - 6 Words That Will Skyrocket You to Your Calling
All right, welcome to another episode of, "Think Like a Champion". This is a podcast dedicated to helping you win in every way and for you to enjoy every day. God's called you to win. God's called you to experience joy and to enjoy the life that He created us to enjoy and to share with others. I want to thank everyone who's written a review or shared this podcast on social media. Thank you so much. I appreciate you partnering with me to help expand our community of champions. And everyone in life needs a community. And in this case we're building a community of champions. And it all begins with thinking like a champion. And you know, you can think that you call yourself a champion. But what I want to encourage you to expect and to believe and to begin to see happen in your life is for others to see and call you a champion.
So, this particular podcast I titled it, Called a Champion. What does it take to truly be called a champion? What does it take to truly experience the kind of life God created you to experience? And it all starts with identity. I'm going to give you one word, like four of these words, five of these words, one word, and then what I call it, and how you can manifest this in your life. So, what does it take to be a champion? What does it take to have victory in life, victory over your habits, victory over your emotions, victory over your attitudes, victory over financial problems, victory over health issues, sickness, crisis, whatever problems you're having at home? What does it take to get a victory? You know, when a football team or baseball team, when they beat everybody else all the way to the end, they're the champions. In our lives it's not as black and white as that. But we begin to see patterns show up in our lives, patterns of consistent harvests based on consistent seeds that we plant.
And so, what does it take, in my estimation, for us to truly get wins in life? What does it take for you to get a win in your family, for you, for you to see your family better, for you to see your finances better, for you to see your health better? What does it take to get wins? You don't have to be like somebody else, but to get wins where your family is actually happy, and peaceful, and enjoy being around each other. Where your finances are not... You're not running out of money before you run out of month. That you actually have enough. And you're saving and you're growing and you're thinking about what you use it for. Some people think they need more money, but what they really need is better stewardship of the money that they have. But before we even get to stewardship of our gifts, our talents, our finances, because we need to be good managers of those things, we need something that will give us our why.
In other words, why should I be a good steward? What should be motivating me to want to develop myself? Well, the first word and the most important word that I can give you is love; love. To have victory in your life, the first ingredient is love. And love is a calling. Love is calling you. I call it love is a call to Sonship. Love is a call to Sonship. And when I say Sonship, that applies to men and women to be sons and daughters of God. Sonship, Daughtership, we understand we're all on this same ship who want to be sons and daughters. We want to realize or see ourselves as sons and daughters of God. If you just see yourself as a servant of God and not as a Son of God, you're going to work for God, but you're not going to enjoy God. And you're not going to have peace. And you're not going to have a sense of purpose, and a sense of reason, and a why.
That's why the first word, the first ingredient for a victorious, successful life is love. Love is a call to Sonship. The first and foremost thing that God calls us to is to be a part of His family, identifying ourselves and having an identity as a son or daughter of God and a son or daughter of God's house. It's a call to love. It's a call to family. What is the number one thing that a family should have? Love. The number one thing that will make a family a happy family, love. The family of God is one huge family. We're not always a happy family, but we can become a happy family. Because so many people are driven to please God, driven to impress God, driven to impress somebody else rather than driven to love. And love is the call. It's God calling us with His love. He's calling us and saying, "Come into the family. Be one of my sons. Be one of my daughters". Don't just be a servant. Don't just be a person standing by. Don't just be on the sidelines.
Come into this family, this family of love. Come into this family. Come into this reality of your Sonship, a reality of who you are, a reality of this identity. Do you identify yourself as God's creation, or do you identify yourself as God's son or daughter? Do you identify yourself? Me, do I identify myself as a preacher? Do I identify myself as a father, as a husband, as a business person, as a pastor, as a leader? No. Identify myself as a son in God's family, a loved, beloved son of God's family. And when I see... And a beloved son of my Heavenly Father. And when I see myself that way, it makes me a good father or a better father. It makes me a better man. It makes me a better husband. It makes be a better business man. It makes me a better pastor. It makes me a better leader. You see? How do you see yourself? This is a call to Sonship.
The first ingredient to a successful, victorious, happy, fulfilling life, enjoying your life, is love. The love that God has for you that He would call you His son. Behold... First John three, verse one, one of my favorite verses of all time. Behold what manner of love is this, that we should be called the sons and daughters of God! What manner of love is this that we should be called? He's just blown away. John is just blown away by this reality. And he's like, "Wow, look at this. Behold what kind of love! What kind of... What manner of love? What type of love? What an unworldly, unearthly, unheard of kind of love that we should be called. Wow, that we should be called the sons and daughters of God; the children of God. We're not called the servants of God, although we serve. We're not called the stewards of God, although we are stewards. We're not called the managers of God. We're called the sons and the daughters of God".
And that call to Sonship is where your life will go from where it's at right now to skyrocket to where you have been created and destined to be. You cannot rise without knowing that you have been called to Sonship, and you are loved beyond what words could ever describe. I can't even describe it here. I can't even scratch the surface of it in this podcast. I can't even get you to see it the way that God wants you to see it. And even the way that I want to see it in my life. But I can tell you this. Once you get a taste of it... You may not have it manifesting and showing up in your life every minute of every day. But once you taste it, you will never settle; never, ever want to settle for anything less. You will never settle for any less of a relationship with God. You will not settle for being a good Bible student. You will not settle for being a good, obedient person. You will not settle for being a good, decent citizen. You will not settle for those things.
Those things will happen naturally when you realize what you are called is your called a son or daughter of God. And love is calling you. The first word in life is love. Love, love, love... And the sooner you get ahold of that love that God has for you, the higher you will go in every area of your life. Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay his life down for his friends, the Bible says. You know, it also says Jesus said, "As the Father has loved me," in John 15 nine. As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. The way the father loved Jesus. You are my beloved Son and in you I'm well pleased. Here, I give you My authority. I give you My victory. I give you My destiny. I give you at all. I give it all to you. You are my heir. I give you everything as my Son. That's the same way that He loves us. If you for one moment, just think it.
Think about how the Father feels about the Son, how God the Father feels about Jesus, the Son. His heart can't even contain all of the love that He has for his Son. So, He spills that same love over onto us, and has the same love toward us that He has towards Jesus. Why is this so important? Because to go higher, you have to go deeper in your understanding of love. You have to love yourself better. And the only way to love yourself better is to realize the love that God has for you. You know my prayer for everybody every Valentine's Day, every sweetest day, every holiday, every day period, every day, day... My prayer for people, for you right now, is that you would experience a love so deep that it would change the very fibers of your being. It would change you. It would change the look on your face. It'll change from a... It'll turn a frown into a crown.
Like, I'm talking about when you discover that kind of love. My prayer is that you would experience that kind of love; that you would be loved so deeply. And do you want to know something? Sometimes the only way to get loved that deeply is to love yourself that deeply. And the only way to truly love yourself without it being selfish and narcissistic is to realize how much God loves you. Then you love yourself because He loves you. And then you can love your neighbor as yourself. Because if you don't love yourself, how are you going to love your neighbor? You will love your neighbor in direct proportion to how you love yourself.
How do you treat somebody that you love? If you were in love with somebody right now, how would you treat them? You would take care of them. You would encourage them. You would be kind to them. You would love to be around them. You would inspire them. You would help them to succeed. You would help them to work out if they needed to work out, or to lose weight, or to get in shape. You'd help them to pick better meals. You'd help them to, you know, to be more organized with their time and their finances. You'd do anything to help somebody you love. Do that for yourself. Do that for yourself, because nobody's going to do it for you until you do it for yourself. Now, God will do that for you, but then you have to do it for yourself still. Because you now have the love that God has for you, you can show it to yourself. Boy, I hope that makes sense.
Love is the first word. Love is the first ingredient. Love is the secret. So, love is a calling to Sonship. My next word view is choice, choice, choice. Boy, when we get ahold of what love really is, we get ahold of how powerful it is, we get ahold of how powerful choice is... Choice, it's a call to leadership and personal responsibility. Choice is the call to not remain a victim. Many of us, many more than me, have been victims of something horrendous, have been victims of something terrible, have been victims of something tragic. But choice is the power to no longer be victimized by whatever you were victimized by; to no longer allow that to control you. Choice, it's a call to leadership, to personal responsibility, to discover yourself, to carry yourself, and lead yourself forward.
Then leading others will flow from leading yourself. When you choose to lead yourself to the other side of brokenness. When you choose to lead yourself to the other side of trauma. When you choose to lead yourself to the other side of what was done to you. When you choose to lead yourself to the other side of brokenness, nothing's going to stop you. You know, the call to choice is a call to honesty. Brutally honest with yourself. You know, there's some people that are just. They just find purpose in being brutally honest with us. You know, some people are just brutally honest with others. But until you're that brutally honest with yourself, you shouldn't be that brutally honest with anybody. Frankly, we shouldn't be brutal at all. We should just be honest. It really is no difference. You know, when you think about it.
So choice, it's a call to leadership. It's a call to personal responsibility. That's the second ingredient to living like a champion, going higher, going deeper, and going higher. The third word is discipline. The third ingredient is discipline. It's a call to stewardship. Discipline. Look, everybody has been given the same 24 hours in a day. And everybody is given, for the most part, the same physical limitations. That your only limitation is the limits that you put on yourself. Discipline is pushing yourself beyond your current limitations. That's what discipline is. Discipline is a gift that God has given to every human being. But this world system has brainwashed, and even religion, the world religions have brainwashed people into thinking that they don't have this discipline.
How many people say, "I'm not that disciplined"? You're not that disciplined because you've looked at it like as if it's something that is out there. When really it's a gift that you have inside of yourself to push yourself past your existing limitations. Discipline is the consistent pushing beyond your current limitations. Whether it's I'm disciplining my body by pushing it beyond its limitations, by working out better, eating better, resting better. Discipline in my finances means pushing myself to be more budget-minded, more conscientious of when I'm wasting, more generous, pushing myself to beyond my limit of generosity. Some people say, "Well, what's the right amount to give to God"? The right amount should be that you're giving more and more regularly because you're experiencing more and more gratitude, and you're experiencing more and more in other areas of your life to make you healthier in every other area, which naturally makes you generous.
So, everything in our lives we can push beyond our existing limitations. That's what discipline does. When you discipline yourself to read you're pushing beyond your comprehension; your limitations. You're pushing beyond your focus limitations. How many of us have had to read three or four chapters, or three or four paragraphs, or three or four sentences, three or four pages, and realize we just didn't comprehend any of it, and we go back and start over, or we just give up on it. Go back and start over until you comprehend it. It's like learning a new language. You go back and, you know, fill in the blank over and over until you understand it, until you know it, until you remember it. Discipline is the call to push beyond your limitations as being good stewards of our body, good stewards of our finances, being good stewards of our mouth, our tongue, our words.
Boy, there's a beautiful gift here called discipline. It's the willingness to take an honest look into the broken condition of your life and do the work that is necessary to get better. Whether that's therapy, counseling, prayer, or all of the above. It starts with humility. It starts with being willing to learn, being willing to grow. So, so far, I've given you the word love. It's a call to Sonship. The word choice, it's to call to leadership. The word discipline, it's a call to stewardship. The word multiplication, it's a call to discipleship. Multiplication... In Genesis, chapter one, God spoke to Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply. In John, chapter 15, verse eight, Jesus speaks to His disciples and he says, "By This is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit". That you be fruitful. That you multiply. That you ask and receive. That you plant and you reap. That you sow and you reap. You plant and you harvest. You give and it's given to you.
Multiplication is a key word. We got to stop thinking in terms of addition, in terms of division; and we need to start thinking in terms of multiplication. That we're called to multiply the good in our lives. We're called to multiply ourselves in others. Were called to. If you're a parent, you're called to reproduce better children than yourself. If you're a businessperson, you're called to reproduce better business than the kind of business that you that you did or conducted a year ago or ten years ago. It's being fruitful. It's being a multiplier. Our money will multiply when we invest it properly. It doesn't add. It multiplies. It's the power of compounded interest. It's a multiplying miracle. But it's just a universal system that God put into existence. And you can take advantage of it or it will or you can miss out on the advantage. And it's not that hard to do if you understand it. But you have to see that this ingredient in your life of being a disciple, not just listening to things, but actually being a disciple; following.
My prayer is often almost daily, Lord, that I might see Jesus more clearly, that I might love Him more dearly, and that I might follow Him more nearly. It's a beautiful prayer. You could just start having a prayer life. Say you don't have a prayer life. Go deeper. How do you go deeper? Just start by praying that: "Heavenly Father, let me see Jesus more clearly, so I can love Him more dearly, so I can follow Him more nearly". It really is a great prayer life. If you were to just pray that every day and mean it, your life would get so much better. The next words. I've given you the word love. It's a call to Sonship. The word choice is a call to leadership. The word discipline is a call to stewardship. The word multiplication, it's a call to discipleship. And the word team, it's a call to partnership. The word team, it's a part of, it's a call to partnership.
When Peter put the nets out where Jesus told them, put it in the deep and he let down his net, there were so many fish in that net that his net began to break. And he had to call for, and it literally calls people, the people that he called over, he had to call his partners. And they brought their boat. And they filled Peter's boat and his partner's boat. And both of their boats began to sink. Guess what they needed? They didn't need more fish. They needed more partners. Guess what they needed? They didn't need more fish. They needed more of a team. Listen, everyone in life loves sports because we love the concept of team. Because it is the actualization and it is the manifestation of what everybody knows, a team. We're all called to be a part of a team in one way or another. A family is a team. A church is a team. The guys in this room and the people in this room that are putting this awesome podcast together, we're a team. Everything in life works better when you're a team. T.E.A.M, Together, Everyone Achieves Miracles. Together everyone achieves miracles.
The acronym T.E.A.M. Many have said together, everyone achieves more. But I love that together also, everyone achieves miracles. It's a powerful thought when you think about it. The Call to Partnership. In Luke chapter five, he called over his partners. Come on, help me. Help me catch all these fish. We would see more souls saved; more lives changed. We would see more financial breakthroughs, more miracles, more healings, if we all realized God called us to partner together as a church, as a family, as a community of champions. Team, there's no "I" in team, as everybody has heard, but there is an "I" in win. And if the team is going to win, I have to be on the team. You have to be the I on the team. We all have to be the I on the team to win. It's called a partnership, team. So, so far I've given you these ingredients. Love, it's a call to Sonship. Choice, it's call to leadership. Discipline, it's a call to stewardship. Multiplication, it's a call to discipleship. And team, it's a call to partnership.
And one final word I'll give you today. And this will lead to you rising to the top in life. Not stepping over other people, but rising above your past, above your limitations, above your circumstances, above your imaginations, above your dreams, above what you thought you could ever amount to. One more word, and I'll come back to this word that I concluded earlier, choice. Choice, why? Because when you have love, a call to Sonship; when you have choice, a call to leadership, when you have discipline, a call to stewardship, when you have multiplication, a call to discipleship, when you have team, a call to partnership, you're going to feel sometimes like giving up. So, we need to make another choice. And that choice is to embrace hardship because sometimes it's not easy.
Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes marriage is hard. Sometimes family is hard. Sometimes church is hard. Jobs are hard. Financial situations are hard. The things that are going on in our world. Imagine being in the Ukraine and in a country that's been invaded by another country, and what they have to experience every day. That's hardship. That's hardship that most of us will never have to experience, hopefully. Hardship that no one who experiences it would ever want anybody else to have to experience that. But in life, there's hardship. It's in varying degrees and there's a spectrum, obviously. It's very wide, but we have to realize that when it gets hard, we have to choose to keep going. When it gets hard, there's another choice to be made, to stay in it, to stay with it, to not quit.
I love what Paul says to Timothy in Second Timothy 2. "You therefore, my son, be strong..." "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus". Everything starts with God's grace; God's freedom, God's unmerited love. "And the things that you've heard from me," he says, "in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also". Do you see the multiplication there, the partnership there, the discipleship there? And then he says in verse three, "Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier in Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs everyday life so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops".
Notice what he's saying? He's talking about soldiers, athletes, and farmers. We are all one of those. In one way or another, we are either a soldier in Christ or a soldier in the military, an athlete, we're in some sort of competition that we have to face, or a farmer. A person who plants and harvests their crops. And he says the hard-working farmer ought to be the first to share, have to receive his share of the crops. Hardship means when you're a soldier, you don't entangle yourself in the affairs of everyday life. You will have the affairs of everyday life; everyday life affairs. You will have things to do, but you don't get entangled by them. Every athlete, not every athlete is going to win the prize, but you have to compete to win the prize. That's hard work. It's hard work. Not all farmers are going to have great harvests, but the hard-working ones will.
So, I just pray that you would see that when you recognize these ingredients for being called to champion, these ingredients for what it takes to truly win in life. Love, it's a call to Sonship. Choice, it's call to leadership. Discipline, it's a call to stewardship. Multiplication, it's a call to discipleship. Team, get on a team. Get on a team in your church. If this is your church, get on a team, get involved, plug in. Serve online, serve in person. There're plenty of opportunities. Reach out to us and we will connect you. And choice, when it gets hard, I choose to stay with it. Amen. Let me pray for you.
Father, thank You for this community of champions that You're building us into. I thank You, Lord, that each person connected here will stay with it, stay on this team, stay in this community, and enjoy the mighty harvests that are going to come in the weeks, months, and years to come, in Jesus' Name, Amen!