This is an excerpt from “The 7 Habits of Godly Christians,” I would assume that you are a Christian who wants to be successful, content, and happy. You want to live a good life and experience the rich blessings of God in this life as well as the next.

You’re undoubtedly well educated and smart as well, and I would guess this is not the first book you’ve read or listened to that has the potential of answering life’s most important questions for you, in particular how to achieve your dreams and goals in this life. In other words, this is not your first rodeo in your own pursuit of genuine success and happiness.

Still, you haven’t found the answers you’re looking for, and as hard and diligently as you’ve worked to achieve your dreams, they seem to elude you. You’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money to find answers, but now you’ve found yourself questioning the so-called experts in all those books and seminars.

Welcome home my friend. I’ve been there, and I know what it’s like to spend decades searching for the answers to these questions, too. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours pursuing success and happiness. Honestly, I don’t know another Christian who pursued success with more diligence, perseverance, and sweat and blood than me, while faithfully trying to live for God, be a faithful husband and a good father to my three boys and daughter.

Having spent a lifetime in this pursuit and trying everything I could, having read thousands of books, having tried many business opportunities, and yet not achieving the victories I sought, I can identify with your struggle. I’ve felt the same emotions you’ve felt. I know what hope feels like, and I know the disappointment of failure. I know the paralyzing sadness of depression. I know where you’re at. I’ve been there.

Here’s some exceedingly good news for you. I found my answers, implemented them, and after many years of perseverance, I can tell you I discovered how you can find the answers you are seeking. In this book, I offer you a lifetime of experience, research, and faithfulness to God, and I share the answers that can change your life forever.

Unlike the get-rich-quick seminars, the motivational seminars, and the multi-level marketing schemes, what I offer you in this book doesn’t have a 99% failure rate. What I share in this book has flipped the failure rate to a success rate that is almost guaranteed to succeed, provided you actually understand and implement what I share.

This life is hard. There’s no doubt about that. If you’ve lived more than five minutes, you know life is hard, and if you’ve lived for more than half a century as I have, you could share dozens of examples proving that life is both hard and unfair.

What happens too often, though, is that life can get out of balance, so there is far too much pain and far too little happiness. Too many people get stuck in a pattern, and they don’t know how to break free. Whether you live in the inner city of Chicago or in a remote place like Sand Point, Alaska on the Aleutian Chain, you may not have a single person within your sphere of influence who can reveal to you the wisdom of the ages that can help you escape  mediocrity.

This is exactly why a book like this can reach you with answers when there is no other person and no other way to find life altering answers to your deepest questions. Thank God for ebook and audio book technologies that put knowledge and wisdom at our fingertips—literally and instantaneously!

In your heart of hearts, you’ve always known there’s a life out there for you that is fulfilling, exciting, rewarding, and that holds the secret of being content and happy and successful. You just haven’t known how to get there.

This is not your typical success or motivational book that hypes you up with all kinds of promises of wealth and materialism and fantasies. Not even close. I highly doubt you’ve ever run across a book like this in your own lifetime. The wisdom I will share with you is not mine. I’m no genius, and I haven’t discovered the “secret of life” that has never been discovered by anyone else in all of history.

I learned the wisdom of the ages in life’s school of hard knocks and from wiser men who were ahead of me, and after applying that wisdom diligently, I found it was true and that it worked. I found that it trumped all the success nonsense the world had been trying to sell me my whole life.

I don’t suppose I even need to mention this, but as a genuine Christian, you know as I do that Christians have a sense of peace and access to God’s wisdom that unbelievers do not have. No matter how much unbelievers pursue principles of success, no matter how many books they read or seminars they attend, they will always be lacking that ultimate key to success in this life and beyond—a relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ, and they will not have access to a “peace which surpasses understanding,” nor will they have access to God’s infinite wisdom.

This means that the phrase I use in this book, “Highly Effective Christians” is a very special phrase, and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Christians will deliver far more power and freedom in one’s life than all the secular wisdom you could possibly practice.

What I will share with you works consistently when you learn and apply it and will pay you rich dividends the rest of your life.

I promise you real answers, eternal truths, and practical guidance. The wisdom I share is wisdom of the ages, and it is grounded in what is true, because this wisdom comes from The True God. While some teach worldly wisdom without spiritual wisdom, and some teach spiritual wisdom without worldly wisdom, I believe both are essential to navigate this world successfully, and I’ll share exactly how to do that.

I’ll begin this book with this powerful biblical admonishment:

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:12-13 (NIV)

And I want to remind you of this incredible promise from God:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

God does want to prosper you, but we need to work with his definitions, his standards, his rules, and not the world’s in a way that excludes God.

Are you ready for a life altering experience? I hope and pray the ideas in this book will help you leave discontent behind forever, and experience the fulness of life and joy that God has for you.