Personal
from Herbert W. Armstrong

TIME – the weekly newsmagazine, made a survey to learn which subject in Time interested most readers. Results? A single page carried weekly, called “People” – was most read. The publishers of Time thereupon started a new magazine, called People. It grew almost instantly into a mass circulation in the millions.

People are most interested in other PEOPLE! But are YOU more interested in other people than in YOURSELF?

Let’s talk about YOU!

What are YOU like? What is your life like? Is your life like most people’s? – sluggish, half alive, only half awake to real possibilities for material success in this world – sound asleep to your real ultimate incredible potential – of what you may be, ultimately and spiritually?

Is your own favorite subject YOURSELF? Seriously, it ought to be! God Almighty had you born for a very great PURPOSE. Any interest you may have in the lives of other people – whether celebrities, movie stars or great personages in the world – cannot affect the PURPOSE God has in YOUR LIFE. And YOUR LIFE is of utmost importance to GOD! Only YOU can accomplish the PURPOSE God has in your life.

People are so quick to appraise others, and so slow to judge themselves.

Which movie star will win the Oscar? Which man (or woman) ought to be the U.S. President? Who’s going to be “athlete of the year”? Some movie stars end up suicides. Some presidential candidates wound up ignominiously. All athletes become too old, “over the hill” or they are on their way out of competition. Your interest in their lives won’t lift you to the ultimate supreme potential for which the Great GOD had you born.

Of course you can derive inspiration, ideas and help from the lives of OTHERS. I did. At or after age 16, I became interested in the life of one of my favorite people – Benjamin Franklin. I read his autobiography. It gripped my interest. I read it a second and a third time. It helped and inspired me. Even my own autobiography has interested a goodly number of people – and I hope helped many.

Also at age 16 a summer-vacation employer infused me with ambition to make something of my life – to become a real success. Ambition is not only desire for accomplishment, it includes the application of the will to drive the self on to greater and continuous EFFORT! I began working at it – arousing myself to greater and greater EFFORT – driving myself on when it would have been easier to just let down and drift along. I was then driving myself toward worldly materialistic success. I was 34 when I first learned something of the AWESOME spiritual potential ahead of me – IF I APPLIED MYSELF TOWARD THAT INCREDIBLE GOAL, which is God’s ultimate supreme purpose for every human! I counted the cost. The cost was going to be very high – in determined effort and application when it would be easier to just “let down,” in opposition, in sacrifice, in persecution, in driving persistence in face of seemingly impossible obstacles.

Now, for 55 more years, I have persevered toward that goal – in hard work, living a life of SERVING and giving instead of GETTING, in enduring criticism, opposition, persecution, almost every discouragement yet, in living FAITH driving on! I haven’t laid up any material goods or financial estate – but I have laid up UNBELIEVABLE spiritual riches in happiness, service and spiritual accomplishments in an IMMORTAL LIFE to go on continuously for ever and ever! As I said in a recent “Personal” just as Howard Hughes did take something with him when he died, and so do we all, I have been laying up spiritual treasure to be enjoyed in indescribable accomplishment throughout all eternity.

But now while talking about interest in the lives of PEOPLE, what about yours? Is it like that of most people – half awake even to your possibilities for material success in this world? Are you, like the majority, using less than half of your normal MIND power? Are you, like most PEOPLE today, utterly UNAWARE of the supreme PURPOSE the Great GOD has as YOUR OWN ULTIMATE POTENTIAL? It is SO OVERWHELMING as to be almost beyond human belief – yet it’s REAL and it’s TRUE!

IF you would like to have UNDERSTANDING of this ultimate supreme human potential, I’ll be happy to send you, gratis, my newest booklet, Never Before Understood. Also, if you’ll really DO SOMETHING to CHANGE YOUR LIFE into GOD’S WAY, I’ll send you a copy of my book, The Incredible Human Potential, also gratis.

Consider, now, what YOUR life OUGHT to be. It should be healthy, based on a right diet, sufficient sleep and normal but not excessive exercise. You should be vigorously, dynamically alive, physically and mentally, AWAKE to the real PURPOSE of human life – to become, by development of righteous godly CHARACTER, ultimately a divinely born spirit-composed son of GOD – actually a GOD being in the GOD FAMILY! You should be dynamically and spiritually inspired with a WILL to live GOD’s WAY OF LIFE, in enraptured STUDY of HIS WORD to guide you in living GOD’s WAY, with vigorously active SERVICE and devotion to development of God’s spiritual CHARACTER into your life.