Personal Development training that has been popular for decades. I stumbled across this about 12 years ago when I discovered famous trainers like the late Jim Rohn, he was one of my favorites. Jim had a personable and down to earth manner of teaching and he delivered it with the rise and fall of his unique voice. I’ll never forget his story about lying to the Girl Scouts selling cookies and how that was a catalyst to turning his life around. As a result, I always support Girl Scouts selling cookies.
You may be more familiar with popular contemporary trainers like Tony Robbins (though he’s getting up there in age now) or any number of celebrities who have guru personas filling the landscape. Inspiration, motivation, and getting over fear to achieve your goals are often the focus of personal development.
Learning personal development training is often rooted in the goal of a non-business person wanting to gain the needed characteristics to succeed in the business world. It’s what I would classify as self-confidence and essential marketing skills related to building a self-employed business. Again, much of the training involves getting over fear.
When personal development goes off the rails
There’s a common problem with many of those who seek to run their self run business: they become addicted to personal development training. They believe that, because they are training, they think that is running business. Then, they fall into the trap of doing nothing but personal development instead of doing that results in quantifiable growth of a business, as in, driving in measurable steps to what will result in earning money.
Photo by Eva Bronzini on Pexels.com
Although the value of trainers is definitely important, training is it is also a business. The people who simply continue to take the classes and buy the books become consumers rather than providers of service or products. Similarly, In the church there may be some relationship to maintaining popularity and acceptance instead of proclaiming repentance from sin, judgment from God and the gospel. You make other people feel good, they keep on coming and the cycle is driven by this inter acceptance.
As in business training, you need to take proactive steps, planned out to deliver results. In the church, worshipping God and the understanding and spreading of the gospel is where the rubber meets the road.
An important question, particularly in the church is, in every endeavor is who is getting the credit and is the truth being proclaimed?
When personal development really goes off the rails
Here’s another slogan heard in personal development that is meant to inspire people their ambition to achieve business goals.
“Freedom is being able to choose what you want to do, when you want to do it with whomever you want to do it with.”
That may be all fine and dandy, but that can also lead some very wealthy people who believe that power is expressed in their fantasies through the agencies of the likes of a Jeffrey Epstein.
I see a common pattern of those who want to make their own idols, including atheists will resolve on their own to make sure their sinful obsession is not restricted by their make believe god, and it’s almost always a form of sexual immorality and almost certain to involve the breaking of every Commandment.
You see it in the secular churches all the time. I accept a God who condones my sexual immorality. How about coveting? I accept a God who condones my coveting of every shiny thing that I do not have.
Think about that one for a bit and you may agree that you will never be happy if you actually believe true autonomy is possible through ones own efforts.
The question ought to be, not how much wealth you need to achieve the give you that kind of deceptive control (because it’s often the objective to become more materially wealthy), but how does your attitude need to change in order to be at peace with what you have.
The more relevant question becomes whose will are you trying to fulfill?
Many people find that if they have a rise in self-confidence, they think they are doing good. They may reach a point that suppressing fear is a noble goal.
Building up their personal development, becomes an end in itself, until it runs its course. The reality of being God’s creation is there is a God-sized void in our soul that because of sin we are resistant to accept. Oh, and not to mention, we are dead in our sins.
Positive focus of development training
Once students of personal development for business are willing to reach out to others, they can apply practical psychology intended to build rapport with strangers, they can become better at sales and marketing abilities interacting, communicating, and possibly persuading others that you can ofter something they need. These can all be put to good use in an effort to build a business or even build up the membership of the local church.
One aspect of marketing is discovering what others need and being able to offer them a solution. Naturally it is better if what you have to offer is something the customer actually understands they need.
The church may not draw people to hear the gospel for the gospel’s sake, but the church may assist unbelievers with their immediate needs and so the gentiles see the lives of Christians who are filled with the spirit and who bear spiritual fruit to share so that others may develop an ear and hear the gospel.
What about military training?
That’s a different approach to how people learn in military basic training, where each recruit is deprived of their individuality and recreated with the desirable traits required for a member of the armed forces. The techniques are systematic, unrelenting and sometimes cruel, all to develop the needed ability to fulfill a potentially lethal mission, obey lawful orders, work closely as an supportive team, and live to a higher code under the expectations and consequences defined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (i.e. military law).
Whether for business or for combat, action is often required to act in the face of fear. The question becomes, what should be feared? Is it only our personal failure of not achieving a goal or mission or the fear of what other’s think?
What kind of fear is critical?
Aside from burning your hand on the flame or staying off a busy highway to keep from getting hit by a speeding truck, or rising above the intimidating low expectations of others (and your own) for your life, where is fear critical?
While the worldly belief that fear may kill more dreams that failure ever will, living without a fear of God will result in the world’s wisdom which eventually sets one on a perilous course leading to the righteous fury and wrath of Almighty God.
Although the United States is founded on principles of people living “under God”, whether one is spending their time addicted to personal development training or opening their life in service to the Country in the military, there is no expectation that people surrender their life to God.
Whether one is in the world of business development, which personal development is often gear up for, or serving in the military, these activities are generally assumed to be ecumenical. In other words, there is no expectation that one be of a particular religious faith.
Ironically, many mainstream Christian churches do not expect that their congregants adhere to the the doctrines defined in the Bible, this effectively leads people from the true God to a god of their own making (idolatry). All religions that are not Gospel and Jesus Christ centered, will be very dogmatic about man-made ideas that are not Gospel and Jesus Christ centered. with threats of being chastised, penalized, kicked out of their organizations, even killed if you do not follow their rules.
Paths leading away from the Gospel
Unless a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and has surrendered their life to Him, striving not to violate the moral codes set forth in Scripture, that allows such things as personal development, charismatic trainers and media personalties, the organization (religious or otherwise), the military mission, and even a church denomination can all become surrogates for the relationship that is critically above all others. In other words, since we are designed to worship, these other life pursuits can easily become what becomes paramount in our direction and values in life.
In short, achievement in the world can give us a false sense of our own goodness, they can cause us to be callous to our corrupted sinful nature. They can mask fear where there ought to be an abundance of fear.
And do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. – Matthew 10:29
On the other hand,
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 1 John 4:18
Perfect love only comes from the Creator, only from God through the grace of God.
The Scripture is clear, left to our own devices, we are all dead in our sins.
And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. – Ephesians 2:1-3 (LSB).
This underlies the truth that worldly pursuits can become the idols that God warns us about, creations of man that we throw our allegiances to rather than to God Almighty and his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Beginning and the End.
In your life, how has the plethora of self-help and personal development drowned out the gospel, God and the need for salvation?
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel from the late Pastor John MacArthur, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
All quoted excerpts have footnotes removed, usually from Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), sometimes from New International Version (NIV), on rare occasion the Amplified Bible (AMP).
Copyright © 2025 ChallenYee.com Some Rights Reserved
3-8-24