Bishop Eddie Long: 60 Seconds to Greatness

Holly: Bishop Long, thank you so much for being here with us.  It’s a pleasure to have you on Turning Point.

Bishop Long: I’m honored to be here, thank you.

Holly: I want to talk to you today about your latest book, it’s called “60 Seconds to Greatness.”  And when I saw the title, the first thing that I thought about was, why 60 seconds?  You know, we’re always talking about 40 days and 21 days and all of that, why 60 seconds?

Bishop Long: Well, 60 seconds, because really I focus on the value of a minute and the value of the moment.  The most significant things that happen in people’s lives is because they took advantage of the moment.  God is always present, He’s a very present help in a time of trouble.  And understanding that to be in the moment, that’s when you can capitalize on the fullness of life.

Holly: Okay, now if we’re going to talk about greatness, I think we should probably explain what greatness is.  How do you define greatness and how does someone know that they’ve actually achieved greatness?

Bishop Long: Greatness is that “a-ha” feeling, it’s that “where I can exhale to know for this cause, I was born.”  That is the greatest thing that you could ever walk in.  That gives you a sense a peace.  I might not have the biggest car, be in the biggest house — that’s not what I was called to do. But when I get that sense of significance that, you know what, it does matter that I was born, that’s greatness.  Because it’s really the greatness in the eyes of God.  “Did you fulfill what I sent you to do?”

Holly: I’ve heard a lot of people say, “I’ve been able to achieve some level of success in one area of my life,” let’s say it’s family success.  But there are some other areas, you mention 18 decisions in the book, there are some other areas that I may not have achieved that.  How do we find that balance, so to speak, where we’re able to have a level of success in multiple areas of our lives?

Bishop Long: Again, it begins with a decision; it begins with a decision to actually find balance.  You know, one thing that people have to realize, we have to give our mind, our heart, our spirit permission to be able to go after things.  When you say to yourself, “I can’t do it,” immediately you gave your mind permission to find reasons why you can’t.  I’m going to be successful at this.  And I’m successful at this, but I’m not successful,” you gave your mind reasons to justify why you’re not successful at all those things.  But when you open up yourself and say, “Yes, I can,” the slogan of President Obama  in his election campaign was “Yes, We Can,” it just opened up all the great possibilities because no one expected him to be a president when he first announced, you know?

Bu yet, because he kept a “yes” in the atmosphere, all kinds of doors started to open.

Holly: I’m going to ask you sort of a, what we call an angel’s advocate question.  There’s a chapter in your book where you talk about  preparing for prosperity.

Bishop Long: Exactly.

Holly: This is my question for you, there’s a section — and actually I’d like to read that, where you say, “I preach a message of financial and material prosperity because I live in the United States.  I couldn’t preach that aspect of the gospel in some impoverished third world countries.”  What message, in terms of the word — the message of prosperity, then do we give to people in these third world countries?  If this is a principle, does it not apply to them?  What do we say to them?  Do we tell them, “Skip that chapter of the book because your circumstances are different?”

Bishop Long: No — that the principle is for everyone.  The challenge I was trying to get, really state, was I wanted to speak a message to the American and especially African-Americans etcetera, that we came from Africa to a place of promise.  People immigrate from all over the world and come in poor and become enriched in our nation.

There has to be that responsibility to be able to go back and help liberate your brothers and your sisters.  There’s one thing, in Africa there’s the tribalism and all these kind of things that hinder, but Africa, the continent as you know, is one of the richest continents in the world.  And we’re doing everything we possibly can to come help Africans get what God promised them.

He put the minerals, He put the oil, He put the gold, He put all that in the earth.  He said, “The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof and them that dwell upon it.”  That belongs to the people of God.

Holly: The message then was specifically for those who have and are already in a position to help someone else.

Bishop Long: Exactly.

Holly: What would your message be to someone who’s on the other end of the spectrum, who’s not in that position and they really don’t have a lot at their disposal?  What would you say to them today?

Bishop Long:     Well, I would say to them, number one, to catch your redemptive vision of God.  There’s always “grow where you’re planted, start where you are, see what God is speaking to you.  You were born for such a time as now.  Understand that God is generational. That’s how He identifies Himself, He says, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”  If you never had Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you would never have gotten a Joseph, who was able to go in and become Prime Minister and get favor for the people.

You want to be able to make a minute decision right now that, “I’m going to be the Abraham now of my bloodline. I may not see everything materialize before I die.” When you go to Hebrews 11, you see, “Some died in their faith, yet knowing that it shall come to pass.”  And so with all of that, I would ask them, “Your God has called you, He has raised you, you have great faith.  There are some decisions you could make at this moment that you may not totally benefit from, but your sons and daughters, you plant it in them and they’ll start to build from that.  Psalms 78 talks about four generations and of Jacob speaking through and then starting to talk about the children yet to be born.

There’s a transition that will happen that you’ve started that by that third or fourth generation, you will have raised up a king that has now not only changed your bloodline, but changed your community, changed your country and that’s what I’m saying.

Holly: Wow, that’s very powerful.  Thank you so much for being here.

Bishop Long:            Well, thank you.