What does it really take to succeed God’s way? In this episode of JesusSmartX, we highlight biblical success principles that move you beyond theory into real results. True success isn’t about hustle alone — it’s about aligning with a Kingdom mindset and living Spirit-led.

We’ll break down the pattern of Principles → Push → Tact:

• Principles: unshakable, Biblical first truths that set the foundation for success.
• Push: Spirit-empowered drive to overcome inertia, resistance, and fear.
• Tact: God’s wisdom in timing, tone, and method that transforms raw effort into fruitful outcomes.

When these three elements align, you unlock faith and success in your life, relationships, and calling. If you’re ready to break through resistance and live with purpose, this will equip you with biblical keys to good success.

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See the full episode transcript below.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the podcast, my friend. Brian Del Turco here with the Jesus Smart X podcast.

Have you ever had the right idea about something but just couldn’t seem to move it forward? Or maybe you pushed hard toward something only to realize the timing or tone was off, and it just didn’t work.

It’s a familiar struggle. We can have the right principles, but without the right kind of push, those principles don’t carry us forward. On the other hand, if we push without tact, we risk damaging relationships, squandering opportunities, and blowing everything up.

When these three elements—principles, push, and tact—come together, that’s when we step into what the Bible calls good success. And that’s our focus for today.

Good Success

The world measures success by numbers, influence, possessions, or comparisons. But true kingdom success looks different. It bears the mark of Christ. It’s rooted in Him, it produces fruit that remains, and it becomes a testimony to others—pointing them to the hope of Jesus and His everlasting kingdom.

This kind of success is both eternal and practical. It shows up in the now, in your life and work, and it points people to Christ.

Principle #1: Live from First Principles

The starting point is principles—God’s truth.

Jesus taught that the wise person builds their house on the rock. That rock is Christ Himself, along with obedience to His sayings. Kingdom principles are those foundation stones—values, realities, and truths—that cannot be compromised.

If we don’t start with God’s principles, everything else is misaligned. It’s like leaning your ladder against the wrong building. You might climb high, but eventually you realize it’s not where you wanted to go.

Principle #2: Push with Faith and Holy Drive

Principles alone don’t move the needle. At some point, we need to push forward in faith.

James says that faith without works is dead. Real faith involves movement. It requires effort and holy drive, energized by the Spirit.

Paul described it this way: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12).

This isn’t about performing to earn God’s favor. It’s about stewarding the calling He’s given us, pressing forward with His energy and strength.

But if we push without wisdom or sensitivity, we can squander opportunity. Which brings us to the third principle.

Principle #3: Tact—Timing, Tone, and Method

Tact is Spirit-led timing, tone, and method. It’s knowing how to apply principles and energy in the right way, at the right moment.

Think of Jesus. Though He carried divine authority, He never bulldozed people.

Instead, He always had the right word, the right touch, at the right time. He moved with both power and tact, in perfect sync with His Father.

Scripture tells us:

• “He makes all things beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
• “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:6).

Without tact, we risk hurting others, damaging our witness, and wasting time. But with tact, the Spirit transforms raw drive into fruitful outcomes.

Weaving It All Together

So here’s the framework: principles + push + tact. Miss one, and success falters.

Some of us lean heavy on principles, but we struggle to act.

Others push hard, but without tact, we bruise relationships and squander opportunities.

The Spirit invites us into balance—living from Christ-centered principles, moving forward with Spirit-empowered push, and applying Spirit-led tact.

Here’s a Prayer You Might Make Your Own

Holy Spirit, illuminate kingdom principles from Jesus for my life and calling. Empower me to push forward with Your strength. And give me Spirit-led tact—the timing, tone, and strategy—to walk fruitfully in Your story.

When these three elements are woven together, we step into good success under God’s hand.

Closing Thoughts

Friend, I believe this framework can change how you approach your work, relationships, and spiritual growth. It’s about building on Christ, pressing forward with His energy, and moving with Spirit-led tact.

If this episode encouraged you, share it with someone who might need it. And if you’d like to go deeper, join me through the Smart Edit e-letter, my free weekly email. Just visit JesusSmart.com.

Drop in your email, and you’ll start receiving fresh insights and encouragement to live at a higher level in Christ.

Thanks for listening—I appreciate you, and I look forward to next time.

Hey there, friend.

Welcome to the podcast.

Brian Del Turco here.

Have you ever had the right idea about something but couldn't seem to move it forward?

If you're like me, you have.

Or maybe you pushed hard towards something only to realize that things were off, like the timing or the tone was off, and it just didn't work.

It just didn't come together.

You know, we can have the right principles, but without a good, healthy push with that principle, we get nowhere.

And if we push without tact, T, A C, T, we can blow everything up.

We can damage relationships, we can blow up an opportunity.

But when all three come together, principles push intact, then we step into what we could call good success.

And that's what I want to talk with you about today.

Welcome to the podcast Jesus Smart X the podcast.

And this is episode 349.

Before we get into it, I want to just call out your attention to the preceding episode 3.

48 talks about understanding your prayer potential, taking the ceiling off of your prayer potential.

Plus we throw in a wellness segment in that episode about cottage cheese, believe it or not, a cottage cheese hack for wellness right before you sleep.

And so that's episode 348, 347.

Right before that one is how to be kingdom forward.

Living on the leading edge of the King's story.

And I encourage you, if you haven't listened to it yet, to go back and catch them.

We always love it when you share these with others, pass it along to those you think might value a specific episode.

But let's talk about success.

Good success under God, not just success as the world measures it.

You know, purely numbers or what is my influence or what's the scorecard on my possessions?

You know, we get into comparing and contrasting and benchmarking.

I'm not talking about that worldly understanding of success.

I'm talking about success that carries the mark of God's kingdom on it and the mark of the king.

And this is a success that is actually rooted in the person of Christ.

It bears fruit that remains.

So we're talking about not just temporal success, but everlasting success, but also in the now.

It is success.

And it is a witness for people to see your life and to have that question in their mind, what is it that is giving you this hope and how are you attaining this success?

So in that sense, it becomes a testimony of Christ and it becomes a testimony of his everlasting kingdom and its completeness that is on the horizon.

So we don't want to have just, you know, A TV version of success, but a worldly definition.

We want to understand success that has the mark of the king on it and his kingdom.

And there's different frameworks we can use.

There's different principles of understanding.

And I believe one of these is that we need three key ingredients to find this good success in God.

And those three ingredients are principles, push and tact.

T, A, C, T. Principles, push and tact.

Let's just briefly walk through these.

We live and act from first principles.

That means we start with truth.

Truth are the.

Is the foundation stones that God has laid.

Jesus taught that the wise person builds their house on the rock, and then principles are part of the rocks in that structure that are built.

Christ is the foundation.

Obedience to his sayings are those rocks.

That's how we build.

But principles are built right into the mix.

These are kingdom values, kingdom realities, and kingdom truths.

And if we don't start there, nothing else matters.

It's like leaning your ladder up against the wrong building and think that you're rapidly climbing to some elevated place of success.

And then you realize, at some point, I leaned my ladder against the wrong building.

So success without principles.

If you're interested in Jesus in his kingdom and following him in, accepting his invitation to come to me, you who are weary, yoke up with me and let's pull together in my agenda, my story, glory, my kingdom, then success without principles will not ring true for you.

It's like a building without the proper foundation.

It's like trying to build something without the right building materials.

It could rise high for a while, but it won't stand storms.

It won't stand the eternal test.

Okay, so we, we need the right principles.

We must live and act from first principles.

And I believe those principles are rooted in a person, Christ, and in his kingdom.

And I think as we begin to read the Scriptures, that's, you know, we.

We come away with thinking of it in that sort of way.

But let's talk about the second element, push.

We know that these principles are essential.

But principles alone don't move the needle, okay?

At some point we have to push.

It's like saying, I have faith, but no works if I don't.

Faith, in a sense, really, at the end of the day, is movement.

We have to move.

We have to push with God's energy in his way, we'll come to that too.

But principles without push don't move the needle.

I've experienced this, you know, many, many times.

I think in my life, I really have.

I've learned the hard way that knowing the right thing isn't enough.

Okay, but doing the right thing is what I have to do.

But I also have to do the right thing in the right way at the right time.

Because if I don't have tact, I can still derail the results and cut back on the fruit.

But we'll come to that third element.

But let's continue to talk about push here just for a second.

We need a spirit infused energy, a might from God, like a holy drive that moves us forward.

Because the tendency is what?

The tendency is inertia and resistance.

But Paul, who had the wind of God in his sails and the power of God in his being, said that I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

You see, there's a pressing in faith, a striving.

It's not a performance mindset to please God from performance, but it is a stewardship and a servant heart attitude where we press, we strive with God's energy, not in our old nature, but in our new nature with the spirit that propels us.

So principles and we need push.

But there's a third element and here's a real pitfall.

Push without wisdom can run roughshod over the opportunity, over the moment.

You can have zeal, but without knowledge, without discernment understanding, it can cause damage.

You can hurt people, you can hurt yourself, you can hurt your name, your reputation, you can waste time.

That's why we need this third ingredient, tact.

T A C. Tact is spirit led timing.

Tact is a Christ highlighting tone about your movement in faith.

Tact is about method.

These are a few words that we can, you know, use to describe what tact is.

It's the difference between just jamming and forcing something and seeing it come together in God's way, right?

The scripture says he makes all things beautiful in his time in Ecclesiastes.

The scripture says in Proverbs 3 that if we don't lean on our own understanding, but in all of our ways.

It's a Hebrew word which means all of our modes of activity, all of our pathways, we acknowledge Him.

That is a word that means to know him by direct intimate contact, he will smooth and straighten out our pathway.

But how often do we have crooked, twisted pathways because we're doing it with our own understanding and don't have a tact from Jesus.

Think of him.

Think of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels.

During his earthly ministry, he never just blasted through with raw power, right?

Even though he could have, he always knew the right Moment, the right word, the right touch.

He was in such simpatico and in such sync with his father that he moved with tact, power and push with tact.

It's intelligence, it's guided by the Holy Spirit and it turns raw might into effectiveness.

We want to be efficacious and it turns it into fruitful incomes or outcomes and it may produce income as well.

Okay, a little slip there, but maybe not.

So here is the sequence.

You already know it.

Principles, push, tact.

If we miss one, the results suffer, the results are compromised.

There's a low level of fruit, a low level of success.

We're talking about having good success in God.

Maybe you're the type that's been heavy on principles.

And I'll be honest with you, if I had to map myself, I am principle heavy.

Okay, maybe you've been heavy though, on principles.

And you know you know the truth when you're that way.

You've just struggled to move forward on things.

It's time to ask God for his energy, for his push.

It's time for us to catch his wind in our sails.

Or maybe we've been pushing hard and I've seen personalities like this, but we bruised relationships, we've tried to force outcomes, and we've just made a mess of things.

We've hurt the Lord's reputation, we've hurt our name, we've damaged people, we've squandered opportunities because we did not employ tactical.

We have to lean into spirit led, tact, spirit inspired sensitivity.

So we could pray something like this.

This is a short, breezy episode as we wrap up our summertime in August.

Holy Spirit, would you illuminate kingdom principles from Jesus for my life, for my work, for what you've called me to do.

Empower me, Holy Spirit, to push toward success in you.

But give me the intelligence, give me the sensitivity, the tact, the timing, tone and methods that I need to move in.

All in the story of Jesus, all in my personal story, which nests or fits within the greater story of Jesus.

And I thank you for it, Lord.

I thank you for the right principles, the right push and the right tact.

Friends, I believe this is a helpful framework to attain good success in the Lord.

Principles which flow from relationship.

It flows from the sayings of Jesus.

Push, which is our obedience in Jesus to move forward with his sayings, his truth, his person.

But then tact, spirit, strategy to do it.

All woven together, all woven together by the spirit of God.

I appreciate you, friend.

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