Biblical Success - Running Our Race - Run for Eternal Successনমুনা

How do we define Success?

“Such, O my soul, are the miseries that attend on riches. They are gained with toil and kept with fear. They are enjoyed with danger and lost with grief. It is hard to be saved if we have them; and impossible if we love them; and scarcely can we have them, but we shall love them inordinately. Teach us, O Lord, this difficult lesson: to manage conscientiously the goods we possess and not covetously desire more than you give to us.” - Augustine

‘I fear, wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore do I not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.” - John Wesley

What is eternal success? More pointedly and importantly, what is eternal success for a Christ-follower? What is success to you? As we are all journeying through life at a pace that brings us every day closer to the end of life on the planet, running the race “that is set before us”(Hebrews 12:1), what’s the end game? What will be success for us? Is it possible that success will be defined in many ways and for our many roles as Christians? Can we be successful, even extremely successful, in one role and a complete failure in another? Can we succeed in our vocation and fail in our marriage? Or parenting? Or ministry? What does an eternally successful life look like for a believer?

Success for each of us will hugely depend on how we choose to define success. How we define success is supremely and eternally important. That definition will lead to, and be the driving force of how we live our lives, make critical decisions, or say yes or no to various opportunities. It will influence how we look at and treat other people, where and why we go to school to be educated in what. Our concept of success will determine how we decide how and with whom we chose to build relationships, spend God’s money, invest our time, parent our children, serve Jesus or not, view and treat our mate, how often we pray and spend time in God’s Word, etc. So many roles and choices! And just one life and one chance to get it right.

Is success a life of financial prosperity and comfort? Is this all there is? Is the best this world can offer the best we can strive for?

Do we define success as Christ would or as worldly people do? If we call ourselves Christ-followers, shouldn’t we be using His teachings and standards to define success? Do our standards and definitions differ from those that worldly, non-believing people choose? How, for instance?

To close this day, let’s imagine ourselves as really old, say 90 years, with some terminal disease. ( I’m 84 years old and have a terminal disease - it’s called life on earth!) Assume that we know we have only a very short time left, and our earthly legacy will be complete. The portrait of our life that we have painted as we have lived it and how we invested our lives will have the last soft touch of the brush and be finished. What will it display? What will we have done with what we have been given in Christ? Have we achieved our definition of success? The world’s? Or His?