God uses successes and failures to accomplish His purpose in our lives… and He’s in control of both.
The United States has become a success-driven culture and we often forget the Lord simply wants us to trust Him with childlike obedience. We have made success the measure of a person’s value and assume our heavenly Father is aligned with that thinking.
But in God’s upside down Kingdom, the outward appearance of success doesn’t always indicate faith, and the outward appearance of failure doesn’t always indicate a lack of faith.
Instead, success looks like a faithful servant who does what his Master asks of him… no matter the outcome.
At the cross, Jesus didn’t seem very successful. Jews and Gentiles rejected Him, yet from God’s perspective His Son was tremendously successful because He faithfully obeyed His Father’s commands.
The greatest evil in the history of the world—and what appeared to be a colossal failure when the Creator of all things was totally rejected by His creation—accomplished the greatest good.
That’s true success.
Paul’s ministry is an excellent case study for insight into the Kingdom’s measurement of success. Although he didn’t succeed in terms of numbers, size, or acclaim and spent much of his time writing Scripture from a jail cell, Paul’s obedience continues to impact us today.
The ripple effect of Paul’s faithfulness to the Lord’s call on His life is immeasurable, and along the way, the Father transformed Paul into the likeness of His Son.
Our Lord longs for each of us to be transformed into the obedient image of Jesus (Romans 8:29). He doesn’t want us to withhold an ounce of faithfulness because of anxieties about where we’ll land on the American ladder of success.
As the author of Hebrews states, “anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
The reward of a life lived faithfully serving and seeking Him is receiving a kind “well done” from our Maker, while the reward for living “successfully” in the world’s eyes expires the moment we take our last breath on this earth.
Regret has never been and will never be a side effect of obeying God when we enter His Kingdom.
“Trust and obey... for there’s no other way – to be happy in Jesus – but to trust and obey.”