True Success

God is looking all around the Earth for people who will trust Him no matter what so He can prove Himself strong on our behalf.

Woodrow Wilson once said, “I would rather fail in a cause that would ultimately succeed, than succeed in a cause that would ultimately fail.”

Society measures success by results, but God measures success by trust, which can also be called faith.

Everything about faith involves risk. When you step out in the spiritual realm you have no control over future events. You become dependent on God working to succeed and even to live.

When you start a new job or make a new friend or start a spiritual conversation with someone, you risk that it will fail. You have no control over the outcome in any of those situations.

Scripture teaches us that the ultimate outcome is in the hands of God. We have to trust that God will use it for His purposes when we are obedient. This is the type of faith that pleases God.

"'According to your faith let it be done to you ... .'" -Matthew 9:29

In God’s economy, we can treat our success with equity and our failures without regret.

Why? Because we know that God can sometimes instruct us better through our failures than our successes. And we know He does it all because He loves us and wants us to look like His Son.

If we really believe this, we can’t become egocentric because our ambitions turn to His purposes and our prosperity comes from the Lord’s presence and hand.

"In everything he did he had great success, because the Lord was with him." -1 Samuel 18:14

What we do by faith under the authority of Jesus and for the glory of Jesus will never involve failure from God’s point of view. The definition of our success changes drastically.

In the end, it all comes down to the question: Who do I really want to please—my Lord and God or my friends and peers?

The Christian should be compelled to act upon the biblical context of God’s Word, promises, and presence. The greater the courage needed to risk something significant to act upon our beliefs, the greater the consequence of our actions in faith for our good.

God is looking all around the Earth for people who will trust Him. May your trust be great, your faith unfailing, and your risk beyond compare.

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