Success is not an accident. In fact, it’s predictable. That is because of the love of Jesus. Now if your not a Christian...don't count this blog out quite yet...There's some really good info here for you, no matter if your a business owner, a minister, or just a person looking for the meaning of their life...
Romans 8:35-39
35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36Just as it is written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.” 37But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
If we look at failure we will discover that it too is predictable! That is because Jesus said in John 15 "outside of me you can do nothing!"
In Christ there is no partial success, there is only success, and in the same way…outside of Christ, there is no partial failure…there is only failure.
There is a guaranteed victory to those who are in Christ Jesus. This is great news! At the same time though, there are so many Christians that are not succeeding in their lives and many of us have felt at times like complete failures. Why is this and how can we succeed in life the way God designed us to?
God loves success and he needs you to succeed. This is because success is very important to every creator or manufacturer. That’s why companies will put a guarantee on the box of their product or why dealers will put a warranty on a car. The reputation of the creator is on the line…God’s design for all of creation is dependent on the success of the church of Jesus Christ.
I want to remind you that Jesus Christ is your guarantee of victory…he is the guarantee that you will be successful. That is because Jesus Christ is the pathway to purpose. Before Jesus Christ we were wandering around in the dark; disconnected from God’s original intent…but He brought us the gospel of the Kingdom and now we have access again to the Father and his original plan!
So why should we focus on success and what exactly is success? This blog is not 10 keys to making a million dollars or getting that dream home. I’m not even going to give you principles to create a big business or ministry. Through this blog, I am called to give you the tools to help you unlock your purpose! This is success, nothing more and nothing less.
Success is defined, from a Kingdom perspective, as the fulfillment of purpose.
If you're not making an impact and leaving a legacy then it doesn’t matter how much money you have, how many people you reach, or how many followers you have on Twitter…it means nothing if you aren’t solving a problem, contributing to the advancement of God’s plan for humanity, and learning the art of agape love.
Here’s the kicker…I don’t believe that God hands out Silver Metals. There is not even a bronze medal. God will only hand out Gold Metals. That means that we are not in competition with anyone else. If success is attached to an individual’s purpose then my success is not predicated on your success. Just because you succeed does not mean that I have to be less successful because our purpose is uniquely different. In fact, I can rejoice in your success because I know that we are successful because of the same influencing power of Christ. In Christ, we have been given the keys to success. Are you a gold medalist?
By defining the term success correctly, we remove the spirit of competition from the success equation. In doing this, we are forced to look INWARD and UPWARD for fulfillment instead of OUTWARD.
That means that you are free from the horrible games of comparisons! I’m free to be completely me and do what God has called me to do without the fear of trying to measure up to the accomplishments of another person! It’s not about what you have done…it’s about what God has placed inside of me to do!
Sure, we lean on each other and continue the works of those that have gone before us…but in the end, if I’m supposed to impact the lives of 1000 people I must focus on that mission and not the fact that you reached 1 million. If I try to reach outside of God and myself for my purpose, then I will either become bankrupt of the resources that I need to fulfill my purpose, or I will be wasteful with my resources.
In other words, if God has equipped me for a certain set of responsibilities, then to reach outside of that would be to move beyond the grace that I have been given to fulfill my purpose. If I’m trying to compete with you to reach a million people but only have the grace for a thousand then I am doing those thousand an injustice and I become ineffective and unsuccessful. This is just an example…
Along those same lines…if I compare my 1000 to your 15 people reached then I will consider myself pretty successful…and end up wasting away all that I could have done with my life.
Your Life’s Success is found in the fulfillment of purpose!
This success is guaranteed by leaning into the unction’s of the Holy Spirit instead of the urges of your flesh.
The Holy Spirit gives us guidance within the measure of our calling. If we begin to council with the urges of our flesh then we are settling for less than God’s best for our lives. We miss opportunities for impact, we live selfishly, and we become unhealthy and diminish our own quality of life.
The reason that we are not successful even as Christians is because of our “World Views” and “Paradigms” that prohibit us from perceiving our life’s calling correctly…
This thought is going to continue in my next blog and I’m going to be talking about how to change the way that you process information and how to discover your purpose but FIRST I want to hear your thoughts in the comments below!!
Do you feel like you’re as successful as you could be? Do you have a problem with comparing yourself with others?