Steadfast and Successful

 

“Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:7 [NASB])

This success is not what we consider as success. It is not rising in the ranks from worker to junior management to upper management. It is not a big salary, elite car, or posh home.

Consider what God imperatively commanded of Joshua. He commanded this of the Israelites, too. God told them to obey His commands that Moses gave them. By doing this, they would succeed.

God knew and we should understand that following Him comes with a cost. That is why He told the Israelites to be strong and courageous. God told them to be resolutely confident and firm in their faith in Him. He knew following Him would need courage. They would need to be steadfast and bold to follow Him, no matter what it costs.

Being God’s children (His people) requires a cost, courage, and confident faith in Him. It definitively gives a reward from Him, too. The reward is the fulfillment of God’s promises to you.

That is the definition of success - you steadfastly following God and His fulfillment of His promises. God only gives good things to His children. He wants the best for each of us. God knows specifically what each of us needs. Often those needs require different things. Whatever the need, God’s filling of that need is success.

Your faithfulness to God, shown by your loving and steadfast obedience and His faithfulness to you, shown by the good gifts - success - given to you, shows the love you have for Him and He for you. It shows your strength and courage in the face of those who set up a stumbling block for you. It shows to them God’s love and faithfulness to you as a shining example of who He is.

God chose the Israelites to be a light on a hill. He chose them to show Him to other nations so that each person would believe in Him. Through the Israelites, God presented His Son as the Messiah, to die for each person’s sins and give each believer in Him forgiveness of those sins and salvation from sin and death. That is the ultimate success God gives. Steadfast and courageous belief in Him in the face of opposition opens the door to receiving the success of good gifts from God that meet our needs and, through us, the needs of other people.

God gives true success to people who are absolutely faithful to Him.

So, be strong and courageous in obediently following God and He will reward you with success, receiving person-specific good gifts from Him.

True Success Defined

Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you… LUKE 10:20

What do we hold up to prove we are successful in the spiritual realm? Do we say we must visit a certain number of people? Do we hold ourselves up as casters-out of demons or healers? Do we put ourselves forth as ones who speak in tongues? Do we count how many people we've saved? Do we keep track of the meals we've taken to people or the number of people we've taken to the doctor? Do we keep record of these things to show ourselves as better than others or to prove we are doing a lot of good things?

There are so many things we do, for which we feel pride about, yet, these are not the main task. These are "markers" for worldly estimation of success. True success, if we dare use that word when considering our work for God, is being in a growing relationship with Him, leading people to Him, and discipling people.

We don't count the numbers of people. We don't parade ourselves as the greatest healer or the most fluent spiritual-tongues speaker, or the most prolific caster-out of demons, or that we have driven the most miles to help people, or, or, or. Those are all manmade standards placed upon a spiritual realm. The two do not mesh. One does not fit the other.

A life hidden with Christ in God is not a statistically visible life. It's a meek life of obedience and relationship to God made possible through Christ, not through man. The world's standards don't determine the heavenly servant's worth or work. How can it, when the world is sinful and so much less grand than heaven? Man's standards are tainted with sin; heaven's is not. Would we dare to tell God He had not saved enough people, get back to work? Ridiculous! Applying the earthly idea of success to heavenly work is ridiculous. The measure would never fit the grand scale, the grandeur and almighty-ness of who God is, and what He has, is, and will do.

Discipleship under Christ (to those who have been given a new self by Christ's Holy Spirit), grows the mind, heart, and spirit of each person to the standard of heaven by gradual growth in relationship with God, which leads to obedient discipleship. It is the growing into the new life Christ has given us, becoming less of self and more of Christ. ("He must increase, and I must decrease," as John the Baptist said.). It is as Paul said to the Colossians in Colossians 3:3, "For you (your natural life) have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. "Your old, natural life would never have done enough good or been good enough to earn eternal life. Your new life, given by Christ through His death and resurrection, is fully made for heaven. It is to this new life in Christ that we learn and grow more like Him. When Christ appears, then you who are made new through belief in Jesus will appear with Him in Glory. (Colossians 3:4)

The two do not mix. One is sinful and thus, it's standards are sinful, since made by men. The other is righteous and justified since Jesus Christ gives new life to all who believe in Him for salvation. "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you." (Colossians 3:5). Seek God's standards and turn away from the earth's standards and ways of measuring success.

May God continue to grow you into His image so that your standard is always Christ and not that made by His creation, humanity.