Finding Success

“Success: a favorable result; wished-for ending; good fortune” (World Book Dictionary)

Just about everyone wants to succeed at whatever he does. We want other people to think of us as successful and, more importantly, we want to think of ourselves as successful. Success by the standard of our society is elusive. Often it’s a sliding scale. For example, when I started in ministry in the early 1970s, a church with an average worship attendance of 300 was considered large, and I thought I would be a success if I was ever pastor of a church that size. I made it. I had the privilege of leading a church that grew from about 120 to a little over 300. Yeah me! But not really. By the 2000s, when our church had grown, the standard had changed. Three hundred is no longer considered a particularly large church. It’s often called middle-sized, and some people would consider it small. So, was I really successful. If success was accomplishing my goal to pastor a church of 300, then yes. But, if my goal was to pastor a large church, I failed miserably. If you ask me these days if I am a success, I will answer either yes or no depending on the kind of day I’m having. The point of this is to say that if we rely on society, or even ourselves to define success, very few of us will ever be secure in knowing ourselves to be successful.

So how can you and I ever know success? Do we take our society’s standard, which is commonly seen on t-shirts, “The one with the most toys wins?” That goal leads to frustration, because someone always has more than you.

Or you can do what I did and set your eyes on a goal, then work hard to reach that goal. That may work, unless the goal line moves or is not precisely defined. Beyond that is the truth, that reaching your goal may well lead to a let-down as you think that perhaps your goal was too small, or you don’t know what to do after the goal is reached.

The other possibility is to live by God’s standard for success. Jesus gives us the clues we need to discover God’s standard of success. We find this in “The Parable of the Talents” found in Matthew 25:14-30. Jesus told of a man leaving for a long journey who trusted three of his servants with money (talents: <$1,000) according to their abilities. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and one to the third servant. When he returned, he congratulated the five/ten talent man and welcomed him to share the master’s happiness. It was the same for the two/four talent man. But, the one talent guy was rebuked by his master, stripped of his talent and sent away.

Here is God’s standard of success: Use what God has given you to do what God has assigned you to do. He expects you to produce fruit in keeping with your gifts. Notice that the reward for the two/four talent servant was the same as for the one with five/ten talents. That’s a comfort to me. I have to do my best, but I’m only expected to do my best. My best is my best. Someone else may be able to do better, and others may not be able to do things as well as I can, but that should be neither here, nor there to me. I just have to be the best me I can, and use what I have for the Lord.

There are then two keys for my success:
1.) I must know what God’s assignment is for me.
2.) I must do my best to complete that assignment.
Whether or not others think of you as successful, and whether or not you think of yourself as successful is not really important. The important question is: How successful are you by God’s standard?

Jesus went a step farther. He not only gives us God’s standard of success, but He also tells us how to act as we strive and achieve that success. He said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all" (Mark 9:35). To illustrate this principle, He washed the feet of the disciples. We are to be accommodating, helpful, and humble to others as we seek to fulfill our assignments from God. Arrogance may be the mark of successful people in the world, but it’s not to be so in the Kingdom of God. We are to be marked, as was Jesus, by our humility.