Achieving the success and prosperity that God has for us is not automatic just because we are His children. We must cooperate and participate with the plan of God to help us move toward all He has for us. The following are some keys to help along the way:
1. Put God first. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? . . . For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things” (Matt. 6:24-25,32-34, emphasis added).
As this passage so clearly states, we cannot serve both God and the love of wealth. God is not merely a means to our financial security. People with that attitude will never reach their full potential until their hearts have been changed. God is not our servant. Instead, we are His servants. The apostle Paul, one of God’s greatest success stories, wrote, “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:12-13).
We may experience times of hunger in our lives, but if we are following God and seeking Him first, those times can be considered as a few pages in the book of our ultimate success. God knows what we need. The promise in Matthew 6 is that if we seek Him first, He will see to it that what we need, when we need it, will be there for us.
2. Follow covenant agreement. Every one of us who has experienced the saving grace of God has entered into a covenant agreement with Him. Many analogies are used throughout Scripture to define the relationship: He is our Father; we are His children. He is our Shepherd; we are the sheep of His pasture. He is the Head; we are the Body. He is the Master; we are the servants.
Each of these analogies paints a simple picture. It is up to God to provide for our needs, to promote us to the next level, to teach and guide us, to help us move forward and prevail. It is up to God to see that we have a portion and an inheritance. But, it is up to us to obey His commandments at every turn in order to see all His provision come to fruition. If we break the covenant through disobedience, rebellion, unbelief, sluggishness, forgetting God or hidden sin, we bring peril to our own success.
3. Seek strategy from God to reach your goal. The concept of reaching toward a goal is both wise and biblical. In Philippians 3, Paul writes, “No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven” (vv. 13-14, NLT). Here Paul reveals that the success God has for us is not just for this earthly life, but will continue in heaven.
Reaching toward our goal of godly success seems to have a dual purpose. First, we are reaching toward our God-given potential to accomplish His plan for us while here on earth. Second, we are laying up a prize in heaven that is eternal. What a complete picture of success! God has a strategy for each of us to reach our goal. By seeking Him, we will gain pieces of the strategy along the way. As we are obedient to follow that strategy, we will one day stand before Him with confidence, knowing we reached the end of the race with success.
4. Live in Christ. “For I live in eager expectation and hope that I will never do anything that causes me shame, but that I will always be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past, and that my life will always honor Christ, whether I live or I die. For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better” (Phil. 1:20-21, NLT). Here again, Paul brings success into an eternal perspective. To live for Christ and to honor Him in all that we do will bring us ultimate success and prosperity, whether we live or die. Many honorable saints throughout the history of the Church have shed their blood as martyrs for Christ Jesus. These are great success stories in the Kingdom.
But so, too, are those who live following Christ, not loving their lives unto death. These Christians are also honorable saints who are great success stories in the Kingdom. Success is as simple as knowing that when we allow Christ to lead us, we will always prosper in our souls, and that we will be blessed in all areas of life, both now and eternally.
Each one of us has a God-given destiny of success. That is a part of the inheritance we have as children of God. But what does having an inheritance in God really mean? Let’s take a look.
