Saturday, September 12, 2009

Success in the wrong things

I picked up a quote today off twitter “My greatest fear? Succeeding at the wrong thing. That would be succeeding and failing at the same time”, Mark Batterson. I retweeted it and also posted it to my Facebook site because I liked it so much. I got a question from one of my Facebook friends, “What would be the wrong thing to succeed at?”, which is a very good question.

In general, the wrong thing to succeed at would be things contrary to God's will for your life whether good things or bad things.

Bad things are like lust of our flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of Life (I John 2:15,16). My prayer is that when we call Jesus LORD we hold nothing back and surrender all to Him since He gave all for us. Often we retain things that stroke our egos and satisfy our lust. I called them "pleasure sins" those are the wrong things to succeed at.

On another note, there are some things that are not sinful at all; but the question is, “Are you suppose to be doing it?” I Cor 3:11-15 paints the picture of a person that builds upon the foundation of Christ but with the wrong material. An analogy I heard, tells the story of a painter that takes weeks to paint the wrong house. Jesus has a narrow, restricted way for us to walk in that leads to life; but often we take the broad, convenient way which leads to destruction. Things I choose independent of seeking God’s direction are the wrong things to succeed at. Things that are not done for the Glory of God are the wrong things to succeed at. Things that are not done God's way are the wrong things to succeed at.

My prayer is when I go before the throne of judgment I do not want to hear God say, “those were great buildings you designed Jonathan, but I called you to preach my word, share with the lost, love your wife, and raise Godly children..I had to find somebody else to do what I called you to do.”

NOOOO!!! NEVER!!!!!

I could easily get distracted, ignore my family, the church, and all other people the rest of my life and build a Fortune 500 engineering company. That would be success and failure at the same time for me. Success in the business world but a failure in things that have eternal value (i.e. wife, children, and God's people).

What would be the wrong thing for you to succeed at?


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1 comment:

  1. jonathan is my name i'm black to we both have the same name.

    ReplyDelete

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