Everyone wants success — even Christians. Regardless of whether you view success in terms of money, the number of children you have, the number of people you lead to Christ, the number of people in your church, or anything else, Christians want to succeed.

Even people who reject riches, such as Mother Teresa, want success. She wanted success in helping people. She forsook riches, but she still wanted success.

Unfortunately, too many Christians have a skewed view of success. It’s almost like we’re afraid of it. That’s because we typically think of success in terms of finances. And we know that the “love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Fearing that evil, we’d rather run away from success than embrace it.

Last week, we discussed the real standard for success — righteousness. You can fail in everything you do in this life and still be a success in God’s eyes. The best part about this standard for success is that there’s nothing to fear (except God). You can embrace it wholeheartedly, without reservation. You can pursue it without hesitation.

The problem is we like to measure success by earthly measurements. That’s why numbers are so important for churches. If we get enough people to pray a prayer, join the church, get baptized, or go on the mission field, we think we’ve succeeded.

However, when we try to measure our righteousness this way, we set our sights on the wrong goal. And that sets us up for failure … in God’s eyes.

You see, we can have very noble goals in life, even reach them, and still fail. When we have any standard for success other than righteousness, we set ourselves up for compromise. And we’re all susceptible, even pastors.

I know the pastor of a very large church who knows he’s compromised his teaching. But he won’t admit it publicly because he has a huge debt to pay off on his church building. On the outside, he looks like an enormous success. But he’s failing by the “righteousness standard.”

So how can you know if you’re successful in God’s eyes? Just answer two questions:
“Am I willing to sin in order to get what I want?”
“Do I respond sinfully when I don’t get what I want?”

Those two questions cover the two areas where we always fail. We either fail by sinning to reach our goals. Or we fail when we respond in the flesh. If you really want to succeed for the long term (eternity), embrace righteousness. Answer these question honestly for every goal you establish and every decision you make to reach those goals.

Source: WisdomsEdge.com