Success and Failure

Success and failure are measured very differently in God's Kingdom compared with the world. In the world, it is important to get ahead of others in whatever we are seeking to be or to do. In God’s Kingdom, He simply says that we must let Him come first in our lives and that, in His eyes, success is found as we walk in humble obedience to His commands.

Throughout the Bible we see that obedience to God is indeed the way of true success. Moses was clearly hopeless at public speaking, surely a failure in worldly terms for a potential leader of people. But by choosing, albeit reluctantly, to obey God’s instructions, and despite his mistakes along the way, we read of Moses at the end of his life that ‘no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face’ (Deuteronomy 34:10).

John the Baptist was clearly something of an outcast in society and certainly a failure by the standards the religious authorities. However, he sought to follow the destiny that he believed God had purposed for him, even though at one point he experienced uncertainty about Jesus really being the Messiah (Matthew11:3). So, was he a failure as a prophet? Not at all, for he sought to walk in obedience, and Jesus says of him ‘Among those born of women, there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist’ (Matthew 11:11).

And, of course, there’s Peter the disciple. By human standards, he had utterly failed as a friend of Jesus through his public denials. But for everyone, there’s always a redemptive opportunity for Kingdom success through the One who loves us. In John chapter 21, we see that a contrite Peter is grieved by the challenging questions from Jesus but, through the dialogue, Peter is restored and commissioned into one of the most powerful ministries of the early Church. The success that Jesus saw in this precious man was a newly surrendered heart.