Success is not a Destination: It is a Person

At one school site, a young man asked me, "What's your mission? What are your goals?"

This question had bothered me for a long time. Every goal that I had met in my life, I always found myself coming up short. I had achieved whatever it was that I wanted to get, but then I was left asking myself: "Is this all there is?"

At one point in my life, I became very disillusioned. If I had goals, and if I reached those goals, it ultimately did not matter, because I would end up having more of the same. By not having any goals, any direction, I had no real drive to wake up and do anything in this life.

No matter what I had acquired, no matter how well I was received, no matter what good I did, it simply was not enough. I was an empty shell, powering myself to do things that gave me no satisfaction.

Bob George's work "Classic Christianity" set me free. I realized that I had been trying to live this life in my own strength. I had been trying to get and achieve  for myself. I looked at Galatians 2: 20 from a different perspective:

"I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

This Christian life is not something which I try to live. This life is God's life in me, by the power of the Holy Spirit! Christ does not just live in me, Christ does not just reform my insides, but He is  my life, He is the one who as work in me!

"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2: 12-13)

This verse began to make sense, too. He is alive and work in me. I am a child of God, a child of Light, and the Son of God who lives in me empowers me, guides me, protects in my walk. There is no reason, therefore, to worry about tomorrow. There is no need to fret about what I am going to do. I walk in the Spirit, fully persuaded and renewed in my mind to the love that God has for me, and this grace then quickens me to be obedient. It is a life of faith, of dependence, which produces the fruits of righteousness in me.

Life is not about trying to get something. Life is not about setting arbitrary goals of self-actualization or accumulation. Life is about living out the glorious goodness of God's grace, which He witnesses in us by the life of His Son!

Success is not about reaching goals. It's about living out the victory that we have in Christ!

Paul is explicit about our standing and our prominence in Christ:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:" (Ephesians 1: 3-4)

We are blessed with all spiritual blessings, which does not mean that the blessings are exclusively spiritual, but that they are imparted to us through the Holy Spirit, who has quickened us from death to life. We are born again in our spirit man, blessed with all spiritual blessings. It's no longer a matter of trying to get something, but to receive what we have  been blessed with by God.