ListenDaily – 26 May 2010: Judging success
We hear God calling. We discern it is indeed Him and respond. So then our venture should be successful, should it not? It definitely should -- but we must hone our definition of success. In our relationship with God, success = obedience.
"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands." (1 John 5:1-3)
Oh, we may see a great change in an individual, in our church, or in our community -- or we may not. The change may yet come, and we may trust that God spoke truth through Paul in the "one plants, one waters, but only God makes it grow' passage.
It could be that the change may not come at all, that someone else involved is not listening and responding.
It could be that God has a plan in which your actions are just one component, and with results you never get to see this side of glory.
But -- in our relationship with God, success = obedience.
And, according to His Word, obedience = love.
Questions:
1. How does this perspective strike you?
2. Do you find it frustrating to be a "planter" and not a "reaper"?
3. Now what?
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May we keep listening. Jim.
INTERESTING THOUGHTS:
"The full acting out of the self's surrender to God therefore demands pain:
this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey,
in the absence, or in the teeth of inclination".
C.S. Lewis
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