Todays Thought~ Measuring Sticks Today’s Thought comes out of Matthew 16:26. What will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? This is a good question to ask ourselves as we seek to define what and how we measure success in our lives. Many people, including we Christians, often attempt to measure success by how much money we have, the job we have, how many degrees we have, what type of clothing or car we posses, what type and how many friends we have, etc. etc.. The problem with these is that lack a focus that is everlasting. Even churches can fall into this trap of looking at worldly things to measure success. Many churches consider their level of success by how many people are sitting in the pews and how many bucks are in the collection plates. I have a startling surprise for you; there is no successful church on earth. Nor will there be until the Lord returns. Every church is just a collection of sinners that have come together with one sinner chosen and lifted up to be their guide. As long as we have earthly bodies we will sin and thus we have not obtained perfection. To think a church is successful is to place something from the world on the altar before God. So how can we measure success? Success should not be focused upon things of this world. When we put our focus on things of this world, we become like Peter when he stepped out of the boat and became distracted. He, like us, began to sink when he took his eyes off of Jesus. When we measure success based on things of the world we can inadvertently give Satan the foothold he needs to enter in and start planting a wedge. This often leads to us focusing only on the one thing that we think will allow others to see us as successful and this then replaces Christ as the center of our worship and attention. True success should be measured using the words of John in 1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father is not in him. Therefore as you go about things and interact with the world, ask yourself if you are measuring your success in things of this world, or are you measuring your success in what you have done for your Heavenly Father and the advancement and uplifting of His Kingdom? True and lasting success, the kind that grants you treasures in heaven, can only be measured in the ways of the Lord and not the earth. May your focus always be on Christ, may you always strive to be more like Him, and may your success be found in Him and not the world.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 10:14:09 +0000
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