Michael Kelley's Blog, page 35

3 Ways to Act Like Jesus in Any Situation

Once upon a time I had a WWJD bracelet. Seems like most of the world did, in fact.

The story goes that a youth group leader in Holland, Michigan, started a grass roots movement to help her teenagers remember the phrase. The movement exploded in the 90’s, and everyone, including me, jumped on the bandwagon. And of course, as always happens, the enthusiasm turned to mockery, and those who were wearing the bracelets started ripping them off claiming, among other things, that it’s not so much what Jesus would do, but what Jesus did that really matters.

I can’t speak for everyone who turned tail on the bracelet, only myself, but for myself I can say that my criticism of such things happened during the height of my personal theological arrogance. And so here I am again, 20 years and hopefully a little more grown up, actually asking the question again and again.

It matters, of course, what Jesus did; and what He did was die on the cross and rise again. That living Christ lives inside every Christian in the Holy Spirit, but that indwelling presence isn’t just there for convenience. He’s there for our own transformation.

In other words, what Jesus did compels us to ask what would Jesus do, and then to follow Him. As parents, as employees, as employees, as citizens with a voting ballot in our hands, as friends – we must be asking this question, for it’s God’s will for all of us, regardless of what station of life we find ourselves in, to be conformed to the image of Jesus.

But this is where complexity rears its ugly head, for though it’s a simple question to ask, it’s not always a simple answer to diagnose. That’s because Jesus did a lot of different things in a lot of different situations. Sometimes He was angry; sometimes He wasn’t. Sometimes He healed; sometimes He didn’t. Sometimes He spoke and sometimes He was silent. When you start asking the question of what would Jesus do in a particular situation, then, it’s not always easy to find a definitive answer.

You can, though, I think say some general things about the actions of Jesus, and therefore there are at least three simple things you can always do in any situation if you want to act like Jesus:

1. Tell the truth.

This is harder than it sounds, isn’t it? But if you want to act like Jesus, you can always tell the truth. Whether confronting the Pharisees, challenging the Samaritan woman, or reinstating the fallen disciple Peter, Jesus told the truth. Of course, the temptation for us to convince ourselves that sometimes the most loving thing we can do, and in so doing be like Jesus, is to bend the truth ever so slightly so as to not offend. But wounds from a friend can be trusted (Prov. 27:6), and Jesus is indeed our friend.

If we want to act like Jesus, we must be committed to the difficult work of truth-telling in any situation.

2. Be compassionate.

Truth can be used like a soothing salve or a jackhammer. And it takes a great deal of wisdom to know the appropriateness of each. Jesus had such wisdom, and He is not afraid to break the stoney hearts with the hammer of God’s truth, and He is also not afraid to bend low and apply that same truth to the hurting sinner. But in either case, He acted with compassion.

Even His most difficult teaching, even His most biting criticism, even His most heated arguments, were made compassionately. Towards the unbelieving Jews and the Pharisees, whom He warned of the coming judgment, He still cried out from the cross for the Father to forgive them, for they did not know what they were doing.

If we want to act like Jesus, we can always make the choice of compassion.

3. Give of yourself.

Finally, we can make the choice to give of ourselves in any situation. Sometimes that means taking the 5 extra minutes to listen to a badly put together story from one of your children who is convinced the most important thing in the world has happened. Other times it means getting in the car to go to the home of someone who has just lost a person dear to them. Still other times it means giving of your resources so that someone else can have their needs met. In any case, though, we can always make the choice to give of ourselves. We can always make the choice to make our attitudes like that of Jesus, who though He is God, did not cling tightly to that position, but instead gave of Himself fully and completely for our sake (Phil. 2:1-11).

True enough, situations in our world are complex. But there some things that can cut through the complexity – some things you can always do, by the power of and the motivation from the gospel which is transforming us into the likeness of Christ. So don’t just stand there today. Act like Jesus.

The Response of the World Christians Can Strive For

“What exactly are we hoping to accomplish?”

I have found that to be a simple diagnostic question when considering different options of actions. Say, for example, someone has done something that has irritated you, and you’re wondering whether or not it’s worth it to bring it up to them. Asking that question can help you know the answer, but it can also help you know what direction to take that conversation.

It is also, I think, a helpful question for Christians to ask because of our tendency to get caught up in the small things, the little quibbles, the relatively insignificant battles. We can easily find ourselves spending an inordinate amount of time and energy on matters we shouldn’t really be involved in. So what’s the answer to that question? What are we hoping to accomplish?

The best answer is, of course, the Great Commission. What are trying to accomplish? We are trying to spread the gospel to every corner of the world.

Okay – so that’s good. It’s good that we know that. But perhaps we can take that down to an even more granular level; maybe we can take it down to something that is more specific, and still keeping the end in mind. This is one of the things we learn from Acts 4.

For context, remember that Jesus has been crucified, resurrected, and taken up into heaven. The Holy Spirit has fallen at Pentecost, and the church has been born. And not only born, but it is growing. Exponentially. In fact, the church is all the buzz in Jerusalem as more and more people are believing in Jesus. That’s Acts 1 and 2.

Then in Acts 3, Peter and John go and heal a man in the name of Jesus, and more gas is thrown on the fire. There is such a disturbance that by the time we get to Acts 4, Peter and John have been arrested if only to shut up their preaching for a little while, which in turn brings about a confrontation between Peter and John and the body of religious leaders known as the Sanhedrin. Then we get this:

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked (Acts 4:13-16).

If I could take a few liberties with the last sentence of that verse, the religious leaders of the day, with all their power, prestige, and supposed wisdom, look to each other and say, “What are we going to do about these guys?”

Because we have to do something.

And that might be the answer to the question we began with. What are we trying to accomplish here? Here in our homes? In our workplaces? In our communities? Well, yes, we want as many people as possible to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, and yes, we want as many as possible to believe that message, but in the meantime, we want to force a response.

Now we should be careful here because in a society that seems increasingly bent on frustration, anger, litigation, and angst, we don’t need to be just another shouting voice in the midst of all the others. There are better ways to demand a response.

We demand a response when we are people of calm in the midst of anxiety.

We demand a response when we love those who hate.

We demand a response when we practice generosity.

We demand a response by our steadiness and faith in the midst of shifting values and morality.

When we do all these things, we demand a response. We leave people looking at us, essentially saying the same thing: “What are we supposed to do with these guys?”

We demand a response when we stand apart in the way we think, lead, behave, and respond. I love the way Greg Koukl describes this in reflecting on the fact that not every conversation about the gospel is going to lead to a conversion:

Now here is my own more modest goal. I want to put a stone in his shoe. All I want to do is give him something worth thinking about. I want him to hobble away on a nugget of truth that annoys him in a good way, something he can’t simply ignore because it continues to poke at him.

Whether the opportunity is a short one with a transient audience or a long one with a captive audience, my goal is the same—a stone in the shoe.

A stone in the shoe. A demand for response. This is similar to what Peter writes in his own epistle:

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us (1 Peter 2:12).

May it be so, that we live the kind of lives that time and time again require people to ask, “What am I to do with this person?”

The Question of Identity is First a Question of Authority

Ferdinand Demara was born in 1921 in Massachusetts. He left home at 16 to become a monk before joining the US Army in 1941. He then assumed the name of one of his fellow soldiers, deserted the army, became a monk again, then joined the Navy. Then he faked his suicide and assumed another name and became a psychology teacher. He was caught and served prison time for his desertion, but then took the name of a young doctor he had gotten to know.

As Dr. Joseph Cyr, he was a surgeon on a Canadian battleship during the Korean War. When 16 combat casualties were brought to the ship, he speed read some medical textbooks and operated successfully on all of them. But then the mother of the real Dr. Cyr read about what happened in a newspaper and reported the imposter. The Canadian Navy did not press charges, and Demara returned to the US where he worked in various jobs under various aliases including working as a hospital chaplain. Even though he was found out, he was allowed to stay on because he was so popular with the patients and staff. In fact, he administered last rites to Steve McQueen in 1980.

Now there’s a guy who would be fascinating to have a conversation with. Imagine that for a second – sitting down with Ferdinand Demara. What would your first question be? How about this one – “So who are you?” Or perhaps you might rephrase the question: “Who are you… today?”

The question is one of identity, and you would think it would be an easy one to answer unless you’re a person like this. And yet this question – the question of identity – is an increasingly relevant one. Nationalism. Privilege. Ancestry. Gender. Politicism. All these cultural discussions have an element of identity at their core. Now, like never before, we seem to be asking that question not just about others, but about ourselves. “Who am I?” we ask. “To what do I belong?”

But you see, there is actually another question – a much older question – that not only is part of this discussion of identity. This question actually lays the groundwork for identity. And that is the question of authority.

Identity begins with authority. If we want to have the answer of identity, then we must first grapple with the question of authority. While the question of identity seeks to answer, “Who am I?” the question of authority seeks to answer who can even give the answer of identity.

Here, then is the real question that lies at the heart of the identity question: Are we going to choose to be self-determining beings, or are we going to acknowledge the rule of God?

If we choose to be self-determining, then the question of identity becomes really fluid. Who do you want to be today? Do you want to be male or female? Do you want to be moral or immoral? Do you want to faithful or not faithful?

But if we accept the rule and reign of God, then our primary question about identity changes. No longer are we asking, “Who do I think I am?” or “Who do I feel like I am?” or even “Who do I wish I am?” Instead, our primary question, rooted in the authority of God, becomes “Who does God say that I am?”

So the question becomes for us not who do we feel like we are; but who does Jesus declare us to be. Identity is not a matter of feeling or even of choice; identity is a matter of declaration. And in the gospel, we find the answer. We find the gospel truth that we once were dead in our sin. Not a people. Separated from God. But not any more.

God has declared that we are now, in Christ, His sons and daughters. Co-heirs with Christ. His chosen people. This is who we are, regardless of how we look, how we feel, or what our social status is. It is who we are because God has declared and made it so. In His authority, we find the answer to the question of identity.

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. Don’t (Always) Be Efficient

This is a helpful corrective for me. There is great value in slowing down, and doing so often.

2. The Elusiveness of Contentment

36% of people making over $250K per year live paycheck to paycheck. Contentment is hard. But there is a formula.

3. Why We Sleep (And the God Who Doesn’t)

A good, tangible reminder that we did not create God in our image. He is “other.”

4. The World’s Best Hiking Trails

Fantastic round up here, and definitely some places to put on your list.

One Subtle Rebellion Against God

The story is familiar, even if a person doesn’t happen to be a Christian.

There was nothing at all, except for God in the beginning. And then in the beginning, God created…

Everything else. Ex nihilo. Everything from nothing at all. God spoke it all into existence, all of creation born from his divine creativity, including human beings. These first human beings, placed in a perfect garden, free from any of the marks of guilt and shame so pervasive in us today, in perfect fellowship with each other and with Him.

Harmony. Peace. Productivity. Simplicity. All was very good.

But then came the snake. The temptation. The great fall, and that perfect creation was turned upside down.

Again, a familiar story. But I wonder if we might for a moment just zoom out a bit, and not focus on the kind of fruit or the specific nature of the temptation or even the immediate and far-reaching effects of that choice. When you zoom out a bit, here are a few bullet points about the situation:

There is a loving Creator who knows what is right and best.You have a creation who, though made in the image of that Creator, is far inferior in their knowledge, wisdom, and power.In His love and in His authority, He gave His creation limits.The rebellion, then, was a refusal to trust in those limits and follow them.

Those four bullet points provide a number of friction points with modern society. There is, of course, the issue of a Creator at all. Despite the clear evidence of design threaded throughout creation, it’s certainly not a given that there is a Creator to begin with. And if there is a Creator, there are plenty who would argue with the character of that Creator. If you begin with a fundamental questioning of the Word of God, which is meant primarily to reveal to us who God is and what He is like, then we are left to imagine the nature and character of this Creator on our own.

And then there’s the friction point of limits.

The reason, I think, we get rubbed the wrong way when it comes to the subject of limitations is because we tend to see any limitation as bad. As wrong. As something to move passed and overcome.

We think of limits like this in the technological arena. Technology continues to evolve at an incredibly rapid pace; we are knowing things and doing things that even ten years ago would have been unfathomable. And because we are capable, we do these things. Create these things. Incorporate these things. We do so without much regard to whether or not we should. Limits are disregarded.

We think negatively of limits when it comes to our own dreams and aspirations. We live in the land of opportunity, after all, and any “limits” we have are simply obstacles to overcome. Our heroes are the men and women who look at perceived limits and don’t flinch, but instead by their own courage, intelligence, and gumption soar by them.

Gender? Sexuality? Appropriateness? Language? The way we treat one another? Increasingly, none of these issues have any limits to them. Looking around, it’s fairly safe to say that we are a people who hate limits.

But before we judge the world around us harshly, let’s turn the tables on ourselves because this disdain for limits is in our own hearts, too. We are the people who work passed our limits. Who refuse to take days off. Who only sleep when we have to. Who have an insane inability to say “no” to another project or opportunity even though we are already stretched too thin. Who enroll our children in program after program, no matter what the cost to our family or their own spiritual development. We, too, hate limits, and our inability to recognize and abide by our own limitations is one of the most subtle, but pervasive forms of rebellion against our Creator.

We are still there, in the garden, failing to believe that we are limited creatures, and failing to trust God enough to know that limits are for our good. And here is yet one more thing from which we must be rescued. And here is yet one more thing that the message of the gospel rescues us from.

The gospel reminds us that God, who has no limits, does indeed love us. So much, in fact, that Jesus died for us. And that through Jesus, we can be reconciled to God and find our perfect acceptance and validation in Him. This is really the only way that we can live within our limits, isn’t it? Isn’t it when we don’t have the compulsive need to prove our own worth and validate our own existence through our work or our kids or our own achievements? We can accept the limitations God has given to us only when we also accept the limitless love He has also given us in Christ.

3 Unlikely Expressions of Faith

In 1989, I saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I saw it, and I immediately started asking for a fedora and a whip for my birthday. If you’re like most of the rest of the world, you saw it, too, and so you remember the pivotal scene near the end of the movie when Indy stands on the edge of what looks to be a great chasm. He must, according to the instructions he was following, take a “leap of faith.” He must step into the abyss, entrusting his life to something not seen.

He does, of course, take the step only to find that the thin bridge of rock has been there all the time, just camouflaged by the surrounding cliffs. Even if you didn’t see the movie, if you were a churchgoer, you probably heard more than one preacher use that scene in illustration about faith. And it’s not a bad one; after all: 

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1).

It was certainly a big (and literal) step of faith for Indiana Jones, and there are certainly times when faith feel like that. Stepping into nothingness. Nothing to hold onto except the unseen God. But then again, there are other times when less dramatic but not less important steps of faith are taken. What are those more unlikely expressions of faith? Here are 3 examples:

1. Sleep.

Yes, sleep. But to see how sleep is an act of faith, consider what are the kinds of things that keep us from sleeping soundly. Things like anxiety. Worry for tomorrow. Concerns about kids, or nuclear weapons, or politics or whatever. When looking at the issue like that, we begin to see how sleep is an act of faith.

The Christian can sleep soundly because we know that God never does. The world keeps on spinning and God keeps on working even without our waking knowledge. When we choose to sleep, we are also choosing to release, if even for a short time, those things to Him which we should be entrusting to Him to begin with:

“Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how” (Mark 4:24).

Such is life in the kingdom of God, the one in which we can rest knowing that God is still busy.

2. Contentment.

Contentment is no easy state in which to live. In fact, Paul claimed that it was only through the power of Jesus that he could be content in whatever the circumstances, whether living in plenty or want, whether well fed or hungry:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

So, then, it is through faith in Jesus and His strength that we learn to be content, but what is it that we must believe? Well, we must believe in things like God’s sovereign control of circumstances outside of ours; that He portions out resources based on His love and wisdom; that nothing in which we find ourselves inside of happens by accident. When we walk in contentment, no matter the circumstances, we bear testimony of what we believe to be true about Christ and all we have in Him.

3. Steadiness.

Here, too, is an unlikely expression of faith. We tend to think of expressions of faith in terms of the grand gestures – of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refusing to bow before the golden idol, or Daniel accepting his fate of being thrown to the lions because of his refusal to stop praying. Those grand acts of faith are true and good and right.

But so is the faith that leads someone to walk steadily through life. Faith fuels not only the sprinter, but the plodder who is able to take what comes with a spirit of joy and peace and react calmly in the face of it. In fact, a steady pace is the outworking of a contented heart because the same things we must believe in order to be content are what we must believe in order to calmly, but persistently, keep moving forward.

Yes, there are big moments of faith in everyone’s life. But let’s not wait on those. Let’s remember that faith is behind even the small moments of our lives. And therefore we can do things like sleep, be content, and walk steadily forward.

2 Simple Steps to Trust God More

“‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes” (Mark 9:23).

I’m sure those words stung a little bit. Here was a hurting father who had brought his son to Jesus to be healed. He, along with his son, had suffered for a long time. There must have been years of struggle; years of financial and marital strain; years of social ostracism because of the dangerous outbursts from his boy. But the father still had one, last hope – he had heard Jesus could help people like him. People like his son. And so he brought the young man to Jesus.

But then the father blew it. Jesus asked him for more details about his son’s condition:

“How long has this been happening to him?” Jesus asked the boy’s father.

“From childhood,” he said. “And many times it has thrown him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.”

Perhaps it was the emotion of the moment. Maybe it was the sense of desperation at the situation. But for whatever the reason, the father had bungled his words and had confessed his doubt. What had been there, below the surface, came bubbling up, and the statement was out before he knew it. This man did not believe. At least not completely. And the circumstances had brought that doubt to the surface.

Now this is where we really start to identify with this man. You might not have had a child in such a desperate circumstance, but surely you know what it’s like to want to believe more. Stronger. To have more faith than you do. Surely you know what it’s like to come to God in a moment of need and, deep in your heart, know that you don’t really trust Him. Or at least trust Him as much as you would like to. So what do we do with that? How do we trust God more? The rest of the story gives us two action points:

1. Be honest.

“I do believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

When we come face to face with our own doubt, we typically just deny it’s there. We take what has come up to the surface and try to push it away. In other words, we might lie about what we are truly feeling. Surely we are accustomed to doing this especially if we have been conditioned to fight against our own perceived weakness, and we have.

We are a boot-strap kind of people, people who prize self-reliance. To admit that we are less than confident, less than absolutely certain, and have real fear and anxiety about the present and the future runs very much against it. But not this father. This father owned his doubt. He admitted the reality of his weakness in a moment of honesty, and that’s the first step for us as well. The good news is that Jesus is strong enough to deal with that honesty, which leads us to step 2:

2. Ask for help.

The man didn’t just admit his doubt; he asked Jesus to help him with it. Now think for a moment a little further about that simple request of “help me with my unbelief.”

What did it take for this man to bring our doubt to Jesus? Ironically, it took faith. And that’s the same thing it will take for us to follow his example. It will take faith to believe Jesus already knows what we are feeling. That He is loving and understanding enough to receive it. That our relationship with Him is not based on our ability to have our hearts or our conduct in perfect working order. That the essence of our relationship with Jesus is His ability to make up for what we lack.

And doing so might sound something like this:

“I do believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

If you want to grow in trust today, consider these two simple things. Be honest about your doubt. Ask Jesus for help. And trust him enough to answer you.

This post originally appeared at Thinke.org. 

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. The Unexpected Parenting Comfort of Ecclesiastes

Though it might seem so, there is nothing new under the sun. Including the challenges we face when parenting our kids.

2. The Lasting Legacy of Ordinary Believers

The majority of God’s work is done through ordinary people. Like us.

3. Extravagance

Here’s a reflection on the new images from the Webb telescope, which are absolutely amazing.

4. Andor Trailer

I’m still, after all these years, all in on Star Wars stuff.

You Can’t Leave Theology to the Professionals

I have never changed my own oil. But to heap shame upon shame, I need to also confess this: I don’t want to change my own oil.

That’s not to say I don’t think that skill is valuable; I do. Very much so in fact. But I have grown to accept that fact that I know some stuff about some stuff, and car maintenance isn’t really in that list. Fortunately for me, there are men and women out there in this specialized society we live in who have their own list of stuff that they know stuff about. And it’s okay with me that my list of stuff doesn’t intersect their list of stuff.

This works in almost any area of specialization. I don’t have to know how to plant a garden, build a retaining wall, or stitch a wound. There are people who are experts in each and every one of those fields I can lean on for that knowledge when I need to. But there is one area of knowledge that is encompassing. One area that pervasive. One area that cannot simply be assigned to “the experts.”

Theology.

If you’re a Christian, you MUST be a theologian. There’s really no other choice.

The word “theology” simply means the study of God. And all of us, even if we are atheists, are students of God. We all have opinions. We all have thoughts. We all have, at one time or another, stared into the night sky and wondered, What’s it all about? Whether we recognize it or not, we are all God-thinkers. We are hard-wired to be so.

But for the Christian, this escalates to another level. We cannot simply be those people who “let the experts tell us.” We similarly cannot be those people who “just want to focus on the real life issues.” We MUST be theologians. And I turn to the Apostle Paul to tell us why, specifically in the book of Ephesians.

You find all kinds of relevant and practical stuff in Ephesians. In fact, Paul is going to tell you about being a husband, a wife, a daughter, a son, an employer, and an employee. He’s going to tell you how to resist common, everyday temptations like greed, lust, and anger. He’s even going to tell you something as practical as “don’t turn off the light when you’re still mad at your spouse” (Eph. 4:26, my translation). That’s all good, relevant stuff, right?

In fact, Paul gives a total of 41 commands in the book of Ephesians. That’s a lot of real life application, isn’t it? But here’s the thing: Of those 41 commands, of those 41 real life applications, 40 of them occur in chapters 4-6. In the first 3 chapters of Ephesians, there is only 1 command.

I suppose you could look at that and conclude that it’s simply chance that Paul waited until the end of this letter to get to the application part of it. I mean, that’s typically the way we structure our teaching in the church, right? Give them something to take out of here that they can do!

But look deeper, and you’ll see that he does this because he is vitally concerned that we don’t just obey the commands; he wants to make sure that we know the theology behind the commands.

In chapters 1-3, Paul is going to give us the big picture look at life and God. He’s going to remind us that we were dead in our sin until Christ rescued us because of His grace and love. He’s going to make sure we know that the church has a cosmic purpose in the universe. He’s going to show us how our unity reflects the power of the gospel. And he’s going to do all of that before he tells us not to go to bed angry.

When we approach the Bible just looking for what to do, we are cutting out the vital part of obedience: the why. And if all we ever do is simply look for some tips on how to live better, we will end up bitter and frustrated, anemic to the great purposes of God in the universe.

We MUST be theologians. All of us.

3 Obstacles to the Right Kind of Success

A few years ago, my youngest son got a BB gun for his birthday. It took a little while to go through all the safety protocols, and through that process, you could almost see the excitement coming off of him. He was vibrating with it, and when the time came, I handed him the gun. He looked up at me and asked, “What do I shoot at?”

Logical question of course. I suppose he didn’t have to ask the question – he could have just started aiming randomly into the backyard and pulling the trigger. But he didn’t just want to shoot the gun; he wanted to shoot at a target.

That’s because, at a higher level, shooting at a target is a measurement of success. It’s a means of knowing whether or not you are good at something, whether that something be shooting a BB gun or raising kids or leading an organization or whatever. A target is the means by which we measure success.

Of course, the assumption in that statement is that you have the right target because even if you can hit it, it’s not really success if you’re aiming at the wrong thing.

And here we come to the title of this post – because what we are discussing here is not just keys to success, but keys to the right kind of success. The intuitive meaning, then, is that the right kind of success is predicated on the right kind of measurement and target. Knowing that, then, here are three obstacles to that kind of success:

1. Our culture.

Even if not explicitly stated, the general cultural rules of success in any endeavor can be summed up in two words: “more” and “bigger.” Anything with either or both of those characteristics is always successful, at least in the eyes of the world.

More money is better. Bigger organization is better. More influence is better. Bigger platform and fame is better. But the kingdom of God flips everything upside down. The mourners rejoice. The poor are rich. And what is bigger and more is not necessarily successful. That means at the outset we must confront the definition of success to make sure we aren’t defining it in the same way the world around us is.

2. Our pride.

A second obstacle to true success is our pride. This obstacle is related to the first one because it is our pride that looks around at our seemingly insignificant circumstances and contributions and cries out for “more.” For “better.” For “else.” It is our pride that robs us of true success because our pride convinces us that we are being wasted in a current situation when we deem it to be ordinary and small.

Francis Schaeffer, in his wonderful sermon called “No Little People” reminds us that there are no little people and no little places. Only consecrated people in consecrated places. But our pride keeps us from seeing opportunities for the right kind of success right where we are.

3. Our faith.

We feel the pressure for “more” and “bigger” from the outside culture; we feel the pressure of our ego from our pride; but one other obstacle to true success is our faith. And this obstacle, too, is interrelated to the other two.

That’s because there are certain things we must believe in order to find the right kind of success. We must believe that we are not in the circumstances of our job or family or ministry by chance. We must believe that God has good works planned beforehand for us to do. And we must believe in His sustaining power and grace to walk in those good works in the midst of where we are. Without that faith, we will never meet true success.

Put those three things together, in fact, and perhaps we can finally find a workable definition for what real success is supposed to be. Rather than measuring in specific numbers or achievements, perhaps for the Christian success is summed up more like this:

Obedient faithfulness in the context where God has placed us.

May it be so. May we be successful in the right ways.