The other day I was thinking about faith and how important it is to us in life; I mean for starters it’s stating the obvious to say that for a Christian, faith is the manner by which we are supposed to live. But there’s such diverse teaching on faith that it can be quite daunting to consider whether we’re actually walking this thing correctly.
Two FAITH Schools of Thought
On the one-hand, we have the school of thought that walking by faith means that we must set objectives and goals for ourselves because God wants us to be successful, and then use the Word of God as the vehicle to get there. On the other hand, we have the school of thought that says that faith is a way of living according to the Word of God, which leads us through our life path. When we look at the Word, God says that He will bless us if we fully obey the Lord our God and carefully follow all His commands – Deuteronomy 28, so that means that God does want us to be blessed and successful. We also know that God has given us a very clear mandate in the Word that we are to walk our lives by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
As we can see, there is a bit of a crossover on this information and it is easy to see how each of the aforementioned schools of thought have reached their respective understandings on faith. Personally, I tend to lean quite heavily towards the latter school of thought – that faith is a way of life by living by the Word of God to navigate us through our life path. Whilst I do believe that God wants us, His Children, to be successful (as it shows His glory to the world) I do not believe that being successful is the objective for life. We are meant to be different from the world – the world goes about life striving for success, accolades and self-pride, however God has given us a very clear objective in living life -“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given unto you” Matthew 6:33.
If we are seeking first the Kingdom of God, we are seeking FIRST His Word – whatever situation we are facing in life, we are seeking guidance from God through His Word. We look to the Good Book to find out what principles we need to apply to overcome this situation successfully according to God’s will. When we live like this, we invoke the power and Spirit of God to work within our life and in our midst and we walk the steps that He has ordered for us. I believe this is what is meant by full obeying the Word in Deuteronomy 28. When our minds are Kingdom-focussed (on establishing God’s Kingdom not our own) then God can see that HE is Lord in our lives and that we love HIM above everything and everyone. I believe that when God sees that our hearts are consistently engaged in the business of establishing HIS kingdom in our lives, then we demonstrate to Him that we can be trusted to be good stewards with the blessings that He desires to give us.
The fundamental difference between the two schools of thought is objective; One is God-focussed, the other is self-focussed. One is to establish the glory of God through the platform of our lives by consistently obeying His Word, the other is to establish our success using God to get to where we want primarily for our own glory. I suppose when you put it blunt like that it is obvious that the latter is not the way to go, but funnily enough when the Word is spruced up enough it can be very easy for people to buy into that way of thinking because it appeals to people’s emotions; People want to be successful and feel relevant and ‘fit in’ with the norms and culture of society. However, we as Christians are not called to fit in with the norms, we are called to be ye separate – not in a hateful and exclusive way, but in the manner by which we live and in love. So, whilst the world strives for success, we as Christians should be striving to be faithful according to God’s Word in love.
Faith, Ambition & Goals
By no means am I saying that we shouldn’t have goals, ambition and aspirations. Of course we should – God gave us talents to use, multiply and sow into His Kingdom (by using our gifts according to the principles detailed in His Word). However, our goals and ambition should not become our primary focus that navigates our entire lives, otherwise our focus becomes establishing our Kingdom and not God’s Kingdom. Just as the Word says that God has given each of us the measure of faith (Romans 12:3) I believe that God has given each of us certain talents and skills in life. We are indeed meant to use them and most importantly in accordance with the principles in His Word. When we do this we are a blessing to others, and God blesses us. When we are faithful and good stewards over our gifts and talents, they will make room for us and bring us before great men (Proverbs 18:16). However, when our gifts bring us into the presence of the great, it is important that our influence is used for God’s glory and purposes and not our own. If our goal is self-success, then indeed we will bask in our own glory and become prideful… and then watch out for the fall because pride goes before a fall. A great example of this was illustrated in the life of Saul. Saul began his reign with his focus on God. He applied the Word of God given to him via the Prophets and Priests to make his decisions in ruling over Israel. However, at a great height of his fame, Saul decided to start doing things his way and not fully obey the Word given to him. As a result, God removed Saul as King and thus was his fall. Whenever our focus is on ourselves and our glory it’s not a good sign and portends ominous circumstances.
Good Success Is From The Lord
I definitely don’t want to be coming off like a hater of success because I’m not! I am definitely not one of those people that believe that to be holy is to be poor, broke in the name of living humbly… NO! I believe that good success is from God, and it’s His will that we have it, when we have learned to honour HIM FIRST. “Good success?” I hear you say, YES! Joshua 1:8 talks about if we keep God’s Word in our hearts and mouth and meditate on it day and night then we will have good success. That means that if there’s a good success there is a bad success. I believe this to be true. Success is just the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. So if a person becomes extremely wealthy and they achieved it by means of extortion, deception, oppression etc, then whilst they are successful because they achieved the aim of becoming wealthy, it is bad success because the mode by which they achieved it was bad. Good success is when you become effective in your life and blessed in your living by the practice of honouring God’s Word as you go about your every day life.
Success In The Bible
Abraham – He walked with God and honoured God’s Word in His life and God prospered him in every way (Genesis 24:1).
King David – He loved God’s Word and kept them hidden in his heart. God called David His friend and David lived a long life and enjoyed wealth and honour (1 Chronicles 29:28).
Joseph – Joseph loved God and honoured God throughout His life. He displayed humility and good moral character in accordance with God’s Word. God gave him outstanding wisdom and he was placed second in command over the whole of Egypt.
Job – Job loved God without exception and was a righteous man, whom God had blessed. Despite the turmoil, test and trials that he went through, he remained loyal to God, and as a result God restored his fortune and doubled his wealth compared to what he had before the trials (Job 42:10).
In a Nutshell
So in a nutshell, it is a wonderful thing to know that God has blessed us with gifts, talents and skills of all different varieties. However, our goal in life should not be to pimp out our talents and use the Word to achieve success for our own glory. We must be good stewards of the talents that God has given us, and live our lives according to the Word of God. When we do this we live a blessed life. Faith then is the focus and fuel of our life embedded in the Word of God, rather than the means to establish kingdoms for ourselves. Let’s focus to primarily live a faith-fuelled lifestyle and then ‘all these things’ Matthew 6:33 (success etc) will be given to us along the way. God is more concerned with our character than our success.
Stay blessed.
Kingdom Minds 