Hello everyone! Again, I apologize for this being late and having last week screwed up. Hopefully it isn’t too difficult to find. Open your bibles and let’s read 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 and John 3:27.
Success and Achievements are not a bad thing to want. We should be proud of the things we accomplish and give God the glory in our achievements. It is when we place our value in these things that they become an idol. Our value and our purpose are not in the things we accomplish, it is in our loving Father. Having the desire to succeed can be intentional and purposeful when we ground these things in the understanding that everything we have be given comes from God. Our success can be our platform to display grace and provision of God to those who have watched us succeed. We can use our achievements to witness to others the goodness of God. I understand that we all want to be seen and been given glory in our accomplishments, but that glory is not meant for us- it is meant for Jesus.
If we chased glory, if we chased after the feeling of being successful, we would never be satisfied. That feeling always come to an end and then we start chasing after that high all over again. Jesus offers something better and more abiding. Jesus has already fought the fight. He has already conquered sin. So why are we chasing after something that is only temporary? The greatest accomplishment that we could ever achieve is accepting Christ as our Savior. We get to spend eternity with our Father and know His goodness for the rest of our days.
Let’s discuss what we just read. I have some questions that I want you to think about, write them down, and if you’d like to comment below we can discuss them together!
- In what ways might you be tempted to idolize your success and achievements?
- How can you use success to glorify God and serve others?
- The greatest victory we could ever be offered is in Jesus Christ. How does this transform the way we view success and achievements?
We can have peace in knowing that our achievements don’t define us. We have a lifetime to experience God’s mercy. I pray that we never grow tired of seeing His wonderful works and that we continue to be in awe of Him.
I hope you enjoy this study and decide to come back. In our next study we will go over Work and how we make it an idol. I hope you enjoy the beautiful sunset that was made by our loving Father and y’all have a wonderful night.