DEVOTION / What is success?

The American poet, Maya Angelou, wrote, "Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it." -

Angelo was wrong

I beg to differ. Success is knowing who I am because of Christ.

Maya Angelo's definition of success seems on target — at first reading.

Success in life doesn't require Super Bowl rings, Time Magazine Person of the Year covers, or millions of dollars given away to charities. In fact, people who have achieved those things are not necessarily successful.

Angelo was right

Angelou was correct: People who feel successful are at peace with who they are. They enjoy the ways they can use their talents. They are exhilarated by the way they do what they do.

But those people are not necessarily successful, even if they feel successful. It is possible for immoral and godless people to like themselves, as well as to enjoy what they do and how they do it. But, by an objective standard, that doesn't make them successful.

Objective success is determined by the highest power

To be objectively successful in life — to be judged victorious throughout life and at the end of life's race —only God can judge our success. Only the one who created and controls our universe is in a position to judge how successful our lives have been.

There’s a problem with looking to God’s judgment. In his courtroom, no one's life will be judged "successful." No matter how many say of their lives, "Nailed it," the universe's perfect God judges, "Failed it."

Success is attainable

But success is possible. It is easily available. Its guarantee is unassailable.

"Thanks be to God!" Paul shouts. "He gives us the victory…." But wait. How is it possible for the perfect Lord of all to declare complete failures to be successes? "He gives us the victory [don't miss this, gives us the victory] through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:57).

God's Son, our Savior, has given us his success. He wraps us in his holiness so tightly it becomes our holiness. He washes away our failures in his Golgotha-shed blood so thoroughly that it's as though they never existed.

Success, eternal success, begins with knowing who we are in Jesus. After that, it is liking ourselves because we know we are loved by Jesus. And because the Almighty God loves us, we can celebrate whatever he gives us to do and cheerfully strive to do the best we can to accomplish it.