What is success according to the Bible?

The most successful life is a stupendous failure, when judged in the light of Eternity if it is lived without the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is interesting to trace in Scripture what God calls life. We read, for instance, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). Life in Scripture is life lived in relation to God. So much is this so that Scripture views the unbeliever as “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1), and what he needs is life. “God … even when we were dead in sins has quickened us together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). The fact is, a man may be a brilliant success in this life, in scholarship, in the world of finance, in political or military or social life, yet, if he is unconverted, his life is a colossal disaster. He has not known true life at all. He has merely grasped the mere shadow of a brief life in this world, and failed to get the eternal substance of real life.

"Keep therefore the words of this [the Moab] covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do." Simple obedience to the word of God ever has been, is now, and ever shall be the deep and real secret of all true prosperity. To the Christian, of course, the prosperity is not in earthly or material things, but in heavenly and spiritual; and we must never forget that it is the very height of folly to think of prospering or making progress in the divine life if we are not yielding an implicit obedience to all the commandments of our blessed and adorable Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done to you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." Here is true Christian prosperity. May we earnestly long after it, and diligently pursue the proper method of attaining it!

To be dependent on results as a motive-spring of action and service is a great snare. The fact is we ought to find sufficient attractiveness in Christ alone to enable us to preach for fifty years without seeing a convert—if this were the will of God. On the other hand, since God does send forth His servants with definite results in view, absence of results should be a matter of gravest concern and exercise. It is perfectly true that what Christ values is not success, but faithfulness. “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21, 23). At the same time, be it remembered that the faithful servants were also the succesful ones. Faithfulness and success in the parable go hand in hand.

Young men, go out into the country, and tell the people, who perhaps never hear the simple gospel, the story of the love of Christ. Oh, you say, I do preach, but I do not catch any fish — I do not get any conversions. Do not let your mind be occupied with success. The Lord says, "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matt. 25:21). He does not say, "Well done, good and successful servant." The great thing is to be simple.

Finally, being assured before our God of the divine character of the service to which we have been called, let us seek in every way to be conformed to God's ways and will in that service, knowing that when the Lord Jesus returns and all our deeds done in the body will be reviewed, and our work inspected, He will reward good and faithful work. Where there is this, the good and faithful work, He will find for Himself the kind of success for which He sent His servant. Was the cross success? Was His spending His strength for nought success? Was a cursing Peter, a cowardly lot of disciples, a betraying Judas, success? Was a compact of Jew with Gentile to crucify Him success? Yet said He, "My judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God" (Isa. 49). It was good and faithful work, and His God gave Him in resurrection a countless host of souls, the result of His self-sowing into loneliness and death. If we find long years after our earthly service is closed that God gave the greatest results to our sowing after we were supposed to be dead and done with, will the discovery not reward us amply for our apparent lack of success?

Assuredly faith will still be necessary, and a judgment by results will be often much mistaken. If we wait for these to authenticate our course to us, we must in the meanwhile walk doubtfully, and not in faith. These words are an assurance rather to those who may be pursuing what to sense seems doubtful enough as to its issue. He affirms it to them. If they have the character here, — if they are with the Holy and the True, holy with the Holy, true with the True, — then precisely because of this assurance, they need not ask, Will this be fulfilled is it being fulfilled to us? Our eyes must be upon the path and the Leader. Success, where it seems fullest, must yet be tested rather by the future than the present — rather by eternity than time; and he who follows it most will be most distracted by other voices than His who speaks here. What tempter lures indeed the servants of Christ like this? For how many does success, rather than the Word of God, sanction their measures, while alluring them into direct opposition to the Word! If even gained in true obedience, how often does the flattery of great achievement unbalance a soul which adversity could only school to more endurance! These things are but common-places of experience; and in view of them, we need not wonder if God has, in general, been sparing in measuring out to His people great success.

And yet finally the success is great indeed, as it is certain to those who conform to the rule laid down as of old to Joshua: "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have good success." Alas! how much oftener is this thought to be insured by a supple and worldly wisdom than by a close and undeviating adherence to the Word of God!

Fidelity is of more value than outward and visible success, and wisdom than the most brilliant gift, as 1 Corinthians 13 shows. There may be much of what passes as success where there is little heart-faithfulness to God, little self-denial, little personal communion with the Lord, little separation from the world and its ways, little true submission to the word of God, and little prayer.

That if we put God's interests first, such an aim will never end in failure. At least we shall have this testimony, that we pleased God. And lastly, that simple obedience to God's word should be our chief concern. Such a course may not always seem to command the greatest success in the eyes of men, but in the end it will be found to have most promoted the glory of God.

For Him who could say, "I have set Jehovah always before Me," what was the result? "Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." There was no tottering, no unsteadiness in His steps: no circumstances, no power of the enemy, could hinder or turn Him aside. All other aims may be defeated, all other hopes frustrated; but where God is before the soul, it can never miss its aim: this is the secret of all prosperity and success. If we have set the Lord before us, we may go forward with the fullest and most assured confidence. And this is, in fact, found in such a course. What hinders faith like a double mind? What strengthens it like a single eye? How can we trust God for a selfish project? How doubt that He will fulfill His own mind? In the path of faith it is that we find faith for the path; and there alone.