Is it sinful to seek success?
THE JOSHUA ONE WAY: ARTICLE 1. FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES, SEE: SUCCESS.
Most Christians seem to be divided into two equally misguided camps when it comes to the topic of seeking success in this life.
On one side are the modern-day hucksters of the Prosperity Gospel. They teach that on the day you became a Christian, God lifted the curse and cleared the way for you to receive abundant wealth and perfect health. It is God’s will for every Christian to be rich.
On the other side, many Christians consider it improper to admit to any desire to seek success in this life. To them, it is somehow sinful to want to be successful, and especially worldly to want material comforts.
It amazes me that most modern Christians seem to have embraced one of these two philosophies, even though both positions are obviously in error.
PROSPERITY FOR THE PREACHERS
To know that it is not God’s will for all Christians to be rich at all times, all you have to do is look around. Millions of Christians struggle to make ends meet. Some Christians are unemployed; some live in dire poverty. Some believers even face starvation.
To explain these millions of exceptions to the rule, prosperity preachers blame the very ones who are without. They do not have enough faith. They are not planting enough seeds. They are not sufficiently obedient to God. The Prosperity Gospel promises health and wealth but delivers condemnation.
Prosperity teaching tends to mainly prosper the preachers, the ones selling the books and videos and taking up the “seed-faith†offerings. For the rest, the Prosperity Gospel often results in self-condemnation: “I am not rich, therefore God must be punishing me.†God gave us the book of Job to combat that kind of faulty thinking. But you won’t hear Job preached much in a prosperity church.
SEPARATING THE SECULAR FROM THE SPIRITUAL
However, it is a much greater error to teach that Christians should be ashamed of the desire to succeed in this life. The logical extension of that thinking is ascetism. God may call some believers to live as monks, but He has clearly not called most of us to such a life. To anyone who has a job, a home, and a family, success matters. It is silly to suggest otherwise.
But having been led to believe that the desire to succeed is somehow unspiritual, many Christians end up separating their spiritual and secular lives. They work hard to do well at their jobs and to provide comfort to their families, but they keep that part of their lives separate from their spiritual existence. They never ask God to prosper them, believing that prayer should be reserved for more noble things. “God has more important things to worry about,†they say, as if God’s resources are limited, or as if He ever worries about anything.
A Christian should not feel like he must live a double life — one on earth and one in the clouds, and nary the twain shall meet. Such faulty thinking has been around for centuries, at least since the days of the Greeks and the Gnostics, but that is not what the Bible teaches.
WHAT I BELIEVE
I believe success is a great thing. Is it really necessary to say that? OK, I confess: I prefer success to failure. I prefer abundance to lack. Turn me in.
From cover to cover, in both the Old and New Testaments, the Bible has hundreds of teachings on seeking God’s blessing, on obtaining prosperity from the hands of a generous God, and on reaping the temporal fruit of what we sow. The Bible has a wealth of helpful information on how to succeed at work, how to succeed at achieving our goals, and how to succeed financially.
God is the one who created this beautiful world. God is the one who commissioned us, with His blessing, to be fruitful. He is the one has called to do good work. God invites us to turn to Him with our requests — to ask, to seek, to knock. In fact, God commands that we put our faith in Him, not just for the bye and bye, but for the here and now.
It is only logical that I would like to have a dollar, or a thousand, or a million. Is there one of us who would turn down a million dollars if it were offered? I could sure do a lot of good things with a million dollars. Couldn’t you?
Obviously, God knows better than to let most of us get our hands on that much money. Material blessings create not only opportunities, but also temptations. God has promised to protect us from being exposed to more temptation than we can handle. That is just one of the many reasons why Christians often have less than they would like to have.
However, as a Bible-believing Christian, it is my intention to work hard, to do the best I can, to achieve all that I can achieve, and to have much so I can do much. I believe, based on hundreds of Scriptures, that I can do my best only with God’s blessing. Rather than being kept separate from our “secular†lives, God should be at the very center of our work, our homes and our finances.
THE JOSHUA ONE WAY
Our ministry, Joshua One Ministries, takes its name from the first chapter of the Old Testament book of Joshua. Specifically, verses 7-8. In these verses, the Lord Himself is speaking. Joshua is at the eastern bank of the Jordan River, preparing to lead Israel into the promised land. At that moment, one of the most important in history, God speaks directly to Joshua, telling him: “I want you to prosper. I want you to succeed.†Listen to His words:
“Be careful to do according to all [My] law … Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.â€
Just follow my Word, God says. Study it, meditate on it, and obey it. My Word is your roadmap to prosperity and success.
God wants you and me to prosper. He wants us to achieve success. In fact, God has given us His wonderful Word as the great roadmap to get us there.
In this series of articles we will explore the many things the Bible teaches about achieving success. The Scriptures have hundreds of things to say on this important topic, so this will be a long series. I invite you to join for me this study. I also invite you to participate in the discussion, if you like, by using the comments section of each article.
As we begin this study together, it is my prayer that you will experience great success in everything you do. If you offer up the same prayer for me, I will be grateful.
Terry Hull
