The Secret to Success
Have you ever watched YouTube ads on what success looks like? There is one ad that keeps popping up on my computer and it talks about if you want to make your goals and dreams come true, then you need to make it happen and manifest it in the universe.
Now, while I believe it’s important to write down goals and have dreams, I also think that God has a big role in how our lives will look and unfold.
While the world talks about making it in life, being rich, and famous as indicators of making it, God has a different view of what real success looks like.
His idea is quite simple yet can be hard to swallow at times.
It’s simply this: be a servant.
You read that right, God wants us to serve.
We would think of all the things God wants us to do, it would be something else, but the God of the universe, the One who created the heavens and earth, and who created you and me wants us to serve.
This is what is BIG in God’s books and He demonstrates this for us in John 13.
In the story, Jesus takes off his clothes and uses a towel to wash the feet of the disciples. You must understand that washing feet was a job for slaves and servants. It was not for people like Jesus. Yet we see that God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present lowers himself to the job of a slave. That should make us think, that if God is willing to humble and take on the title of someone low, then what is stopping me from doing the same?
I can name some things. How about pride, our ego, or what will others think?
But the truth is if we want to be big and great in the eyes of God, we need to lower ourselves. If we want to go up in life, we must go down.
At first, Peter didn’t want Jesus to do it, he felt it was wrong. But Jesus said to him if Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” Jesus was saying if you don’t let me wash you, you are not part of me and what I am doing.
This means God is saying we can’t be who God calls us to be unless we humble and lower ourselves, and let God wash us clean (on the inside out). We need to accept the gift of God – Jesus – who died for the sins of the world and gives us eternal life.
Then Jesus says to the disciples and others, "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."
Now we are called to do the same for others. I don’t know about you, but to think that a King would wash my feet, to think that a holy God would cleanse me, to think that He had the power to come into this earth in a loud and grand way, but came quiet and as a baby, it makes no sense to me but makes me stand still and amazes me that this our God!
It makes me want to serve and please him. It makes me want to be like Jesus.
How can you serve today, what is something you can do that seems small but is big in God’s eyes? Maybe today you can:
Phone call someone.
Send money to someone.
Visit someone.
Pray for someone.
Show up for something.
Buy a gift.
Teach someone.
Simply show love.
In God’s eyes, being his servant and serving others is gold. It’s what success is. It’s money. It's living life. Because this is what matters, has value, and what will last.
Whatever God is asking us to do, will we serve like him?
