Success

When you hear about someone being successful what is the first thing you think of? Is it money, social standing, mansions, business empires, Rolex watches, fancy foreign cars, yacht club memberships or something else along the same line? If so you have missed the meaning of success. The times I have been to college graduations there will always be someone who has graduated from that college and they will tell how successful they have been. What about the man and woman that has been happily married for 50 or more years; would you say that they were successful? What about if they didn’t own much in this world; would you still call them successful? What about the missionary I knew that sold all they had and went to Peru and then he buried his wife in Peru and was so sick with Malaria that he couldn’t hold up his on head. He comes home and marries another lady and goes back to Peru and in a few years buries her too. What do you say? Do you become as one of Job’s friends and say that he must be out of God’s will? I sure hope not. Back to that word success, what does it mean? Webster says that “success means the favorable or prosperous termination of anything attempted;” I have attempted many things and know what failure is; but I decided to see how many times the word success was mentioned in the Bible; boy was I surprised. It’s only mentioned once.

Joshua 1:8  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 thou shalt have good success.

Here we read God telling Joshua how he can become successful. I think we can learn much from what God tells Joshua. God tells Joshua to never stop reciting the teachings out of the Word of God. He is to think about them day and night so that he will do according to all that is written therein. For then he will make his way prosperous and have good success. David knew the same thing 

Psalms 119:11  Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Sin will keep you and I from being successful, but if we hide the Word of God in our heart, meditate and recite it on a daily basis we will be successful. What’s going on in our hearts will always come out of our mouths we can’t help it.  

Matthew 12:34  … for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

Have you ever heard someone say “excuse me I don’t know where that word came from?” The answer to that is “out of the heart that’s where for that’s where the mouth gets its information.” Hope you have a blessed week in all that you do.