A Good Success ... by Joseph Akinrinola

Everyone desires success. God wants His children to be successful. While there is success, God wants His children to have genuine success. It goes to say there is success that is no good if we don’t have what the Bible calls good success. The following scriptures highlight the clarity and the difference between the two.

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:8 KJV)

The blessing of the LORD makes one rich, And He adds no sorrow with it. (Proverbs 10:22 NKJV)

Thus, the following are a few attributes of genuine success:

1. It follows God’s pattern of achievement. God operates by principle. While people are only interested in the result, God is concerned about how you got the result. This is akin to how a mathematics teacher is not merely interested in the students getting the answer, but how they arrived at the answer. Therefore, God’s kind of success must follow the pattern of righteousness and honesty. This is when you could term such a success as good. Getting success at the expense of others or fraudulently getting a breakthrough is not a genuine success.

2. It glorifies God. What do you have that you are not given? (1 Corinthians 4:7) Since it is God that gave you the breakthrough odds, you are to return all the glory to Him. Using your prosperity to glorify God is acknowledging Him as the giver of such blessing. Glorifying God means using your position and prosperity for godly purposes that benefit not only you, but others. Jesus told us about the parable of the rich fool. (Luke 12:16-21)

The problem with the man was not because he was strategic. It was not because he was planning for the future. After all, wisdom dictates your plan for tomorrow. However, he never acknowledged God as the giver of his success or included others in his plan for tomorrow. You should not forget the admonition of Apostle James on planning our life based on God’s permission. (James 4:13-15)

3. It draws the beneficiary closer to God. Most times, people tend to redirect their attention away from God for their prosperity once they achieved what they wanted. A story was once told about this lifestyle. A couple was consistently coming to a church program, prayer, vigil, and counseling while they are trusting God for a child. They stop coming once the child came.

After a while, the pastor visited them to ask why they were no longer consistent in church. In response, the husband asked the pastor if a patient stays in the hospital after receiving his treatment? The man told the pastor they came to church because they were looking for a child. Now that they got what they were looking for, why should they continue to come to church?

That was not how to handle God’s blessing. God’s kind of success is such that developed your trust further in God. It increases your confidence in God, not only because of what He has done, but because He would sustain the blessing He gave you. That is what genuine success is.

4. When the success positively affects others. Genuine success is that which affects the lives of others. God has placed all the money and wealth we all needed in the hands of a few people. What God expected is for the few to share it equitably with others. You are not truly successful if the success revolves around you. The number of people enjoying your prosperity is an indicator of true wealth. A Nigerian adage says, one rich man among a hundred poor men is poor as well. You have godly success if those around you have a feeling of it. The centurion and Cornelius are examples of people whose success imparted lives outside their families. (Acts 10, Luke 7:1-10)

5. When you are the master of success. The prosperity that will make you lose your sleep is not God’s kind of success. Examine yourself if you are afraid of the tax department wanting to check your tax return form. Surely, you do not have a God kind of success if you raise an eyebrow whenever the government comes up with a new policy on accountability and transparency in running businesses.

Jesus told us about the young, rich man. The scripture concluded the man left Jesus dejected because he had many possessions. (Matthew 19:22) But a closer look at the story reveals it was many possessions that had that man.

While the Bible condemns wastage, it does not support frugality at the expense of your wellbeing. You should use wealth and prosperity for the glory of God, others, and yourself. It becomes abnormal if you are so concerned about losing your money that you can’t enjoy the basic needs of life. Though you should not be glued to things, you cannot be heaven conscious, but become earthly irrelevant.

God’s kind of success begins and ends with God. Anything short of that is not the will of God. Let me conclude that success is more about how much you give than how much you accumulate. You will seek God’s kind of success if you know truly successful people are people who enjoyed the best of the two worlds. They enjoy the best of God on earth and still make it to eternity like Abraham and the likes. Apostle Paul gave believers a warning about our value in his word:

“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 15:19 NIV)

Therefore, do everything to be successful but ensure it follows God’s pattern. Then you can claim to have good success.

Joseph Akinrinola

I am Joseph, an author, blogger, and content writer from Nigeria. In the field of writing, I deliver unique, grammatically correct, and plagiarism-free content. Currently, I work with three online firms specializing in motivation, human capacity development, lifestyle, relationship, and spiritual writings.

Joseph Akinrinola lives in Lagos, Nigeria, with his wife and four adorable children. He served with the Gospel Faith Mission International for over three decades. Besides, he is a Sunday school coach, an author, a blogger, and a freelance. He has served in Sunday school for over three decades. His friends and students call him “Mr. Sunday school”. Joseph has published five books with two classics titled “Effective Sunday School Management Made Simple” and “Effective Sunday School Teacher.”

While with the Gospel Faith Mission International, he was a regional coordinator. He oversees the activities of the Sunday school in over a hundred and twenty churches. Then, he sat on the extended board of his Sunday school writing the weekly and daily devotionals read by over 2 million readers globally. Currently, he is the pastor of a new church, the Levites Chapel International, Lagos, Nigeria.

His passion is to reach young people with the Bible truth about relationships, Christian lifestyle, and personal development. This informs the creation of his blog, www.thewisdombase.com. In addition, he writes for online and international magazines. He is a member of Amnesty International.