The ones who’ve lost so much, the ones who’ve struggled with trials and temptations and ran to God, oh how we love to hear their stories.

And then there are the other stories, the ones we hear again and again of those who’ve obtained incredible success in life but fall; and often the story is the most disappointing and scandalous when the fall comes from one whose success was in ministry.

Perhaps we all need to understand that many turn to God in their tragedy and many walk away from Him in their success.

Perhaps the reason is, we start believing too much in our own ability to choose well, and do well, and we set ourselves up for great failure.

We forget that any good thing we ever do is simply the result of God at work in and through us.

We have to remind ourselves of this every day.

We can’t let our guard down, for if we do, we will find the praise of others addicting. We will crave it more than the praise of God and will ultimately compromise the truth of God to keep the praise of the world coming.

Those who do not guard their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus are ripe for public failure and often take many others down with them.

I bet you are thinking of several right now.

But, we, who think we are immune to this, best be warned. We have an enemy who has taken notice of the good works God has done in and through us and the evil one would like nothing more than to see all that implode.

The evil one can’t get our salvation, but he’d love to rob the Lord of some glory our lives might give Him.

So we better daily ask the Lord to guard our hearts and minds in Him. We better stay in the Word for ourselves, and not just for what we can share with someone else. We should ask for prayer, and we should seek out accountability.

Because every one of us is capable of failing in our success, perhaps much more, than we ever were in our trials.

For in our trials it’s often easier to keep our eyes on Jesus and seek Him above all.

But in our success, we start running ahead in our own strength, thinking we know the way to take, and we often ignore God’s guidance and correction rather than seeking His help and His glory (not our glory) every step of the way.

If we want to follow Christ and keep following Him well, we have deny ourselves, and keep denying ourselves, because it’s our self (every time) that trips us up.

Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Matt 16:24-26).

It can’t be about us. We can’t handle the glory that is due to Christ alone.

And any good that we have to offer is simply the Lord at work in and through us.

Glory to God!
Worship Christ alone!

whataSavior

I absolutely covet your prayers in this.

kimjaggers.com