Markers Of True Success: Engaged In Community
What might help you to make lasting changes to redefine success according to Jesus?
Worldly success and greed hide themselves exceedingly well. It might masquerade as “you need to be responsible, wise, provide for your family and save for the future” or other-fine sounding resolutions. Worldly success is so subtle yet powerful, attractive and addictive that no one can consistently redefine success according to Jesus without a genuine and effective community of people who are doing likewise. We need allies.
The temptation to revert and just look at the worlds measures of success is extremely real. You can swing from one end of the pendulum to the other. But it’s not about things like career progression or status or appearance. It’s not about us, but it must be about God- this is what we should live for; Living to serve God will put our hearts at rest. We need to consistently surround ourselves with a Christian community that drives us to a God centered balance regularly. Our foundation has to start from this center.
With God as our center we can live lives that are powerful, full of generosity, making a difference in the world. But we can’t go alone. We are humans, social animals designed to work and live in harmony. The church is the family of God. We are brothers and sisters in Christ and of one another. This central identity of being God’s child is something that we all share as a community – we are all God’s children. due to this fact it is imperative that we walk together as we all belong to the Father.
The last night before Jesus was to be crucified (John 17) and knew death was coming his last prayer was about unity. We need to become a community that offers the world a different way of living, a different pattern of success. We are the body of Christ; we must be one. The human body has a lot of different parts that play different roles, but they all function as one. It is in this same spirit that we should view the Christian community, we all each have our individual gifts, responsibilities and roles to play and when you add that together, as a collective, we have the power to change the world.