Your Personal Success

Your Personal Success

What is your immediate response to personal success? Do your thoughts move to those who invested in you, those who sacrificed to bring you to this position?

Here are some words of Jesus as He speaks of His relationship with the Father regarding His success and the glory He gives to Him rather than to Himself.

"Truly, truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do. For whatever He does, likewise the Son does" (John 5:19).

"I can do nothing of Myself. As I hear, I judge. My judgment is just, because I seek not My own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me" (John 5:30).

"I do not receive honor from men" (John 5:41).

"My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me" (John 7:16).

"You know Me and you likewise know where I am from. I have not come on my own authority, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know" (John 7:28).

"When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing of Myself. But I speak these things as My Father taught Me" (John 8:28).

"I do not seek glory for Myself. There is One who seeks it and judges" (John 8:50).

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own authority. But the Father who lives in me does the works" (John 14:10).

"He who does not love Me does not keep My words. The word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father who sent Me" (John 14:24).

When it comes to Christ's humility, these Scriptures are convincing. They make humility a great deal more tangible.

They bring to life the Scripture "[Christ Jesus], being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. But He emptied Himself, taking upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men" (Philippians  2:6-7).

Jesus reveals to us a heavenly humility. With this humility comes endless possibilities in prayer.

It is not service that our Lord is after; it is relationship. The pitfall into which we stumble is to "rejoice" in how God has used us or to seek approval of others through service.

If we are walking with Him daily, then He will pour His life through us, whatever we experience, whomever we encounter, we will know what it is to pray and receive answers to prayer if we follow His guidelines. Others will be blessed as we walk in humility and in obedience.