The Call to Noble Success: Long Time Coming – Confusion to Clarity

We once had a neighbor who, when asked how she was doing, always had the same reply, “Oh, we’re a-makin’ it!” How many Christians are just “a-makin’ it”? They are just going through life on auto-pilot, buying into the worldly philosophy that this is it – their “station in life”! They can’t change their circumstances so they bury any dreams or desires that they once had, never considering that those dreams and desires may have been put there by God Himself! How sad!

I believe this is a wrong interpretation of God’s will! Yes it is important to know and live out God’s will for our lives. But, God gave us minds, abilities, dreams, and desires and these figure into knowing and doing His will.

Philippians 2:12 -13 says, “ Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” To “work out” means to accomplish, finish, or perform. Therefore, God works in us to cause us to do His will through the working out of our intellect, gifts, abilities, desires, and circumstances.

If we trust in the Lord and truly delight ourselves in Him, then His word is clear – He will “direct our steps” (Pr 3:5-6) and “give us the desires of our hearts” (Ps 37:5).

Sure, there are warnings that go along with this. Jeremiah 17:9 cautions, “The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked; who can know it?” I contend that a saved person whose desire is to trust and delight in the Lord, will know the will of God and have right desires in his heart (and know that they are right desires)! Indeed, in the four verses preceding Jeremiah 17:9 the contrast between those who are trusting in the arm of the flesh (man) and those who are trusting in the Lord is made abundantly clear:

Jer 17:5 So says Jehovah, Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and who makes flesh his arm, and who turns aside his heart from Jehovah.

Jer 17:6 For he shall be like a juniper in the desert, and shall not see when good comes. But he shall live in parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land that is not inhabited.

But He follows with this…

Jer 17:7 Blessed is the man who trusts in Jehovah, and Jehovah is his refuge.

Jer 17:8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters. It sends out its roots by the stream, and it will not fear when the heat comes; but its foliage will be green; and it is not anxious in the year of drought, nor will it cease from yielding fruit.

Many in Christian circles today have taken vs.9 to mean that we must basically be robots because we cannot trust any thoughts emanating from our hearts. We cannot seek to do well, in financial terms, because our motives cannot be pure! I say hogwash! They take this verse alone and do not set it in context with the previous verses.

Pro 4:23 exhorts us to “keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” If our heart is right, then our desires, and motives will also be right!In The Character of Noble Success we will look at this in more detail.

Third, it has taken me this long because I have had to learn how to reconcile warning passages such as the one in Colossians 3 with the command to “do good unto all men, Romans 10:15, “how shall they go except they be sent”… When I was saved, at age 28, I had been living a rather self-centered life of “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die”! It just never occurred to me that there was a whole different perspective of success that was rooted in Nobleness: serving others, not self.

In the words of one of my all-time favorite radio Bible preachers, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, “My friends, this is where the rubber meets the road!” I can still hear that old gravelly voice! This is discussed more fully in The Cost of Noble Success.

The final point I want to make is that it has taken me this long to believe that the ability to think creatively, to write, and to teach are gifts from God to be used for His glory! The realization that God has given me the ability and, more importantly, the responsibility to make a difference and influence the lives of others for good through writing, teaching, and speaking has been a very slow process. Like Moses, I have struggled (and still do) with the confidence to realize that God can and does want to use me!

Nothing against Moses, but I was actually glad to find out that he wasn’t perfect, that he failed, and that he resisted the call of God! He whined, complained, and made up excuse after excuse, yet God continued to prepare him and then use him to accomplish extraordinary things.

I have dedicated the rest of my life to this endeavor although I am not sure what direction that path may take. In The Challenge of Noble Success I focus more on these thoughts.

Until next time my friends, Selah …Think on these things!