Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday February 20, 2008

I often write about success and how to achieve said success. One problem with all the hullabaloo about success is the failure to come to a consensus as to just what constitutes success. In the religious field you can get as many answers as there are religions.

Success for a pastor can mean having the most members, the biggest bus fleet, or the largest offerings. Ted Haggard had all of the above and is relegated to the pile marked failure, because he was not successful in a more important area of life, the area of being rather than achieving.

Get me right, I am for achieving and hardly a Monday goes by that I do not pray for larger offerings next Sunday! And certainly I ask for more people to hear the message and for more workers to go out and bring them in to hear. Yet, if I fail in the moral area, it is all for naught as far as my success is measured.

The New England Bard, Ralph Waldo Emerson hit on this idea of success through being when he wrote:

"To share often and much…to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; this is to have succeeded."

Sharing often and much is not original with Emerson as it has a long history in the word of the Lord. Me, myself and I are a threesome to be avoided at all costs as these three when permitted to operate uncontrolled in our life lead to limited happiness accompanied with depression, addictions, broken relationships and general misery overall. The old acrostic for success in being is often brought home by the children from Sunday School usually given with the smug smile that whispers, "I'll bet you don't know this one." The key to the joy of living is JOY: Jesus, Others and You. Simple? Yes, and pathetically so. Easy? The preponderance of practitioners of Freudian mumbo jumbo testifies to the absence of joy in the life of the mass of civilization.

The practice of giving often and much, much being defined on a percentage basis, is part of the process of bringing the self under control. Unlike many who claim illumination as great teachers parroting the idea of the annihilation of the self, Jesus Christ teaches the development of the Christian self under the control of the Holy Spirit rather than some Ascended Master aiding you to reach the goal of nothingness. That the self survives what we call death is well attested in the scripture. And according to the scriptures our self, our identity remains intact, though brought into complete conformity to Christ the Exemplar.

So, if as the Bible explains, I am going to be myself eternally, it makes sense to cooperate with the Spirit and get busy and successfully, more or less, bring the self under the absolute control of the Lord.

Self running wild brings about Hitler, Charles Manson and other monstrosities. Self, denied and controlled through Christ brings about success as defined by Emerson's statement.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit

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