God Promises to Make You Succeed

Suggested Reading: Joshua 1:1-9

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success—Joshua 1:8

Imagine you are working alongside your supervisor on the biggest project your company has ever undertaken and suddenly your supervisor, who is also your mentor and friend, dies. You are not only grieving the loss of your mentor/friend, but a bit anxious. You stay up at night, tossing and turning, walking the floors wondering how you will ever fill her shoes. You’re pretty sure you want to resign, but one day the big boss comes to you and has a conversation. He is confident you can do it, in fact he guarantees as long as you follow the same guide book  your mentor was following, your success is guaranteed! He implores you not to  panic, do everything the manual says and you will be fine. He has the fullest confidence in you, just be strong and courageous and everything will come out perfectly.

This is what happened to Joshua when Moses died. He was apprehensive. On a scale of 1-10 he was at 21! The pressure of following in the footsteps of someone as great a leader as Moses and not muck things up must have been tremendous.  But God came to him, not just once but several times and told him what and how to do it; reassuring Joshua that his success was guaranteed. And of course, Joshua was a success! He got the people exactly where they needed to be.

Success is defined as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose; the good or bad outcome of an undertaking; a degree or measure of succeeding; the attainment of.”

God promised Joshua not only a good outcome, but success. If Joshua was careful to obey the book of Law, learned to meditate upon it and not let it depart from him day or night he would be prosperous and succeed. The same promise God gave Moses, then Joshua, he has extended to us. If this promise isn’t already great enough God has added something else to assure our success: He sent Jesus to the cross to complete the Law and now through the work of Jesus our eternal and earthly success is guaranteed. God has not only given us the mind of Christ but assured through our faith in Jesus’ saving work of the cross we will accomplish that which he has sent us to do: success in reaching others for Christ and disciple-making, success in coming through our trials and problems, success in healing from the pain and hurt we receive from the world, success in loving and forgiving others, success in persevering, enduring, making it home to heaven, success in whatever we put our hand to that is good and pleasing in the Lord’s sight.   

What if we fed our children or grandchildren a spoonful of this promise each day from the day they are born? What if we learn to look in the mirror each morning and speak this promise over ourselves, “I am a success in Jesus!” instead of believing in the lies the devil has fed us far too long? Instead of living in defeat and feelings of failure or not having what it takes to succeed or measure up?

What if we learn to put in on sticky notes or place it throughout our house, use as bookmarks so we will come across it daily and often? Eventually it would be part of our belief system, part of our core values as Christians and God’s elect. God wants us to know this promise and believe it like the back of our hand. To trust in this promise and not be afraid but strong, focused, and courageous. In Christ, God’s promise of your success is guaranteed! Let’s Pray,

God our Father, thank you for this awesome, empowering promise in our life. To know that you have prophesied and promised over us in this way is strengthening and affirming. We do not need to the world to assure us or build us up or even give us it’s definition of success, but we have Jesus and in him our success is not only defined but secured and in his name we pray, Amen