Proverbs 16:1-3

Is success a legitimate goal for believers? Is this something God wants for His children? The answers depend upon your definition of success. Many people define it as the achievement of wealth, prominence, or fame. If that’s what you’re seeking, then you are following the world’s definition, not the Lord’s.

In His eyes, true success begins internally–the first step is a relationship with Jesus, whereby you have trusted Him as Savior and are following Him obediently. His goal for you is ongoing growth in Christlike character and spiritual maturity, but that’s not all. He also has some work for you to accomplish here on earth (Eph. 2:10). God planned these tasks specifically for you and designed them with your personality, talents, abilities, and spiritual gifts in mind. You could think of them as your unique calling and responsibility in life, which no one else can fulfill.

Genuine success involves doing what the Lord has called you to do, not just occasionally but continually. It has to do with persistence rather than perfection. When this is your definition of success, you can know that the Lord wants you to succeed–and is committed to helping you become the person He designed you to be and accomplish the goals He’s set for you.

The ultimate evaluation of our success will take place when we stand before God and give account of our lives (Rom. 14:12). Any self-centered earthly achievements will be left behind. But if we’ve lived by His definition of success, our treasure will await us in heaven–along with the words “Well done!”

It is fascinating to see the increasing role of forensic science in solving crimes. DNA can be recovered in anything from a few skin cells to a licked postage stamp. Forensic scientists can establish an association between a suspect and the crime scene with only an eyelash or single strand of hair. It appears we leave traces of our presence where ever we go.

Interestingly enough, your hair not only tells people that you have been there, it also tells your story—or at least provides some noteworthy details to that story. Scientists have discovered that your hair can divulge significant habits and particulars of your lifestyle: what you eat, where you live, if you smoke or drink, if you are of Asian or European decent. And a single hair can keep records for months, if not years, depending on its length.

When my mother first told me as a little girl that God knew the number of hairs on my head I was thoroughly amazed and a little troubled at the thought of it. The number of hairs on my head was something I didn’t know about myself; it was something no one else seemed to know about me either. This meant that someone knew something about me that my mom or my grandma didn’t know. It meant that someone had the capacity—and the aspiration—to know me and all of my details.

Even as I looked at this promise quite literally, it was at once both comforting and troubling. When I brushed my hair and caused several strands to fall out was I making work for God? How often did God have to recount them? And why did God care how many hairs I had anyway? Certainly it was one detail that God could overlook.

Then sometime later I was given the rest of Jesus’s words uttered that day: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7). Strand of hair or simple sparrow, worry, fear, or dream, God does not overlook even one.

That God knows the number of hairs on our heads is still a thought at which we do well to wonder.  Wrapped up tightly within such knowledge is the great and fearful truth about who we are praying to when our eyes grow heavy with sleep, who walks beside us through shadowy valleys and streams of still waters, who hears our groaning when we don’t know what we mean. God knows us more specifically and more effectively than we know ourselves—a thought that reminds us that God is Father, a detail that holds both immeasurable love and great consequence. God knows not only the stories told in each strand of your hair but every detail of who you are: the desires of your heart, the worries you carry, the questions you don’t know how to ask. In this perfect love our fears are cast aside and we are given not only reason to trust, but a will to obey.

According to the Natural History Museum of London, the average person has up to 150,000 hairs on his or her head.  The one who knows exactly where you stand in that average, who knit you together in your mother’s womb and knows each word on your tongue before it is formed, is a God of remembrance. Like the psalmist at this thought we wonder. “O Lord, what are human beings that you regard them, or mortals that you think of them? They are like a breath; their days are like a passing shadow” (144:3-4). In the echoing of that question across time the promise of Christ is also heard: “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8). Not even one of them will be forgotten.  

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Morning    “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”

Galatians 5:17

In every believer’s heart there is a constant struggle between the old nature

and the new. The old nature is very active, and loses no opportunity of plying

all the weapons of its deadly armoury against newborn grace; while on the other

hand, the new nature is ever on the watch to resist and destroy its enemy. Grace

within us will employ prayer, and faith, and hope, and love, to cast out the

evil; it takes unto it the “whole armour of God,” and wrestles earnestly. These

two opposing natures will never cease to struggle so long as we are in this

world. The battle of “Christian” with “Apollyon” lasted three hours, but the

battle of Christian with himself lasted all the way from the Wicket

Gate to the river Jordan. The enemy is so securely entrenched within us that he

can never be driven out while we are in this body: but although we are closely

beset, and often in sore conflict, we have an Almighty helper, even Jesus, the

Captain of our salvation, who is ever with us, and who assures us that we shall

eventually come off more than conquerors through Him. With such assistance the

new-born nature is more than a match for its foes. Are you fighting with the

adversary today? Are Satan, the world, and the flesh, all against you? Be not

discouraged nor dismayed. Fight on! For God Himself is with you; Jehovah Nissi

is your banner, and Jehovah Rophi is the healer of your wounds.

Fear not, you shall overcome, for who can defeat Omnipotence? Fight on,

“looking unto Jesus;” and though long and stern be the conflict, sweet will be

the victory, and glorious the promised reward. “From strength to strength go on;

Wrestle, and fight, and pray, Tread all the powers of darkness down, And win the

well-fought day.”

 

Evening  “Good Master.”  Matthew 19:16

If the young man in the gospel used this title in speaking to our Lord, how much

more fitly may I thus address him! He is indeed my Master in both senses, a

ruling Master and a teaching Master. I delight to run upon his errands, and to

sit at his feet. I am both his servant and his disciple, and count it my highest

honour to own the double character. If he should ask me why I call him “good,” I

should have a ready answer. It is true that “there is none good but one, that

is, God,” but then he is God, and all the goodness of Deity shines forth in him.

In my experience, I have found him good, so good, indeed, that all the good I

have has come to me through him. He was good to me when I was

dead in sin, for he raised me by his Spirit’s power; he has been good to me in

all my needs, trials, struggles, and sorrows. Never could there be a better

Master, for his service is freedom, his rule is love: I wish I were one

thousandth part as good a servant. When he teaches me as my Rabbi, he is

unspeakably good, his doctrine is divine, his manner is condescending, his

spirit is gentleness itself. No error mingles with his instruction–pure is the

golden truth which he brings forth, and all his teachings lead to goodness,

sanctifying as well as edifying the disciple. Angels find him a good Master and

delight to pay their homage at his footstool. The ancient saints proved him to

be a  good Master, and each of them rejoiced to sing, “I am thy servant, O Lord!” My

own humble testimony must certainly be to the same effect. I will bear this

witness before my friends and neighbours, for possibly they may be led by my

testimony to seek my Lord Jesus as their Master. O that they would do so! They

would never repent so wise a deed. If they would but take his easy yoke, they

would find themselves in so royal a service that they would enlist in it

forever.

 

For the Lord . . . Makes her wilderness like Eden.   Isaiah 51:3

In my mind’s eye I see a howling wilderness, a great and terrible desert, like the Sahara. I perceive nothing in it to relieve the eye; all around I am wearied with a vision of hot and arid sand, on which are ten thousand bleaching skeletons of wretched men who have expired in anguish, having lost their way in the pitiless waste. What an appalling sight! How horrible! A sea of sand without boundary and without an oasis, a cheerless graveyard for a forlorn race.

But look and wonder! All of a sudden, springing from the scorching sand I see a well-known plant; and as it grows it buds, the bud expands—it is a rose, and at its side a lily bows its modest head—and, miracle of miracles, as the fragrance of those flowers is diffused, the wilderness is transformed into a fruitful field, and all around it blossoms abundantly like the glory of Lebanon, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. Do not call it Sahara; call it Paradise. Do not refer to it any longer as the valley of death, for where the skeletons lay bleaching in the sun, a resurrection is proclaimed, and up spring the dead, a mighty army, full of life immortal. Jesus is that well-known plant, and His presence makes everything new.

The wonder is no less in each individual’s salvation. I can see you, dear reader, cast out, an infant, unclothed, unwashed, defiled with your own blood, and left to be food for beasts of prey.

But look, a jewel has been thrown into your bosom by a divine hand, and for its sake you have been pitied and guarded by divine providence; you are washed and cleansed from your defilement; you are adopted into heaven’s family; the fair seal of love is upon your forehead, and the ring of faithfulness is on your hand—you are now a prince to God, though once an orphan and a castaway. Cherish then the matchless power and grace that changes deserts into gardens and makes the barren heart sing for joy.

The family reading plan for June 1, 2012

Isaiah 33 | Revelation 3