The God of Failure
For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul Matthew 16:26
Gains – Life with the kairos God has a different focus. God is not really interested in my success. He is anxious for me to join His success. The measurements are radically different. So is the methodology on how to get there. Ultimately, success my way is the biggest impediment to humility and radical dependence. Success my way leads easily to pride. That’s why Jesus uses this exaggerated statement to call our attention to the false criteria we so easily use.
The Greek word is kerdaino. It’s a verb that comes from the noun kerdos, meaning profit, winning or acquisition. Perhaps we have heard this so often that we are immune to its impact. Maybe we need to re-write Jesus’ statement like this: “What benefit is it to a man if he achieves profit, wins the game or acquires the desires of life, but in the process barters away his soul.” You don’t have to gain everything to fall victim to the winning syndrome. All you have to do is spend your life chasing the trappings of success.
Affluence is a spiritual narcotic. It puts you in a deceptive stupor called self- sufficiency.
The challenge of Christian living is not to be saved. That’s God’s work. I accept His work as a gift or I do not receive it at all. The challenge is to be sanctified – to learn obedience after salvation. We are saved in order to obey. The purpose of salvation is not to get you to heaven. It is to get you aligned with God’s game plan of success. And that usually means you must embrace failure for it is not possible to gain the world without losing your soul.
We want the CEO with a successful track record. We want the winning coach. We want the teacher with the best credentials. We want the neighborhood with the best schools. We want a famous pastor in a mega-church who authors best-selling books.
God does not send us into the field to win! He sends us to execute the plays according to His playbook, and in His playbook, “success” often looks very much like earthly failure. The missionary is killed. The ministry fails. No one comes to the Lord in forty years (Jeremiah). The nation goes into captivity. The Christ dies. Everywhere it looks like failure. And then the kairos God shows us what He was really doing and our failure becomes His glory. If we could succeed on our own, we would. That’s why we serve the God of failure – so that nothing accomplished can ever be credited to us.
How will you measure your “success” in this coming year? Will you look for the symbols that the world acknowledges or will you open your arms to failure so that God’s glory can be seen in your weakness?
