Is Success Really That Simple?

When we set out and go about our day, do we not want to be successful in what we do? I don't think we wake up in the morning and say," Lord, I want to fail at every thing I do. I want to do my work lousy, I want to blow it in my relationships, I want to spend all my money like there's no tomorrow." No, we would rather achieve victory. It's our will and the Lord's as well.

My Old Testament readings has me passing thru the book of Ezra into Nehemiah. They were both great men of God who were given great responsibilities by God. The thing that has stood out to me about both of them is they loved God's word and they were great men of prayer. Nehemiah took charge of the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem and whenever an issue came his way he always went to the Lord first. I have a terrible habit of acting first and then praying for God to bless it. It doesn't work like that.

I love Nehemiah's prayer in the first chapter. Nehemiah was the cup bearer for the King of Persia and he wanted to be sent to Jerusalem to supervise the reconstruction. His prayer ended this way. "O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me.” Nehemiah 1:11

Nehemiah didn't just pray "Well God I hope I do a good job with the men and we try our best to finish. If it's your will it'll get done." No, instead he prayed for success. He wanted to achieve victory. Nehemiah wanted God's blessings for the project so he went in prayer to Him first. Nehemiah also told other where his success would come from. "Then I told them about how the gracious hand of God had been on me, and about my conversation with the king. They replied at once, “Yes, let’s rebuild the wall!” So they began the good work." Nehemiah 2:16

The Lord had been with Nehemiah before so he had no doubt that God would be with him again. He proceeded to supervise the wall being built in 52 days. It was all God. It was such a miracle that the people knew it came from the Lord.

Ezra was also a man of success. He was a man of God and he also supervised a project. His assignment was the rebuilding of the temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians. Now the book of Ezra has never been one that has verses that are on the tip of my tongue, but one morning there was one that jumped off the page at me. It spelled the reason for Ezra's success.

"For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel." Ezra 7:10 It's seems too simple. In this one short verse you can see what Ezra did. He studied God's law, that would be the Bible for you and me. Number two and very importantly he obeyed what was in it and number three he taught others about God and His ways. To make things work, we must do it in this exact order; read, obey and teach.

My encouragement to you today is don't look at people in the Bible and think that God only blesses those that come from super-spiritual backgrounds and that he only cares about people who have their life together. He wants to bless all of us, but we have to make the first move. Pray and ask Him to meet with you everyday. Read and study His word and obey what it says. And finally, tell others about God. Don't keep the Good News to yourself.

Now that was simple, wasn't it?