Vision - Purpose - Goals - Sacrifice.  This all leads to success - right?!

And if it doesn’t, you’re a failure - right?!   I suppose it depends on our definitions of success and failure.   Many of the worlds most famous people would have been considered failures at one point or another.   One  famous quote by one famous person, Thomas Edison, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

We have all failed at something at one time or another and many of us feel like failures at times.  In fact, I’m feeling like a failure at this very moment as I’m penning this due to the fact that I know I’m going to have a hard time communicating my thoughts on failure and success.   I think maybe sometimes our perception of failure is due to focusing on the negative, the moment, instead of the big picture (vision).  Like, “is the glass half empty or half full?”   And we know, as Christ followers, the worlds definition of failure and God’s definition are not always the same.  The world would look at the original Apostles as failures, but in God’s eyes they were successful!   Peter witnessed many miracles and wonderers of Jesus Christ as he journeyed with him during His earthly ministry.   But even Peter failed (world view) when he denied even knowing Jesus (cf. Luke 18),

not once, but three times!   Peter must have felt like a total failure at that moment (in life and ministry).   We read Peter’s story and see that after the death of Jesus he went back to fishing, maybe due to his perceived and unrecoverable failure!  If we continue reading Peter’s journey and story we  see that Jesus met up with Peter after His resurrection.  Not only so that Peter would be an eyewitness to His resurrection, but to help him refocus!

To help him see that he is not a failure and to keep his eyes on his purpose - “FOLLOW ME!” (cf. John 21: 19)

“What you feed, grows.  What you starve, dies.”

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” - Jesus (cf. Mark 8: 36)

In His Service,

Pastor Rodney