She was beautiful, talented, rich, famous, powerful, and now she’s dead. Sigh….Whitney Houston went from singing in her church choir as a youngster to dying alone in a hotel in Hollywood.
I was mentoring a couple of people in my office this week and I mentioned the definition of “success” that I taught in my Success Seminar back in November. The dictionary defines success as an: “impressive achievement, especially the attainment of fame, wealth, or power”.
I told the attendees that definition could not be an adequate description of success, because I knew plenty of people who had attained impressive and significant achievements, plus had attained fame wealth and power and yet they were miserable. Being miserable is not my definition of success.
Indeed Whitney Houston is one of them. She accomplished a great deal and rose to the top of her game in her short life, and yet she could not find fulfillment from any of it, and in her despair turned to alcohol and drugs to escape. She said on Oprah that cocaine and marijuana were her refuges of choice in which she tried to find her peace. Although all of the results and autopsy reports are not in, odds are that those refuges likely did her in.
Success is knowing joy, peace, and love in our lives. It can only be found through Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 12:2 the Bible tells us: We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.” Jesus knew joy even when He faced horrific agony on the cross.
We can face our own trials and tribulations and know joy too.
Carefully re-read the foregoing verse and then stop and think about it for a moment this morning; let God fill you with understanding because it is very important because we will ALL face trials and tribulations and we all seek joy, peace, and love in our lives.
“Keeping our eyes on Jesus”
- We are to look to how He lived His life – He lived a holy, faith filled life
- Notice his attitude throughout life towards His enemies and situations that He faced –patience, perseverance, unwavering love even for His enemies
- His utter reliance on Scripture and His father in heaven through every trial – His unshakable faith
- He looked forward to the day when peace would reign everlasting
“The champion who initiates and perfects our faith”
- If faith is initiated and perfected through Christ then we must look to His example for our faith and follow Him. Faith is set in motion by Christ and will eventually be perfected in us through Him and His visit to the cross
“Because of the joy awaiting Him
- Jesus endured the cross because of the joy awaiting Him. – The defeat of death and the establishment of a way to reconciliation between God and mankind via the cross.
He is seated in a place of honor on a throne because He endured all obstacles and accomplished His mission. He awaits those of us who persevere
Okay so we want joy, peace, and love in our lives. An “impressive achievement, especially the attainment of fame, wealth, or power” are all nice and worthy goals but apart from Christ they cannot provide success. Neither can drugs, alcohol, sex, or other addictions. Many of us have tried everything known to man and learned first hand that this statement is very true. This is not to say that we shouldn’t try to be all we can be, but it is to say that we should be all we can be for Christ.
Look to old King Solomon; he was the wisest and richest man that will ever live. (whose tremendous wealth is estimated to have far exceeded Bill Gates and Warren Buffet’s wealth). People including the Queen of Sheba traveled from all over the world to sit at his knee and listen to his wisdom. Here is what he said after living a priveleged life of building tremendous projects, being a “material guy” with gold, horses, elaborate palaces, slaves, silver, exotic beasts, temples, monuments, vineyards, experiencing wine, women, ( a frightening 1000 wives/800 concubines), and song from his stable of musicians and vocalists, and in general being one of the “beautiful people and a member of the ” golden chariot set”…
Eccl. 12:13
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man.