Success is ...

“Success is not what you have but who you have.”  That’s what he said.  And, in a sense, he is right, absolutely right.  But all week I had been thinking about another conversation.  There the person said, “You have to choose Jesus.”  And that’s right too.  But how does one choose for God if one is spiritually dead?  That's what Paul says we are in Ephesians 2.  Corpses don’t make a lot of choices.  

And when you do choose, then what?  How do we not think, “At least I was smart enough to make the smart choice of for Jesus rather than away from Jesus?”  It’s certainly possible, from that orientation, to think of God’s rescue as something we are a little proud about?  Maybe some, not a lot, not at all? 

Yet if you and I had absolutely nothing to do with it, becoming a Christian I mean, then aren’t we like quizzical?  Maybe we are even almost embarrassed to be saved standing next to someone who hasn’t “chosen” to follow Christ?

 

Back to the original phrase I opened with, “Success is who you have.”  I found myself, doing my Presbyterian thing, and this is a Presbyterian thing, just as the whole do-corpses-choose thing is a Presbyterian thing, … I found myself saying, “Not who YOU have.”  It’s true but can we say, “Who has you”?  Success is not what you have but who has you.  Then it isn’t even success.  It’s more like ... grace.