True success - being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ
Author
Dr. Roberto Miranda
Summary: The Bible teaches that true success and greatness come from within, through spiritual values such as love, holiness, and justice. As Christians, we must undertake a lifelong process of transformation, submitting our flaws and defects to Christ and allowing him to shape us into his image. True success and greatness come from developing a balanced and harmonious personality that reflects the original creature that God created in us before the fall of man. This is the foundation of true personal greatness.
The Bible informs us that greatness and success are to be found within us, and not so much outside, as the world teaches us. People strive for success, looking for it in money, influence, or social prestige. The Bible, however, calls us to set our sights on other things - spiritual values - love, holiness, justice; "The things above," in the words of the apostle Paul.
The hardest job for every human being is to adopt a long-term plan of radical improvement. When we come to Christ, we come with all kinds of deformations, ties and defects that we must immediately put at his feet, and submit to his transforming work. After conversion, the long and arduous process of sanctification must begin.
Our vision as children of God must consist of undertaking a program of life that involves our whole being, and that has as its goal nothing less than the total reconstruction of our personality, until it is conformed to the perfect image of Christ. Any trait that does not glorify God - addictions of any kind, resentment, sensuality, phobias and fears, insecurity, pride, ambition, materialism, various complexes - must be removed one by one from our being. From that transformed life, sculpted blow by blow by the divine chisel throughout an intentional and deliberate career, will emanate the noble acts that the world will be able to observe and celebrate, and that only then will bring delight to the heart of God, because they will have been born of an authentic and truly moral subsoil.
All Scripture insists on this essential truth: the heart of God is reached only through the cultivation of a generous heart, a humble posture, a lifestyle like that of Jesus. That is why the agenda of our life should be the development of a balanced and harmonious personality, which reflects as much as possible the specifications of the original creature that God installed in the Garden of Eden before the fall. For this Christ came into the world, to restore the divine image that was distorted in us by sin at the Fall.
Become more and more like Jesus Christ, the perfect Man; reflect more accurately the harmony and balance of your personality. This is true success. That is the foundation of true personal greatness.
See also part 2 of this meditation on success: " Success is measured by the size of the heart "