Praise in Success

A woman of God that I know, she said, "It is not about success in doing our job or conducting our business that make us what we are. What we are is what God says about us." Pride about success in life is nonsense in the eye of God, He belongs everything that we boast about. We steal His glory to do so. It is not about flowery words to show up to the world that we are not prideful, it is about the state of human's heart when living a successful life.    

By relying solely on our talent, education and the whole ability in us to achieve success, we will just end up in pride when success is within our grasp. "I'm doing great because, You know...I am talented, I am very well educated, I have a good hunch in business!", pride says. Pride will end up in  emptiness that lead to something destructive to fill up the emptiness. It might be drug addict, it might be having a wrong relationship.

 The destructive effect will be more difficult to be restored. Then, it is better to bring what we do from now on to His altar...from every little task to the huge project. Don't steal His glory...He is worthy of praise. The source of every good thing is God, and we are going to give back the glory and praise for every achievement to God.

Let God praise us instead of we praise ourselves and claim every success to be ours. Do not break His heart, God is a good father. He certainly will reward us with good rewards as good stewards.

By this story, let us get a picture of "it will never be in vain to give glory back to God":

One day, I tested my son by giving him a cookies that he liked very much. I placed the cookies in his hand and opened it up for him to eat. He enjoyed the cookies very much. He had not finished yet with the first cookie when I asked him all the cookies he had to be mine. You certainly can guess, the little kiddie refused to give me all instead of just sharing some cookies with me. Did I take benefit of his generousity and try to eat as much as possible? Certainly not. Moreover if he decided to give me all the cookies that he had, surely I did not have heart to take all the cookies that I knew he liked so much. I did not have heart to eat all the cookies as I knew he braved his heart to release what he liked because of his love to me. Don't you think that God the Father in heaven will do the same? Don't you think that God the Father will do more than earthly parents can do to reward our sincerity to put the praise and success under His feet as our love offering to Him? 

Again, giving back praise and success to where it belong...to God...is not about flowery words to show up to the world that we are not prideful, it is about heart that only God can judge.

I love this song too much, "My Tribute". This song is written by Andrae Crouch, and in this video from Youtube, I'd like the version that is sung by Nicole C. Mullen, it contains medley with the song "My Redeemer Lives":

How can I say thanks
For the things You have done for me
Things so undeserved yet You give 

To proof Your love for me

The voices of million angels

Could not express my gratitude

All that I am and ever hope to be
I owe it right now to Thee

To God be the gloryTo God be the glory

To God be the glory
For the things He has done

Just let me live my life

And let it be pleasing Lord, to Thee

And should I gain, should I gain any praise

Let it go to Calvary

To God be the gloryTo God be the glory

To God be the glory
For the things He has done

With His blood He has saved me

With His power He has raised me

To God be the glory

For the things He has done