A WORD WITH YOU
By Ron Hutchcraft
#5322 - "The Most Dangerous Season of All"
2 Chronicles 26:1
It happens a lot in sports - especially when there's one of those games
they like to call "The Big Game." Two rivals go at it in a game that's
really important in the standings, and then one team blows out the other
team with this huge, lopsided victory. You can almost predict what's going
to happen to the winning team in their next game, even if they play some
pitiful team that loses a lot more than they win. The guys who totally
dominated their rivals in the Big Game may very well lose that little game
that follows. It happens a lot. You win big and then, for some reason, you
lose big.
When you've really won big, it's easy to let down, get overconfident,
or just get careless. When you've been the champion for a while, you tend
to coast, and suddenly you're not the champion anymore. That doesn't just
happen in sports, it happens in life. In fact, it happened many times in
the Bible; like what happened to the Jewish king Uzziah, as recorded in II
Chronicles 26, which is our word for today from the Word of God.
From this story, and many others like it, we can conclude that a season
of success in your life may actually be the most dangerous season of all.
Uzziah led his nation to new levels of economic prosperity, military
dominance, and international respect. The Bible says, "As long as he sought
the Lord, God gave him success." Notice, God gave him success; success is
not your achievement. It's God's gift.
Now in II Chronicles 26:15 we read, "His fame spread far and wide, for
he was greatly helped until he became powerful. But after Uzziah became
powerful, his pride led to his downfall." What follows is the tragic
account of a king who becomes arrogant, self-willed, a man who starts doing
it His way, not God's way; and ultimately a man who dies the horrible death
of leprosy.
Uzziah's story is, unfortunately, not unique. The truth is that very few
of us are able to handle success. If you're experiencing a time of success
and pretty smooth sailing right now, it's important to realize that you may
be in the spiritual danger zone. When you're flying high, it's all too easy
to forget how you got there. Or, more importantly, Who (capital "W"!) - Who
got you there. The ancient Jews were given a solemn warning from God when
they went from the wilderness to the wealth of the Promised Land: "Be
careful that you do not forget the Lord." And, sure enough, they did.
So if this is a good season of your life, don't ruin it by getting
careless. Have you allowed your success to inflate you? Are you thinking,
"Hey, I'm really something" instead of "He's really something"? Have you
moved from the desperate praying of the hard times to less frequent, less
fervent prayers now that you're in the good times? Have you started to rely
on your gifts, your cleverness, your experience or your strength instead of
what you once did - totally depending on God? Are you becoming more
self-focused? Are you taking more things into your own hands instead of
leaving them in God's hands?
Those are some of the great dangers of success. Don't make God remind
you who is the source of everything you've got, because success that costs
you the blessing of your Lord is simply success that you can't afford.
Copyright (c) 2007, Ron Hutchcraft.
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"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been
forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it."
Matthew 11:12
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