If success is defined in terms of the passing pleasures of this life (like fame, fortune, and immediate fulfillment) then those listed in Hebrews 11 might probably don’t qualify as being successful. But if success is defined from God’s perspective, where faith in Christ and faithfulness to Him is what matters most, then the men and women of Hebrews 11 not only understood what true success is, they applied that understanding to every aspect of their lives.

What does it mean to successful?

That is a vital question for anyone to ask – one that determines a person’s priorities and direction in life.

Whether you are a pastor, an accountant, a school teacher, a stay-at-home mom, an office manager, a construction worker, an engineer, or any other occupation – if you are a believer in Jesus Christ – this question pertains to you. What does it mean to be successful?

What does true success look like, not in terms of getting a new promotion or a raise, but in the highest and loftiest sense of that word?

Consider the “heroes of the faith” listed in Hebrews 11. From a worldly perspective, these individuals would hardly be regarded as successful.

– Successful people aren’t mocked and scourged.

– Successful people don’t get chained up in prison.

– Successful people aren’t stoned to death, sawn in two, or beheaded.

– Successful people wear more comfortable clothes than goatskins.

– Successful people are not destitute, afflicted, and ill-treated.

– Successful people don’t wander in deserts or live in holes in the ground.

Or do they?

That all depends on how you define “success.”

If success is defined in terms of the passing pleasures of this life (like fame, fortune, and immediate fulfillment) then those listed in Hebrews 11 might probably don’t qualify as being successful.

But if success is defined from God’s perspective, where faith in Christ and faithfulness to Him is what matters most, then the men and women of Hebrews 11 not only understood what true success is, they applied that understanding to every aspect of their lives.

Consider what the author writes in Hebrews 11:13–16:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.  But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

These men and women of faith trusted in the promises of God – many of which they knew would not be fulfilled in this life but in eternity – and they based their life on those promises. They looked forward to heaven. They had an eternal perspective. And that perspective changed how they viewed everything in the here and now.

A temporal perspective says that this life is all there is, so pursue the here and now. An eternal perspective says that to live is Christ and to die is gain because we look forward to the life to come.

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