Rethinking Success Through Scripture

Success can feel like a spiritual word, but most of us define it with a secular scoreboard: money, titles, comfort, influence, and visible wins. We sit with the tension that happens when that definition slips into Christian life, shaping how we judge ourselves, raise our kids, and even evaluate churches. When faith becomes a path to “the good life,” it’s easy to start co-signing God onto whatever we’re chasing and calling it blessing, favor, or prosperity. 

We walk straight into that misconception and pull it apart with Scripture. Joshua 1 is a pivotal anchor, one of the few places the Bible directly connects “success” to a clear condition: obedience to God’s Word, meditation on it, and courage rooted in God’s presence. That pushes us to ask hard questions about motive and source. Are we chasing outcomes that feed the flesh and labeling them spiritual? Are we measuring the Christian walk by numbers and applause, or by faithfulness, repentance, and love for God and neighbor? 

How does prosperity, breakthrough, and the blessing culture, compare to what Jesus says about anxiety and provision in Matthew 6:33. We also talk about freedom in Christ as a daily choice to serve the good Master, not a permission slip to do whatever feels good. If you’ve ever wondered why “being blessed” still leaves you restless, this conversation offers a clear, convicting reset. 

Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who’s wrestling with success and faith, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. What definition of success are you living by right now?

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Welcome And Purpose

Keith Barnes 0:06

Here we examine the word of God and have deep conversations within a deeper relationship, change perspective, and a deeper intimacy with Christ. What then say wey, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is that you are tuning into the podcast. Today is a wonderful day that the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice in it. Hey, so um God has put something on my heart to share with you to encourage you. Um and He's He's been I've been meditating on this word, meditating on this thought process um for at least three weeks now. And um it's concerning misconceptions. Chambers, Chambers said it best, right? Like we've we've kind of taken things from the world and brought it into the church. And then we took things out of the church and put it in the world. And so now we as believers operate most oftentimes in this state of is it worldly? Is it church? Is it good? Is it God? And so over the next few weeks, um I'm gonna be talking about things that that, like I said, God has just really laid it

Why Success Feels So Loaded

Keith Barnes 1:18

on my heart and my spirit to talk to you about. So uh today, the first thing, the first one we're gonna hop into is success. Just simply put, success. Um, I don't know about you. Uh I don't know if you have children, I don't know what your current status is in life, but um, I know for me, I had a definition of success and what's considered to be successful all my life, right? Uh, whether it was my parents telling me, you know, you you have doctors and lawyers and astronauts, and we have all these professions that are deemed successful professions. If you are a child and you go to college and you go to Yale, Harvard, you know, you have these categorized um, you know, almost like levels in society that says whether or not somebody's successful. Typically it deals with how much money you make, what type of car you drive, what type of clothes you wear, um, so on and so forth, right? And so when we when we look at that word success, we raise our kids that way. We want to ensure they have a good education, uh, we want to ensure they they know their A, B's, and C's and can do math and all the things. And we spend a lot of time developing the youth, we spend a lot of time developing ourselves in this strive for success. And then, you know, as as we dive deeper into like the worldview of success um and and those thresholds associated with it, I mean, that spectrum is vast and wide. And and sadly enough, we categorize and we and we place people in these little boxes of that person's not successful. Think about it. I mean, if you have a daughter, if I have a well, I have a daughter, right? And if if she's dating some bum on the street, right? Notice how I threw the word bum out there, somebody um who's not successful, who who doesn't have goals and isn't goal-oriented and and striving to do all the things, I'm automatically gonna check that person off, right? Not even caring whether or not they believe in God. My first initial thoughts are well, if you're gonna marry my daughter, or if you're gonna date my daughter and you're not successful and you're not headed to a path of success, then surely you will fail in all your endeavors, right? And so there's a lot of pressure that comes with striving towards success. And sadly, the church has adopted the our faith, right? Like our belief system somewhere along the way has adopted the worldview's version of success, right? And and it there's a clear path towards success. Now, where you end up on that ladder, that's up to you, your your your God-given abilities, but there's a path to always be learning, to always be growing, to always be knowing. Oh, that sounds like a scripture, but anyway, but in the world, there's you know, there's this path, this glide path that leads you to a successful career, a successful marriage, a successful being parents, and and there's a standard in which we measure all of that from. And that sadly is a world-taught way of viewing life. That is a a secular worldview, uh, and it and it's a and it's a fleshly worldview because typically those success, that that that ladder that we're climbing, it typically only feeds the flesh, right? If I'm a successful business person, I got money. I can go wherever I want to go, I can do all the things that I want to do. Um, you know, you even have mentors and life coaches out there trying to guide people to have better success in the things that they put their hands to. But as believers, oh, the challenge is much, much different, right? Because we have to understand that our flesh is insatiable, right? Like there's nothing that we can gain in this world that is going to satisfy us to the point that we ourselves can say, I'm successful. I made it. I made it out the hood or I made it out from wherever, and and here I am, I'm breaking generational curses, I'm doing all these things, right? And I made it. There's not enough money, there's not enough cars, and and some of y'all might say to yourselves, well, only broke people say that there's money came by happiness, right? But I'm telling you, truly, you can look at rich people, and they still, without Christ, they're still struggling in their soul, they're still struggling in their hearts. And so the church, going back to where I all where this whole thing started, right? The church has adopted the same idea of success and yoked believers to believing that success in the Lord is also a targeted glide path of works. How does that look? What does that look like?

When Church Copies Worldly Metrics

Keith Barnes 6:02

Okay. Um, are you a successful pastor? How many people are growing in your church? Is your church growing? How many numbers? How many baptisms? How many conversions? How many people gave their life to Christ? How many people come up to the altar? All these metrics are used to define whether a church is quote unquote successful or not, whether the pastor is successful or not. Let's go down from the pastor down to the deacon and to the elders. The list goes on and on, but our Christian faith, our Christian walk is how much do we tithe? How good are we as people? Are we successful in Christianity? And here's where the blend happens. Here's where what Chambers was talking about really, really like necks in together, right? When the secular worldview and the church worldview start to blend to where the normal parishioner can no longer understand whether he is in the world or in the church, is because now we start to evaluate our faith in a measure of success that's comparable to the world without even realizing it. What do I mean by that? Hmm. Okay. Um, am I doing enough Bible studies? Am I am I giving enough to the homeless? Um, you know, if and and here's the tricky part, right? So those are those are the the church works, right? But now I start to shift, and I can say, well, I prayed about this job that I'm supposed to have, and because I got the promotion at my job, then surely God is prospering me and He's gonna make me successful in this job so I can get a bigger house, so I can get the bigger car. Now we start to like blend in God's provision, God's covering, God's guidance in our lives, and we turn it to if we're successful in our faith, we're gonna be successful in the world. But I'm here to tell you, sadly, those two things do not. This is a clear separation of church and state. What do I mean by that? Am I saying that God, you know, won't put you in a position to where you're being blessed in the world, right? Like you have a nice house, you have a nice job, so on and so forth. No, I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is when we start to co-sign God to our success in the world, right, as a measure of our faith, there we've made the inherent error, right? So here's what I mean by that. Earlier I talked about the flesh being insatiable, right? There's nothing that we could fulfill it. And so if our joy and our happiness comes from the things we attain at work, from the things that we obtain in society, and we're just co-signing God on that, now we've made God and our faith circumstantial based off of the things that we receive, based off of the things that

Joshua 1 And Biblical Success

Keith Barnes 8:42

provides us happiness, the tangible things in this world. You know, interestingly enough, there's only one area in the at least in the KJV, that success is even mentioned, and that's in Joshua. That's when when Moses is gone and Joshua is about to lead the people into the promised land. And I'm gonna read it to you just to provide some context. But it says in Joshua 1, the beginning of Joshua, and I'm gonna start in verse six, it says, Be strong, be bold bold, for you will cause this people to inherit the land I swore to their fathers I would give them. Only be strong and very bold, and taking care to follow all the law which Moses my servant ordered you to follow. Do not turn from it either to the right or to the left. Then you will succeed wherever you go. Yes, keep this book of the Torah on your lips and meditate on it day and night, so that you will take care to act according to everything written in it. Then your undertakings will prosper, and you will succeed. Having I ordered you, be strong, be bold, so don't be afraid or downhearted, because Adonai, your God, is with you wherever you go. Wow. The only section of scripture where success is really tied to that phrase that we use. And it's talking about obedience. It's talking about remember the things, remember the law, remember the command that God has given you, and you will succeed. Why don't we apply that in our lives? I challenge us all to really take a hard look at how we view that word success, how we view ourselves, whether or not we're being successful in anything that we're doing, and then put it back in the context of 1 Joshua. Put it back in the context of what this man was about to do and step foot into the promised land, to fulfill the thing that Moses just came out of the came out of Egypt 40 years in the desert, all that the whole generation had died because of their lack of faith and trust. And here Joshua is a righteous, upright man who's being reminded to be bold and be courageous, to remember that God is with him and that God is the source of his success. That that God is is is truly saying that if you keep my law, if you keep the commands that I gave, then you will succeed, right? So now that makes success conditional on our obedience and our faith. So now we got to ask ourselves I mean, if we're being disobedient and we're succeeding by the world's standards, if we know that there's sin in the camp and we know that there's sin in our lives, and and we're and we're just, you know, check the block Christians, we said the prayer, we got baptized, whatever, whatever. We go to church on Sundays and stuff, but we know in our heart's heart that keeping the law, keeping the word of God on our mouth, in our heart, uppermost in our mind, is not really there. Now we have to start asking ourselves where does our success come from? Is it just our works? What do they lead to? Is God really in it? That's a tough question. That's a tough question to ponder on because you gotta understand one thing, right? God, God says in his word that in this world we'll have problems, we'll have tribulations, we'll, and and as Jesus talks about it, it's like uh a sheep going to wolves to be slaughtered, right? Like there's this paradigm shift that has to happen in our minds to understand that the Christian walk, though it might have great days, though it might be full of all types of sunshine and rainbows, there is to be expected persecution. There is to be expected, he said his word came to divide fathers, mothers, wives, children. Like there's this thing that happens in a believer's life that separates you from the world. And so if the world loves you, if the world is all for you and everything is all great, then I can guarantee you that there's someone else in this book that offers peace in the world. That offers peace and happiness in the world, from the world. That's the Father lies. That's Satan himself. Satan don't want you struggling, he wants

Blessing And Breakthrough Reframed

Keith Barnes 13:12

you to be happy, he wants you to have all the things that make you happy on this earth. But what like Jesus was talking about, he's talking about the things that, because the earth is passing away, the body is passing away. Why would you want all the things that's gonna strive up and make the body enjoyable here when we're talking about something, we're talking about eternity. So Jesus is concerned about eternity. Satan is concerned about how can you be content here on this earth with me? How can you be content in your faith and in your flesh? It makes me think about the rich man parable. Uh, my wife and I were talking about this earlier and how you know he he said he did all the things, he had all the things, and he was very wealthy and rich, and and to the world's standard, he was pretty successful. But then when Jesus asked him, cool, cool story, bro. Now sell all that stuff and then take the proceeds and give it away and then come follow me. And the man walked away sad and downtrodden. See, the world and the things that the world offers, it would be a lie for me to sit here and tell you that you can't have some type of joy from the world. The reason why they would be a lie to say that is because your flesh, right, the thing that's combating against the spirit, your flesh desires the things of this world. And so to sit here, and if any pastor has ever told you that you can't have joy from drinking alcohol, from smoking weed, from fornicating, from doing all the evil things that God has clearly defined as evil, if there was no joy in it, God wouldn't have had to say, Don't do it. He knows and understands that our sin nature, the very much thing in our flesh, desires to do the things opposite of God. Paul talks about it. Right? And so to sit here and say, like, I won't be happy if somebody blessed me with a new car. You see how I threw that word blessed in there? That's that part that I'm talking about where we've decided somewhere along the line, again, success, synonym for blessed or prosper or whatever. And it was interesting when I started looking into the Hebraic word of and the origin of success, and and that word breakthrough comes through, right? Because that's truly the definition of it in the Hebraic, right? That's what it means, it's like a river rushing through, breaking through. How often do we hear that? When are you gonna get your breakthrough? Breakthrough comes by obedience, though. Prosperity comes by obedience. So there is such a thing as prosperity in the world. Evil people prosper all the time. It's in the book. It's you go through Proverbs, go through Psalms, listen to some of the things that Solomon has to say in Ecclesiastes. Bad people did bad things and were still able to prosper. So the idea of prosperity, now we have to look at it from two different angles. There is prosperity in the world, and there is prosperity in the spirit. And that's and that's something that you got to understand is is truly a unique division between that word in and of itself. So then we could even look at blessing. We could look at every synonym for success, for prosperity, for blessing. All the words that the church uses, are you gonna go get your blessing? You need to pray down and ask God to receive your blessing, you need to get your breakthrough, you need to get your you need to overcome, you need to do all these things, right? But if obedience is not there, if true repentance is not there, if a true following of Christ is not there, if you don't really want to die to your flesh and that's not a thing for you, prosperity is available from the world. Blessings, when used loosely, is available from the world. It's all a matter of how you spend it. Can a can an evil person say that he was blessed? Like can a can a drug, uh gangbanger, if if I gift him a gun, could he consider that a blessing? If we look at the simple phrase of blessing and remove God from it, it's just another word. Just like the word love, just like so many other words that we use haphazardly in the church to co-sign God to, but we lack a heart posture that is willing to actually receive the authentic version of that word. We don't know authentic love. So therefore, we say I love McDonald's and I love fish tanks, I love whatever, right? Words are just words, but if you're not know, if you don't know the source of the word, if you don't know the source that the thing that's sustaining you, right? We look at sustainment, something else me and the wife was talking about earlier. We look at sustainment as you know, what we will eat, what we will drink, how much money I have made, how many, how many bills do I have, and so on and so forth. And so therefore I need the job, I need the things that's going to sustain me. And sometimes joy, right, even of the things of this world sustains me. But until Christ is the one that sustains us, until the word of God is the thing that sustains us, until our faith in the things unseen, and the hope unseen, and the things the things that only God can offer is the true source of our sustenance, we will always be hungry. We will always be wanting. We will always need more, and we will never be satisfied. And so obviously, the only the only logical outcome is to go to Matthew 6.

Anxiety, Provision, And Matthew 6

Keith Barnes 19:03

Matthew 6, 33. Let's check it out. But I'm gonna start in 31. Matthew chapter 6, 31. It says, So don't be anxious asking, what will we eat? What will we drink? Or how will we be clothed? For it is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly father knows you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough troubles already. See, I fear the body has gotten to a point of complacency so much that we don't want troubles. We don't believe that we have faith in God and also have troubles or hardships. We don't we want the easy life, we want freedom in Christ, right? Hear me for a second. Freedom in Christ has replaced the relationship, meaning I want to be free to do all things. I want to be free to live how I want to live. That's the flesh talking. Whenever Paul, and and I'm purposely not bringing up every scripture because this is not a sermon, just a conversation, but when Paul talks about this, like we can do all things, but not everything is beneficial, when he references himself as a slave to Christ, he's saying that though he is free, he still chooses, because he uses the word bondservant, right? And if you understand the reality of the word slave in the Bible and the context, you know, there's this process where uh a slave could actually put an earring in his ear to say that, no, I want to continue to be your bondservant. I want to continue to uh be your slave, I want to continue to serve you with all my fervor and all my heart and all my mind because you are a good master. So Paul is saying that though he is free and freedom is found in Christ, he says, I will take that freedom and choose the good master to serve, because in my freedom I tend to do things that I ain't supposed to be doing. In my freedom, I tend to have to compete with the flesh versus the spirit, and the flesh seems to always get the upper hand. But when I am under the good master and I am just following and obeying his command, then peace, joy, and hope comes into my heart. The things that I need to that I was typically anxious about as far as what I was gonna eat and drink and what I was gonna wear, I'm not worried about those things because the master, the good master, right, he's taking care of me. See, in America in 2026, it it's It's so easy to assume the word slave is such a derogatory. How dare you even bring that word up when it comes to Jesus Christ? Because did you not know they kidnapped those Africans and brought them over? Did you not know what they did to the Native Americans? Did you not know what they did to the Irish? The uh human trafficking slavery is so synonymous with evil that we cannot comprehend not being free. Because, you know, America is the home of the free, land of the brave, and we can, we got all the rights, we got all the ability to lead

Freedom And The Bondservant Choice

Keith Barnes 22:34

and govern and be our own God in pursuit of success, in pursuit of prosperity. It's even in the Constitution, I'm sure, somewhere along the lines about prospering and being a prosperous nation. And so we take these words that have such a central meaning and are typically tied back to the Lord Almighty, and we water it down to just being something that says, it feeds my flesh. It makes me happy. And so now the the challenge, right? The challenge becomes how do we how do we break out of the mold, right? When we think of the word blessing, when we think of the word prosperity, when we think of the word breakthrough and success, understanding that we're in the world, but not of the world, how do we cut that line in half and divide the two and focus solely on the spiritual aspects of all those words? And it boils down to the simplicity of the gospel. It boils down to trust, it boils down to faith, it boils down to keeping God's word uppermost in your mind, keeping his law in your heart, and then understanding what Jesus said about that, right? The first uh command is is is is important. It's the only one that you really need to be concerned about, but the second one is just like it, and that is to love God with all your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That's that's pretty simple. But I mean, in order to be successful at that, I need to I need to check the box list that I can attain to, I can strive for. And so, I don't know. I just we get to this place sometimes where we we pick and choose what we make spiritual. You know, when it when it tends to not adhere to our flesh's desires, then that's spiritual. That's Jesus wasn't saying we really need to follow no commands. He was saying like spiritually, you know, I'm saying, like we just we just understand that because we believe in him, then then all that stuff is just gonna work itself out, right? We look at, you know, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Well, I mean, that's spiritual because, you know, as a man, as a sinner, I could never even come close to that. So obviously it had to be some other meaning. And and and sadly, we do it so much that we become desensitized to the Holy Spirit. We become desensitized to the word because the word has lost its value, the word is losing its meaning, the word has been manipulated and modified so much to fit the needs of our flesh that we can no longer see Christ, we just see our flesh. Because now, sadly, how can God, how can I use God then? I know. I'm gonna use God to strategize my business plan so that I can be successful and get that nice house. Now God just becomes another stepping stone on the path to success rather than the stepping stone to the path of the kingdom of God. I'm not trying to get in his kingdom, I'm trying to build my own kingdom. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm not, I'm I'm figuring out how I can use my prayer life to my advantage in my tangible life, how I can use the things in this word to motivate and encourage and get me on the stage somewhere so I can be lifted up, so I can be known. Because a lot of these pastors, senior pastors, they got a lot of money, you know what I'm saying? So, how can I use God, my prayer life, my faith, and just trust in Him that I'm going to get where I need to go? Because I definitely won't be content if I lose my job, if I don't get the promotion, if I can't, you know, have the things that I want to have, because that's not the God that I serve. I heard I heard somebody say it once like this Jesus wasn't dusty, he wasn't broke, he wasn't poor. Jesus, you know, he's the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and so therefore I need to dress the part. You know, think about how much money we spend sometimes when we go to church and you got on your nicest, most expensive outfit so that you can impress who? Jesus? Your clothes? Really? That's gonna

Using God As A Stepping Stone

Keith Barnes 27:06

impress him, not the condition and the status of your heart? Because as the word says in the Old Testament, who knows the heart except for God? You you would want your master, you would want your father, a good father, right? You would want him to be directing your steps. I would rather much have God leading me and telling me where to go and where not to go than myself, because I'm gonna lead myself to something that's gonna take me away from him. He says in his word that he can't even be in the presence of sin. So therefore, I need Jesus in order to be completely covering me at all times so that way I can get close to God. Now, once the veil was torn, I got direct access to be praying and to serve and to love and to and to just experience this walk, spread the gospel, share the message, encourage and edify and rebuke and correct, and let that word pierce me as it pierces you. But the more I lean towards my own understanding of a thing, the more I lean towards trying to just fit into this world, to make sure I'm safe, to make sure I'm kept and everybody's got everything, the further I pull myself away from him. The further I allow my flesh to win. And so it ties back to the renewal of the mind. It ties back to what Paul says when he says, Behold, all things are new, right? Like the old has died. We have to die to this desensitation of the word. Where words have lost its value, and we haphazardly throw them around just to service our flesh. And so the challenge, and and in this, and though prayerfully, whether this was a hard word or an easy word, or you agree or you disagree, prayerfully you consider your measure of success. Is it good job, well done, my faithful servant? Or would you rather hear that from your boss, your wife, your children, your mom, your dad? Would you rather the attaboy from the world or the attaboy from the angels in heaven? Would you rather serving a good father? Because remember, the word also says that an evil person can give good gifts. How much greater gifts? We're settling for the lesser. Chasing all the things of this world just to get our benefit, but then like co-signing, oh yeah, if I mean if I'm rich, rich, I'm gonna give out some money to a few people. I'm gonna help out, I'm gonna start a charity. Instead of mentoring people to be more successful people in this world void of Christ, what does that serve? We're being ambassadors to the enemy rather than ambassadors to the heav to heaven. And Paul said if we believe in Christ, right? Like if we die to ourselves and we accept that as our truth, then we're supposed to be ambassadors to the kingdom of heaven, but but some of us are out here being uh committing espionage. Some of us are out here actually working for the enemy because we fell for the belief, right? And and matter of fact, I won't even say that. No, that's a cop out. To say that we have fallen victim to the enemy's schemes. No. We the word says the best. We love our darkness more than the light. But, you know, that sounds too harsh. And so we won't say it like that. We won't call it what it is, we won't say that it's darkness, we'll just say that, you know, no, I'm just doing the best I can, serving my flesh. And so we avoid using the words that actually cut as they're designed to cut, and we've doled that knife down so that it has little to no effect. We're no longer scared or terrified, or we don't fear the Lord at all. Because we believe this lie. And and

Final Heart Check And Hope

Keith Barnes 31:18

the and the reality of it is if the lie is advan is advantageous to us, right? Like if if we think that, you know, I can pray my way through to a successful uh career path in this world that's gonna allow me to have a happy, joyous life, right? If I can tithe my way to financial prosperity and debt freeness, right? Like if I can mold all the biblical principles to serve my fleshly advantage, somehow, some way we we we believe that that obviously can't be dark. That obviously can't be bad, that obviously can't be sin because I'm praying, because I'm tithing, because I'm going to church. But if the heart's motive is for self, then it very much is sin. It very much is dark, it very much is the deeds of Satan himself. And so I challenge you to open up your word. I challenge you to examine some of these things that you've heard all your life, your career paths that you're in, how we're pressuring our children to go and get their master's and a PhD and be an entrepreneur, be your own boss, or whatever the thing might be, and ask ourselves where our success in the Lord is actually at. Have we replaced the truth for a lie and then believed it, thinking that it was gonna get us to the place that we were expecting to go? How horrible would that be to be the man that Jesus talked about when he says, Hey, I did all these things in your name and Jesus says, I never knew you. You might have done it in my name, but your heart, you were doing it for yourself. So with that, I pray that you have a blessed week, an encouraging week, an enlightened week, one where you where you dive in with me on these words and these principles and these thought processes of of the blending of the church and the world to the point where we're in this mass confusion. Let's break the confusion, let's break the cloud of of misconceptions and and and improper use of the word and go back to the truth and to the source because the good news is we have grace, we can repent. And I pray that you do. And I pray that this was blessful, blessed, this blessed you and was helpful for you. And I'll see y'all next time. Have a good one.