Was Jesus Successful?

If we asked the world a simple question, Was Jesus “successful”, I wonder what the answer would be?

If one evaluates Jesus’s life, especially the end of it, from a worldly or secular prospective it would not be hard to defend the thought that He was the biggest failure that ever walked the planet.

In his youth the legitimacy of his birth and His mother’s virtue was doubted, He was simply considered by many to be “the bastard son of Joseph.” He was born in a stable with the animals, no room found in a simple inn for Him.

His conception and birth were not very successful!

He had the opportunity to be rich, even had Maji throwing gold, frankincense and myrrh at His feet when He was yet a babe and was offered “all the riches of this world!!” Yet, He died destitute leaving nothing more than a garment behind.

He was not a very successful businessman.

Though the legitimacy of His birth was questioned, the legitimacy of His family and His lineage could not be. He was a legitimate son of David on both His mother’s and “fathers” line. David was fully acknowledged as the ‘Priestly King’ who had established the ‘the tabernacle of David’! All called Him ‘Rabbi’, even His enemies. Yet, both parties of the priesthood sought His destruction and disgrace, to the point that they soiled themselves by pressuring their hated pagan rulers, the Romans, to have Him tortured and then put on a Cross, the most horrific form of death, reserved for the vilest of criminals!

He was not a very successful priest!

He had a huge following that wanted to make Him king, and later lined the streets for miles, throwing palm branches and laying their clothes before Him, crying out:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Hosanna in the highest!”

He alienated and offended them to the point they wanted to kill Him, even telling them to “eat His flesh and drink His blood”, the single most offensive statement that any one could make to a Jew. The same crowd who shouted “Hosanna, Blessed is He who comes in the Lord”, was screaming ‘give us Barabbas’ and ‘crucify Him’ a few short days later!

He was not a very successful diplomat!

He had incredible awesome power, literally on the tip of His tongue or finger! Power that could of thoroughly routed all His enemies at the wave of His hand or the utterance of one word! He had an army of Angels at His beckon call! Yet He allowed those same enemies to berate Him, mock Him, beat Him, torture and humiliate Him and finally, nail Him to a cross!

He was not a very successful general.

Even His closest, hand picked friends — who He had poured hours on hours of His time, love, patience and eventually His very life into — turned away from Him, one betraying him, selling Him out for thirty pieces of silver and another, one of His most intimate, denying even knowing Him at the end.

He was not very successful at making and keeping friends!

A man of the world could easily defend the idea that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was the fool of fools and the greatest tragedy of failure that mankind has ever seen. Yet, they would be wrong and in due time will be proven so, decisively!

The reason? His success is not about this world, His Kingdom is not here. Therefore the measure of His ‘success’ is not based on the standards or judgment of men! If that is the case, and it is, then neither should our success be measured by the world’s standards either. I am so happy that He ultimately is the one who will judge such things. I know that I, like His friends of his day, have failed Him utterly time and time again, yet, of this I remain confident; His Grace is my sufficiency, His death is my life, His righteous blood poured out is my Holiness, His defeat is my victory, His divestiture of glory is my assurance of glory, HIS RESURRECTION is my restoration to the Father as a son! He bought my ‘success’ and approval before the heavenly Father, the one and only person whose opinion of me really counts!

Furthermore, His success on the cross made it possible that the Holy Spirit, the living God, can now take residence in me! Now all I have to do is simply live the life He has given me, in humble obedience, gratitude and appreciation of the irrevocable and unassailable “success” that He bought for me. I call that success of the highest magnitude, His ‘failure’ my ‘success’, ‘His pain, my gain!’ ‘His shame, my glory‘, ‘His death, my life’, and now it is my greatest honor to simply be called His friend and to be invited to be His bride and live with Him in His Kingdom forever!

I know only one thing for sure in this life; when all is said and done, “Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ, (‘the bastard son of Joseph’) is Lord”. Some will bow in humble appreciation, with great thanksgiving and admiration others in abject fear and terror, but make no mistake, EVERY KNEE WILL BOW AND ACKNOWLEDGE the true ‘success’ of the Living King who reigns on high and sits at the right hand, one with God the Father and the Holy Spirit – Jesus Christ!