By Chuck Bentley

One of the greatest mistakes we humans make is to define success based upon what we think we can do apart from God. Far too often, we want to take credit for our accomplishments, yet no one has ever been independent of God.

Even Christians can allow our thinking to become tainted by humanism. How many of us have heard it said, “God helps those who help themselves!” No…the Gospel is much more akin to this statement, ”God helps those who cannot help themselves.” The Bible says that apart from Christ we can do nothing.

Yes, we may be able to impress a few friends or dazzle a few crowds with our feats or accomplishments. But in light of eternity, we are all helplessly dependent upon God for our very next breath.

Humanism is the view that we are on our own, the masters of our own fate, and that our accomplishments are entirely up to our own efforts. But we must reject this lie while doing hard work. Think of Nehemiah. He had the task of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. He knew he couldn’t accomplish this himself, so he cried out to God for help.  This part of his journal is recorded in Nehemiah 6:15-16: “…the wall was finished—just 52 days after we had begun. When our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated. They realized this work had been done with the help of our God…”

This should be our heart attitude in all that we do. Apply this to your work today or tomorrow morning—for the rest of your life. It will ease your burden and increase your joy! And success will be in glorifying God for what He did through you, not for what you did apart from Him.

Originally posted 6/4/2015.