How Do You Measure Success?

We live in a world that often measures success quantitatively. For athletes, statistics and championships are usually the determination for whether or not a player has had a successful career. Annually, Fortune magazine releases its “Fortune 500” edition, in which American companies are ranked 1 to 500 in a variety of easily measurable categories. While these quantitative markers are not bad measuring sticks, they do not answer the questions – How good of a teammate was this player or is the organization a good place to work?

Jesus followers often measure themselves and others based upon easily quantifiable means. These quantifiable measurements might help show where you seem to be sacrificing for Jesus, but they do very little to reflect your heart or your willingness to surrender to the will of Jesus. So, today I propose what I think it a better way to answer the question – Am I a Successful Disciple?

Let’s look at a story found in the fifth chapter of Luke. Beginning in verse 1, the story begins by telling that Jesus is preaching to the crowd gathered at a lake. The text seems to imply that Jesus felt hemmed in by the crowd so he decided to teach from a boat. Or maybe it was because this particular lake is some 700 feet below sea level so the rising land surrounding the water made it a very acoustically serviceable teaching venue.

We also know from this text that Simon and his buddies had been out all night fishing and caught nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. These guys were professional fishermen; they knew how to fish and fish well. The best time for fishing is at night. They had just spent a long and fruitless night on the lake and in v.4 along comes this itinerant preacher who says try again, in the daylight. Yea right Jesus, we will do the fishing, you stick to preaching and healing. These guys had cleaned the equipment and were probably ready to go have some breakfast.

However, probably somewhat reluctantly, Simon does takes Jesus back out onto the lake. Verse 5 is not the response we sometimes give to Jesus when His request is inconvenient and doesn’t seem to make sense. Here is how Simon responded – “Master we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Verses 6-11 finish the story by telling us that Simon and his fishing buddies, by responding in obedience to Jesus (even if it didn’t make sense, caught so many fish that their nets began to break and their boats began to sink. This was a measurable success in their eyes and the eyes of those who may have been watching. But I propose that even if they had caught no more fish, Jesus saw Simon as “successful” simply by his obedient response, having nothing to do with the quantity of fish caught.

So here’s the deal. The answer to the question “Am I a Succcessful Disciple?” is very simply: obedience. And obedience is not doing something sacrificial for God. Obedience is doing (surrendering to) the will of God. Obedience is saying … But because you say so, I will.

Are you a successful follower of Jesus?