Baptist City Blog

One of the greatest enemies of success is success. Success will give a person confidence, and confidence is a very necessary ingredient to building upon success. However, if confidence is not carefully guarded, it can turn into arrogance. When arrogance takes over confidence, the seed of pride is planted, and that seed will lead to destruction.

The children of Israel experienced many victories up to the verse above. Each victory gave them more confidence to continue conquering the land of Canaan. Sadly, their confidence turned into arrogance. Verse 13 says, “Yet it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute; but did not utterly drive them out.” They became so arrogant that instead of driving out the Canaanites, they made them slaves thinking that they could control the heathen influences of these people.

Israel’s arrogance is seen in the verse above when they said, “I am a great people.” Hold on! What happened to the people who were so afraid that they wanted to go back to Egypt? What happened to the people who said that they would not go forward unless God would go with them? What happened to the people who went to God before each battle to ask for wisdom on how to fight and His presence to go before them? What happened was their confidence turned into arrogance; success caused them to take their eyes and trust off God and place it in their own abilities and past successes.

One of the greatest battles you will fight in your Christian life will be to not allow your confidence to be turned into arrogance. When you are little in your own sight, you will run to God for help, and He will help; however, you must never get to the point where you set your trust in God aside and say, “I am a great people.” When you get to the point where you think you are great, your confidence has turned into arrogance. Whenever I hear people talk about how great they are, or their church is, I know their destruction is near. There are a couple of things you can do to keep your confidence from turning into arrogance.

First, always remember that greatness belongs to God. It will never be that you are a “great” preacher, Christian or church, it is only that you have a great God. Any success you have had is not because you did it; it is because God gave you the strength to do it. Don't ever forget that!

Second, always remember that past successes don't guarantee future dominance. Just because God used you in the past doesn't mean He will continue to do things through you in the future. You must continue to pray and work hard if you want God to continue to conquer through you.

Third, never allow self-dependence, but always keep your dependency on God. Friend, don't mistake God’s presence as your greatness. Keep your eyes on God and you will never get to the point where you think of yourself as great. You must never allow self-dependence if you want God to continue to work through you. Keep that youthful apprehension that forces you to rely on God. If you keep that reliance on God, you will keep confidence from turning into arrogance.