Proclaimer Blog
How much success can you bear?
I am using J.C.Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on Luke’s Gospel for my personal devotions. Although his thoughts are not always dead centre on the main theme of a passage, they are true, realistic, nourishing, and challenging. They are doing me good day by day.
Last Monday I read Luke 10:17-20 and was struck by Ryle’s applications. Here’s the first. He comments on verse 17: “The seventy-two returned with joy and said, ’Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.’”
How ready Christians are to be puffed up with success”
Success is what every faithful labourer wants. We long to see “Satan’s kingdom pulled down, and souls converted to God.” But “the time of success is a time of danger to the Christian’s soul. The very hearts that are depressed when all things seem against them, are often unduly exalted in the day of prosperity… Most of Christ’s labourers probably have as much success as their souls can bear” (my emphasis).
I was convicted especially by that last sentence. I suppose it is better that you and I are elated at gospel success than personal success, but better still that we are not elated by success at all.