Success is is a cool word, probably my favorite. I want to be a successful person, and so do you, we were created by God in His image and His likeness so desire for greatness, accomplishment, and success is who we are by design. There are some significant problems that most face in regards to success. The first problem is we tend to turn our pursuit of success into a comparison thing with other people which will result in pride, envy, shame, fear of failing, slander, bitterness, and on the list goes. The reason we so easily compare ourselves with others is because we have not established a clear definition of success, which is the second problem, so we look at others  around  us and declare some of them as successful in our mind and then compare ourselves to them as we pursue the elusive desire of success. True success is never really determined until we get to the end of our life, and so daily success will be a measurement of growth closer to our final goal.  Some would say that success is different for every person, I don’t think so. The reason is that I am not the one who declares me a winner at the end of my life, Jesus is, and so His definition of success is what matters, not mine or yours. Let me suggest five aspects of the truly successful person; (1) we have steadily grown in character so that we are like Jesus, we have the divine nature, we will be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. (2) We accomplished the work that God gave us to do in the days that we were given to do them. This will be different for each of us, but we don’t decide, we discover what that work is.   (3) We bear much fruit, fruit being permanent changes and growth in character that occurres in other people because of our influence in their lives. (4) We grow to be wise people who think and talk in a way that brings joy to Jesus as we fellowship with Him forever, and (5) we finish well. The third problem is that we don’t have a clear plan to become a successful person.  We become successful,people when we apply, obey, and follow the principles of success. “Principles are timeless and self-evident, and they apply everywhere. They are natural laws, like gravity. Whether you understand them or even agree with them doesn’t matter—they still apply” I have written 20 principles for success for myself and I will be sharing them with you the next couple of months.