After returning home from my first trip to Ghana, West Africa and three weeks of intensive ministry effort, I began to ponder the question, "How successful was this trip?" I also began to listen to others share their own experiences and heard them define their own success or lack thereof in several different ways. Here is a list of some of the more common ones, including some that I have used.

• The number of people we minister to.
• The number of meetings we hold (how busy we are).
• The number of people that come to the altar and are saved, healed or delivered.
• How many people are on the ministry team.
• How big the church is.
• How much the ministry is appreciated.
• How well we are received.
• Knowing we are anointed or how powerful the ministry is.
• How big the offerings are, (how well our own personal needs are met.)
• How many and deeply lives appeared to be changed.
• Whether we are invited back or not.

There are probably as many ways of validating success as there are people and all of them have some kind of merit, especially to the one doing the ministry. You probably have your own set of standards whereby you measure success for each of your endeavors. Most people do, and we should, else how will we know if we have succeeded?

Jesus had his own measuring rod, and it should be ours as well. He said, “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” John 5:30 (NIV) We tend to judge success by what pleases us, but Jesus judged success by doing the things that pleased his Father.

If we please the Father then we are truly successful, regardless of the outward appearances and accomplishments. True success in the kingdom of God will be revealed the day the Lord says to us “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful..” Being faithful to what the Lord gives us to do is being successful in God’s eyes.