Overview

1. God cares more about who we are than what we have
2. What true success looks like to God
3. Character success comes by receiving God’s grace
4. The Holy Spirit empowers us to live righteously
5. Why we still fall into sin and temptation
6. Freedom from sin begins with freedom from the guilt of sin

God cares more about who we are than what we have

Character success matters more to God than circumstantial success. While He delights in blessing, providing, and healing us, His primary concern is our inward life—our integrity and our posture toward Him and others. Material provision and circumstantial success are never the point in themselves. They flow from putting Him first.

Stories across Scripture make this clear. When the widow came to Elisha, desperate and in lack, God’s miracle began not with something she didn’t have but with the little she did—a small jar of oil. When Moses felt unqualified, God asked, “What is that in your hand?” The staff he had always carried as a shepherd in the wilderness became a vessel of divine power once surrendered to the Lord.

This is the way of God’s kingdom. Our Father never asks for what we don’t have. He starts with what we’re willing to entrust to Him. And what we place in His hands becomes holy, fruitful, and powerful—far beyond what we can ask, think, or imagine (Eph. 3:20).

Now, God is not against outward success. But in Scripture, character always comes first. Joseph, Daniel, David… they all suffered for righteousness, but in time were lifted far above what they had lost. God honors those who choose inward integrity over external gain.

This is why our walk with God can never be reduced to formulas for breakthrough or promotion. His Word transforms us into people who love, forgive, trust, and yield—even when no one is watching. And from that kind of life, fruitfulness flows.

What true success looks like to God

Experiencing character success and God’s provision doesn’t mean we won’t go through trouble in this world. Even Abraham, the father of faith, faced delays and hardships. From the time his faith was counted as righteousness (Gen. 15:6), he still had to wait twenty years for his promised child, Isaac. Righteousness doesn’t exempt us from difficulty—but it changes how we walk through it.

When famine came, Isaac didn’t flee to Egypt, a picture of worldly thinking and self-effort. He stayed where God told him to stay. He obeyed, sowed in the land, and reaped a hundredfold that same year. God blessed him, and he became very prosperous.

But Isaac’s character wasn’t just seen in his sowing in difficult times. It was also revealed in how he handled success when it stirred up envy. In their jealousy, the Philistines contended with him over the wells his servants had dug. Isaac had every right to fight back, but he didn’t. Instead, he showed a princely posture, trusting in his God’s abundance and heart to provide for him. Isaac moved on. Dug again. And yielded once more. Finally, when the striving ceased, he called that place Rehoboth, because He said, “For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”

Neither Abraham nor Isaac was perfect. Both made mistakes. But they continued growing in their character as they walked with God, and He prospered them. This is what it means to experience character success.

Character success comes by receiving God’s grace

True character success doesn’t come from law-keeping or self-effort. It comes from believing in and receiving the grace of God.

When we try to live holy by our own strength, fixing ourselves through fear or striving, we actually make things worse. That’s because the law was never meant to produce righteousness. It was given to expose sin, not remove it.

Romans 5:20 says:

“Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.”

The word “entered” in the original Greek is pareisérchomai, which means to slip in alongside, or to enter quietly beside something else. In other words, the law was not God’s main agenda. It wasn’t central; it came in by the side, so that sin would be made unmistakably clear. It exposes how deeply rooted the problem is and shows man his dire need for grace (Gal. 3:24).

Justification was never possible through the law. And more than that, depending on the law to overcome sin actually gives sin more power. As Paul says, “The strength of sin is the law” (1 Cor. 15:56).

Thus, many believers miss this: Trying harder doesn’t weaken sin; it strengthens it. The more we focus on rules, the more sin-conscious we become. Now, this doesn’t mean we don’t have rules or laws in society. In a world where not everyone has come to know Christ as Savior, rules and laws are still necessary to regulate human behavior and interactions.

So, to avoid becoming more sin-conscious, we must receive grace. Grace doesn’t deny sin; it defeats it. Not through condemnation, but through union with Christ, who has given us a new identity and a new heart.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to live righteously

A common misconception in the Christian world is that grace will give people a license to sin. But Paul addresses this in Romans 6:1:

His answer is clear: “Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (Rom. 6:2).

Grace doesn’t give us permission to sin. It gives us power to live free from sin. When we believed in Christ, we were united with Him in His death and resurrection. Our old self was crucified. We are now dead to sin and alive to God (Rom. 6:11).

This isn’t just a heavenly position—it’s a truth we’re called to walk in daily. But not through our willpower or self-effort. Freedom from sin is possible only through the Holy Spirit, who now lives in us.

Romans 8:1–2 says:

The law engraved on stone demanded righteousness but gave no power to produce it. The Spirit, in contrast, writes God’s law on our hearts and empowers us to walk in it. This is the fulfillment of what God promised in the new covenant: “I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts” (Heb. 8:10, Jer. 31:33).

And this is what it means to walk by the Spirit—not being driven by fear or self-effort, but led by the presence of God within. He prompts, teaches, corrects, and empowers us from the inside out. And when we yield to Him, His fruits begin to grow in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23). These then are not forced behavior or just an act because society expects them, but the result of a life rooted in grace, led by the Spirit, and focused on Jesus.

Why we still fall into sin and temptation

But if we are under grace and alive in Christ, then why do believers still fall into sin? Why does temptation still feel so strong?

The answer lies in understanding what Jesus has accomplished on the cross. Christ died to remove the punishment and guilt of our sins, but He did not remove the power or presence of sin in the world. That’s why even after receiving the gift of righteousness, believers still feel the pull of sin.

We live in a fallen world, in mortal bodies, with temptations all around us. The power of sin still operates in this world, but we are no longer under its rule. Our relationship to sin has changed, even if the feeling of temptation remains.

Romans 6:11 tells us:

“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This word “reckon” means to count it as true, to live from a settled conviction, not from fluctuating feelings. God says we are dead to sin, not because we feel dead, but because we were united with Christ in His death and resurrection. The power of sin over us has been broken—not removed from the world.

Reckoning ourselves dead to sin isn’t denial; it’s agreeing with God that we are “in Christ.” That is the identity that Christ has already given us. And this is where the battle really lies—learning to reckon the truth that we are dead to sin as real, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Freedom from sin begins with freedom from the guilt of sin

When we fall, our natural instinct is to retreat into guilt, try harder, and make new promises. We withdraw from God, feeling unworthy. But all of that—trying to fix ourselves through shame—is the old way. It’s the response that comes from being under the law.

And that is exactly what keeps us trapped in the cycle of sin. Because although the law can expose sin, it does not have the power to free us from it.

Only grace can break the power of sin over us. And it begins by removing the guilt we feel because of sin.

William Romaine, a renowned Anglican preacher and author in the 18th century, said this:

“He who is not freed from the guilt of sin is not freed from the power of it.”

As long as the guilt of having done wrong remains in us, sin will continue to have influence over us. We can’t be free while still believing we are condemned.

Being freed from guilt doesn’t mean we ignore sin. It means that when we fall, we turn to Jesus, honoring His finished work of having redeemed us, and not our self-efforts. That’s true repentance—not wallowing in shame, but looking again to the One who has already won our freedom.

The Spirit doesn’t lead us through guilt or fear. He leads us by pointing us to Christ and bearing witness to the finished work of the cross. As we continue walking with Him, He writes God’s desires on our hearts.

This is the journey of character success—not outward striving, but inward transformation through the Spirit, shaping us more and more into Christ (2 Cor. 3:18).

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