“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

What is success?  One of the minor ways some people measure success is yelling Bingo! on a Wednesday or Friday night.  There’s excitement in the caller naming the letter and number to fill their card first!!  On a grander scale, if life was a type of bingo, what letters and numbers would have to be called in order for us to consider ourselves successful?  I listened to a noted sales consultant offer six elements he said the great thinkers and researchers over the span of time have agreed make up success.  According to him, bingo in life is to fill the following card.  We must have…..

B – Peace of Mind

i –  Health and High Energy

n – Loving Relationships

g – Financial Freedom

o – High Ideals and Reasonable Goals

! – A Sense of Fulfillment

Please notice in his insightful formula the vital omission of the Greatest Caller of all, God Almighty.  If we consider the first commandment (Love, honor, and to please God above all else), then the rest of our success card would take on an even greater significance.  As a support scripture, in Matthew 6:33 it says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  In other words, bingo without God is (at best) a game of human fashion and luring chance.

This message of hope is not against the game of bingo and sees some truth and value in the Bingo! formula listed above.  What we’re asking to consider, however, is for us to forfeit a game of chance, when a sure thing is available by faith.  It’s either our way of looking at the measure of success through the eyes of experience and intellect or seeing it through the eyes of the One who is calling us to His eternal family.  To hear “Well done My good and Faithful Servant” at the close of our lives is to have the ultimate peace of mind, health and energy, loving relationships, financial freedom, ideals and reasonable goals, and fulfillment with one major difference…. It will be the kind of success that calls and lasts forever.  Now that’s real BINGO!! 

 Matt 25:21; 2 Cor 5:8;Ph 1:21-23 Ph 3:20-21; Jn 3:36; Jn 14:6; Jn 17:3

Editor’s Note:   Success is as easy as 1,2,3:  1 Kings, Chapter 2, Verse 3 —  And keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, and His commandments, and His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do, and wherever you go.