When Success Becomes Spoil

“The Bible does not say that success is wrong, but it does say that we must be careful of the subtle idolatry of success, especially when we place too much weight on past victories.”
Tim Keller

“Past success can be a subtle idol. It is not wrong to look back at what God has done, but if we rest too long in our past triumphs, we can miss the opportunities He has for us today.”
John Piper

“It is easy to let the accomplishments of the past become a burden. The enemy will often use the past as a weapon to immobilize us in the present.”
C. S. Lewis

“Beware of the trap of looking back to what you have done for God in the past. The past victories can easily become a substitute for present faith and reliance upon God.”
Oswald Chambers

“Idolatry often hides behind our victories. We look back and see our triumphs as signs of our own greatness, forgetting that we were only instruments in the hand of God.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“God’s blessing on the past is not to be made the idol of the present. Every moment we must live by faith, continually depending on Him, not on former blessings.”
Charles Spurgeon

We do not often call it idolatry. We call it testimony. We call it fruit. We call it favor. But what we are really doing, what we are often doing, is dragging yesterday’s manna into today, and pretending it has not gone sour. The story of Jericho ends not with the echo of a trumpet but with the silence of judgment. Not because the walls did not fall. Not because the people did not obey. They did. For a while. But somewhere between the miracle and the mourning, somewhere between the trumpet and the tremble, someone decided to hold on to what was meant to be surrendered. We are not told that Achan set out to rebel. We are not told that he shouted, “This is mine!” We are only told that he saw it, he wanted it, and he took it. A cloak. Silver. A wedge of gold. Small things. Tangible things. Proof, perhaps, that the victory was real. A souvenir from the supernatural. And we read that story with dismay, wondering how someone could hold on to what God had so clearly said to lay down. But then we post the praise report. We showcase the results. We build strategy from what was meant to be sanctified. We package the testimony, and forget that the glory was never ours to keep. Could they let go of what they conquered? Could they see the spoils and still choose sanctity? Could they lay success at the feet of the One who gave it? That was the question in Jericho. But it is the same question now.

The Subtle Shift from Worship to Outcome
The problem is not the miracle. The problem is the moment after. The hush that comes when the trumpets are quiet. The impulse to preserve the momentum. To recreate the atmosphere. To bottle the breakthrough. It is not new. Gideon tried it with the ephod (Judges 8:27). Israel tried it with the ark of God (1 Samuel 4:3) and with the bronze serpent (2 Kings 18:4). Ahaz tried it with the altar of Damascus (2 Kings 16:10). Judah tried it with the temple (Jeremiah 7:4). The Pharisees tried it with their traditions (Mark 7:8). Peter tried it on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:33). And we try it every time we confuse God’s power with our performance. But obedience was never meant to be a transaction. It was not meant to produce outcomes. It was meant to demonstrate allegiance. “And Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams’” (1 Samuel 15:22, ESV). That verse is not just about Saul’s impatience, it is about ours. It is about every time we try to substitute results for reverence. God never told them to testify about Jericho. He told them to be silent. He did not instruct them to strategize for future conquest based on wall-collapse theory. He asked them to walk in step with Him. To destroy what was forbidden. To remember that the victory was His. But we reverse it. We lift the miracle above the Master. We speak of the outcomes with glowing detail, not to glorify God, but to validate ourselves. We think success is the proof of holiness. It is not. It is often the test of it.

The Temptation to Recreate the Glory
We want to reproduce what moved people before. We want to stir the same emotions, generate the same response, ignite the same fire. But holy fire does not come from formula. It comes from fear, the good kind. The kind that says, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5, ESV). The kind that does not need walls to fall to believe God is present. The kind that keeps walking softly long after the miracle is over. When God shows up in power, we are not meant to build a monument. But so often we are quicker to package the story than to sit in the silence. Quicker to share than to rend our hearts. We teach others how to bring down walls without checking their posture, asking if their hearts are bowed low enough to walk in circles. Even our testimonies, if not examined carefully, can become tools of manipulation rather than praise. We share them, yes, but to what end? Are we glorifying God? Or are we using stories of His work to stir up human effort? Are we testifying or advertising? And have we begun to believe that if we do not speak of the last miracle, we might not see the next one? But God is not activated by applause. He is not summoned by storytelling. He is holy.

What We Keep Reveals Whom We Trust
Achan kept a few things. Not much, in the grand scheme. But God called it theft and sin and treachery. Not because the cloak or the silver held any real power, but because the act of keeping them exposed the posture of the heart. God had said it all belonged to Him. And that should have been enough. We like to believe we are beyond that. But how often do we cling to tokens of past success? How often do we prop up our obedience with what it produced, instead of simply offering it as worship? The numbers. The growth. The open doors. The applause. The influence. These are not evil in themselves. But they are dangerous if we keep them for validation. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17, ESV). Not to be seized. Not to be leveraged. Not to be paraded. Simply given, and to be given back. Could we let go of what we conquered? Or must we clutch the victory to prove we are still favored?

When the Past Becomes a Pitfall
God did not punish Achan because he failed to give a good testimony. He punished him because he withheld what belonged to God, and what belonged to God was not just silver or gold, it was the right to determine what would be done with the victory. We do this subtly. We host retrospectives. We mine the memory of the last outpouring. We try to recreate the atmosphere where “God moved,” and we forget that He does not dwell in atmospheres. He inhabits holiness. It is a strange thing, how easily the sacred becomes a template. What began as obedience quickly becomes methodology. The prayer that preceded the breakthrough becomes the magic word we repeat. The worship set that once carried us to tears becomes a playlist we circulate. But the Spirit of God is not formulaic. He is not bound by the shape of the last outpouring. In Exodus, the manna fell daily. But when they tried to store it, it rotted (Exodus 16:19–20). God was teaching them dependency. He was reminding them that yesterday’s provision cannot sustain today’s obedience. We must ask: are we living off of what God did? Or are we walking with Him in what He is saying today?

Letting Go for the Sake of Holiness
It is a strange exchange, laying down the very thing God used to bless us, but that is exactly what sanctification requires. Abraham had to lay Isaac on the altar (Genesis 22:9), not because Isaac was wicked, but because the promise must never be prized more than the One who made the promise. The test of holiness is not always found in resisting sin. Sometimes it is found in surrendering success. And sometimes, what God asks for is not the sinful thing, but the sacred one. The miracle. The result. The victory. Because even these, when held too tightly, become idols. All holy. All good. All from God. And yet, when gripped instead of given back, decayed into gods of their own.“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21, ESV). This is not just about wealth. It is about what we treasure, what we point to, what we keep close, what we count as evidence that God is still with us. What if He asked you to give it back? What if the victory He gave you yesterday is the very thing that will ruin you today if you cling to it? What if success is no longer sanctified the moment we begin to depend on it?

Covenant Was Never Performance
All of this, this obedience, this surrender, this letting go, is not about earning anything. It never was. The covenant of God has never been transactional. It is not a deal to be kept. It is a relationship to be honored. “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you... but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers” (Deuteronomy 7:7–8, ESV). That is covenant. Not merit, but mercy. Not achievement, but abiding. God does not call us to performance. He calls us to presence. “Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8). That has always been His aim, to dwell with His people, not to be impressed by them. Covenant life is not measured by outcomes, it is defined by proximity and proximity requires purity. “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2, ESV). Not impressive. Not innovative. Not influential. Holy. The Hebrew word yirah, often translated as “fear,” captures this posture. But yirah is not terror. It is reverence. It is awe. It is the quiet trembling of a heart that knows it stands before a holy God. It does not sprint ahead with plans. It bows low in wonder. It is the heartbeat of covenant life. Blessed are those “who walk in the law of the LORD... who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways” (Psalm 119:1–3, ESV). This is not performance. This is posture. This is covenant. And covenant always begins with God, not us. He initiates. He sustains. He calls us to Himself not because we are enough, but because He is. So no, we do not obey to succeed. We obey because we belong. We let go of the spoils, not to earn a blessing, but to keep from polluting what is already holy. We walk in reverence, not because we fear losing God’s favor, but because we fear wounding His presence.

Dear reader, God told Israel to march in silence. Not because the noise would disrupt His strategy, but because silence disciplines the heart. It reminds us that the battle is not won by sound, or strength, or spectacle. It is won by surrender. Reverence is not loud. It does not need a platform. It walks in circles, trusting that God will move in His time. And when the walls fall, reverence does not shout for attention. It shouts because God said, “Shout.” And then it goes quiet again. Because the victory is holy. We do not need to recreate the moment. We need to obey in the next one. We do not need to relive the battle plan. We need to walk humbly in today’s instructions. The outcome is God’s. The obedience is ours. Let go. Let go of what you conquered. Let go of the metrics. Let go of the testimony that sounds more like branding than brokenness. Let go of the silver and gold you tucked away as proof that God was with you. He is still with you, but He is holy, and if you do not let go of the last victory, you may lose the next battle. Not because God is cruel, but because He is not a commodity. He will not be wielded. He will not be marketed. He will not be used. He will be worshiped. So lay it down. The trophy. The story. The echo of success. And walk softly. Not in fear of failure. But in fear of God. Because victory is not vindication, and miracles are no substitute for holiness.