What is my goal?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spir­i­tual bless­ing in the heav­enly places, even as he chose us in him before the foun­da­tion of the world, that we should be holy and blame­less before him.” – Eph­esians 1:3 – 4

“For we are his work­man­ship, cre­ated in Christ Jesus for good works, which God pre­pared before­hand, that we should walk in them. “– Eph­esians 2:10

“For the grace of God has appeared, brin­ing sal­va­tion for all peo­ple, train­ing us to renounce ungod­li­ness and worldly pas­sions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” – Titus 2:11 – 12

I am using a book by John Macarthur, Draw­ing Near: Daily Read­ings for a Deeper Faith to help me dig deeper into study­ing and apply­ing God’s word. I’ve had it for a few weeks now, but I’ve decided to write about what I’m read­ing to enable me to really think about it. It does me no good to read every­day and not give it any more thought.

Today’s read­ing is titled: The Mea­sure of True Suc­cess. Right at the begin­ning it says:

God is more inter­ested in your faith­ful­ness

than in your accom­plish­ments.

This cul­ture mea­sures suc­cess by our sta­tus, wealth, and pos­ses­sions. How­ever, God is not impressed by any of that. God mea­sures our suc­cess by how faith­ful we are to His will. His will very often directly con­tra­dicts what the world says is suc­cess­ful. He tells us not to give thought to our pos­ses­sions, to be con­tent with what we have, to seek His approval rather than man’s approval. This is not easy to do, but it is what He requires.

If I am to be what God wants me to be, my focus has to be on being a suc­cess in HIS eyes, not in the eyes of peo­ple. I truly have to not care about what any­body else thinks of me, as long as I’m pleas­ing him. Now, I often say I don’t give a rip about what any­body else thinks of me, and for the most part it’s true. But I have to admit: I’m human, and at times, I’d love for oth­ers to approve of me. At those times, I have to ask myself: WHAT IS MY GOAL? Is it to hear the com­pli­ments and acco­lades of those around me, or is it to stand before God when it’s my turn (and we ALL will have a turn) and hear him say, “Well done, good and faith­ful ser­vant? (Matthew 25:21). I can hon­estly say it’s the lat­ter. Approval from other peo­ple is nice, but it does not sat­isfy me. Approval from oth­ers will change like the wind. I’d much rather work toward pleas­ing God, who does not change. God, who works out every­thing for my good. God, who knew me before I was in my mother’s womb. God, who I will stand in front of and give an account for every­thing I did in my life. There’s really no com­par­i­son.

So how do I do that? First, I need to be more con­sis­tent in my obe­di­ence of His word. This means, I have to be more con­sis­tent in my STUDY of his word. I have to be more con­sis­tent in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him. I have to make a con­science effort to pray EVERYDAY, and not just God bless me and mine, but sit­ting still and med­i­tat­ing on His word and ask­ing him to guide me in liv­ing it out. And as the scrip­tures above say, I need to resolve to live holy and blame­less before Him. I need to live my life to do the good works He has pre­pared for me to do. I need to renounce ungod­li­ness and worldly pas­sions, and to live a self-controlled, upright, and godly life. I can­not do these things in my own power. I will have to fully rely on His grace and His Spirit within me to make this pos­si­ble in any way.

Fol­low­ing Christ in this world is not easy…..but it’s what I am com­mit­ted to doing. I’ve given up mak­ing New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions. What I’m talk­ing about here is not about the New Year at all. It’s just about want­ing to be faith­ful to God.

That’s the suc­cess I’m pur­su­ing.

© 2008, Soli Deo Glo­ria!. All rights reserved.

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