Having run cross-country in the fall, my son is now competing in track and field with his high school team. Last week I enjoyed watching him run his fastest time for the mile. Even though he did well (despite a light hail during his race), I appreciate his humble attitude. He knows that he is a representative of his team and he is honored to do his best in his small part of a larger effort. We should approach the race of the life the same way. Instead of running to glorify ourselves, we should do our best by faith to glorify God. He is the greatest and more than worthy of our devotion. Find your unsurpassed joy in honoring and representing him.
What are some of your goals in life? As you think about them, whom do they benefit? If the answer is predominantly you than I suggest you change them. Life is too short to live for yourself—spending all your time and effort on pleasing yourself, gaining possessions, perfecting yourself, or amassing power. Those that do will be brought down, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (Matthew 23:12; 1 Peter 5:5-6). God is calling you to something greater. Something beyond yourself—which is himself. He created you and has an awesome plan for your life as a part of his family (Ephesians 1:3-14). But if you live for yourself, it separates you from God and eventually kills you (Romans 3:9-26, 6:23). Fortunately, God loves you so much that he sent Jesus, God the Son, to die in order to save you from the deadly results of your self-centered waywardness (John 3:16; Romans 5:8). Anyone who trusts and obeys Jesus receives new, everlasting life in fellowship with God (John 1:9-14). If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to be reconciled to God through Jesus. Then discover all you are meant to be in Jesus. This is your grand adventure. It far outshines anything you could achieve on your own or anything this world can offer. The journey involves changing your goals to focus on loving God and loving others before yourself.
Here are a few ways the apostle Paul exhorts believers to do that. Follow God’s way and renounce the world’s way. Please God rather than yourself. Be renewed by God and don’t lose heart. Walk by faith and not by sight. Look forward to God transforming you into the likeness of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4-5). For true life is only found in Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life and no one can come to God except through him (John 14:6). Therefore, your glory is only found in receiving God’s glory in Jesus and reflecting that to others. Any other attempt at glorifying yourself is vain and unfulfilling. Furthermore it is deadly, if it keeps you from honoring and representing God.
Jesus gave his all for you. Give your all for him. Work diligently and excellently. Yet in setting godly goals and pursuing God’s glory, realize that you don’t achieve it through striving with your own strength. It’s done by resting in God, relying on God, and reflecting God. Jesus is the light of the world for people lost in darkness. As you let him shine through you people can be saved (John 8:12; Matthew 5:14-16). Jesus is the vine and you are a branch. As you abide in Jesus he bears fruit through you to the glory of God (John 15:1-17). We bring glory to God and he brings glory to us as we participate by faith in his mission of reconciling people and all of creation to himself. In other words, through Jesus alive in us by his Spirit, as we lovingly see and engage, seek and save, go and make disciples, then it becomes undeniably clear to everyone witnessing how awesome God truly is. Like the apostle Paul, let go of pursuing your own glory. Go for God’s glory and in the process you will be glorified beyond imagination (Ephesians 3:14-21; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).