Tuesday, April 4, 2017

How do you measure success?


Philippians 3:7-8 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

A friend of mine from high school recently heard that I was a small-town pastor. He made a comment something along the lines that I had more potential and could have done something more with my life. Upon hearing this I did not get angry or upset but I did get reflective about what various people consider important in life. Even in my own life when I was younger I may have considered my location, my job title, or the size of my ministry to be the primary factors of what made my life successful. From very early on in my life I had committed to go into ministry, but I did think of success in terms of Billy Graham or DL Moody, who were both world famous evangelists. 

Yet, as I sit here a pastor of a small church in a small town in rural America, I am continuing to learn that true success is not a matter status or even achievement. Instead, humans are a truly successful when we accomplish the purpose for which we are made, namely to glorify God by being in close relationship with Him. 

The apostle Paul learned this lesson so well that he was willing to give up a life of earthly success for a life of hardship. As a boy he had been taught by a famous Jewish teacher, Gamaliel, and then because of his devote life and learning went on to become a leader among the Jews. So much so, that he became a leading opponent of this new Jewish cult that followed the supposedly resurrected Jesus, and he devoted his life to stamping it. In an earthly sense, he had made it. He had climbed the latter of what it meant to be successful in his society.

But one day, he met Jesus, and all of his ideas about success were rearranged. All the things that he once thought were really important, now became meaningless, because he saw that the most important thing about life was knowing Jesus.His life was reoriented around following and obeying Jesus, and even though that meant loss of status, an itenerant lifestyle, prison, beatings, and eventually death, he was now more content, because he had found the true meaning of life. 

When I was younger, I was focused on doing things for Jesus and then hopefully being recognized for how much I had done for God. God has slowly been teaching me that my true meaning in life will come when I am content in just knowing Him. The more time I spend getting to know Jesus and submitting my life to Him, the more joy and contentment I have. Furthermore, I am finding that my ability to obey Him is radically increased when I find my joy with Him. If I don't have to worry about finding success in the outcomes or how other people measure success, then I am freed up to love and serve people because Jesus loves and serves people. He gives me the desire. 

Now I know (and it is probably obvious to you too!) that unlike the apostle Paul, I have not yet arrived at the place where I can say that have learned to be content in all circumstances (Philippians 4:11), but because of his teaching and example, we can see that true success in all any life starts and ends with loving Jesus.