“After extensive study, professor and author Dr. J. Robert Clinton concluded that more than 70 percent of [Christian] leaders do not finish well.” — McCooey
Why? I suggest the following two reasons:
(1) They had no ultimate and defined goal for themselves sufficiently lofty as to make its presence felt in the most mundane moments of each day.
(2) If they did have one, they increasingly allowed themselves to quit scrutinizing their thoughts and decisions in the light of that goal and suffer through making the needed course corrections to stay in line with it. Sadly, the net effect is the default mode of existence that seeks out what feels good in about five minute increments.
By contrast, listen to the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:12-14 (NIV) —
12 “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Here’s what I would say is the loftiest goal we could ever set for ourselves.
It comes from 1 John 4:16-17 (NIV) — 16 “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.”
So let’s consider Jesus’ primary motivation and goal.
I put primary motivation and goal together because it seems to me that your primary motivation for what you do reveals what you’re presently aiming for as your ultimate goal.
In other words, the more committed you are to something, the more it becomes your primary motivation behind all that you do.
So what motivated Jesus? What was his goal?
Hebrews 12:2 — “…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
We could well sum up all that Jesus did in fulfilling God’s will into one phrase, “the cross.” Everything he lived, taught, and suffered culminated in his death and resurrection. And we are also alerted to what motivated him to get through it: “for the joy set before him he endured the cross.”
So the question is, what was that joy?
I suggest it was this: the joy of becoming for us and to us all we could ever need to enter into the fullness of God’s joy.
I’d like to define being like Jesus as becoming a particle of his life in this world whereby we too constantly help others come into the fullness of God’s joy.
Now let’s confront ourselves on this:
