What Do We Strive For?

Jesus wants you to be successful. Jesus wants you to be great. Jesus wants you to impact and leave your mark on the world. Jesus wants you to get to the top. Jesus wants you to have fun and enjoy life. Jesus wants to feel good about yourself. Jesus wants you to win. Jesus wants you to beat down the competition. Jesus wants...Jesus wants...

What did Jesus want?

“Feed my sheep.”

Some people invoke the name of Jesus as a means to an end. They say “I am a Christian” and “I believe in God,” then go on to talk about how by their own power and determination they will climb the ladder and win a place in the world's hall of fame on their own merits. They may even begin to feel smug toward those who are less successful, even those called failures, quite closed to the possibility that some people may have to deal with disadvantages that others do not.

Of course they may nod their heads to the impoverished, to the addict, to the physically or socially disadvantaged, even go to great measures to help them to achieve the success they are achieving. But some cannot help falling behind, even giving up for lack of spirit or strength, and when this occurs they are at a loss as to the cure, and may even label them as hopeless, avoiding them as a disease, as a burden that will hold them back from achieving their own happiness.

For the non-religious this is an understandable conclusion. They have no time to lose in pursuing the good things in life, so they can enjoy as much of it as they can before it's all over. They know some day they will die and their bodies will decay, and they themselves will live on in nothing more than a memory – if even that for very long. They see no point in wasting precious time finding a way to cure these broken spirits, writing them off as self-destructive or simply lacking in sufficient optimism.

But whose spirit wouldn't be broken, living in the despair that some day they were going to die, while experiencing defeats and frustrations at every attempt to experience in life the good things they expect from it, and having finally run out of spiritual and emotional fuel? Is there really any point in trying anymore?

Those who see it that way are probably wiser than the former party. They understand what Solomon meant when he described life as vanity of vanities, a striving after the wind, a tragedy where all a man works for in his lifetime is lost to him when he dies, left to someone else to enjoy in his place. They know they cannot buy everlasting happiness or immortality. They know they are doomed.

However, one who is truly a Christian sees it differently.

They know Jesus was raised from the dead, and that one day they will also be resurrected as he was. They know that life is shallow and meaningless if its not centered on that which is eternal and full of wonders. They know that their boasting should not lie in their own power or smarts, but in God who made them in the first place and gave them the capabilities they possess. They express their gratitude not only with their voice, but in actions, such as lifting up the downcast and the downtrodden, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned.

“For as surely as you did it to the least of these, you did it also to me.”

This is what Jesus really wanted, and continues to desire. No more self-righteousness and pride, no more pursuing of achievements that will not last, but instead humility and gratitude, and the storing up of treasures in heaven, where thieves do not break in and steal and where moth and rust do not destroy – an eternal treasure. For we have set our sights on something greater than the world has, the joy and glorification of Jesus who suffered and died for us, and was raised to victory over death and despair.

Let us not be Christian in name, secular in vocation. Let us live our whole lives for the reward of a joy and peace that will never die.




Romans 3:27- "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith."

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 - "For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."