More than one wise disciple-maker has told me that they could guage the temperature of a person using one simple question…
What has God taught you lately?
Brilliant, IMHO. I’d like to share something specific God has been working on in me and pray that it might be an encouragement to you. If you are performance-oriented, this post is for you.
So many of us struggle with a strong performance-orientation. That is, we are driven by goals, performance, winning, competition, results, excellence, and the like. On one hand, I praise God that he creates people who are driven to perform at high levels. The Bible is full of such people, and if it were not for the obedience (i.e. performance) of the heroes of the faith, we would not even have a “faith”. But, as with so many good things God provides, this blessing can become a bondage to us.
Now, I’m not going to dive into the pop-psychology of performance “bondage” and why we ought to blame our parents for being as we are. Rather, I’m going to show you a simple truth and pray that God will use it to help you the way He has used it to help me in the past week.
Think about who we would be if it were not for God. We would be dust…literally. We would be as significant as the ground you walk on. This is why is absolutely fascinates me how an athiest can avoid despair…there is no reason whatsoever for an athiest to ascribe significance to matter that rises from insignificant organic matter and disintegrates back into that insignificant organic matter. The philosophy behind all this is a topic for another day, but it should be intuitive to a reasonable thinker that significance does not rise from insignificance. Something, or someone, of significance has to give an object significance for it to be genuinely significant.
As I said before, there is nothing wrong with a drive to perform; but, whether we recognize it or not, performance is usually tied to significance. We perform because we are attempting the earn significance from someone we perceive to be more significant than ourselves. Said another way, we’re trying to “earn their love”. And the fact is that no one’s love is worth attempting to earn, because it is vapor…earned love is not really love; earned significance is not really significance. Satan just likes to make us think that to keep us from living fully in God’s genuine love and sigificance.
Therefore, I have two important principles for you today. I pray you will find them biblical, helpful, and a light from the Lord himself today.
First, you are significant only because God gives you significance through His love for you. Your performance has zero affect on your sigificance. Yes, it may affect rewards in Heaven, but it does not affect God’s love for you nor your true sigificance. If you did not grow up in a healthy home, I know this is hard to understand…but, it is indeed true of your Heavenly Father. Just how significant are you? Significant enough for the God of the universe to condescend to that of man and die for you in Christ.
“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8 (NASB)”
If you struggle with performance, as I do, it would be helpful to memorize this passage and meditate on it regularly. Who are you trying to impress with your performance? A boss? A spouse? A son/daughter? A neighbor? A competitor? Who is it? Now, what do you really have to gain? If you believe in Christ and have been regenerated, you already have divine significance bestowed upon you by God’s love as demonstrated by His death for you. Why not just rest in that?!?
Second, work hard (i.e. perform with maximum excellence) at everything you do, but do it as an expression of Christ-like agape love for others. Performance ought to be seen as something we give away with no expectation of anything in return; it should not be seen as something we use to earn something from someone more significant than ourselves. Be motivated to empty yourself for others as Christ “emptied” himself for you. We had nothing to give back to the Lord for His sacrifice, yet he did it anyway. Likewise, give of yourselves in your work (no matter what it is) as an expression of love for others.
- Do you go to school?
- Don’t learn to impress or even meet the expectations of your parents or teachers.
- Do it because educated people are better equiped to serve others.
- Do you run a household?
- Don’t do it to impress your neighbor, spouse, or children or to make them feel a certain way.
- Do it simply as an expression of love toward your spouse and children, regardless of their response to your efforts.
- Do you manage other people’s money?
- Don’t do it to impress your peers or clients.
- Do it because as an expression of love for the person for whom you manage money.
- Do you write software?
- Don’t do it to impress your boss, peers or an open source community.
- Do it as a work of service to your leader, company or community.
- Do you clean inside or outside of a building/home?
- Don’t do it to impress your boss or home owner.
- Do it because God is orderly, and you can love the owner by providing an orderly space for them.
- Do you lead or manage other people?
- Don’t do it to build an empire and to extract significance from people by ruling over them.
- Do it because you care about developing people and working as a team to love those your team serves.
- Do you teach the bible, blog or engage forums?
- Don’t do it to build a reputation or empire.
- Do it simply because you care about other’s development and welfare.
What do you do? In what way are you trying to perform for someone else? How could you change your attitude so that you do what you do to love others rather than gain love from them? How can you use your work to pour significance into someone else who is not lovely, rather than trying to exact more love and signifiance from those who have nothing to give?
And so, we can summarize with a simple statement…one I plan to carry with me and live as best I can:
God has already made you significant; there is no need to extract significance from others, as if it were even possible.
I started this by saying that this is something God has been teaching me recently, but I would love to know what he has been working with you on! If you would like to encourage others by sharing, please do so.
