The world sets a standard for us to chase after: power, fame, vocational success, continual physical attractiveness, financial abundance, etc. While God encourages us to pursue goals such as the fruit of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23): love, joy, peace, patience, humility, grace, compassion, gentleness, faith, and self-control.
These characteristics allow us to move further away from sinful, carnal, and fleshly desires, and to have a more effective and spiritually productive life each moment of our day. The world becomes more self-centered, but authentic Christians become more Christ-centered, purer, and more intimate with God in union within us (2 Peter 1:5-9).
The more we surrender our life to the Lord, the less time and energy we spend seeking after the physical aspects of life. We rely on God’s Spirit to perfect us from one stage of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18). We enter God’s rest (Hebrews 4:3), and we care less and less about the politics, fashion styles, trinkets and pursuits of those living around us.
Of course, we do make a difference for God in ways that we can, but we do not worry or fret about the direction the world around us is heading. We share the Gospel of Christ with anyone humble enough to listen, and we wipe the dust off our feet (Matthew 10:14) when we walk away from someone with indifference or animosity toward God.
We rely on God’s Spirit to help us to enter God’s rest (Hebrew 4:9-16), to trust God to give us the desire and the ability to pursue holiness (Philippians 2:12-13; Romans 6:11-14), and to live an abundant life blessed by the gifts that God continually showers on His Saints.
Prayer:
Father God, help us to see the relevance to our life that Christ-like attributes have, which worldly values lack. Once we stop striving to achieve worldly success, and instead work toward a more fulfilling life in the very center of Your will for us, we enter Your rest and experience a much deeper intimacy with You. You make us one with You through Christ in us.
We are Your temple, Your Body, Your home, Your sanctuary, and You rejoice over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). We find so much peace in our life when we have fewer material possessions to care about. We value our mate, our family, our church family, and our time and energy to pursue You and to furthering Your Kingdom on this earth.
Thought for the Day:
We find more fulfilling fellowship with fellow Believers by all of us pursuing God together through being transformed in mind and character by His Holy Spirit each moment of our day; the esteem of the world around us holds no value to us at all, because being pleasing in the sight of the Lord is our major goal and pursuit.
