This is what our culture says we are supposed to do. From a young age, this way of thinking is ingrained in our minds, and hearts. We have our children participate in a plethora of activities and "encourage" them to not only do their best, but seemingly more importantly to WIN. To ensure that everyone at least feels like a winner, whether they were actually the first place finisher or the best of the class or the last one to cross the finish line or simply made a "good effort," we hand out medals and ribbons and trophies. Our children, after all, simply "MUST" feel good about themselves, about their accomplishments -- no matter how small or trivial they may be!
As a result, children are growing up feeling entitled. They deserve to be recognized. Any little thing they do needs to be praised and rewarded.
Or does it?
Lately, I have been reading in the book of Galatians. The apostle Paul wrote this letter to the believers there, and from the very beginning he seems to be stressing the importance of JESUS. Not the men and women who believed in Him and had committed their lives to serving Him. Not even those who will well known and respected among believers as "pillars of the faith." Not the good works they had done. Not all the things they knew about Jesus. Not their genealogy and connection to Father Abraham. Not their strong adherence to the Law or their zeal for following all of God's commands. Nope, none of that. Paul is all about JESUS.
In the first chapter alone, he writes:
Obviously, I am not trying to win the approval of people, but of God.
I pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant.
He goes on to say how he was a leader in the religious world. In deed, he was the infamous "Saul" who hunted down Christians and had more zeal than anyone else in regard to the Jewish traditions. But then, God took his life and did a complete 180. After that dramatic encounter on his way to Damascus, Paul did more than change his name. He began to live an entirely new way. The spotlight was no longer on him, but on JESUS CHRIST alone. All that Paul said and did was for God's glory. He poured out his life to make Jesus known, to spread the gospel, to tell others of God's love, to explain how they too could experience the free gift of salvation.
He explains in chapter 2:
My old self has been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
So I live in this earthly body, by trusting in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Paul so firmly believed that everyone who claims to love Jesus needed to live in the same way that he ached for his spiritual children to follow in his footsteps. He pours his heart out to them:
Oh, my dear children!
I feel as though I'm going through labor pains for you again,
and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives.
In the next chapters, he goes on to explain to the believers in Galatia how they can allow God to do His work in their lives, to give Him complete control so that they "live by the Spirit," so that their lives are centered on Christ.
He ends his letter, reminding them yet again that nothing matters apart from Jesus:
As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified,
and the world's interest in me has also died.
This was Paul's life mantra, not just an emotional rant that he went off on from time to time. Oh no, this was how Paul lived day in and day out, until he died a martyr for his faith.
In his letter to the Philippians, we again see Paul's heart -- his intense desire for the believers to KNOW God's love and stand firm in their faith, to live boldly for Jesus no matter the cost. He writes:
I pray that your love with overflow more and more,
and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding.
For I want you to understand what really matters,
so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return.
May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation --
the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ --
for this will bring much glory and praise to God.
He shares with them how everything that has happened to him, including his current imprisonment and past trials and tribulations, have served to spread the gospel and make Jesus known. And that is what Paul wants more than anything else. So, even as he sits with chains on his wrists and ankles, Paul assures them:
For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed,
but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past.
And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ,
whether I live or die.
For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.
And then there's the "famous" passage where he passionately explains just how much Christ means to him:
Yes, everything else is worthless
when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage,
so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.
I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law;
rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.
For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.
I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.
I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death,
so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
Clearly, Paul loved Jesus with every fiber of his being. He was a walking example of God's command to love him with "all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." In the sports world, I don't think Paul left anything on the court. When he crossed the finished line, he did so at a sprint. He didn't save anything. He probably collapsed at the end of his life's race, but I am absolutely confident Jesus was right there to pick him up, give him a great big hug, and whisper in his ear, "Well done. Well done, my good and faithful servant. Now come and rest."
And that is what I want to hear when I see Jesus and stand -- rather fall at his feet in a heap of adoration -- before Him for the first time.
If that is to happen, though, I must live as Paul did.
Every single day.
As my friend Annie Wilson shared with our group of RA's in college, "How you live your life is how you live your days." If you want to be remembered for something, then you have to live that way day in and day out, not just from time to time, whenever you feel like it or whenever it's most convenient or best fits in your schedule or doesn't interfere with your other plans or cause people to look down on your or think less of you. No, if you want to be known for something, then you must lay it all on the line, no matter the cost.
So, as I reflect on what God has been speaking to me through Paul and his letter to the Galatians, I am more convinced than ever that when people look at me, I want them to see Jesus. When someone mentions my name: Sarah Young, I want them to say, "Sarah? Sarah who? Sarah Young? That famous author? I just loved her books."
"No, no, no. Not her," someone else will respond. "The other Sarah Young."
After much thought and racking their brains, someone will finally come up with a faint memory of me. "Oh yeah, Sarah Young, that woman who loved Jesus? All she ever talked about what Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. It's like He was her whole life or something. Yeah, now I remember her."
In a non-morbid way, as I think about what people will say at my funeral, more than anything I want Jesus' name to be spoken over and over and over again. When they finally close my casket (or spread my ashes, actually, as I want to be cremated), I want this to be true of me as it was of Paul:
And they praised God because of me!
I asked the kiddos last night, "What are you going to do this week to show others you love Jesus?"
I am asking myself the same thing right now, "What am I going to do TODAY to make Jesus known? What I am going to do TODAY that brings honor and glory to God's name?"
For starters, I am going to love on my girls and have some fun playing with them!
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