Pressing On Towards...?

Imagine approaching a number of workers on a building site and asking them, "What are you building here?" We would expect each person involved in the project to know what the ultimate goal was, whether they were building an office block, a stadium, or some houses. Each person would have a different role in the project, which would mean fulfilling different tasks, but the ultimate goal should be the same.

When we look at our lives as leaders, we need to ask ourselves the question, "What are we building?" What is the ultimate goal for our lives? We may be working very hard, we may be extremely busy, but what are striving towards? What is the goal to which we are pressing on? For many of us, we may be tempted to answer the question just by stating a number of the tasks or achievements we wish to make. For example, pastoring the largest church in our nation or winning thousands of people to Christ. Whilst these may be positive goals, they should not be the only type of goals which we should desire to accomplish. One of the major personal goals that we should have is to become the person that God wants us to be. All we do, all we achieve, and all we accomplish will be shaped by who we are. A principle that we established in study 1.3 was:

Who we are is more important than what we achieve: what we achieve flows out of who we are.

If we are to live truly effective lives, we need to ensure that one of the major goals of our lives is becoming more and more transformed into the likeness of Christ. As we become more like Christ, we will increase our capacity to achieve God's purposes for us. As we look at the Apostle Paul's life, we find that this was a major goal for his life.

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, 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, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:10-14)

The Apostle Paul, in many people's eyes, was already a godly man. As a Pharisee he would have fasted twice a week, prayed several times a day, given money to the poor, and was zealous to do what he felt was right in God"s sight. However, when Paul looked at all his achievements, he considered them to be like rubbish fit to be thrown to the dogs (Philippians 3:8). Paul's encounter with Jesus on the way to Damascus redefined the purposes and values that his life was built upon. Not only that, Paul had new goals established in his life, the most significant of which was to know Christ and the power of his resurrection in his life. The new vision to know Christ, and to be transformed by that knowledge, was not just a self-centred pursuit. As Paul discovered Christ"s love in his own life, he gained a passionate, compelling desire to communicate that love to others.

"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

The same principles need to be at work in our own lives as leaders. Even more important than working for God is the need to know God and allow him to transform our lives. Our values, our thinking, our priorities, our desires, our ambitions, our character, our relationships all need to be transformed by the power of God. As we work in partnership with him in the transformation process, we will find a new desire and vision to serve him and to make him known.