Beginnings are more appealing than endings. When something is finished, it’s too easy to spot the flaws and wish they had not happened. Starting anew is about hope, about another chance to do what I learned from the past. I’m not as future-oriented as my hubby, but on this first day of a new week and a new year I have that excitement of starting again.
John MacArthur’s devotional from his book Drawing Near — Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith, asks at the end: “What is the goal of your salvation? Are you living each day in light of that goal?”
I know God’s goal for me; it is transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells me that will be final and complete when I see Him face to face, but the process began when I was saved and became His workmanship:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
This process is about being godly, not about getting my name in lights as a great person, artist, writer, philanthropist, educator, or anything else the world might give, such as me a trophy or award for accomplishment. A few key verses spell it out:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him . . . . (Ephesians 1:3–4)
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age . . . (Titus 2:11–12)
One example is the Apostle Paul. He could say: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” even though his experience never exalted him in the eyes of many. He worked hard, experienced many imprisonments, countless beatings, and was often near death. He was whipped, beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked; adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, robbers, his own people, from Gentiles, in the city, in the wilderness, at sea, and from false brothers. His diary records toil and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, without food, in cold and exposure, yet he could say, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”
He knew what many don’t know or understand. His life was hidden in Christ, and he did not have “have a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” and that “according to the riches of his glory” he had been granted strength and power through the Holy Spirit in his inner being.
MacArthur says God is more interested in my faithfulness than my accomplishments. I live in a success-oriented world and am drawn to success stories, whether it is a sleuth who solves crime or a lost-cause rising above all opposition to succeed. God’s standard for success is not like that. He says,
You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. (Luke 16:15)
God is not impressed by status or wealth. He looks for faithfulness. I want him to say to me: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”
Since I am His workmanship, the goal of my salvation, and the goal He puts before me in this new year is to do those good works that He has prepared beforehand, realizing that He has blessed me in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose me in him before the foundation of the world, that I should be holy and blameless before him.
By grace I have been saved and that grace also is at work, training me to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age” What better resolution to make at the beginning of a new year than to cooperate with God’s goal for me!
OTHER REFERENCES: 1 John 3:1-23, 2 Timothy 4:7, 2 Corinthians 11:23–27, 1 Corinthians 11:1, Philippians 3:9, Ephesians 3:16, Matthew 25:21, Ephesians 1:3–4, Titus 2:11–12
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