As you plan for 2023, have you considered the distinction between achievement and purpose?
There's a huge difference.
As you plan 2023, have you considered the distinction between achievement and purpose?
Achievement concerns measurable results. Often the “achievement-driven” individual is guided by goals, each building on the other to ascend a specified ladder, and tends to focus on receiving praise, promotion, and reward.
If achievement is what we see above the water line, purpose lies beneath.
Rather than be primarily concerned with outcomes, purpose follows the path of calling. This calling may lead to an outward, recognizable achievement that receives praise, promotion, and reward.
And that is not wrong. Accolades may be the necessary and logical result of faithfully following one’s calling. Furthermore, goal setting is not mutually exclusive to purpose.
However, if achievement is the goal, not attaining measurable results will be interpreted as a failure.
It may feel like you’ve lived a wasted life.
If the church plant closes, was the ministry a failure?
If a dating relationship doesn’t result in marriage, was it a waste?
If my education doesn’t get me the job I want, was the investment squandered?
If I don’t get the promotion, has my work been in vain?
Achievement may say “Yes” to these scenarios. Not purpose.
If anyone lived a life of purpose, it was Jesus.
He was well acquainted with his why.
“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45, ESV).
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10, ESV).
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15, ESV).
And yet the result of Jesus’ life seemed like a waste and a failure.
In the prime of his life, the most gifted teacher in the world, with more promise and potential than any Jew could have dreamed, is crucified.
Rather than praise, promotion, and reward, Jesus receives humiliation, scorn, and rejection.
Jesus never wrote a book. He didn’t plant a church. He was not platformed by the establishment.
Traveling from place to place as an itinerant preacher, Jesus primarily invested in a handful of friends, one of whom would sell him out, another deny him, and all run away and hide when he needed them most.
What did he have to show for his ministry? It wasn’t as successful as the disciples had hoped or expected. Honestly, the ministry of Jesus it looked like a colossal failure.
Did Jesus waste his life?
Hardly!
We know the rest of the story.
From the perspective of the disciples, Jesus had not achieved his mission. They ran and hid, despairing that the goal of restoring the kingdom of Israel had failed.
And yet, a simple life lived on purpose resulted in an exponentially greater achievement than anyone at the time expected.
Paul writes of it in Philippians 2:6-11, speaking of Jesus, saying,
“Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (ESV).
The apostle John, one of the original disciples who ran to hide on the night before Jesus was nailed to a cross, writes,
“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. 10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9, NIV).
What does this mean for us?
I suppose we need to look below the water line to determine our why.
In general terms, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (NIV).
“The glory of God” is a phrase indicating a desire to honor the Lord in all our activities, decisions, and life pursuits. In our relationships, vocations, and leisure.
This brings us full circle, as the concept of glorifying God plays directly into goal setting and influences the dreams we may have for achievement.
Glorifying God in all things means we can set goals. And yes, we can achieve those goals.
The question is why? Why certain goals? Why specific achievements?
What is my true motive?
Is it to bring honor to myself or to reflect honor to Jesus as the giver of my life, my salvation, and all the gifts I possess?
Do I want to make a difference in the world for his name or for mine, whether as an electrician, artist, teacher, politician, physician, salesperson, cashier, student, or pastor?
Herein lies an opportunity for fresh repentance (to simply confess how the flesh has corrupted my goals and aspirations) and renewed faith (that the great purpose and achievement of Jesus’ ministry covers my idolatry and imputes his record to me) that leads to a clarified purpose.
What if you knew your why? What if you didn’t need to achieve in a worldly sense but simply live your purpose before an audience of One, following his providential leading and leaving the results up to him? How freeing to know that what looks like failure to the world may very well be glorious in the eyes of the Father.
Just like the cross.
And in this context, if and when you do achieve and receive praise, promotion, and reward, it will not grow pride in the heart but will produce a genuine humility that knows all achievement is the result of grace.