My One Aim!

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of Godʼs grace. Acts 20:24 NIV

Everywhere you turn these days, we are in the season of resolutions and decisions. Everyone is looking to the new year at hand with an air of expectations, trusting that it will bring in new things. The present year has had its moments- rough and otherwise, but God has always been good. As we take a peek into the new year and plan for all that God has in store for us, how do we plan within God's perfect plan for our lives?

We see a man like Paul here completely sold to God's purpose for his life. He had walked with God very closely since his conversion, and had come to realize what the important values were. Let's see a few of the lessons and how they apply to us:

1. My life cannot be more important than the assignment that God has given. God always works from eternity past to eternity future. Everyone he calls to work for him is only taking a part of an already-concluded purpose. I cannot therefore exalt my life over and above God's purpose; I am to find out that eternal purpose of God and work at it, as that is the only way my life can make sense.

2. There is a race that I must complete. God called me out of many and set me on a particular path to walk, run, and work for Him. Nothing else matters; only a pursuit of God's purpose for my life will be blessed by him. Every other assignment is secondary to the race God has set out for me.

3. A task has been assigned to me, which will definitely outlive me, if the Lord tarries. That task is the same that Christ himself started, and which he has commissioned every follower of his to do- testify of the good news of God's grace, which is the embodiment of Christ himself. Christianity will be a fraud without the person of Christ himself, the cross will only be a piece of wood without the One who was offered on it, the grave would have been the final nail in the coffin of our hope if there had been no resurrection and we will have nothing to look forward to or to anchor our faith on if we did not have precious promises awaiting us in eternity.

In the light of these great promises, I keep fighting, running and working. I am not yet made perfect, but I have understood that the quality of my life will be determined by impact for God, not popular opinion. Just like Paul, I focus on God, his assignment and the pursuit of his purpose for my life. Indeed, nothing else matters. Nothing else will matter on the day of judgment except what I have done with Christ. His time of favour is here.