We human beings are inclined to look to our successes and failures as the measure of our value in this world. We judge ourselves and others based on what we can do; on our skills and how they compare to the skills and abilities of others. There is a subtle deception in this.
On the one hand, skill and ability are important to God. He does all things well and, as creatures made in his image, he expects us to care about excellence in all that we do. Whether a CEO or a plumber, a breadwinner or a homemaker, a teacher or a parent, we ought to strive to perform our work well, and acquire the skills to do it better. As we do our work with excellence and skill, we bring glory to God, and the success that comes from it is a blessing from God.
The problem comes when we attempt to gain from what we do, something it can never give us. Our skill, and the success we experience when we do things well, cannot establish our value as human beings or give us the life God created us for. Our skill and success bring glory to God, but he never intended them to be our glory. He, and he alone is our glory.
The world judges our value based on what we can do, but this is a bankrupt system. It is a system in which a person’s glory is determined by how well they can throw a ball, how convincingly they can cry for the camera, whether their sales averages are on the rise, or whether their children are smart or good at sports. The writer of Ecclesiastes makes clear that this kind of glory is an illusion: “When I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun” (Ec. 2:11).
God’s value system is completely different. Jesus taught that it is the poor in spirit who are blessed; the meek who inherit the earth; the last who are first; and the one who loses everything who gains all. Those the world deems successful will see their treasures swept away like so much dust in the breeze, but those who seek God as their true treasure will one day hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Mt. 25:21).
In the end, our identity and our value—our glory—can be found in one place, and one place alone. God is our life and only when our lives are rooted in him will we find our true selves. In my own life I find that the inclination to measure my value by what I have done and how well I have done it is always present with me. I find it is a daily decision, sometimes a moment-by-moment decision, to sink my roots into the right soil. May we commit ourselves to excellence in all we do and thank God for the rewards that come from a job well done, but may we learn to measure our value and discover our identity in him alone. He is our glory!
Pastor Jon