Keep Your Eyes on the Goal

This is the time of year when a lot of people are really into football games. I have to admit I am not much of a sports fan. There are many things I don’t understand about football. One of my brothers patiently tried to explain the game to me many years ago, but I just didn’t “get it.” However, the one thing I do know is that the object of the game is to make a touchdown— to get the ball over the goal line. All of the team is working together to reach that goal.

As I study the Word of God, I find there are many worthy goals that we are instructed to strive for, including avoiding sin, living Christ-like lives, and ministering to the needs of others. If asked what their ultimate goal is, many Christians would respond to reach Heaven. But I have come to believe that the all-important goal of a child of God should be to know Christ—to be in relationship with Him.

Those of us who have accepted Christ into our hearts go by the name Christian which means Christ-like. If we are to live Christ-like lives, if we are to behave in a way that people will know we have been with Him, then we must personally know the One after whom we are named.

The Apostle Paul expressed a desire to know Him and indicated that everything he was or had obtained were unimportant in comparison to the awesome privilege of knowing Christ. This does not refer to head knowledge, but to a personal, intimate relationship with Him.

As we spend time with the Lord in prayer and in His Word, He teaches us about Himself. We discover what pleases Him, as well as what displeases Him. We love Him because He first loved us. And this love causes us to desire to please Him by the way we live. None of us will ever reach perfection while we are on this earth, but we can still pour ourselves into moving toward the goal of knowing Him and pleasing Him.

I believe the deeper our relationship with the Lord—the closer we are to Him—the more our lives will conform to His will and to His plan. As we become more intimate with Christ, the goals I mentioned above—avoiding sin, living Christ-like lives, and ministering to the needs of others—will be easier to reach. And knowing Christ will assure us of a place in Heaven.

Scriptures for Reflection

But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11)

We love him, because he first loved us. (I John 4:19)

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)