Our Greatest Accomplishment

Our Greatest Accomplishment
Phil. 3:4-11
“More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”
Deep within us is a desire to succeed in life. We want to have a sense of meaning and purpose, a feeling of accomplishment that leaves a mark on the world in which we live. We don’t want to be famous or renowned; we just desire to be successful by living a life of purpose. At the end of life, we want to know that our life is worth living.  This sense of achievement may come from our jobs or interactions with people.  It may be an achievement that benefits others or a lifestyle that influences the people we associate with.  At the end of life, we want to feel that we have lived life well and had a positive influence.
From Paul’s cultural perspective, he had achieved success in life. He faithfully adhered to the law and fulfilled all the religious duties expected during that time. Those who knew him upheld him as an example of a well-lived life. He strictly obeyed the law and met all its demands. Paul's life would have been considered exemplary by others. Yet for all his achievements he felt that something was missing.  Paul experienced what we all struggle with.  No matter how successful we have been, there is always a nagging feeling that we still have not done enough.
In Paul’s quest for significance, he discovered what gave meaning and fulfillment in life.  It did not come from his accomplishments; it came from a relationship.  At the time of writing this letter, Paul was sitting in the one place where one would easily conclude that his life was a failure.  He was sitting in a Roman prison. Here, you have time to reflect upon your life and how you have lived.  As he reflected upon his life, he discovered that there was one thing and one thing only that genuinely gave life meaning and significance.  When all of the frills and façade of life are stripped away, only one thing truly determines our success in life: our relationship with Christ.  For Paul, the only accomplishment that provided the measure of success was his relationship with Christ.  Everything else, all the other pursuits that we often consider so important, in the end, are nothing more than the manure (the literal meaning of the word rubbish) my brothers and I hauled out of the barn when we did our daily chores on the farm.  
In life, it is so easy to become distracted by the insignificant and the temporal.  We go to work each day to be successful both in our careers and finances.  We strive to help others so that we will be remembered as a giving and caring person.  We want to improve the small slice of the world we interact with on a daily basis.  But at the end of life, there is only one thing that will genuinely give life meaning, purpose, and success.  There is only one thing that has eternal significance.  That one thing is our relationship with Christ and the pursuit of His kingdom.  Paul challenges us to examine our goals in life to redefine our purpose so that the pursuit of our relationship with Christ becomes the center point of our life.  If the pursuit of Christ is not your ultimate goal in life, then you are pursuing the unimportant.  The greatest tragedy in life is not the failure to be successful.  It is to be successful in what is insignificant and meaningless.  The only thing that is eternally significant and the only thing that gives meaning in life is the pursuit of Christ and his kingdom agenda.  If that is your driving passion and desire, your life will have an impact. Make it your daily prayer and objective to grow in your relationship with Christ, for that is the only pursuit worth living for.