Leviticus 26:1-2; Philippians 3:14-15
In our quest to attain new heights we need to be cognizant of what is imperative and the implication of our disposition to that imperative.
Essentially, we should acknowledge that God has the roadmap for new heights and as such He sets the standards and the goal of attainment. Therefore it’s only in Him and through Him that we can attain new heights.
As we can reckon from our Leviticus text, worship is at the core of the quest of attaining new heights. Worship defines what preoccupies our whole lives. It designates what we accord value or worth to above all else. Worship espouses what takes pre-eminence in the list of our priorities in life.
In the quest to reach new heights, we may become drawn into exploring other means to accomplish our personal goals and agenda. Characterised by anxiety and desperation, the inclination to become, the yearning to make meaningful and significant progress and be successful in life, become the centre of our focus.
However, our interpretation of the quest for new heights may be faulty if we think it’s about our personal desires, goals or agenda for success. But like Paul said, if your notions are faulty, “God will reveal to you the error of your ways” (Phil 3:15).
The quest for new heights, in Paul’s words, has to do with our “high calling” in God (Phil 3:14). We have been called to become like Christ. He is the Ultimate, the centre of our high calling. In Him, all things consist. He is the fullness and fulfilment of all aspirations.
Therefore, our inclinations, aspirations, and desires must be channelled towards becoming like Him (Heb. 3:1), in view of the #prize, which is the Crown of righteousness. This is a higher view of reaching new heights and it takes maturity to understand and embrace it (Phil 3:15b). When our inclination, aspirations, and desires to become, surpasses the high calling, we would be liable of setting up idols in our hearts (Lev. 26-1) that deflects our focus on the high calling and derails us from attaining the #prize.
The quest for new heights is a race. However, it is not a rat-race, it is a race of righteousness. When we become engulfed in the rat-race for success, we get sucked in to embrace wrong views of attaining new heights, we make alliances with the wrong relationships and adopt a way of life that may jeopardize our destiny in Christ. When our aspirations to advance in life align with the standards of our high calling, we make righteous choices that glorify God and attract God's blessings upon our lives and endeavours.
Like I said earlier, worship is at the core of the quest of attaining new heights. God has called us to make Him the priority in this quest. The key index of worship is obedience. We must obey the high calling. We must cease from the schemes and struggles of the rat-race and keep the Sabbath of God (Lev 26:2), that is, we enter the rest of God.
We enter the rest of God when we cease from trying to get accomplished solely through our efforts, schemes, and dependence on our networks, at the detriment of our focus and faith in Christ who is the centre of our high calling and in whom the promise of our inheritance resides (Heb 4:1). There remains, then, a Sabbath — rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their (Israel's) example of #disobedience (Heb 4:9-11).
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