Autonomy – Mastery – Purpose : The Relinquished Life

A young man ran up to Jesus, threw himself at Jesus’ feet and asked “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus told him to obey the commandments and the man replied, “Been there done that.” Jesus then suggested he give all he had to the poor and the man walked away sad because he had much.

We want a cafeteria style Chrisianity. We seek a deal with God in which we take what we need from Him; but keep doing much of what we do as we always have. We believe we have certain aspects of life under control. We can handle them. We just want God to take up the slack. That was the young man’s problem. For eternal life, He need God; but for the here and now, he felt he had that under control.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us By Daniel H. Pink  reveals the three elements of true motivation:

 But the real answer he misses. We can’t achieve Mastery and Purpose by Autonomy. Directing our own lives is the road to disaster. Relinquishment is the answer. The road to Mastery and Purpose is Jesus. Mastery and Purpose are inconsistent with Autonomy.

You see we will never be masters with a purpose as long as we are directing our own lives. We “accomplish” these goals only by reliquishing control, taking both hands off of our lives and giving control to the Lord.

This radical thinking that Christ calls us to is so contrary to the world’s view. The world correctly believes that we are built to perform perfectly in the service of something larger than ourselves. What the world misses is that the road to that goal is not through self-puffery but through admitting that Christ working in us is the only way to get there.

If we as Christians will take our hands off the steering wheels of our lives and leaving the driving to Christ, we will change the world. That’s been the plan from the beginning.

Chrit is our motivation and our only means to be the best at what we were intended to be and in the process we will
Be blessed.

Nick Sigur