My pastor gave me a profound lesson recently. I find it helpful to have Rich Johnston (pastor, Second RPC in Indianapolis, Ind.) review my Bible study notes and keep me accountable for commitments I make to the Lord. He’s ahead of me in the ages of our children, so he has helped me over the years to see the coming challenges and opportunities. One useful prophecy he shared was that our children would not be in diapers forever. We were in the midst of raising six children, and it was a helpful prophecy because I couldn’t see any light at the end of that tunnel.

The other day he was noting how we tend to find some identity and sense of success or significance in what he called “externals.” These are not bad things at all and can include real blessings, useful to Christ’s kingdom: physical fitness; Bible study and other spiritual disciplines; a career that provides for a family and offers ways to express our faith; titles, degrees and credentials; the study of theology.

We can work hard on what Rich was calling externals, which are a mix of blessings and gifts from the Lord. They are good activities or qualities to pursue as part of a life calling for Christ. They even can reflect Christ working in us in sanctification, or they can mistakenly become attempts on our part to get Christ to love us more based on our performance. Paul was referring to something similar in Philippians 3:3-9. In the flesh we can so easily look to one of these externals and cling to it in an unbalanced way as a source of identity or success or significance. Yet the center of who I am should be in Christ, not in these useful skills or gifts or blessings. Paul had quite a few of these external blessings. He certainly had as good a claim as anyone for putting some identity in them. “Though I also might have confidence in the flesh,” he wrote to the Philippians, “circumcised on the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” He was quite well credentialed.

Yet these were worthless prizes compared with a relationship with Christ. Some of them were wrong, such as the persecution of believers. Others were good credentials he carried over into the service of Christ’s kingdom. He did not completely throw them out of his life. They were dedicated to a higher purpose than his own reputation. They just were not sufficient for real identity and significance. Only Christ is sufficient for that.

These are worthy pursuits: excellence in the study of the Bible (2 Tim. 2:15), development of work skills for income and kingdom influence (Prov. 22:29), physical fitness (1 Tim. 4:7-8), credentials in the world that can help qualify for church leadership (1 Tim. 3:7). But they are too small and temporary to give us the completeness we need in life. Only Christ can do that. Yet Christ in us, as in John 15, can be the moving drive behind these worthy pursuits, which should not be abandoned because our motives to pursue them can become skewed in the flesh. It could even be a mistake to think of Bible study or a disciplined approach to prayer as some optional, external activity. Through this kind of communion with Christ we can give Him an opportunity to correct us when we think that the Bible study will get Him to love us more. The very motive for the Bible study comes from Him dwelling in us, even if in the flesh we shift to a wrong motive at times.

As we look to Him for fullness in life, we can see a new blessing in relationship to other people. When a friend is promoted, no longer am I quite so concerned about why I didn’t get a promotion too. Is the Lord leaving me behind? If Christ is sufficient, and I can rest in Him in the way Paul describes in chapter 3 of Philippians, then I can rejoice with my friend and trust the Lord for whatever opportunities He will be giving me. I no longer need to be so insecure or concerned about how I am doing. He is providing. I can be “found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (vs. 9).

Ronald Wallace seems to be working at a similar concept in his analysis of the restored image of God in us, in his challenging but helpful book, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life. It is a scholarly book yet with an unusual devotional value. It was first recommended to me by Chris Wright, a wise elder in the Cambridge, Mass., RPC.

“The purpose of our redemption is the restoration of the original order of man’s life,” Wallace writes. “This doctrine can have a beautiful effect on our relationship not only with Christ but also with other people.

“This means a real effort to conform our own lives to the example of the forgiving, gentle, and generous love of God as we see Him reflected in Jesus Christ, remembering that to be the children of God involves real likeness in behavior and attitude to the Heavenly Father. We must never forget that there is nothing in which we more truly resemble God than in doing good to others.”

In other words, there is a potential security and trust in Christ, in our vertical relationship with Him, that can yield special blessings in relationships with other people.

Jerry Bridges aims at this theme from a different angle in his book, The Discipline of Grace, as he explains how we tend to think of Christ evaluating us on the basis of our performance on externals, or disciplines.

”While learning these disciplines I came to believe that my day-to-day relationship with God depended on how faithfully I performed them,” he writes. “No one actually told me that God’s approval of me was based on my performance. Still, I developed a vague but real impression that God’s smile or frown depended on whether or not I did my spiritual exercises.”

The aim of the Bridges book is to encourage these disciplines, but in grace. “All our responses to God’s dealings with us must be based on the knowledge that God is dealing with us in grace.”

So we should go ahead and pursue what Pastor Johnston is calling the externals—the physical fitness and the disciplines and skills and credentials. But may these pursuits grow increasingly out of a settled identity in Christ that gives us a sufficient foundation all the way through the challenges of life.

Russ Pulliam is a contributing editor to the Witness. He is a ruling elder in the Second (Indianapolis, Ind.) RPC.