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“Add To Your Faith | Arete | Seeing Your Purpose”
Categories: Add To Your Faith | 2025, Christian character
When I was a teenager, I spoke like a teen, I thought like a teen, and I reasoned like a teen. That era of my life sorely lacked purpose. I just “went with the flow,” doing whatever seemed exciting, fun, or rewarding at the time. I didn’t think often or very seriously about how my choices would affect others or where they would ultimately lead me in life.
But when I became a man, I put away teenage-ish things. At least, I’m trying to.
One of the hallmarks of maturity is learning to live with purpose, on purpose. And if we’re going to add arete—moral excellence—to our way of life in the sight of God, then we must embrace a purpose more dependable than our own ever-changing whims and wishes.
The Bible gives us this wisdom in several ways.
When Barnabas first spent time with the saints in Antioch, he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord “with steadfast purpose” (Ac. 11:23). And in the rest of the New Testament, we can see that they did! Antioch was a sending church. They commissioned, encouraged, prayed for, and supported missionaries that went all across the north coasts of the Mediterranean to teach about Jesus. They did what Barnabas taught, and many heard the Good News as a result.
This wisdom is woven into several of the metaphors used to describe God’s people, the church: a field (1 Cr. 3:9), a temple (2 Cr. 5:1), a priesthood (1 Pt. 2:9), the branches of a tree (Rm. 11), and household pots and containers (2 Tim. 2:20-21). Those things all serve a purpose beyond themselves. Branches bear a tree’s fruit. Pots and pans are made for specific uses. A priesthood serves their god’s/God’s pleasures. Et cetera. All of them serve an end, just as our existence serves an end: to give God glory.
The time for living life by whims and wishes is past, brothers and sisters. We should never expect that sort of thing of ourselves, even in our teenage years. Those who live with excellence will seek to know, understand, and fully embrace the purpose of glorifying God to motivate us to excellent Christian living. That’s the kind of arete that succeeds in spades and that doesn’t grow weary as years go by.
- Dan Lankford, minister
