“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 3:14 KJV)
I’ve heard it said, “The worst kind of failure is succeeding at the wrong thing.” I think Olympic rifleman Matt Emmons would agree. During the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, Emmons held a commanding lead and was cruising towards gold in the 50-meter three-position event. Facing the final target, he eyed the mark and took a deep breath. He exhaled and pulled the trigger. BULLSEYE! The crowd’s reaction, however, didn’t quite fit the moment. Rather than hearing cheers there was a gasp! He hit the target dead center, but it wasn’t his target. It was his competitor’s. Emmons plummeted to eighth place and lost the gold medal. This story does have a silver lining. Later that evening, Matt went out to a local pub in the Olympic Village to drown his sorrows. As he ordered a pint, another Olympian sat down at the bar beside him and offered a few words of consolation. HER name was Katarina Kurkova from the Czech National sharpshooting team. The two hit it off, and a few short years later they were married. He lost the gold, but got the girl!
The Apostle Paul was one of those guys. He was excelling at all the wrong things. Aiming his life at the wrong target. He was religiously checking all the boxes. As he says in his own words, he was:
“Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”
(Philippians 3:5-6 ESV)
Winning at the wrong things left him empty, self-righteous and hard hearted. He admits:
“I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man.”
(1 Timothy 1:13 BSB)
But something happened on a Damascus road. He had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and his life would never be the same. It was a miraculous course correction. Setting his sights on a new target. Paul says:
“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 3:14 ESV)
And with a refocusing of his life, Paul would absolutely change the world. Stop for a moment on your own road and ask this question: Are you aiming at the right mark?
I’m a huge fan of the game show Family Feud. You’ve probably seen it, so you know host Steve Harvey is hilarious and tells it like it is. One particular episode stands out to me. Harvey begins with his usual, “Top five answers on the board,” and then he poses the question, “Name something that begins with the word ‘pork’.” The contestant immediately chimes in, “Cupine, Steve!” Harvey looks a bit confused, “What?” Undeterred, the contestant confidently repeats, “Cupine, Steve!” Harvey is like, “What is a ‘Cupine’?” The contestant puffs out his chest and replies like he is Albert Einstein, “Cupine, Steve… ‘Pork-Cupine’…..you know, like a ‘porcupine.’” Harvey’s bewildered look is priceless. And then, right on cue, the contestant’s team responds the way they always do . . . THEY LIE! “Good answer! Good answer!” No, it’s not! It’s a dumb answer and everyone knows it. Steve can’t help himself and says as much: “You’re the only one that thinks that’s a good answer.” The team then doubles down on the dumb answer and says, “It’s up there, Steve! It’s gonna be up there!” Surprisingly, he agrees, “It’s gonna be up there all right . . . on YouTube because it’s so dumb!” If you were wondering? No, it wasn’t on the board. It was a dumb answer.
Is it just me, or are there some really dumb answers being thrown around today? Some of life’s most difficult questions are getting “Cupine!” answers. They’re dumb, but for some reason we feel all this pressure to agree and applaud, “Good Answer, Good Answer.” I truly believe there is only one “Good Answer” to life’s biggest questions and that answer is Jesus. I’m not saying every other answer is completely wrong. But if you’re “kinda wrong” or completely wrong, does it really matter? Either way, you are wrong.
C. S. Lewis highlights my point: “If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view. But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic—there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong: but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.”
Christianity hits the bullseye of life.