Is Christ A Means Or An End To You?

Hi all, what is Jesus and the Christian faith to you? Some people treat Jesus as a means to achieve their aims. They think that Jesus can heal their illnesses, restore their broken relationship, give them wealth, grant them peace, or remove their loneliness by giving them a new spiritual family through the church, and many more. Some people may also have certain noble dream of wanting to make the world a better place, or to promote certain political ideology or social cause, and they think that the Christian teachings do well to promote their values and ideals. Therefore, they embrace Christianity, and seek to use religion to promote their various campaigns. To these people, Christ is not the chief end, but merely a means to get what they want.

On the other hand, some people may have come to Christ for other reasons at first, like those reasons mentioned above, but when they get to know Christ, they more and more realise that Christ is what they truly need. They realise that the one who can truly satisfy them and give them real lasting joy is Christ. As a result, Christ becomes their ultimate desire. They view Christ as the treasure of surpassing worth, realising how sufficient and perfect He is. Thus, they wish to have deep and true relationship with Christ.

Today, let us ponder: Is Christ the ultimate end to us or is He simply a means to some other end or desire we have?

Satan often makes men treat God as merely a means to gratify their desires.

Since the devil has no power to stop people from believing in Christ, he tries to make people follow Christ for the wrong reasons. He often induces people to follow Christ for the sake of temporal, worldly things, which will perish. But in (Jn 6:26-27), Jesus answered (the people), “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

(Jn 6:35, 48-51) Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

The truth is, only Christ can satisfy the deepest needs of mankind. Yet, many people seek Christ only to get what Christ can give them, but not to gain Christ Himself. The devil keeps inducing people to only see Christ as a means to satisfy their selfish desires, but what men truly love and want are still things of this world instead of Christ. However, the scriptures clearly tell us that even if we gain good things outside of Christ, we will still be hungry, thirsty, and will eventually die. Only when we gain Christ, then we will never go hungry, never be thirsty, and can live forever.

The test that Job went through: If God is all we can get from following Him, are we still willing to do that?

The book of Job records the many sufferings Job went through. Anyone who reads it will have pity on Job. Job lost almost everything which men commonly ask from God – his dear children, all the wealth and livestock he possessed, even his health. These are very the reasons why people usually follow God, so that God can protect their children, give them wealth, and look after their health. But Job lost all of that, he was only left with his very life, and his relationship with God. Eventually, one question the book of Job wants us to think about is: If all we can get for worshipping God is God Himself, do we still want to follow God? Now, if a person loves God because he hopes to get something other than God, then one day if God doesn’t give him that, he may leave God. But if a person sees God as the supreme treasure, then even if he has to suffer, he will still not leave God. Instead, his suffering becomes opportunity for him to experience the faithfulness of God. At the end of the book after all his sufferings, we see that Job could still say to God, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5). From here we see that his tribulations had indeed made him know and trust God more. 

Besides Job’s example, there is also Paul, who professed, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” (Php 3:7-8). To Paul, Christ is enough. This is not something we can easily assert, yet it must be something we seriously reflect upon. Of course, it doesn’t mean that if we claim that Christ is enough, then God will take away other things from us just so that we can prove it to Him. But we still must ask ourselves: Do we love God more? Or are we merely using God as a means to gain some other good things we desire?

Actually, when we see God as the ultimate end, we can also find all other good things in Him.

The psalmist said, “I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.”” (Ps 16:2). This is not to say that Christians don’t need other good things. But we firmly believe that every good thing is found in the Lord. It is not that we do not need family, but we know that a family centred on God is the most blissful family. It is not that we do not need money, but we know that the one who provides for us is God. It is not that we do not like social good, but we know that what can bring lasting blessings to people is the gospel. Our God not just gives us spiritual blessings, but He also provides for our earthly needs. Importantly, we worship God because He deserves all the honour, not because we want to trade our worship in exchange for other good things. In fact, there is no good thing better than God.

So brothers and sisters, do you love God for who He is? As we follow God, although He will naturally give us grace and blessings by His perfect will, let us love Him as our greatest treasure, more than all the good things He has given us. May God be an end in Himself, rather than only a means to you!