Finding Your True North: Balancing Self-Interest & Biblical Purpose

Family, I want to talk about something that cuts right to the core of who we are as people of faith. We live in a culture that's constantly sending us mixed messages about what it means to pursue our interests. Is it selfish to chase our dreams? Is it weak to put others first? Today, we're diving into this divine tension between self-interest and sacrifice that affects all of us, regardless of gender. This tension isn't new – it's as old as humanity itself, and it's a tension that Jesus himself addressed throughout his ministry.

Here's the reality we need to embrace: God designed each of us with desires, with dreams, with ambitions. When David wrote in Psalms that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made," he wasn't just talking about our physical bodies, but about the unique constellation of passions God has placed within each one of us. Our self-interest – our desire to create, to build, to achieve – this isn't some accident or flaw. It's divine design. It's the spark of the Creator embedded in our DNA. Think about it – God is a creator, an artist, a builder – and when He made us in His image, He instilled those same creative impulses in us. Your desire to excel, to create something meaningful, to leave your mark – that's not worldly thinking. That's heavenly DNA expressing itself through you.

But there's a line, isn't there? A line between stewarding our God-given desires and becoming enslaved to them. Jesus said, "What does it profit a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" That's not anti-ambition – that's spiritual wisdom. The most faithful thing we can do is to want something deeply and still be willing to surrender it for something greater. Think about Abraham willing to sacrifice Isaac, his promise, his future. That's not weakness – that's transcendent strength that we're all called to embody. Consider Moses, who gave up the comforts of Egyptian royalty because he was called to something greater. Consider Esther, who risked everything when she said, "If I perish, I perish." These weren't people without ambition – they were people whose ambitions had been baptized by something greater than themselves.

The problem isn't self-interest; it's when self-interest becomes our only interest. When our ambitions become so loud that we can no longer hear the voice of God or the needs of others. I've counseled too many people who built empires while their families crumbled, who conquered markets but lost their marriages. They mistook isolation for independence. They confused dominance with strength. Beloved, that's not faithfulness – that's insecurity masquerading as power. I remember sitting across from a woman who had achieved everything society told her to achieve – the corner office, the prestigious title, the income that put her in the top 1% – but she was empty inside. "I've won at a game I never wanted to play," she told me through tears. That's what happens when we pursue success without direction, achievement without purpose.

In Philippians, Paul gives us this incredible picture of Jesus who, "being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage." The most powerful being in the universe didn't exploit his power for self-interest. Instead, he leveraged it for others. That's the paradox we all face – true power isn't about what we can get; it's about what we can give. It's not about how many serve us; it's about how many we serve. Jesus didn't just teach this principle – he embodied it. The One who could command legions of angels washed the feet of fishermen. The One who spoke galaxies into existence used his words to heal the broken. The One who deserved all worship gave all credit to the Father. That's the model of strength we're called to follow – not the distorted images of power our culture sells us.

Let's be honest about something: we all have hidden alliances, don't we? Parts of our hearts still pledged to old gods, old comforts, old securities. Maybe it's status, maybe it's comfort, maybe it's approval. But when we aren't honest about where our true allegiances lie, we're building our lives on quicksand. Jesus said we cannot serve two masters. Not "should not" – cannot. It's an impossibility. When we try to live with divided loyalties, we end up living divided lives. I've seen it in my own journey – those seasons when I was trying to advance God's kingdom while secretly building my own. Those times when I said Jesus was Lord but my calendar and bank account told a different story. The exhaustion of that double life isn't worth it, friends. The freedom comes in surrender, in alignment, in undivided devotion.

Genuine faith requires radical honesty about our motivations. Are we chasing that promotion because it allows us to better provide, to better serve, to better reflect God's glory? Or is it just about feeling important, about proving something? The first is sacred ambition; the second is just ego. And ego has never healed a relationship, never built a legacy, never changed the world. Ego just leaves wreckage in its wake. We need to constantly examine our hearts, to pray like David, "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." That kind of transparency before God – that's where transformation begins.

We become diminished when we're so obsessed with our own narratives, our own desires, our own wounds that we can no longer see beyond ourselves. When we can't transcend our own story, we become trapped by it. Real faith has always been about capacity – the capacity to carry more than just our own load. Paul tells us in Galatians to "carry each other's burdens," not because it diminishes us, but because it expands us. I've never met someone who regretted the decision to live beyond themselves – to mentor that struggling student, to foster that child, to care for that elderly parent, to champion that worthy cause. But I've met countless people who regret the years they spent focused only on their own advancement, their own comfort, their own small story.

I see too many of us today who have confused independence with isolation. We think strength means never needing anyone. But that's not the biblical vision of community. Jesus had close friends. Ruth had Naomi. David had Jonathan. Paul had Timothy. The myth of the lone wolf is just that – a myth. When we become so self-interested that we can't form authentic community, can't build covenant relationships, can't submit to something larger than ourselves – that's not freedom. That's captivity. God designed us for interdependence – to need Him and to need each other. That's not a design flaw; it's a design feature. Our need for community isn't weakness; it's wisdom. It's recognition that we were never meant to carry life's burdens alone or to celebrate life's joys in isolation.

The beauty of the gospel is that it calls us to die to ourselves not to diminish us but to liberate us. When Jesus says, "Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it," he's not calling us to misery. He's inviting us into the paradoxical truth that true fulfillment comes through surrender. The most fulfilled people I know are the ones who've found something worth dying for. Their self-interest has been transformed into kingdom interest. It's like the pearl of great price in Jesus' parable – the merchant sells everything he has to obtain it. Not because he's being reckless, but because he recognizes its surpassing value. What if we approached our faith that way? Not as one commitment among many, but as the defining commitment that shapes all others?

I'm reminded of a conversation I had with an elderly couple who had spent decades serving in difficult mission fields. They had given up lucrative careers, comfortable homes, proximity to family – all the things our culture tells us to cling to. When I asked if they had any regrets, the husband looked at his wife, then back at me, and said, "Our only regret is that we didn't have more to give." That's what happens when self-interest is baptized by divine purpose. We don't resent what we've sacrificed; we're grateful for the opportunity to have offered it. We don't mourn what we've lost; we celebrate what we've gained in return – purpose, meaning, impact, legacy.

Brothers and sisters, let me tell you what I see in the people who've truly figured this out: They're ambitious but not anxious. They're driven but not desperate. They work hard but rest well. They dream big but love bigger. They know when to compete and when to collaborate. They know when to stand firm and when to bend. They carry both strength and tenderness, both conviction and compassion. They're fully alive because they're fully surrendered. These are people who have learned to hold their dreams with open hands – neither clinging so tightly that God has to pry their fingers loose, nor carelessly discarding what God has entrusted to them. They've learned to want deeply without being owned by their wants.

Let me be clear – this isn't about diminishing your dreams or burying your talents. Jesus didn't tell the servant with one talent that he was wrong for wanting to succeed; he rebuked him for letting fear prevent him from even trying. God is glorified when we fully develop the gifts He's given us. When the musician plays with excellence, when the entrepreneur builds with integrity, when the teacher instructs with passion, when the parent raises children with devotion – all of these can be acts of worship when they're done from the right center. The question isn't whether you have ambitions; it's whose glory your ambitions ultimately serve.

So here's my challenge to us: Let's examine our ambitions. Test our motivations. Be ruthlessly honest about where our true loyalties lie. Ask ourselves: "Is my self-interest making me more available to God's purposes or less? Is it expanding my capacity to love or contracting it?" Let's stop compartmentalizing our faith and our ambitions as if they belong to separate categories. Instead, let's allow our faith to baptize our ambitions, to redirect them, to purify them. Let's allow the gospel to transform our self-interest from a force that isolates us to a force that connects us to God's larger story.

Because at the end of the day, the measure of a life isn't what we accumulated but what we contributed. Not what we got but what we gave. Not how well we served ourselves but how faithfully we served a vision larger than ourselves. That, beloved, is biblical faithfulness. That's what it means to follow Jesus – not to abandon our desires but to align them with His, not to suppress our strengths but to surrender them, not to diminish our dreams but to direct them toward eternal purposes. In that holy alignment, we don't become less of who we are; we become more of who we were always meant to be.

Pastor Mitchell Royel