I was given a positive performance review because of a year of dedicated work to achieving my employer’s goals and objectives. I was extremely proud of the recognition of this work. So, I committed to delivering a similar performance the next year. At the end of the year, I believed I had delivered even better results than the previous year. I went into my annual review expecting to be praised and rewarded in a similar fashion. I was not. It was received as simply meeting the expectations of the role. I was extremely disappointed. I felt like I deserved a better annual rating than just meeting expectations. After all, I had already proven my worth and was continuing down the same path. This resulted in an attitude of resentment and bitterness toward my boss and employer. I was obviously not working to please God, but to please men and boost my ego (Colossians 3:23).
Our response to a positive performance review is just as critical as our reaction to a negative one. We must keep a godly focus during and after this message. The passage I want to bring to mind may be a little bit of a surprise to some:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
Romans 3:21-27
Paul’s message to the Roman church is that there is no way that we can fulfill the Law adequately enough to please God and cover our sin. We all fall short in this attempt. Only through our faith in Christ can we be justified freely through His redemptive grace. But this attitude of working harder and longer to achieve a reward, a goal, or to be pleasing to men (and even God) is embedded in our nature and is manifested in an obvious way when we react pridefully to a positive performance review.
