The performance mindset earns approval through doing well. Striving for 100% in everything. Perfectionist attitude.
This attitude makes it hard to enter into God's rest. How can you work so hard and enter into rest?
Can come from a sense of shame from not achieving what our father has set in our lives. Then we think we need to earn this love through our efforts. This will drive us to a point of exhaustion. And we still feel it's not good enough, feel anxious, and burnout.
We become an "approval addicts", people addicted to other people's applause. This can be positive but also negative. The high achiever can be very hard to get along with, their sense of accomplishment is more important than relationships, and others find it's hard to form a close relationship with such people.
This habit doesn't go away right when we become Christians, as it has already become a habitual pattern, and some Christians doesn't realize it and even carry this habit to their graves.
Different people have different definitions on what is the "abundant life" God is giving us. God's abundance is enjoying what we already have. The performance mindset earns God's love through performance, a projection. Eg when we have a father whose love needs to be earned through performance, we project that on God and we live a slave-driven lifestyle. Slave-driven theology is in conflict with our identity in Christ, the sons and daughters of God! Our understanding of our earthly fathers can distort our understanding of our heavenly father, we may think our God is very strict, and we become very fearful of whether we've done wrong, and it becomes hard to become joyful.
Luke chapter 15 is a good example.
The father has two sons, the younger one rebelled against the father. In Jewish culture, it is a great insult to ask the father for inheritance when the father is still alive. He spent all the money and was forced to look after the pigs. He experienced an awakening and realized it's better to be a slave in his father's estate. He has already plotted how he will go back to beg his father to become his slave. When his father saw him from far away, he embraced him and forgave him, full of mercy and grace. This son didn't even get the chance to carry out his plan to become his father's slave.
Our heavenly Father wants a son and daughter, not a slave. The elder son appears in this story only when the younger son has returned. We realize the character of this elder son was very bitter and angry. This story was told to two groups of people, the tax collectors/sinners vs the Pharisees/scribes. This story is very appropriate for Christians. The teachers of the law are very well versed in the scriptures. They couldn't comprehend Jesus eating with the sinners, as Eating together is often a sign of the beginning of a friendship.
God is a loving father who believes in inclusion, not exclusion. When we become religious, we end up excluding people from the kingdom of God. Mohammad Ghandi changed India and brought an end to colonization. Ghandi had great interest in Christianity, but got excluded by the white men. If they included him, imagine how many Indians will become Christians today.
The Pharisees are of performance mindset, thinks only people who obey the law meticulously can be included in the kingdom of God, and that all the sinners cannot be included.
God is not so much a lawyer and a judge, but a forgiver.
God is not an angry God, but a loving God who accepts our repentance.
The Pharisees thought they have worked so hard to keep the law. You get trapped.
Seven characteristics of the performance mindset:
1) Anger: elder brother become angry when the younger brother came home because he became reinstated without punishment. He didn't expect the father to reinstate him so quickly and becomes resentful. When you see others receiving benefits from God, do you feel happy for them or become angry you did not receive these benefits. When others achieve their goals an you didn't, do you feel resentful?
2) No love: elder son refused to join the welcoming party for the younger son. He made his anger public. The father goes out to the elder son to invite him to come him when he had the right to punish the elder son for his lack of manners. The heavenly Father always chooses reconciliation rather than retaliation. Are we quick to judge and slow to show mercy?
3) Rude: Refers to his brother as "this son of yours", not as his brother. Does not know how to treat people with respect and honor.
4) Driven: A person who is driven, like a slave being driven. A master slave relationship rather than father child. They have to work long hours to receive reward. They look down on those who don’t seem to work hard.
5) Competitive: “I work hard and didn't get a young goat so I can celebrate with my friends. My younger brother doesn’t work hard and get a cow to celebrate with his friends”. Can't stand other people being ahead of them all the time. Even in the church, we see competitions. If you’re a fiercely competitive person, the church becomes a not so joyful place.
6) Self-centredness: The elder brother is very self-centred; all he thinks about is his own self and his own gains. Some people’s lives revolve around himself and his rights.
7) Pride: The elder brother is proud and makes claims about his own performance all the time. Self-righteous superiority over other people.
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