March 30, 2021 THE NECESSITY OF GOALS
Philippians 3:12-13 “Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Proverbs 29:18b, 21:5 “Where there is no vision, the people perish:” “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”
We must remember that no matter our age, we have not yet arrived; there is more that we need to accomplish. Everyone knows that it is a good and profitable to have goals and to reach the goals we set. As someone said, you do not climb to the top of Mount Everest without having a goal to do so. It may seem like a difficult thing to set goals and move toward them, but actually setting goals and reaching those goals simplifies life. Even non-believers benefit from having goals, but for the believer, goal setting takes on a whole new dimension. The amazing thing is that having spiritual goals as a priority impacts all we do and is the impetus for setting goals pertaining our day-to-day life. It is a very simplistic example, but the goal of mowing the lawn cut can flow out of our goal to have our home in order, because God is a God of order. In Genesis 1, God says that man is created in the image of God and He tells man to take dominion over certain aspects of His creation. The fact that we are created in His image and are given dominion calls for us to be a people who set goals-to move toward certain objectives. Not only does goal setting simplify life; we also accomplish more. Setting and reaching a goal brings a sense of accomplishment-that is the way God made us. One hindrance to setting goals is fear of failure; we remember our past failures and we simply want to avoid future failures, and one way to do that is to avoid setting goals. (“He who has no expectations will not be disappointed.” lol.) Setting goals is risky; we may not reach our goal. (Someone said that if we shoot for the moon and miss, we may hit a star.) However, there is one goal that is not risky, and that is the goal of knowing God in greater ways, to learn of Him, and to discover our true identity in Him. This goal pleases Him and He is more than glad to insure that we meet that goal. As our knowledge of Him increases, we discover that our greatest joy comes from living life as unto Him and doing the things that please Him-and naturally the goals we set flow out of that awareness. Certainly it is not wrong to set goals dealing with the materialistic part of life, but all goals we set should flow out of our relationship with our Father, desiring is to please Him in all we do.
Proverbs 16:3 “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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