Every Goal to God

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Introduction

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Try to imagine what it would be like to play football or basketball without goal lines or hoops. Up and down the field you would run. Back and forth you would carry the ball. It would not be much fun at all. What's the point? The thing that makes the sport exciting is scoring points. A life without goals is a mis-spent life. Many people come to a time in their lives when they no longer have goals. It is then that they lose their way and purpose.

When you were a child others set your goals for you. Your teacher gave you lessons to study and learn. Your parents gave you tasks to accomplish and jobs to do. After you finished grade school, your next goal was high school. Then came college or graduate school. Life without goals is a life without direction.

Happy is the man who sees life as a holy errand. Happy is the man with a mission or a task. To live a life without goals is to play baseball without bases, basketball without hoops, and hocky without a net. After a while, you wonder "what's the point." Look at the goals you have set for yourself (these are the nets, hoops, and home plates of life). If you cannot articulate your goal perhaps it is not a goal after all. Don't let your life be an accident.

We all live in five important worlds at once: The Physical, Intellectual, Social, Financial, and Spiritual. God is interested in each area of our lives. It is wrong to assume that only the Spiritual is pertinent to Christian living. God needs to be God of my financial life as well as my religious life or he is not being allowed to be God at all. We must not lock the Lord in one compartment of life and exclude Him from others.

Take your spiritual journal (If you don't have one, you should start one) and reserve the last five pages for a record of your goals.

Title each page with one of the five areas of living. List at least one long range goal and several short range goals which are the stepping stones to success. Then begin working to reach the goal you have set for yourself (these are private and personal).

1) Write it down. If you cannot write it out, it is not a goal. Goals are not general. They are specific. Writing it down will clearly mark and define the target. If you are not able to articulate the goal, how will you recognize it when you achieve it? Writing it down is like filing a flight plan before you take off. The wonderful thing about goal setting is you decide where you want to go.

2) Goals are higher and harder than usual. A Basketball hoop is eleven feet off the ground. If they were two feet high no one would play the game. Don't set your goals too low. God has designed life so that our best is on the top shelf (so to speak) and requires standing on our tiptoes and stretching to reach the high and holy calling. Goals should be measured by our best and not necessarily by that of others. The idea is to each day be the "new and improved" you. A good Sunday school superintendent will be a goal setter. Reaching more boys and girls for Christ is general; reaching ten new boys and girls is specific.

3) Don't set goals too high. Real goals are realistic. Running a one-minute mile is not realistic. Someone sitting on death row need not waste his time running for President of the United States. 2Every Goal to God

"thou shalt not make any gaven image..nor bow down to them" Ex. 20:5

It is not realistic. Again the idea is to do just a little bit better than before.

4) If you don't get started you will not start. The longest journey will not begin until you step over procrastination. Think of three things you would have to do to move closer to your goal. Which of those three things can you do within the next twenty-four hours? Put it on your "to do" list and do it before this time tomorrow. Make that call, write that letter, knock on that door. Get started.

5) Visit your goal everyday with God. Goals are like plants in a garden. They must be cultivated, fertilized, and watered. Meet with God in the cool of the day to find wisdom and strength to reach your goals for the day. Review your day with God, before you retire.

6) When you have reached a goal, set another. Everyone has heard of men who became sick after retirement because they no longer had a goal.

Goal posts should be set up in every area of life.

There are five important growth areas in life. They are the physical, social, intellectual, financial and spiritual .

Physical

Perhaps you need to lose weight. Set a goal. Make it realistic. Design a plan. Write it down. Begin now. Say, "I will lose "x" amount of pounds, and in order to lose those pounds I will ...( fill in the blank).

Social

Perhaps you need to make new or cultivate old friends. Perhaps you want to help some under privileged young people, volunteer at the local hospital, or help the elderly. In order to make more friends the Bible teaches we must be friendly.

Intellectual

When we stop learning, a part of us begins to die. Life is learning. Many throw away their books after school and cease to grow. Perhaps you need to learn a new language, or to play the piano, to master a subject, earn a degree, take a course, or just read a book. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. Use it or lose it.

Financial

Become debt free. Set up a budget. Open an account. Make an investment. Do something today.

Spiritual

There are many spiritual goals. Become a soul winner. Master a book, theme, or subject. Begin a memory program. Become a disciple or a mentor.

Notice that after you articulate an achievable goal you must do something to reach it. Someone said. "If you aim at nothing you will probably hit it."

A goal is: A Deam with a deadline

The danger :

The danger in goal setting is when we allow our goals to become our God. Goals have a way of becoming a priority. While no goal will be accomplished without work, commitment and dedication they should never supplant God from His rightful place: First.

The important Principle to learn here is:

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you" Matt. 6:33

"Seek" Everyone is motivated by something. Each person is driven by an internal appetite or compulsion. The Christian is drawn toward and driven by the power of God. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness..." Matt 5:6 Here this force is called "hunger." One of the evidences that God has begun a work in a person's life is this desire to know and please God.

"First" No one ever erred by putting God's interests first. Someone said wisely, "You take care of God's business and He will take care of yours.'

"Added" God adds to our lives all we need when we put Him first. It is a foolish person that "subtracts" God from their busy lives in order to attain their goals. History tells many a story about men and women who achieved their personal goals without taking God's interests into consideration only to discover that their achievements were empty and vain.

I made me great works; I builded me house; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards and planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold , and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all that I had laboured to do: and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun" Ecc 2:4-11

Wise Solomon became a fool the moment he allowed some plan or goal to displace his love and affection for God. He reached his goals but they were as idols. An idol is anything that takes the rightful place of God.

Set goals. Work to attain your goals. That is the stuff life is made of, but let God determine what your goals in life are. If you don't, you may score many points in the baskets of success, but when you look at the scoreboard on judgment day, you shall see you scored for the opposing team. The Christian life is "scoring points" with God. Or to express it in a different way, it is the only life that counts.

Every goal should bring me closer to God. If some goal "cools" my love for God it is wrong, and I have left the playing field; I am "out of bounds." My every goal should build me and others up in the Spirit. My goals must be God's goals. Trying to reach His goals and working according to His priorities. We are not trying to be accepted by Him. We are accepted by him in Christ already (once we are born-again). What we desire is to discover our full potential and do those things that glorify His blessed name. Ask, "does this draw me closer to God?"

We should let God guide our goals and then we should guard against them becoming our God.