As this year begins to draw to a close, many of us look excitedly toward the possibilities of the next. I am a goals oriented person, and this is the time of year when I begin to solidify my objectives for the next twelve months. It is also a time of reflection to review the previous year’s goals, to see what I did well and what I could have done better. Nothing is as exciting to me as a new beginning, a chance to achieve anew those things that are most important to me. If you’ve never set goals before, stick with me as we look at how they can be important to becoming the person God has created you to be.
Matthew
The Word of God
I heard David Platt ask an interesting question recently. The question was, “Does the Word stop with you or spread through you?” In other words, when you listen to a sermon, read the Bible, or gain spiritual insight from a song, a book or other means, what do you do with what you learn? Do you keep it to yourself and internalize the lesson? Or do you receive what you have learned in order to teach it to someone else? It’s great to grow closer to God and use what we learn to more closely model our lives after His, but until we are sharing our knowledge with others, we are falling short of the things He told us to do.
Necessary Endings
In his book, “Necessary Endings”, Henry Cloud uses the analogy of a rose bush to illustrate how we have to tend to our lives if we are to see them blossom into their full potential. He says that a rose bush produces more buds than the plant is capable of supporting, so in order to achieve maximum beauty, a gardener must cut out the dead branches, prune away the sick and care for the healthiest branches. There is great spiritual truth in this as well. In order for us to become the person God created us to be, we must prune our lives in much the same way as the gardener does the rose bush.
Created for Greatness
Nelson Mandela said, “There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” That’s bumper sticker material right there. It’s the kind of thing you want to hang on your bathroom mirror so you see it every day. And it has great implications for your spiritual life. So many of us are content to “play small”, to sneak by without making waves, desperate to ensure that no one notices we are even there. God placed His very Spirit within you. You are filled with the presence and the power of God. If that is true – and I believe that it is – there is no way we can help but make waves; it is a certainty that not only will we be noticed but that we will be pointed out.
Bold Prayers
In a recent message, Pastor Craig Groeschel asked a brilliant question: “If God had answered all of your prayers last week, how would the world be different?” His point was that most of us pray small and selfish prayers so that even if they were all to be answered the way we wanted them to be, the world would hardly notice. Our lives might be a little better, but the rest of the planet would go on as usual. From my own experience and observation, I sadly have to agree with him. Take a look back over the past week and see how many prayers you prayed that would, if answered in the way you desired, have had a kingdom impact on the world.