Setting Personal Goals
“According to your faith let it be to you” Matthew 9:29
Your goals are about your future potential. If you don’t have goals for your life, you will just coast through life and others will make you apart of their goals
1. Goal setting is both spiritual and practical. All successful people set goals.
Jesus had goals: “My goal is to do what the One Who sent Me wants Me to do. My goal is to finish the work that He gave Me to do. Paul had goals: “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind me and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.” (Philippians 3:13)
There is only one you and you were created for a purpose. You have unique fingerprints, DNA, and gifts and abilities. Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Find your purpose and set goals to reach it.
2. Goals are statements of Faith. Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Setting goals does not cost anything. The main difference between a dream and a goal is that a goal has a dead line in which you set to accomplish it.
3. Goals focus your energy. I Corinthians 9:26 “I do not fight as one who beats the air”. Goals keep you from wasting your time. The world is full of distractions and time wasters.
4. Goals keep you going when you don’t feel like it. Psalms 146:5 “Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the Lord his God.” Long term goals keep you from staying discouraged with short term setbacks. Everyone fails. Learn to fail fast.
5. Goals build character. God is more interested in who you become than what you accomplish. You will never become the person you want to be until you intend to be that person.
6. Good goals will be rewarded. When you reach your goal you are going to be rewarded on Earth and in Heaven by God if they are accomplished with the right methods and motives. Revelation 22:12 “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.”
When you get ready to set a goal - ask these questions:
- Will this goal honor God?
2. Is this goal motivated by love? God is not going to bless a goal motivated by greed, guilt, competition, ego, or pride. John 14:10, 12 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love… This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
3. Will this goal require depending on God to accomplish? Proverbs 16:9 “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.”
If you want God’s help to reach your goal you will need these three things:
You will need God’s Holy Spirit. Zechariah 4:6 “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”
You will need God’s Word to guide you: Joshua 1:8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you[a] shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”.
You will need God’s People to support you. Ecclesiastes 4:12 “Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
