It depends on your goals, measures and scorecard.
We all have personal goals. Big or small, goals are important to the person who created them, regardless of how they are viewed by others.
We change goals as life evolves—shifting and reshuffling with the higher ordered ones becoming our primary purpose and measure of success.
As a student your goal is to graduate, as an adult you may be saving for a home, in the workplace your aim could be a promotion. Sometimes, there’ll be missed goals and disappointments, but the resilient will pivot and get back on track. As goals are achieved, we celebrate our successes with loved ones and the world pat us on the back.
Through it all, where do we rank God’s purpose for our lives? Is it even a goal for us? If we love Jesus and are sold out for Him, why isn’t His desires our priority?
Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven” (Matthew 6:10), and He said He came not to have His own way but to do the will of God who sent him (John 6:38). As Christians, how does our life reflect Christ’s if we chase the same priorities as the world?
God has three fundamental desires for everyone:
- A relationship with Him:
To have a personal relationship with God, we must first accept His Son, Jesus Christ, as our Saviour. We get to know Him intimately as God the Father—our Provider, and the Holy Spirit—who lives within us, through diligent study of His Word and daily prayers (Acts. 17:27).
- To love and obey Him
God’s desire is for us to live a life of love (1 John 4:7-21). His two greatest commandments are to first love Him with our every being, and secondly to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We don’t know God if we can’t love and if we love God, we obey Him (1 John 5:3).
- Be a witness for Christ
Every Christian is called to share the good news of Jesus Christ and the hope of salvation. This is core to who we are and what we stand for.
Wherever you’re planted—in the hospital as a nurse, behind bars as a prisoner or on the pulpit as a preacher, your every action, thought and word should reflect your Christian believes and be a testimony to Jesus Christ (Titus 2: 11-14). Show your scars and tell your story of what Jesus has done for you. It could just be what someone needed to see and hear to find their way to Christ.
Therefore, in setting your goals, make God’s desires your priority and success measures. Don’t get caught up in the world’s definition of success. Everything in this world is temporary, and your life is like the morning fog—here a little while, then vanishes (James 4:14). The only scorecard that matters is the eternal one with God’s purpose as your GPS.
Let your life point the way to Jesus Christ.
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About CHAYIL GLORY
CHAYIL glory is the all-powerful, great glory of God manifested in and through his believers in the earth. The CHAYIL GLORY blog is published every Monday with insights to understand and apply God’s perspective to everyday life.
