Goal Setting: The Key to Success

Philippians 3:7-14

What three goals would you set for your life if you knew that you could achieve them? Would any of them be spiritual in nature? The apostle Paul was one of the most goal-oriented people in the Bible, yet he understood which pursuits were the most important. His chief ambition was to know Christ, His resurrection power, and the fellowship of His suffering (v. 10).

We'd all do well to adopt these goals, but they sound so broad. How do we put them into practice? First, it's important to comprehend that a goal is a purpose or direction toward which we work. This concept is fairly easy to understand when we're talking about specific objectives like going to bed earlier or losing ten pounds, but what steps would you need to take in order to achieve spiritual goals like Paul's?

Success requires choosing steps that are specific, reasonable, and measurable. For example, if you want to know Christ more intimately, you might commit to spending 30 minutes each day praying and reading His Word. After developing your plan and the steps to accomplish it, put your desire into action. If you don't take the necessary steps, it will simply remain a wish. No one develops intimacy with Christ through good intentions; it takes commitment, diligence, and perseverance.

If you feel as if your faith is lacking vitality, it may be that you've become spiritually lazy. No one intends to slip into complacency. But unless you set some specific goals and work to achieve them, you'll drift through life and miss the greatest accomplishment of all--learning to know Christ intimately.

~Dr. Charles Stanley~

War In Your Heart # 4

Background of Victory (continued)

Signposts Along the Pathway of Victory (continued)

As sinners, all living persons are in this twofold bondage and need to be set free. Have you acknowledged your bond-slavery to satan and to sin? Do you long to be set free? Jesus points the way to perfect freedom.

The First Signpost: John 8:32: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. "Ye shall know the truth" - truth - principle - apprehension. "The truth shall make you free" - life - practice - application.

God's purposes that every great truth shall be so inwrought into life that redemption really redeems. Truth makes free, but only when known. Speaking the truth in love, one may say that the majority of Christian leaders are guilty of criminal negligence in failing to make know to those under their spiritual care the pathway of victory. Many are very faithful in making known the initial step out of bondage to satan and sin through regeneration and justification, who never make known to their flock the way into the glorious freedom and continuous victory made possible through scriptural sanctification. Yet Paul devotes the larger part of his letters to the churches to this great truth. If any Christian worker reading this page is recreant in this sacred trust, would no not right now pledge faithfulness  to your sovereign Lord in making known the truth that our Lord said can make men experimentally free from bondage to satan and to sin?

But it is tragically easy to know the truth regarding the way of victory and yet to be living in defeat. Truth apprehended is not enough. It must be personally appropriated, applied, acted upon. "The hallmark of truth is that it is intensely practical." In other words, it works! Truth which is mere head knowledge and not heart experience is excess baggage. Only as truth becomes me does it become mine.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 5)

Feasting on the Word

1 Peter 2:2-3

Did you ever watch an infant take a feeding? Hungry little ones clutch the bottle, smack their lips, and make soft contented noises. They thoroughly enjoy their nourishment. But there comes a time when milk isn’t enough to satiate baby’s appetite anymore. That’s when a whole worldof culinary possibilities opens up.

Comparing new believers to babies, Peter said that they “long for the pure milk of the word” (v. 2). You wouldn’t feed a newborn steak and spinach, would you? Well, baby Christians must sip scriptural truths that they understand. Then, like a growing child, they shoot up as they feast on Bible passages, gradually taking in more and meatier principles and topics.

Believers are not left alone to make sense of Scripture any more than babies and young children are expected to get their own meals. The Holy Spirit, who indwells God’s followers, illuminates the Word. That is, He makes the meaning clear to those who seek to understand. Moreover, according to Ephesians 4:11-16, God has given gifted Christians to the church to act as pastors and teachers. They are charged with equipping the saints for service (v. 12). These leaders instruct, clarify, and motivate people to grow in their personal faith and to fulfill the church’s purpose of reaching the lost.

God’s Word is a feast for our heart, mind, and spirit. This is one banquet table where there is no such thing as taking too much. In fact, the advice many parents give their children at the dinner table applies to the Christian life as well: “Eat up! Scriptural food makes you grow strong.”

~Dr. Charles Stanley~

War In Your Heart # 3

Background of Victory (continued)

Victory The Paramount Necessity of the Christian 

Now I wish to take you into my confidence and tell you the purpose and plan of this book and to ask your cooperation, both in making the truth yours as we go along together over its pages, and then as far as you possibly can to share it with others.

The Purpose

The purpose is to give a Biblical, balanced message on the pathway of victory. The theme limits the the message to one phase of God's revelation. Yet this segment of truth takes us to the very root of redemption in Christ and demands our searching into the origin of evil in God's universe, as well as in man; it compels us to face sin's terrifying trial over humanity; it reveals the only but all-sufficient way of victory, and it climaxes with the ultimate victory over all the enemies of Christ and His Church.

Signposts Along the Pathway of Victory

Jesus gave two signposts on the pathway of victory in His conversation with the Pharisees in John 8:12-59.

First Signpost: John 8:32: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Second Signpost: John 8:36: If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

He had declared to them the truth regarding Himself, but they would not believe the truth nor receive Him as the One sent from God. Jesus boldly told them hey were bondslaves to sin and to satan.

John 8:34: Everyone that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin. John 8:44: Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is you will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.

Bondslaves to satan, the murderer, they were themselves murderers seeking to kill Jesus at satan's command. Bondslaves to satan, the liar, they were themselves liars, not only rejecting the truth but also accusing Jesus of being a liar and having a devil. They were bondslaves to sin because they were bondslaves to satan. But they would not acknowledge their bondage.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 4

The Explosive Power of Pentecost?

"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." —Acts 1:8

When Alfred Nobel discovered an explosive element that was stronger than anything the world had known at the time, he asked a friend and Greek scholar for a word that conveyed the meaning of explosive power. The Greek word was dunamis, and Nobel named his invention "dynamite."

Dunamis is the same word that Jesus used when He told His disciples, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). In other words, "You shall receive explosive, dynamite power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you."

Think about how this power transformed the first-century believers. Prior to Pentecost, Simon Peter couldn't stand up for his faith when strangers asked him if he was a follower of Jesus. After the power of the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost, Peter stood up and boldly preached the gospel, resulting in 3,000 people being saved.

After Saul of Tarsus became a believer on the Damascus Road, God led Ananias to go and pray for him. He was then filled with the Holy Spirit, and from that moment on, he went out and proclaimed Christ in the synagogues.

This power is for a purpose. It is not power to be crazy or power to do weird things. It is power to be a witness . . . power to have the courage to tell someone about Jesus Christ . . . power to tell people about what Jesus has done for you.

~Greg Laurie~

War In Your Heart # 2

Background of Victory (continued)

Victory the Paramount Necessity of the Christian

No truly earnest Christian is devoid of the sense of defeat. There is the consciousness of conflict with forces of evil, both without and within, that are overwhelming and overpowering. The real Christian knows that he has enemies for whom he is no match, and with deep shame and humiliation he acknowledged that too often he goes down before them in shameless defeat, in tragic and repeated failure. Countless Christians down through the ages have uttered with Paul that poignant, anguished cry:

"O wretched man that I am!"

Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24). Has God no answer to such a piercing cry for deliverance from an intolerable bondage? He assuredly has: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."  In fact, declares throughout the Bible from beginning to end that victory is not only a possibility but a necessity; that it is not merely something humanly desired, but something divinely required. The Word reveals with crystal clearness that victory  for the  saint is as integral a part of God's eternal purpose as salvation is for the sinner. As salvation through the blood shed on Calvary runs like a scarlet cord through the Word, so victory through the sovereign Lord on the throne runs as a golden cord. The Lamb of God who lays down His life on the Cross is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, receiving the worship and adoration of thousands of thousands around the throne (Revelation 5:6, 11, 12).

But what answer does the Church give in its preaching and teaching to this anguished cry from those longing for deliverance? Very largely it remains silent. Even those who are faithful and fearless as messengers of deliverance from the penalty of sin have no message whatever on deliverance from the power of sin.

In fact, the Church is pathetically divided on this great truth. Some preachers and teachers deny, yes, even oppose it. Some are afraid of it both for themselves and for others, because of its demands and consequences. Some hunger to know the pathway to victory and would walk in it if they knew how. Some seek victory along unscriptural lines which lead into unbiblical teaching and experience. Some know the theory but do not know how it works out in practice. Some have a head knowledge of victory as a doctrine but little or no manifestation of it in daily life, so tat their teaching and testimony are nullified by a nonvictorious life. Some know the truth  of victory over satan, sin, and self through the Spirit's revelation of it to them and in them, and the truth has made them gloriously free.

Dear reader, just where are in in relation to this precious truth, both as to the knowledge and to the experience of it? Do not go further until you have given an honest consideration to this question.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 3)

God's Compass for the Heart and Mind

Proverbs 3:7-12

Yesterday we discussed the importance of depending on the Word of God as our compass throughout life. Following the Lord’s directions will change behavior and challenge our thinking, attitudes, and desires. He leads us to think differently about ourselves, our values, and and even the difficulties facing us.

We naturally want to determine our own course in life.It seems like the only logical way to get where we want to go. But being wise in our own eyes is pride. To combat this tendency, the Lord instructs us to fear Him and turn away from evil (v. 7). This “fear” is not a horrified dread of the Father, but an attitude of respect that motivates us to obey Him for both our good and His glory.

We naturally want to keep our money for ourselves. A desire for a better lifestyle or fear of not having enough leads us to hang onto everything we get. But our compass directs us to honor God by giving Him the first part of all we have, trusting Him to provide for our needs (vv. 9-10).

We naturally hate God’s discipline. His painful reproofs seem to prove that He doesn’t care about us. But our heavenly Father says His discipline is the evidence that confirms His love and delight in us as His children (vv. 11-12).

Sometimes in our desire to follow the Lord, we focus on obedient actions—doing what He says—but miss His directions concerning our attitudes and thought patterns. To stay on God’s path for our lives, we must make course corrections not only in our behavior but also in our hearts and minds. 

~Dr. Charles Stanley~