What Is Your Goal?

We are a goal-oriented society. Clinics, conferences, and seminars are held on goal setting. Yet, few people envision their life as having an overall goal.

Defined goals result in refined lives.

Scripture says, “if there be any virtue, think on these things.” (Phil. 4:8) In other words, a diamond found in a pig pen is still a diamond.

A diamond from the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, is worth our attention. He said, “You will never find peace and happiness until you are ready to commit yourself to something worth dying for.”

Life inevitably will end for all. An expression is used to describe the end of life: “the time of my departure is at hand.” The New Testament Greek word so translated is “analusis.” It was used in several ways that help our comprehension of death.

        * It was used to describe a yoke being taken off a beast of burden.

        * It was used to depict ropes being removed from a person who had been tied up.

        * It was used to picture a ship that had been loosened from its mooring. Set free to sail.

In every sense of the word it depicts being set free for fuller use. Are you confidently heading toward such a destiny?

Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of our nation’s greatest former Supreme Court jurists, said, “The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.” 

What is your direction in life?  Where is it going?

Have you made a life coloring decision to follow and serve the Lord? If so, in what arena of thought are you invested? For what are you sold out? What cause is given your dedication? In what are you fulfilled?

Martin Luther said: “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however fondly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steadfast on all the battle-front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

Are you a football or a basketball? A football bounces around abstractly. It is hard to know which way it will bounce next. A basketball is predictable. You can know where it will bounce next. Are you exercising a predictable stand for the Lord?

“Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day.” (I Kings 8:61)