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Setting spiritual goals is something I’ve struggled mightily to do.
It doesn’t help that I’ve had difficulty with goals in most areas of my life. I’ve never been very planned out. The future was always something to discover, not to prepare for.
While not making a habit of planning sometimes makes things seem easier — like a lack of fighting God over control for what is yet to come because you’re flying by the seat of your pants — setting spiritual goals is important for any Christian. It is no different than setting academic, work related, or financial goals.
Except that spiritual goals are more important than those other goals.
Intention Sets Direction And That Determines Destination
Setting goals is all about intentionality and seeing where you want to be down the road. You see your destination and you chart a course for it. You don’t assume you’re going to blindly stumble upon that location. If that’s how you choose to think, YIKES (and I say that because I’ve been there).
We look to an intentional God who sets the tone for us. He has demonstrated His intentionality through the work of Christ. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Despite the obstacles, Jesus became a man born of a woman to die on the cross for the sins of humanity. That was the goal. He set His direction and arrived at the destination. He conquered temptation, set to the difficult task of training up disciples, avoided arrest until His time had come to die, and dealt with tremendous stress and persecution. And at the end of His pre-resurrected body, Jesus confirms the arrival to His destination by saying, “it is finished” (John 19:30). We should be thankful because Jesus’ life and work on the earth helps inform our direction and our destination. Our direction is Christward and our destination is the Kingdom of God!
Christ crucified paves the way for us to set meaningful goals that transcend our life on Earth.
Setting Goals Establishes Priorities
Our goals are the things in our life that we most want to accomplish. We make goals for the things we care about. They could be about moving up the job ladder, losing weight, improving at a specific skill, or fixing a house. All too often, we forget to set goals for what we claim is most important, our spiritual journeys.
Even when we don’t verbalize or consider our goals, our actions reveal our desires and priorities. Every decision we make is an act of rejecting something in pursuit of another thing. We wouldn’t actually say, “I’m not consistently reading my Bible because I don’t want to grow in the knowledge of God’s Word”. However, by not setting consistent Bible reading as a goal, we reveal that we care more about the other things we spend that time doing. I know because I’ve failed to set that as a primary goal several different times throughout my life. None of us are exempt from having misplaced priorities. I might not say, “Being a faithful witness to my neighbors sounds hard and I’m afraid of what they’ll think”, but by always creating excuses for why I haven’t reached out, I affirm what is in my heart.
Humans were created to make goals. All that’s left is to determine what kind of goals we are going to prioritize.
And to be clear, goals are simple to establish, but so much harder to follow through with. A life surrendered to Christ will be full of ups and downs. We need and have the grace of God when we ask for it (Hebrews 4:16). There will be a constant reorienting our goals toward spiritual growth as the battles against our flesh rage and we embrace a cycle of repentance and restoration. We have a cross to take up and being passive will lead us toward death (Mark 8:34-36).
A spiritual walk that lacks setting goals is doomed to fruitless stagnation and apathy.
We Set Goals Because We’ve Been Entrusted To Bear Fruit With Kingdom Resources
Setting spiritual goals is not only about our personal relationships with God, but about others as well. In chapter 15 of the Gospel of John, there is the widely known comparison of God as the vine and us as the branches. Within this comparison we find Christ’s command for us to bear fruit as proof of our commitment (I’m only highlighting John 15:7-8 & 16 but I encourage you to read John 15 as a whole).
“7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples….16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”
There are a few takeaways from this passage. First, we see the importance of abiding in Christ. Results come from abiding in Christ. Secondly, there is a clear relationship between bearing fruit and being a disciple. Jesus sends us out to bear fruit. The last point I want to hit on that God supports us when we act intentionally in Christ. “[S]o that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”
As disciples of Christ, we are expected and equipped to bear spiritual fruit. That fruit comes from God and is a direct result of when we ask Him to support us in our obedience to abide in God’s love and love others (John 15:9-13).
So what is the connection to goal setting here?
Setting spiritual goals provides direction and intention to better abide in God’s love and truth in a way that teaches us how to love others as God first loved us.
* Check back on Thursday for a short, practical list of spiritual goal setting made simple.
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