“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13-14 NASB)
In the book “As Iron Sharpens Iron” Howard Hendricks laid this example of having no definite goal before us.
“Imagine that I board a plane leaving Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for Chicago. Twenty minutes into our flight the pilot comes on the speaker and say, ‘Well, folks, we’re leveling off at our cruising altitude of thirty-six thousand feet. By the way, I know this flight is booked for Chicago, but I thought we would just fly around instead and see the countryside. We’ll land whenever we’re low on fuel. I really can’t say where we’ll end up. We’ll just see what happens.'”
“Imagine such an announcement! A flight plan like that not only would be ridiculous – it could be perilous! Yet a lot of guys are no different in terms of life: just flying along. Where are they headed? There’s no telling. Certainly, they don’t know! Worst of all, they don’t seem to care. They seem to have the attitude, ‘Wherever I end up, that’s fine by me.'”
With that attitude you certainly are not the kind of person in whom others will want to confide or to trust with their uncertainties. The God who made us gives us goals and initiatives with abilities and gifts to get us there. Jesus spoke of two servants: one said he would do what the master wanted but did not and the other said he would not but later did it. The one who did the Master’s will was commended. Our goal is to follow hard after the Lord Jesus and His example through the power of his Presence within.
Seek the Lord while He may be found and follow after that to which you have been called, doing God’s will. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Eph. 2:10 NASB)
Pastor Brunner is the founder and director of Jim Brunner Ministries
