October 18, 2009
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Goals That "Work" For You Goals can be a delight to achieve or an intimidating mountain that taunts us. Knowing how to set them is important in making progress toward your inheritance in Christ. Many believers are totally content to operate without written goals and some are still quite successful. I want to suggest the successful ones still have goals of the heart; they just have a theology that prevents them from admitting it. Servants with no personal goals who just do what the Lord tells them typically live out most of their Christian life getting the dial tone. God works through personal initiative and individual creativity. His will is found in the desires of our heart. Goals of the heart - Goals cannot be set with our mind alone. They must be set around the passion of our heart and the purpose of our life. People mistakenly set goals around giving or making money. Money can't be a primary goal because it doesn't articulate a desire of our heart. However, every goal usually does require money to reach it. Here's what I learned as a pastor, "Ministry costs money!" We don't love money; it's just a tool that funds our ministry. No Goals? - What happens if we coast through life with no sense of personal destiny or goals built around our passion? We still have to eat! So, we find a job, make some money, pay the bills and give to others that do have goals. We end up serving money with our time - a job. Serving in that which is another man's is OK for a season; just not for a life time. The goal is to identify and serve your own heart's desire - eventually.
Here's the real reason to have goals built around your life's passion. Those goals will go to work and make money so that you can achieve your dream. Last week we talked about Exercising your heart. If you tap into your life's calling and purpose there will be several trademarks.
Sabotage - If we try to set goals with our mind and skip the real passion in our hearts, then our hearts simply sabotage the whole process and our goals work against us instead of for us. For example, I'm funding our ministry through day trading. If I lose sight of the real purpose of ministry and start to focus on the money then my heart starts to sabotage my success and I violate the training of my mentors. In hindsight it looks obviously and incredibly and embarrassingly stupid. My mind can't believe it happened... neither can my mentor! But my heart understands clearly that I'm starting to wander from my purpose. (Can you see why diets don't work? They don't address the heart.) We need coaches and mentors and training (and diets), but none of it works until our heart's desire is identified. Good mechanistic "how to" training just gets filtered until it supports a dream. Our mistake is that we start with some formula for success before we understand the dream that success will serve. That's why our goal can't be something like making money. Our real dream is connected to a tangible purpose. Money is just a tool to make a dream come true. To set a goal around money without a connection to a higher purpose falls into a trap, "love of money." That scenario also sets the stage for moral compromise... greed, theft, lying, etc.
Get Connected - To realize your full potential in Jesus, you and I have to tap into the real desires of our hearts and flow with them. That's what makes life fun... ministry multiplies, wealth flows, and fruit is the result. Set goals around your life purpose and the desires of your heart. Get to the bottom of your real heart's motivation so that your heart is rejoicing instead of working against you. "Religion" in the legalistic sense, is trying to work for God and against your heart. It doesn't work... but we already know that, don't we?
Ukraine - I'm off to the Ukraine with David Tinney and Poul Dalgaard for 10 days just before Thanksgiving. Since 2001, David has done over 100 business seminars in the Ukraine so he knows his way around. Poul is already operating businesses in Ukraine. We're translating Desire to Destiny into Russian so we can have it available to help release Kings. If you have a business concept that would work in the Ukraine, let us know. Our goal is to turn the theology into practice and network new opportunities. Desire to Destiny is available now at our store along with reviews. Not sure what your dream is? This book will help you pull the curtain back on your future. Newsletter - If your newsletter comes incomplete (filtered), you can always catch the latest version in our archive along with 200 others. 1600+ people from around the world get Kingly encouragement from our weekly newsletter. Invite a friend to subscribe - they will be blessed. How to Start a Small Group - Kings are increasingly getting involved in Bible study or mentoring groups to facilitate their "Release." Here are some helpful suggestions www.Releasing-Kings.com/Starting-a-Group.html. We've also updated our Vision Brochure with graphics to show how to become a King and how you can help Release Kings. French Translation - Releasing Kings is now available in French thanks to the efforts of Cees Bakker and Support Ministries in the Netherlands. In France, copies can be obtained from Editions Menor or Librairie Chretienne CLC. The Title in French is “Libération des Rois pour le ministère dans le monde du travail”. Cees is also the guy who made the Dutch translation possible - available through his website. He can be contacted for Releasing Kings conferences in France and throughout Europe. Facebook - I'm starting to post more information on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/john.garfield1
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