Scripture Reference
What are "Spiritual Goals"?
A Spiritual Goal is a milestone you are pursuing in your relationship with Jesus. It could be related to building your own foundation of faith, taking on a new challenge,
sharing your faith with others, serving the Lord in some way, or ridding your life of a sin or struggle. The Bible is full of stories of people who did all of these things, even though Scripture doesn't
refer to them as "Spiritual Goals". There's also a lot in God's Word about people who didn't pursue Spiritual goals, or pursued other worldly goals at the expense of growing Spiritually.
The Apostle Paul was a big proponent of pursuing Spiritual goals. He often referred to life as pursuing a prize and running a race. The book of Proverbs is loaded with wisdom about puruing goals. If you
know the story of Jonah, that's a good example of where God specifically gave someone a Spiritual goal but they ran the other way. God brought cities to destruction where the people went after goals that
were completely opposite of the things of God.
Generally, a Spiritual goal comes along when the Holy Spirit shows you the need to make some kind of change in your life. That could come from the time that you spend with the Lord, being challenged
by someone in your life, going through or coming out of a difficult time or loss in your life, the Lord giving you a vision to do something you may not yet be prepared for, even looking toward an upcoming
change of season in your life.
If you studied last week's "Becoming a Spiritual G.O.A.T." devotional challenge, you saw some of the characteristics of Christ-followers who are Spiritual giants. If you didn't see those, I would encourage
you to go back and take a look. After reading those, you may have thought then or still be thinking now of a truckload of potential Spiritual goals. Nobody has fully attained those characteristics, and as
I mentioned in that devotional, I for one am very far away from GOAT status on just about all of those.
As I wrote those characteristics out and read through them a few times, it challenged me on where I stand Spiritually. One of the discussion questions in that last lesson was to think about one characteristic
that you want to work on over the next couple of months. Nothing magic about one. You can pick more, but you may find it most practical to work on one pr two for a while, then add more later.
If you're ready to figure out a good Spiritual goal, or if you've got one in mind already and are eager to get started, let's start off with some ground rules regarding Spiritual goals.
Spiritual Goal Ground Rules
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Do not attempt to pursue Spiritual growth in your life on your own. You need to let your Heavenly Father take the lead, look to Jesus as the example to follow, and get tuned into the Holy
Spirit for counseling and guidance along the way. If you're like, "Yeah, I don't do that or know how to do that," then there's your first Spiritual goal! And maybe that should be everyone's first
Spiritual goal. Building a more intimate relationship with Jesus through prayer, Bible study, worship, attending a church, maybe getting involved in a small group--you can't effectively pursue other
Spiritual goals until you have your own heart, mind and soul tracking with where the Lord wants to take you.
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Don't bite off more than you can chew. We often look at a list like the Spiritual GOAT characteristics and think, "I have a long way to go and a lot to work on, so I need to move really
fast". I'm not sure the Lord sees it that way. James tells us that your whole life is about becoming mature and complete, and that takes time and focus. Instead of tackling 20 things at once, ask
the Lord to show you the thing you need to work toward that's most important to Him at this point in your life. He knows you better than you know yourself. Trust me, He knows exactly what needs to be
accomplished first.
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Don't get in a hurry. Even though I'm not a faithful visitor to the gym, I like to think growing Spiritually is similar to working out. Maybe you have a goal to bench press a certain amount,
or do a certain number of pushups, or run a certain distance. If it's a meaningful milestone, it's going to take time and patience and commitment on your part. It's going to mean committing yourself
to the day-to-day regimine of slowing becoming bigger, faster and stronger.
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Prepare to get uncomfortable. Using the gym analogy, and you may have already experienced this: workout centers are extremely crowded the first couple of weeks in January. Everybody
wants to lose some weight, get in shape, get stronger. By the end of January, the crowd usually goes back to normal. Why? You know why. Making positive health changes in your life is hard.
It's lots of time painful. Not being able to get yourself out of bed after "leg day" is a real thing. My encouragement to you is to persevere even through the discomfort. To spend time with God, you
may have to start getting up earlier in the morning, or changing what you do with your free time. Learning Biblical principles involves reading, studying, meditating, putting your mobile device
away for a while. You can do this!
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Find somebody to hold you accountable. I hate to keep coming back to the gym analogy, but studies have proven that your likelihood of success in making changes to your health is substantially
greater if you're doing it with somebody else. You'll get up and go to the gym when you don't feel like it if you know your good friend will be waiting on you. Same principle is true for your Spiritual
life. You may be thinking, "well who could hold me accountable?" If the Lord is calling you to pursue a Spiritual goal, He will have no problem crossing your path with somebody else who is also pursuing
that same goal.
Narrowing Down a Spiritual Goal
If you're trying to settle on a particular Spiritual goal to start pursuing, here are a few beneficial questions to, as my friend Uncle Ron says, "chew on" with God.
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Given where I've been, where I am right now, and where I am headed, what is the most important thing to work on in my Spiritual life?
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Maybe before you start moving ahead in life, you first need to address some things from the past. Lots of people come to the realization that resolving things from the past frees them up to
really grow and thrive in their relationship with the Lord. Don't brush by this. Are there things holding you back--fear, unforgiveness, regret, guilt, trauma, bad relationships or bad habits?
Remember that it is for freedom that Christ set you free. Maybe the Lord is saying, "It's time we deal with this."
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Looking at where you are in life right now could be the ticket to determining a Spiritual goal. If your Spritual life is stagnant or you're kind of coasting through life. Maybe there's a
sin, habit or struggle that you're in the middle of, and you realize that something needs to change. You're wasting a lot of valuable time on things that aren't valuable--like doom scrolling
for example! Maybe you're stressed or angry or bitter or feel hopeless. Your goal could to be rising up out of something or getting help in dealing with something that's going on right now.
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If you're in a season of life where you see you're heading toward a new season of life--middle to high school, high school to college, college to the real world--there are probably some
aspects of your Spiritual life that you need to shore up, grow, or pursue that will be benficial to that next season of life being a smashing success for you and for God's Kingdom.
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Where do I lack the confidence to be outspoken about my faith? I've spent time this summer with a young man who confessed to me that he rarely speaks out about his realtionship with the Lord.
Why? He doesn't feel like he understands some basic Biblical principles to have meaningful conversations with others about faith-related issues. So, his goal over the next year is to build a foundation of
Biblical principles so that he will be ready. Love that! We should all be ready to give an answer for the hope we have in Christ to anyone who asks.
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How has God gifted me? Think about the gifts God has given you. These could be any of the Spiritual gifts mentioned in Scripture (1 Corinthians 12:4-11, Romans 12:6-8), or just the things
you are really good at, that come naturally to you, or where you feel like you're in "the zone." A Spiritual goal for you might be to work on strenghening a gift or talent, or seeking ways to use
your gifts and talents to share Christ and benefit the Kingdom. One of my Spiritual gifts is hospitality. Did you even know that was a Spiritual gift? I live in a big ole house with
lots of room for me to be hospitable to the world around me. One of my Spiritual goals for this next year is to find more ways that I can use my home to build up and encourage people who are following
Jesus. If you don't know what your Spiritual gifts are, that might be a productive Spiritual goal for you to find those out.
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Is God calling me to go somewhere or do something for the Kingdom? Maybe God has given you a new purpose, vision or direction for your life. I've noticed in my own life that revelation
of new things from God often occur in two steps. Step 1 is coming to know and understand what He is calling me to do. Step 2 is coming to know and understand when to actually do it.
Sometimes a lot of time passes between steps 1 and 2. That's okay, because there are probably some Spritual goals the Lord wants you to reach before you venture out to really pursue that calling.
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As I look around at my school, community, country and planet, what bothers me? Lots of Spiritual goals arise from the things we see in our world that are wrong--unfairness, injustice,
Spiritual and physical needs, human rights issues, drug and alcohol problems, etc. Is there something that keeps you up at night or that you're becoming passionate about? Maybe that could be your
pursuit.
I hope and pray that some of these questions and ground rules from earlier are helping you to really hone in on a Spritual goal the Lord has in mind for you to pursue. If not, you have the week to work with your
Heavenly Father on that. Because next week, I'm going to give you some practical steps that have helped me in actually pursuing your Spiritual goal, so you'll have some concrete steps to take and so you'll know if
you're actually staying on track to reach your goal.
Challenge Questions
These questions will give you something to think through, pray about, spend time with God on, and discuss with others this week. If you haven't already, get a journal and write stuff down!
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What are some Spiritual goals that people in Scripture pursued? A Google search might help you find some you didn't know about.
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Did you read the recommended Scriptures at the top of this devotional challenge? If not, pick one or two a day and dig into them. What do they say? What do they shed light on regarding Spiritual
goals?
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Who do you know that is pursing a Spiritual goal, or maybe has clearly met some Spiritual goals in their life? Spend some time with that person and just pick their brain.
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Can you narrow down some Spiritual goals you have in mind to one or two that you feel like the Lord is leading you to pursue over the next few weeks or months?
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What would you say is holding you back from really growing Spiritually--in general or in a specific area of your life? Be honest with yourself. Ask the Lord to help you discern that.
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What do you think "clarity" means as it pertains to setting a Spiritual goal?
Praying Us Out
Lord Jesus, we love You, we worship You. We come to you completely incapable of making any progress in our Spiritual life without You, without Jesus and without the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, we know that You want a more intimate relationship with us--with all Your children, and those who are yet to become Your children. Help us to rely on Your grace, Your mercy, Your wisdom,
Your faithfulnees, Your guidance, and Your protection in pursuing goals that will grow us into faithful, genuine, honest, transparent, humble servants. I just pray for whoever is reading this that
you would encourage them to spend some time on this challenge over the coming week, and help each one gain clarity. We ask these things in the strong and powerful name of Jesus. Amen.
