Day 25

Should A Christian Have

Goals, Plans and Strategies?

Roger and Eileen Himes

www.ThePracticalGospel.com

Let me answer the above question right now: YES! God is the Creator. He is the great Planner. He has great goals in our lives — mainly to get us into the process of his gospel and conform us to the image of his Son Jesus. If you believe all the ‘end time scenarios’ we hear, you must believe God is a strategist. I don’t believe many of them, but most Christians do.

We are made in God’s image and likeness. This means spiritually, not physically. Due to being made in God’s image, we also want to have goals, plans and strategies in our lives. Last time we finished off talking about the will of God, and how that 95% of the time God does not care what we do, or where we do it. What he cares about is are we doing it ‘in him’? Is his gospel process at work ‘in us’?

God does not trust us human beings: “None is good except God.” But God does trust his gospel process in us. If we enter into the process of his ways, the spiritual life takes on a whole new paradigm and divine dimension: “All things become new.”

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GOSPEL TRUTH #49

We must embrace the reality that life is truly all about HIM, and not just about us getting what we want from him. We must embrace the reality that the gospel truly is his process on earth, both in us and through us to others. Our purpose and mission cannot be defined in any type of ’separation theology.’

Having embraced these realities, I totally believe God then sets us free to set goals, make plans, and strategize our lives, because he trusts the process of his gospel in us. He knows this process will not lead us off on an independent ‘lark of our own,’ as lawyers say. He knows we are so vitally connected with him that all we want is HIS will. Due to gospel relationship, he has freedom to let us have our will.

Once we allow him to give us the desires of his heart, this allows him to give us the desires of our heart. This is because he knows the gospel will constrain us in the divine river of his life. It will produce in us a daily Vine and branch relationship with him.

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Goals, plans and strategies allow us to have vision in life. God lets us define these in our lives. See this: the word ‘desire,’ in Latin, literally means ‘of the father.’ The word does not describe an independence, but rather a dependence. It does not describe a ’Lone Ranger’ mindset, but a communion mindset: the Vine and the branch. Here, God knows he has constant input into us. He knows we listen, because our purpose, mission and desire is to ‘connect with Father.’

God knows when we are truly vitally connected with him in his gospel, that we can do anything. “I can do all things through Christ who strengths me.” This is the Vine and the branch process. “I reign in life in Christ Jesus.” — “As Jesus is, so am I in this world.” Do you see why God trusts the process of his gospel? The gospel is his power (Rom 1:16). His power is behind everything we think, do and say.

If this is true, then he knows his thoughts guide us in setting our goals, making our plans, and creating our strategies in life. He knows this becomes an automatic process: the Vine giving life to the branch. God knows his process in us creates a DIVINE ‘Tower of Babel’ result: Nothing is impossible to us because nothing is impossible to God.

God knows if the desire in us is ‘of the father,’ that his propelling drive becomes the power for everything in our life. It is what becomes the motivation, or ’motive for action’ for everything we do. Our only responsibility is to come under authority to his divine gospel process. We receive it, thereby letting the Vine sow its transfusion into us — the very power of God — that then results in good fruit (Col 1:5-6).

This is living in faith in God. Unless we live in faith in God, we live in some form of ‘good vs. bad’ theology of the Tree of Knowledge. Our goals, plans and strategies simply become horizontal: to achieve more of the good life, and avoid the bad things. This is where most Christians live. It is what Eve struggled with in the Garden: (a) she saw that the tree was good for food, (b) it was good and beautiful and a delight to her eyes, and (c) she believed it would make her wise (Gen 3:5). It’s what I John 2:16 says is (a) the lust of the flesh, (b) the lust of the eyes, and (c) the pride of life.

This leads to a superficial relationship with both God and people. It is born in SELF. Paul says he has ‘begotten’ us in the gospel, which means he births into a life in GOD (I Cor 4:15). Only life in the process of the gospel accomplishes this.

Our beliefs that control our behavior. If our belief systems are founded in self, they cannot produce divine results. Sometimes it takes a time of real suffering, grief, and sorrow in our lives to get us to switch tracks from self to God. Our desire is not ‘of the father,’ but ‘of self.’ We live in the kingdom of self.

As long as we are living the good life, and are being blessed, we just keep on the same old SELF-track. If our spouse and kids are mostly happy with us, and we’re successful in our vocation, and are prosperous enough to enjoy the ‘good’ things of life, we set our own goals, make our own plans, and create our own strategies. Sadly, it often takes breakdown to get us to reconsider our lives.

In the kingdom of self, our perception in life is one of getting, and achieving, and acquiring earthly, natural things. Like the man in the parable of Jesus, when we get too much, we just build a bigger barn, or garage to told it all. In the kingdom of God, we realize that life is also about acquiring and receiving things — but divine things by means of the process of the gospel.

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GOSPEL TRUTH #50

Most of us strive to integrate the kingdom of God into the kingdom of self. Something must often happen to interrupt this process. It is born in self: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. God cannot continue to bless our goals, plans and strategies if they are built on this foundation. God must allow something to happen in our lives to get us to switch tracks from The Dirt Road to The Gospel Road.

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The Gospel Road has been path God wants us walking on for 2,000 years. It’s nothing new. It’s not a new theology. It was born in the cross, and it is present-progressive in content: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If we get off track onto The Dirt Road, then we get into SELF, not God. On The Dirt Road, we want to experience (1) certainty, (2) safety and (3) satisfaction in life.

(1) We want to experience certainty. We want to be right, and we want to be the master of our destinies. We don’t want insecurity, where we don’t know what is going to happen, how and when. We want to be adequate. We build the kingdom of self. We try to make life work on our agenda and by our resources, until it falls apart. We resort to our plans, goals and strategies. Life becomes all about US.

(2) We want to experience safety in life. Having safety of course includes having God around. But the only way we can truly be safe is if we are in control. We don’t mind God being the copilot, who supports us our decisions, and responds by answering our prayers. But we must be the pilot. We want protection. We want healing when we need it. We want job security. We want to be isolated from sorrow. But this attitude actually connects us with sorrow, suffering, pain, grief or tragedy.

(3) We want to have satisfaction in life. We want to be honored and respected by others, and we want to be perceived as a leader, not just a follower. We want to feel good about ourselves, and to enjoy a healthy self image. We want to feel fulfilled, and as psychology calls it, ‘self actualized.’

God wants us to both RECEIVE AND RELEASE his glory.

We are here to reveal the glory of God on earth. We cannot do this living in self. He wants us to KNOW we are inhabited by his glory. He even says the latter temple (US) will be greater than the former temple (Haggai 2:9). It is actually in times of difficulty that the glory of God shines through us the most (II Cor 3:6-12). God’s presence should manifest through us. He wants his glory to be SEEN in us.

Two situations revealed this to me more than anything else.

First, a few years ago I watched a program about two young twins. But these twins were a little different from other twins. The girls had one body. There were two heads, and they were two distinct beings in that way. They could talk to each other, and even look at each other out of the corner of their eye. But the rest of them was a unity. From the shoulders down, they were one. From the shoulders up, they were two. Physically it was actually quite grotesque, albeit interesting.

It was weird naturally, but God spoke to me in it: “Spiritually, this is a picture of you and me.” Too often, our perception of God is that he is close. We can speak to him, and ask him for help if we get into trouble. He is there to make us feel certain, safe, and satisfied,… but also to come to our aid when we call. The picture he wants us to have of him is one of spiritual ONENESS, like the two twin girls.

Second, this became real to me about 1990 when I attended a new age convention, just to see what they were doing. I walked up and down the aisles looking at all the rocks, mirrors, séances, massages with rare oils, and head tapping — putting spiritual thoughts in. Walking down one aisle, I saw this woman in a deep discussion with another woman. Actually, it was more than just a discussion. This woman had one of the booths, and she was evidently counseling the other woman, — and rather forcefully at that. She had her hands on the woman’s shoulders and she was really speaking forcefully to her.

As I approached, I had no idea she had even noticed me. I was just slowly walking by when she reached out her hand and took hold of my arm! At first I thought I must know her, but I realized I didn’t. She said, “You have one of the most amazing, magnificent AURAS I have ever seen in my life — and I’ve been doing this for 20 years!”

I was startled. I thanked her like I knew what she was talking about, but had to go consult a dictionary to find out what an ‘aura’ was. It is defined as ‘a distinctive, unique, super-human presence and power that surrounds some people.’

God’s presence and glory in us is very real in a spiritual dimension. God later said to me, “Some people, like that woman, can even SEE it.” We are one with our Creator. Separation theology is born in the mind of man. It is not gospel reality. His presence is ‘superimposed’ into us. We can’t understand this naturally, but we’re spiritual, not natural.

This is a vision of the meaning of, ‘of the father,’ which is a Latin meaning for ‘desire.’ Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” and then he went on in John 17 to say we are also one with him and the Father. The closest we can get to this is living in ‘the process of the gospel,’ which is the way the God’s kingdom is manifested to us.

Our goals must include being images of the glory of God! This is why we are here, which integrates our mission and purpose into our goals, strategies and plans. Whatever we do (even attending a new age fair), we need to know that we are carriers — of the presence and glory of God. In many ways this is what the PARABLES of Jesus reveal, which is the subject of the next two days.