Three Keys to Reaching Your God-Given Goals

Have you set goals for yourself?

To be a good husband or wife? To be successful in your career? Pastor Paul Shepherd explains the best way to reach those goals in today's Destined for Victory message, Three Keys to Reaching Your God Given Goals.

But before he gets started, he joins me from his studio in California. Because I know you feel that Get Your Hopes Up is a message that everyone needs to hear and see. And I hear from listeners even as they share their praise reports and prayer concerns. And it's just a challenging world. The bottom line is I thought this is a time for me to remind people that we've got to get our hopes up and we've got to keep them up. Because pain, heartache, reality is just among us.

And we are going to deal with these challenges. But I believe God has given us every reason to get our hopes up and to keep them up. Because He is Lord of all, not just the good stuff. He's Lord of everything that's going on. And even when chaos surrounds us, His plan and purpose will prevail.

I constantly remind myself of what we say daily on this broadcast. He who began a good work in us is going to bring it to completion. So in this message, people are going to hear me share and I'm going to use case studies from the scripture. How people who faced real life challenges, such as we're all going through, but how they saw the Lord's hand in the midst of it.

How God brought them out of it and gave them hope and help even in difficult times. And I hope that people are going to be blessed as they receive this video message. Well, today is the last day of this special offer.

The title of the DVD is called Get Your Hopes Up. And it's our gift to you this month by request, just as our way of saying thanks for your generous gift to Destin for Victory. Call 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. You can also mail your gift to Destin for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. And I'll repeat the address.

It's Destin for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. Of all the goals we can set as individuals, the most important goal is what Paul states here, which is to know Christ in a very intimate way. Why is that the most important goal you could ever have? Because of what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 16, verse 26. He said, what profit is it to a man if he gained the whole world and lose his soul? In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote what might be his most famous line. Aim at heaven and you'll get earth thrown in.

Aim at earth and you'll get neither. On today's Destin for Victory, Pastor Paul Shepherd tells you why your best chance of reaching your goals on earth is by drawing closer to the God of heaven. Commit yourself completely to him and you'll get the rest thrown in.

Stay with us here or listen to the podcast on demand at pastorpaul.net. Now, let's join Pastor Paul for today's message, three keys to reaching your God-given goals. Please understand that the most important goal you can reach is not reaching a certain financial plateau. Those can be good goals and that can be a goal that will glorify God, bless other people as well as yourself, for you to be wealthy if that's the Lord's will and you're blessed to do that, that's great.

But that's not the greatest goal, you know why? Because you can't take money with you when you leave. And you are going to leave. No one can stay, well, you know, I got so much money, I need to just stay here till I can figure out how to spend it all. No, you're going to check out one of these days.

The mortality rate for human beings is 100%. What does that mean, Pastor? That means you're going to die. That's what that means.

All of us are checking out. The only way you get to stay here is if Jesus comes in your lifetime. There's no guarantee we'll get to hang around and wait for the second coming of the Lord and so you can't say that a financial goal is the most important because one day you're going to leave here and you're leaving your money here too.

You have never seen a U-Haul follow a hearse. You can't take it with you. So that can't be the most important goal. Your career can't be the most important goal because one day you're going to leave that career through death or through retirement or whatever it is.

You're not going to be that. In fact, our identity shouldn't be wrapped up in our jobs. Our jobs should serve the higher purpose of doing God's will but your job can't be who you are.

Amen? Because you need to have a life outside of work. If you are a person who, oh man, I got to leave work and go home.

Something's wrong. Home ought to be a happy place. Home ought to be, wow, okay, I've finally done what I need to do on the job. I'm going to get my check. Now I'm going home where I can live the life God's called me to live outside of earning a living. See, some people only are making a living and they're not making a life.

I want to encourage you, make sure you're making a life, not just a living. And so it can't be about money, can't be about job, can't be about anything else. The best goal, the highest goal is the goal of knowing Christ.

Why? Because knowing Him transcends time. When I know Christ, I know Him in this life. He'll help me through this life. He'll bless me in this life.

He'll make me a blessing in this life. But when I check out of here, I don't have to worry about a thing because Jesus is my entry into everlasting life. Bible says God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

In fact, technically we're not going to die. We're going to die in terms of this earthly existence but to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. If you know Jesus, the moment you close your eyes here on earth, you open your eyes in the eternal presence of God in whose presence the Bible says is fullness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures forevermore. And so we have every reason to set good goals but always remember the best goal, the highest goal, the most important goal is to know Jesus for yourself.

And so that is what Paul states here in Philippians chapter 3. But I want to use this passage to talk about how we should think as we set not only that ultimate goal of having an intimate relationship with Christ but set every goal in your life, every goal that pleases and glorifies God and there are many of them. Getting your financial house in order is one of them. Getting your career on track to do the will of God is one of them.

Taking good care of your family, building strong relationships with brothers and sisters, there are so many good goals for us to set. And here I find some patterns by which we can set and reach all kinds of goals. So let me walk you through these principles. There are three of them.

Here's number one. Reaching your God-given goals requires the right assessment of the present. Reaching your God-given goals requires the right assessment of the present. Look again at the text with me. Notice the second sentence of verse 12. Paul said not that I have already attained or am already perfected. And then in verse 13 he says, brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended.

In other words, I want you to notice that he is showing us he has the proper assessment of his life as he writes these words. He's saying I haven't reached the ultimate goal yet. Not only in terms of knowing Christ, I'm getting to know him, but I haven't reached the ultimate goal. He says I have not already been perfected.

I do not count myself to have apprehended. I want to pause long enough to make sure you understand that the best way to reach good goals is the first know where you are as you pursue them. In other words, think of it this way. The best way to arrive at a destination is the first determine where you're coming to it from. Do y'all remember the days before GPS?

Young folk don't, but older people, come on with me. Y'all remember the days when if you were going to get somewhere you never had been, you either had to call somebody who knew or you had to consult a map, an actual map. Come on, young folk, there used to be these things you would pull it out, unfold it.

Or some of them were in these big books and different pages had different sections of an area. I remember when I moved to California in 1989, I mapped my way all the way here. I had a, I think it was Rand McNally, it was one of the companies, and that's how I got here. And that was the way you identified where you were and where you were trying to go and the best rooting for doing that. Now, before GPS, if you didn't have a map and you had to rely on somebody's word and you'd call them and say, I'm trying to get to your house and I need to know how to get there, what's the first thing they would ask you? Where are you?

Why? Because they can't give you generic directions. There's no such thing as generic directions. You can't, when somebody say, I'm trying to get to your house, you can't start talking till you know where they're coming from. If they're coming from the east of where you are, that's one set of directions. If they're coming from the west, that's another set of directions.

If they're coming from the north or the south, every direction will determine what the route, what the journey is going to look like. Everybody with me so far? As it is in the natural, so it is in your life overall. If you want to reach some good goal, first assess the present.

Where am I right now? Make sure you have clear, what I want to call self-awareness. Everyone has blind spots. The key to your spiritual vision is allowing God to shed light on that which is hidden.

Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's message, three keys to reaching your God-given goals. So, when it comes to any area of your life, before you can set a good goal and begin to journey toward meeting that goal, you need to have an awareness of the current truth so that you know what the journey is going to need to look at. Herein lies the problem. There are a lot of people, none in this service but in the other service, there are people who are not self-aware at all. Have you ever met folk who don't have a clue as to the truth about themselves? I mean, don't know what the truth is about their own life. Have you ever met folk who you're trying to tell them the truth about themselves to help them and they look at you like you don't know what you're talking about?

They really don't. They're confused as to why you think they need to be aware of something that doesn't exist in their mind, just doesn't exist. Let me tell you something. I hope none of you are struggling with self-awareness. If you are, allow other people into your inner circle and give them permission to tell you the truth. Say, you love me, right? Yes. Then do me a favor.

When you see me clueless, when you see me just out of it, bring me back to reality. Tell the people in your life, do not allow me to operate on the basis of alternative facts. We've heard that term.

I didn't know such a term existed until I heard it on TV one day. Alternative facts. There are none of those. Those are points of deception. Come on. I'm not making a political statement. I'm preaching.

We heard it in a political context, but I'm preaching the truth. There are no alternative facts. Facts are facts.

Everything nonfactual is not a fact. Okay? You understand that, right? Therefore, we have to make sure in our lives we are not operating on the basis of something that takes us away from truth. Make sure you're walking in self-awareness.

So, when you have areas of your life that need help, be aware I need help in this area. Some folk don't realize that doesn't make you a horrible person. It just means what Paul said. You haven't arrived yet. You're not perfected yet.

You haven't apprehended yet. You still have areas of jackduptedness. That's an alternative word, but I love it.

It is in the Paul Shepherd dictionary because hopefully you understand what it means. Jackduptedness means there's stuff about me that is not yet as it ought to be. I have some issues. I have some challenges.

I have some stuff that isn't quite where it ought to be yet. At least be aware of them because how can you change them if you're not even aware of them? In fact, why would you seek change when you think you're wonderful already? People who think they are perfect just the way they are, they don't change because I'm already it. When you look up it in the dictionary, it's me grinning.

Do you know people like that? They act like they are it. I am it. I don't need help. I don't need change. I'm fine just like I am and they give people problems who try to tell them otherwise.

You've got to be okay with being less than what you're going to be. I told you before about the lady in New York testifying in the little Pentecostal church in New York that would open up with devotional services. In those churches, you would open the service singing.

You'd either stand up and start singing a chorus and then you'd testify or sometimes you would just stand up, straight testify. There's one lady in the church in New York. She said, well saints, I want to let you know that I'm not where I'm going to be but thank God I ain't what I used to was. Now, that's poor English but that's some good testifying.

She said, I'm not where I'm going to be. I haven't arrived yet but she has enough self-awareness to be able to thank God for the journey so far. In other words, I have made some improvement. Any of you all look back and see I'm not as jacked up as I once was. Anybody here realize that my jacked upness level is not as high as it used to be. Some of us used to be so jacked up that you hardly know where to start talking about what was wrong with you and now by God's grace and help, it's been coming down.

You still have some jacked upness but the level is going down and we need to thank God that he blessed us with enough self-awareness so you can see that I'm not where I once was. If you can't testify like that, do yourself a favor and build relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ, some of whom you will trust with the worst of you. Please make sure there are people you have entrusted with the worst of you. Somebody besides Jesus, don't get super spiritual on me, well, the Lord knows.

Don't do that. Of course he knows that's not the issue. He baptized you by one spirit into the body of Christ and he brought you in the body so that the body could be connected. And so you need to be connected with people who when they ask you how are you, you do not tell them blessed and highly favored.

You don't need to have that as your standard answer for everybody and it's true. I am. In Christ, I'm blessed with every spiritual blessing according to the book of Ephesians.

But when a person who is in your inner circle who has been allowed into the sensitive areas of your life, when they ask you how are you, don't insult them with blessed and highly favored. You need to tell some people this is one of the third worst days of my life. Good. Now we're getting somewhere. Let's talk about it.

Let's go through this. And you need to have people who you have vowed to yourself and to them in the presence of Almighty God. When they ask me a question, I know why God brought them into my life and when they ask me a question, I will never lie to them.

You hear what I just said? Christians have to commit because you'd be surprised how quickly you'll let a lie slip out because you want to skirt the truth or at least skirt telling this person the truth. And so you have to learn to tell the truth even when I'm not going to let you into my business. So sometimes instead of telling a lie, because the Bible says don't lie, that's not a practice becoming of those of us who are believers.

Amen. So how do I avoid that? But I don't want to tell this person the truth because they have a mouth that never stops. So what do I do? I know our gossip is standing right here asking me how I'm doing. What do I do, pastor?

Glad you asked. What you do is say, well, I have some challenges, but I'm dealing with them. I have some folks who are praying with me and I'm dealing with them.

See how I did a lie, have some challenges dealing with them. No, you can't know. That's the implication. No, you cannot know.

No. You know, some church folk try to put it under the cloak of prayer. I want to know how to pray for you. See, some people, when they want to know how to pray, they really want to know how to pray. Other people, when they say they want to know how to pray, they want some business so that they can go spread it. I've been around church folk all my life. You know, I'm a pew baby raised on the pews, and I've seen church gossips at work. Sometimes prayer requests are nothing but gossip sessions. There have been a meeting, a little meeting where they're going, anybody have any requests before we pray?

Yeah, I want you to remember, brother Sausage. And when they get through telling you what you're supposed to be, quote, unquote, praying about, they have spread all this stuff to people who didn't need to know it. In many cases, because they're not going to pray, all they're going to do is talk.

Amen. And so we have to know who we are making the truth available to. Don't lie to the other folk, just give them a non-answer answer. And then when they don't, they say, he didn't say anything.

Right. They can't trust you with the truth. But there need to be people you have trusted with the truth. Thank you so much for joining us for today's message, three keys to reaching your God-given goals. If you'd like more information about Destined for Victory, or the DVD we're offering as our thank you for your generous gift today, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. In life, we should all have in our past some moments that were the thrill of victory, but don't fool yourself. Be honest with yourself. You also have on the other side of the ledger those moments where you experienced the agony of defeat. You did not win, you lost big time. Instead of successes, you got some failures. That's next time in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, three keys to reaching your God-given goals. Until then, though, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.