How to Reach Your Goals - Part 1

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. A familiar Bible story contains powerful principles for life today. Stay with us for practical lessons on success God's way. Those goals that you have for your life could possibly be accomplished if you stepped over that line.

More than likely, you certainly would step over the line. But what I want to say to you is this. I'm drawing a line today. And if you will step over this line from where you are into the principles that I want to share in this message, your life will be better. Those goals that you have been hoping for and dreaming about.

Those goals that are sort of maybe hazy and foggy. If you're willing to step across this line into these principles, I believe without a doubt your life will be better. And so I want you to look, if you will, in verse 24 of 1 Samuel 17. Now, the title of this message is How to Reach Our Goals. Just what I want you to remember. Every single principle necessary to reaching your goals in life are all found in this one encounter of David facing Goliath. And so I want to encourage you to get a pencil or a pen and a piece of paper and jot these down because I'm drawing a line. And if you will take note of these principles and apply them to your life, your life will not be the same.

You will be able to accomplish things in your life that maybe up until this point you never dreamed you could achieve. So listen to what's happening. Verse 24. When all the men of Israel saw the man, they fled from him and were greatly afraid. And the men of Israel said, speaking to David, Have you seen this man who is coming up? Surely he's coming up to defy Israel. And it will be that the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel, which means they would no longer have to serve as slaves.

And likewise, they wouldn't have to pay taxes. Then David spoke to the men who were standing by him, saying, Now what will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should taunt, that is, mock and insult the armies of the living God? And so David hears, sees and now understands what this is all about. And so with that in mind, let's ask the question, What are the steps that will help me reach those goals that God has helped me to set in life? Well, number one, I want you to jot these down. I'm going to start them all with a C. So you have one for each finger, so you will not forget them. There are ten of them. And the first one is something that is very simple but extremely important.

It's the foundation. The first one is a clear picture. When David came upon the scene and he heard Goliath beginning to challenge the nation of Israel again and listen to what these other soldiers were saying, he got a very clear picture of what the issue was. And that is that the nation of Israel is being challenged, the very God of Israel is being challenged, the king was being challenged and the armies of Israel were being defied by one giant. So the goal was very clear to David.

That is, kill Goliath. Very simple, very plain. His goal was crystal clear in his mind. Now, if you set a goal for your life or set goals that have different time limits on them, if they're foggy, if they're hazy, if they're cloudy, if they're not certain, and if you can't write it down, it's not clear enough. David had a very clear goal and that's why he accomplished it so simply here. The second step is this, and that is a consuming desire to accomplish your goal. Now you say, well, what do you mean by consuming desire?

Well, I simply mean this. The degree of that commitment will be evidenced by the sense of real motivation and urgency and passion, enthusiasm and excitement we have about reaching that goal. If you had set a goal, for example, two years ago and you were going to, let's say, Switzerland or someplace like that, and you were going to be there for a month and you were just going to be able to enjoy yourself and you'd save up your money and you'd set that goal for two years and everything was just falling in place, would you say, I'm going to Switzerland. I hope I have a good time. I certainly desire to go many places.

No, you'd be so excited. You'd say, let me tell you what I'm going to do. Let me tell you where I'm going. Let me tell you. I got the maps.

I got all of these things. Let me tell you what's happening. You would be excited if there is no excitement about your goal, no passion about your goal. More than likely, when you get a little bit discouraged, what you're going to do is you can lay it down.

David could not lay down this goal of destroying this man who challenged the very name of God. And so I simply want to ask you, do you have a goal that's challenging you? Do you have anything on the inside of you that in the morning you wake up, you think, now, what can I do toward meeting that goal today? Or have you planned, for example, the coming week of some step that you're going to take that will help you achieve or reach that goal?

If there is no high motivation, more than likely, somebody will come along and steal it and you'll lay it down. The third step is this, and that is confidence. Confidence. Here is certainly also one of those very, very, very basic and absolutely essential steps to reaching any kind of goal.

Confidence that you can. Well, let's see if David had any confidence here. Look, if you will, in verse forty-five. Now, he's standing before this giant who's clothed with all this armor and has his sword and his armor bare and so forth. And so here he is, David standing, looking at him. Here's what he said in verse forty-five. Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you, and I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky, the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give it into our hands."

Period. Is that confidence or is it not? I mean, he's not back there in Saul's quarters talking about this. He's facing a giant, and he says, Look, I'm going to cut off your head.

I'm going to feed you to the birds. There is an awesome sense of confidence. What was that confidence based on? That confidence was not some spouting off at the mouth.

That confidence was based on, number one, past experience, bear and lion. That confidence was also based on his relationship to God. This is the young man who either before or later wrote the twenty-third Psalm. This is the young man that you and I read Psalms by all during the Scriptures when maybe oftentimes we're going through difficulty and hardships and trials and valleys in our life. And who is it in the Old Testament gives us the most courage, the most sense of confidence to face him?

It is David. His confidence was based on his past experience of successes, but most of all on his relationship to God and the fact that he could depend upon God to help him through it. Now, my friend, if you do not have confidence that you can do something, first of all, you're not going to throw all of your energy into it. If you don't have confidence that you can do it, somebody will quickly steal your goal from you. They'll be able to discourage you. Well, why do you think you can do it? Well, I have been thinking about that.

Well, I have been questioning that. If your sense of confidence is based on your energy, your strength, your knowledge, your understanding and only yours, more than likely, you're going to lay it down. But our confidence, listen, must be based ultimately on God. But listen, secondly, it must be based on the fact that we can do, we can do anything and everything Almighty God calls us to do. Whenever God requires anything of you, God assumes the responsibility to enable you, equip you and provide all the resources necessary for you to accomplish whatever he wants you to do. Therefore, God enables you to set a goal for your life, whatever that goal may be, whether it's something personal in your family, in your business, your finances, it doesn't make any difference what it is.

If God helps you and leads you to set a goal, God is committed to enabling you to fulfill that and to accomplish, achieve that goal, whatever it may be. And I think many, many people lose it right there. They say, well, I think I can. Well, I certainly hope I can. Well, I know I've seen other people do this, but you know, after all, I'm really not anybody special and I really don't have all that many skills and I'm sure there's some other folks who could do it better. So what?

That's not even the issue. The issue is what does God want you to do? What does God want you to accomplish? That is the right attitude. Confidence, listen, not egotism based on self-strength, but listen, confidence based on the living presence of the living God within you. Whatever he calls you to do, God has decided. He's already set his mind. As the Scripture says in the Psalms, God is on your side. He will enable you to accomplish whatever it is God has led you to set for a goal for your life.

Now, the fourth one I would mention here, let me just say this one other thing about that. You'll hear people say, well, I certainly hope I can. Let me tell you something. Forget this hope business when it comes to reaching goals. Well, I hope I can. Just hoping so is a confession of a little doubt, a little bit of uncertainty. Well, I certainly hope so.

Well, I'm planning it now. I'm working at it and I certainly hope I do. No, I'm confident that if God has set this goal for my life, I'm going to give it all I've got. I'm confident I'm going to accomplish this goal. It may not be the day you set, the week you set, the month you set, or even the year you set, but you know what, if you accomplish it, that's the most important thing.

We'll come to time in a moment. But the very idea of saying, well, you know, I hope so. Well, you say, well, now, don't you believe in hope? Yes, I believe in hope. But when it comes to a goal that God has given me and it's very crystal clear and he says, here's what I want you to accomplish, then I don't hope so anymore. I know so. Well, but suppose you don't see it.

That's not the issue. You see, faith ultimately is visualizing as done what God says he's willing to do in your life. And so if you and I are able to really trust him, really believe what he says, and listen and look to see what he's done in the Scriptures all the way through the Old Testament and New Testament, anytime he gave someone a responsibility, a goal to accomplish, he was there to enable them to do it.

If history proves and the Bible proves that God is there to do what he promises to do, why do you think you and I have any real legitimate reason for believing God will not enable us to achieve that goal? Well, that's three of them. Number four, that is the course of action. Now, what do I mean by that? When David got through telling him what he was going to do, Scripture says that old Goliath couldn't handle it and here he comes. And that's exactly what, now David didn't back up. When he started toward David, David started toward him. He had a very clear strategy. He had very clear steps as to exactly what he was going to do.

And so, of course, he was victorious now. It's one thing to say, well, I went home last Sunday, wrote down these goals, and I have five goals. I've got to go for my family, go personal goals, vacation, finances. I have all these goals. Praise the Lord, I'm on my way.

No, you're not. Now, that is step number one, very important that you're able to write them down. But you see, for example, if I have goals and no steps to make them work, that's like me buying this wonderful, beautiful automobile and refusing to put gasoline in it.

Well, it's good to look at, but you know what? It's not going to get me anywhere. You can have the finest and most challenging goals possible, but if you don't have some steps, if you don't have a course of action, if you don't have something that you're working on, here's the goal. Now, how do I make this goal come to pass?

It takes time. Now, it may be something for your children, something for your finances, whatever it may be, saving your money to take a trip, but you see, if you don't have steps, if you don't have a course of action, it's not going to get done. Very important that you have a course of action. The fifth step here is a calendar of events. Well, you say, what do you mean a calendar of events?

Simply this, if you don't have some time limits, it's not going to get done. One of these days, we're going to redecorate the house. One of these days, we're going to start saving money and put our kids in college. One of these days that we're going to buy us a new car. One of these days, we're going on one of those big vacations.

One of these days, one of these days, one of these days. That's a dream. That's an idea.

That may be some fantasy of yours that you're under somewhere. That's not a goal. It's got to be crystal clear. And if it's crystal clear, then you've got to decide, when do I want to accomplish this? Suppose David had said, well, I'll tell you what, I've got to go back and see my dad and I may be back at some point. If he's still out there, I'll see what I can do. No, today's the day.

Kill him right now. So, you and I have to be willing to put dates down. Now, the reason people want is they're afraid. Oh, now, you know, suppose I put a date down that doesn't work. Well, so what? So what if it doesn't work on that day? We're not omniscient. God knows we're not omniscient. And we'll put some dates down that we will accomplish them before what we thought we would.

There's some that we'll beat later, but that's not even the issue. So what if you miss it a week or a month or even a year if it's a big goal? But a course of action must have a calendar of events. When do I want to get this done? So let's say you're redecorating your house, for example, and so you say, well, by next week, I want to have chosen someone, if possible, some decorator to help me. And then in two months from now, I at least want to have a plan.

And in other words, I'm going to give myself six months or nine months to do this, whatever it might be. And so here's what happens. When you put a date down by it, everything in you begins to move.

And what happens is, listen to this carefully. Your conscious mind and your subconscious begins to go to work. Because you light a light and you're thinking, well, how would this look and how would that look? I wonder if this would fit here.

And I wonder how this carpet would be. I wonder how all these things go into your mind. So what's happening is when you are consciously thinking about one thing, your subconscious also has the antennas out and you'll come to this thought and that thought and things will click in your mind that you thought you hadn't thought about before.

What's happening? God is using every facet of your being to enable you and to help you to accomplish the goal that you've set. And so putting a date down by it is extremely important. If you're going to put a date down by your goal, you have to put a date down by the steps. Now, as I say, you wouldn't be all that concerned about putting down dates and times if it's something that is immediate. Something you have to do tomorrow.

But you think about in the business world. Most of you work somewhere that you have to give an account to someone else and you have deadlines. You have to get it done by a certain time.

It's got to be done. And they say, well, you've got 30 days to do it. You don't say, well, I've got three weeks. I can just relax and last week I may get to it.

No. There's some things that you know that if you have 30 days to do, you better get started on the first morning they give you that assignment. Well, in the Christian life, we can't afford to waste time. We can't afford to waste resources. We just have one life. Just one life.

And it soon is gone before we know it. And so whatever we're going to accomplish, whatever we're going to achieve, whatever we're going to become in life, we need to be working at it. And so part of becoming the person God wants you and me to be is that we've set, one of our steps is to attend church, listen to the Word of God, write down the principles that will help me become the person God wants me to be. Therefore, achieving that part of the goal that God has set for my life, to be a godly person, to walk in his ways and to be used of him and to be fruitful and productive for the kingdom of God. And so whatever the goal is, there are specific steps and those specific steps need some kind of a date on them or else what will happen is you'll get discouraged, you'll lay it aside and that goal will no longer be a goal in your life. Now, I would never say to somebody, you set your eye on your goal apart from God.

No. If it is a God-given goal, your eye must always be upon him. Listen, upon him to help you keep your eye on the goal, as that is accomplishments in your everyday life. He must enable you and strengthen you. And so having your eye on your goal is not a conflict because your eye ultimately is on the Lord God seeking his direction for your life and how he wants you to achieve that.

He is so willing to give us so many wonderful ideas that just out there, if we will stop to say, okay, what can I do at this point? I certainly do not want to be drifting, I don't want time to be wasted, don't want resources to be wasted, I don't want my mind to get cloudy. God, focus my attention and just seal me to what you want me to accomplish. There are some big goals in your life. If they're worthy goals, you have to keep your eye on them or else you're going to lose them and if you get your eye off of them and it's very easy to do that, you're just going to drift off and say, well, you know what? That was one of those big goals I had at China, but somewhere along the way, I guess I just laid it down.

Why? Because either you didn't have the motivation to begin with, either it was not worthy of, it did not deserve your time, deserve your energy, deserve your thought and deserve your focus. And listen, deserve your being steadfast and you lay it down.

Not a whole lot of things that would deserve all of that, but there's some things in life that deserve all of that. And I'm simply laying out the principles you have to choose between you and God what those goals are and if you can sit through all these messages on Success God's Way and end up with no goals, then my friends, you desperately need help. Because God has planned your life. He has a good plan for you. There's not a single verse in the Scripture that you can look at and say, God has a bad plan for my life. God is not looking out for my best interests.

Yes, He is, and He's looking out to do more through you than you could ever imagine if you only let Him. Thank you for listening to How to Reach Your Goals. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.