Pastor Rick Warren: Faith Helps You Focus Your Goals

1. You need to set goals because it is a spiritual responsibility.

If you don’t have goals for your life, you have already decided to let other people run your life. When you don’t decide in advance what’s important, you’re letting other people decide. You end up wasting your life, because you haven’t clarified how you want to grow as a follower of Christ.

The Bible says that to be spiritually mature, you have to set your goals and move toward them as you keep your eyes focused on them.

“I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has taken hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize . . . I run toward the goal, so that I can win the prize of being called to heaven. This is the prize that God offers because of what Christ Jesus has done. All of us who are mature should think in this same way” (Philippians 3:12, 14-15 CEV).

2. You need to set goals because they are statements of faith.

If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ and you set a goal, you’re saying, “I believe that God wants me to accomplish this by this time. This is what I believe God is going to do in my life.”

Goals aren’t just a statement of faith. They stretch your faith. The bigger your goal, the more your faith will be stretched. And that pleases God.

Ephesians 3:20 says, “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!” (The Message).

3. You need to set goals because they focus your energy.

Focus is the key to an effective life. If you spread your energy out and diffuse it over a whole bunch of things, you’ll make no impact at all. But if you focus your life, it’s going to be powerful, and it will change the world.

You don’t have time to do everything. But here’s the good news: God doesn’t expect you to do everything! The key to being effective in life as a follower of Jesus is to do what matters most and forget everything else. Goals help you maintain that kind of focus.

“I do not run without a goal. I fight like a boxer who is hitting something—not just the air” (1 Corinthians 9:26 NCV).