The Power of a Focused Driven Life
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· 1 viewUtilizing the Seven Pillars of life as focal points around which to build out a focused driven life in a prayerful manner.
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What does it mean to focus?
What does it mean to focus?
Origins of the word ‘focus’
Point of convergence
Hearth, fireplace
Center of activity or energy
Have you ever stared into a fire? It can be mesmerizing. There have been times, when staring at a fire, that everything else around it goes dark. This intense deep gaze occurs. This is focus. Our lives are supposed to be focused. When we have focus in our lives, we become the fire that others will stair at and be enamored by. Something will be different about us than others they know. This difference is attractive, and they will ask what it is that we have others do not. This opens an opportunity for us to share the gospel to them. because without focus you are running your life without a true aim. This is foolish and keeps you from your true potential in God.
God is beckoning us to live our lives with a deep intentionality with everything we do and with all that we are. By not doing so, we are stealing from His glory being shown all the more in our life.
One of my primary fears is to stand before God with regret in my heart for not doing all that I could and should have done in my time here on earth. I want to hear him say that I was a good and faithful servant who ran the race of my life with diligence and perseverance.
God beckons us to no longer live our lives as civilians.
We are called to be soldiers in the Lord. To be a soldier requires that we sacrifice the amenities others have and ration ourselves to servanthood, prayer, fasting, and the generous giving of our time, emotions, and finances.
No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
Getting a Vision for Your Life
Getting a Vision for Your Life
How do you obtain a vision for your life?
When I first came to the Lord, I was faced with the ominous question, how should I then live?
Lord, what should I do with my life?
I was still young in the Lord and imagined that I was God’s gift to God. That I was destined to do amazing things and become the next Billy Graham.
I was still enraptured in the humanist philosophical agenda which is contrary to the Lord and self seeking.
Though I had Christian motives, and used christian language; it was about me and what I could do and how amazing I was.
The high vision God is calling us to is disciplined holiness. We are beckoned to grow in true love before God and others, not status, money, and prestige.
Where there is no vision, the people perish:
But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Other versions say that without vision, the people will cast off restraint. This is speaking of discipline. There are many areas in the bible that point to the importance of discipline in our lives. The word beckons us that we do not live our lives as the foolish, but rather stay faithfully disciplined.
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
We are called to redeem the time.
Our God, is a redeemer. We are called to work hand in hand with him in the act of redemption.
Redemption speaks of taking something that everyone else looks over, fixing it, and restoring it to its potential.
Redeeming the time speaks of bringing heaven to earth.
We are called to bring heaven to earth.
Humanism vs. Fruitfulness in God
Humanism vs. Fruitfulness in God
Humanism
Seeks after self, not God
Is focused on what you can do for you, not on how you can serve God and others
Is rooted in what the bible refers to as ‘wisdom from below’ rather than ‘wisdom that is from above’.
Though humanism is rooted in some good truths about life, the underlying aims, goals, and ambitions are not at all. Yes, it is true we have real power with our words. Yes it is true we should have a deep integrity in life. But, we should not be seeking after our own gain in life.
But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
We are called to bear much fruit in God
We are called to bear much fruit in God
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Parable of the Sower
The Parable of the Sower
“Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.
As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
This parable teaches us that we are not fruitful in life when:
We don’t understand
We don’t persevere
We get distracted
The Seven Pillars of Life
The Seven Pillars of Life
Spiritual
Physical
Relational
Ministerial
Financial
Vocational
Recreational
Being vs. Doing
Being vs. Doing
It is important when considering these pillars that we are not to solely be focused on what we will do with our life, rather we should focus on who we will be in each arena of our life.
What I like to think of is what people will say about you when you are gone. That is how your should fundamentally orient yourself to these pillars in life.
Rather than having the goal of making a bunch of money. Be someone who is a faithful and generous steward of your finances and works as unto the Lord. The money still comes when this is done, but the longevity is based in this rather than in the obtainment of money.
This goes for the other pillars of your life as well.
Let’s say you want to write a book. This could be a part of your vocation, or ministry, or both. These pillars in life can really overlap each other.
It is more important to think about who you would need to be in order to write a book instead of focused on the goal of writing a book.
Habits and Your Identity
Habits and Your Identity
Your habits effect your identity and your identity effects you habits.
Habits mean ‘repeated beingness’
One thing about habits that can be difficult is how automatic they can become.
Some of the fight when it comes to changing things in your life, is recognizing the small things that you are doing which are taking away from your potential rather than the big things that you do.
The little things that we do every single day end up being the things that effect us the very most.
Godliness
Godliness
Our Spiritual Life
Prayer
Fasting
Reading/Meditating on the Word
Church/Fellowshipping
Our Physical Life
Diet
Exercise
Health
Learning
Skill Development
for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
and slumber will clothe them with rags.
Our Relational Life
Familial
Friendship
Our Ministerial Life
Understanding your ministerial calling
Seasons of ministry
Building up of the body of Christ
The pursuit of love
Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
1 Corinthians 12:7–11 (ESV)
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given... the utterance of wisdom... the utterance of knowledge... faith... gifts of healing... the working of miracles... prophecy… ability to distinguish between spirits… various kinds of tongues… interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Our Vocational Life
Paul was a tent maker
Jesus was a carpenter
I’m a painter
We have jobs to do!
Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you,
nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.
Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.
If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.
Our Financial Life
Giving/Generosity
Saving
Investing
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
Our Recreational Life
Planned rest recharges us for the rest of life
We must prioritize rest in the correct way, many get it backwards
Deep play as rest
You’ve Been Given One Life to Steward, What Will You Spend it On?
You’ve Been Given One Life to Steward, What Will You Spend it On?
You’ve been given one life two live. Not two, not three, but one. And what you do with it matters. Each moment matters. And You don’t know how many moments you have left. Your life is a vapor. It’s here one second, and gone the next.
Every thought, every action, every choice that you make, matters. It all adds up. And you will be judged for the way you have stewarded your life on this side of eternity. You will have to answer for everything that you have done.
We serve a bridegroom, king, and judge named Jesus Christ, and he has called us to be like him.