Is your mind set on a specific goal? Or does your mind jump from one thing to another? Is there an overarching focus that guides you each day? Or do you allow each day to dictate how you approach life? Is your focus on what is above? Or are you focused on what is below?
Successful people set long-term goals and intermediary steps to achieve those goals. They pursue their goals one step at a time and track their progress. Achieving those intermediary steps not only track progress but boosts their energy and focus toward achieving their goal.
But setting goals and intermediary steps is only the beginning. It requires discipline to achieve each step and the goal. It requires keeping in mind the end goal and using it to encourage us to continue to pursue it. There also needs to be a desire to achieve the goal. If we do not have a strong desire and the discipline to continue to pursue the goal, we will give up.
The Apostle Paul encourages the members of the church in Colossae to set their goal on God’s kingdom rather than on their earthly life. These people may have been persecuted for their faith. The persecution may have been as simple as being denied a job and as extreme as being arrested and tortured. Paul is reminding them that they have a reward far better than anything this life can offer.
Included in our focus on what is above is spending time in prayer. Rather than asking that God provide an easy life, we are to ask that God guide us on the path he wants us to walk. As we ask God to guide us, we must be willing to follow his lead. If we are unwilling, our focus is not on him but on what we want from this life. We must always remember that by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have committed our lives to Him.
I pray we all set our minds on the things of God. I pray we are willing to follow the path God leads us on. I pray each one of us know that we are in Christ and have committed our lives to Him. Set your mind on God. Be willing to follow God. You are in Christ. Christ is in you.
Colossians 3:2-3 Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Marty Pressey 