Power of a Focused Life

Session 1: Getting a Life Vision

I.Made for Something Bigger:

It is no surprise to us that focused people in the professional world are able to accomplish far more than those who don’t. Living with focus in this life is powerful even for the lost; as believers however we have been given only a short time to grow in our relationship with Christ and to do the will of God. If we are going to make the most out of this life then we need to have a life vision that aligns with what we want, the Word of God and that is centered around having a radical pursuit of God. The Power of a Focused Life looks at the strength that is available to us when we live with measurable goals in mind; the hope of this series is to help us to develop time management skills so that we can live productive, intentional lives in this age.

  1. The Tragedy of Living Aimlessly:

There is an entire generation out there living without purpose, going from one event to the next, one season of life to the next without any real aim of what they are trying to accomplish. We’ve been given this precious gift called life and it will be what we make of it so we don’t want to our life but rather invest it in something. Paul addresses this issue of aimlessness and exhorts us to walk in self-discipline and to have our goals in mind.

“Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize (1Co. 9:26-27).”

  1. Made to Live Wholeheartedly:

We were made to live wholeheartedly, living with focus isn’t just a powerful way to live it’s how we were created to live. God forged us to be being that operate best when we are able to give ourselves fully to something, it is both fulfilling to our hearts and it is when we are the most effective in our natural circumstances. When we aren’t giving ourselves fully to something we get bored because our body soul and emotions are engaged at their fullest potential.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men (Co. 3:23).”

  1. Made for Radical Pursuit:

What we were primarily made for is to give ourselves into a radical pursuit of the Living God. We are supposed to be provoked by the men and women of the scriptures who knew God and shared deep fellowship with Him. I can remember my first year in Christ thinking that there was no reason why I couldn’t know God like Moses did or like Paul did, that the only thing in my way was me. We were actually made to be like them in this; that we would pursuit God with a radical abandonment and have intimate friendship with Him. This is what we were created for.

“Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Mt. 22:37).”

  1. Our Need for Focus:

When we live without focus our efforts are scattered and our lives are directionless. We need to have vision for our lives so that we can tap into the power and joy of living a focused life. We need to have vision cast for us and then we have to labor to keep that vision in front of us.

Where there is no vision, the people perish (Pr. 29:18 KJV)

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint (Pr. 29:18 NIV)

II.Developing Your Life Vision:

We need to get a life vision that actually has in mind the things that we really care about and want to see developed. It’s good to even have apersonal vision statement about what you want your life to be about.

  1. Knowing What You Want:

For us to have vision for our lives means that we know what we want to accomplish. It means thinking critically about what’s important and where we want to be headed.

  1. Pressing Past Our Past:

We can’t dwell on past mistakes or past successes; that will only keep us from moving forward. We have to press delete on our past, whatever we’ve done or whatever we haven’t done, it’s time to make a fresh start and press on towards the prize.

“I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus(Php. 3:13-14).”

  1. The Path to a Focused Life:

Wherever we have been or however we’ve been living its time to set ourselves on the path to living with purpose. I’ve written down a few simple ideas that will help point us in the right direction.

  1. Identify your primary purposes in this life.
  2. Think about what you want to be known by in this life.
  3. Think about what you want to be remembered for when you’re gone.
  4. Develop your life vision with all of this in mind.
  1. Make a Life Vision Statement:

Perhaps you’ve never thought to do this before; take some time alone this week and think about it. What do you really want to be about? Don’t write stuff that’s not real, make your vision statement a true reflection of what you want and are willing to work towards. Make it yours, no one else’s opinion matters besides the Lord’s on this one.

  1. Description:

Examples of what this could look like might include things like wanting to be the best this or that, wanting to always be growing in certain areas, or to be known for something specific.

  1. Concepts not goals:

We will touch on life goals later on; when drafting your vision statement you want to make it simple and more about concepts that are the most important to you rather than making it about tangible accomplishments. It should be something you can easily remember and not include so many things that it’s impossible to live.

  1. My life vision statement:

To love God and to be a great example of what it means to do His will at all costs while loving well those He’s given me.

  1. Applying Your Life Vision:

Don’t stop there; it’s not enough to simply have a vision statement; now you will need to think through how that vision statement plays out in the specific areas of your life. Until you think through things at this level you don’t have any way to actually ensure that what you value is actually what you will become.

III.Getting a Right Perspective:

There are far too many who are living for themselves, for their own pleasures or without any focus at all. They live as though God wasn’t real and this life was theirs to waste; how we live actually matters, what we give ourselves to actually matters.

  1. The Judgment Seat of Christ:

As followers of Jesus it is important that we remember that each of us will have to stand before God and give an account of our lives. He is watching over our lives and He takes notice at the way that live and what we do with this life He has given us.

“we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God (Ro. 14:10-12).”

“we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad (2Co. 5:9-10).”

  1. The Reality of Eternity:

We want to live in light of eternity, there is an eternal God sitting on a throne in Heaven who promises to reward us according to the way that we live. It is imperative that we get a Heavenly mindset and begin to view life through the lens of eternity; that God is watching and desires to reward us. Those rewards however will not be just given out they are diligently worked for.

“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done (Re. 22:12).”

“God “will repay each person according to what they have done (Ro. 2:6).”

  1. Getting Perspective:

It can be very helpful to spend some time thinking about what it is that we want said about us once this life is finished and we transition into the next life. To think about what we want said of us can have a powerful impact on how we spend ourselves in this age.

  1. Heaven’s Perspective:

Heaven’s perspective matters the most, what will be the honest assessment about how you lived and what you gave yourself to? What do you want said about you from the Lord at the end?

  1. Your Family’s Perspective:

After this life is finished what do you want the testimony from your own family to be?

  1. Man’s Perspective:

What example do you want to leave about the way that you lived, the life that people saw? In other words how do you want to be remembered?

IV.Developing Life Goals:

When we think about life with all of this in mind it changes things, it causes us to think more critically about our goals. We want to develop life goals that reflect who we want to be remembered as in the record of our life and what we are wanting to become in this life. For this to be effective we need to include both short and long term goals in our processing because these pursuits impact us differently. These goals are going to encompass every area of your life, not just your spiritual growth. You want to include things like financial goals, relational goals as well as ministry and career goals.

“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed (Pr. 16:3).”

  1. Long-Term Goals:

Long-term goals allow you to keep the broad picture about life in mind so that the day to day is kept in perspective. I would consider long-term goals to be anything 10 years or over. These are the types of things that you’re willing to make an investment in for the long haul and that will probably take that long. Some of the things you may put on this list are tangible and some aren’t.

  1. Having a strong marriage:

Something like wanting to have a strong marriage in ten years is certainly a good goal but it’s the kind of thing that you measure as more of a benchmark that you want to continually be making progress on as opposed to a definable accomplishment.

  1. Home ownership:

But having a plan like owning your own home and being at a place financially where you can afford to pay all your bills is a very measureable and tangible goal that you can work toward.

  1. Immediate Short-Term Goals:

Short-term goals are the immediate things that you want to be working on in life; think of these in terms of being goals you can measure in 3-5 month time frames. You want these to be very specific about your short-term goals making the parameters clear so that you can know whether you met your goal or not. While long term goals are difficult to put an exact date on at the onset you absolutely want to have definable dates for your short-term goals to keep you focused.

  1. Spending a set amount of time each day in prayer.
  2. Spending a certain amount of time on certain relationships.
  3. Studying a particular subject in the Word a set amount of hours.
  1. Seasonal Goals:

Lastly we get to seasonal goals, which can be qualified a number of ways, but in general, we’re talking about the next 2-3 years of your life. These are the kinds of things that you don’t want to wait ten years to measure but a few months isn’t enough time to get the job done to see the results that you want.

  1. Giving or saving up a certain amount of money.
  2. Maintaining an active Bible study action plan (topics will change).
  3. Launching a ministry, business or particular endeavor.
  1. Developing an Action Plan:

After we have some goals written out then it’s time to develop an action plan. This is where scheduling starts to come in; we want to have tangible strategies for how to accomplish each long term, short-term and seasonal goal if we actually want to make any headway on them. We will not just suddenly become all that we want, we have to make a plan for each area of our life that we want to see transformed.

V.Major Areas to Focus On:

As you are thinking about your goals and perhaps trying to get a picture of the types of things that you want to focus on it can be helpful to have a starting point. Our last session will be all about scheduling the things that we say are important to usinto our busied lives. This section is just a snap shot of some of the major areas that you may want to start thinking about how to make goals related to these things.

A.Spiritual Health:

The most important thing in life is that we have a vibrant relationship with the Lord. As we know, that only comes from investment of significant time and energy.

1.Developing a prayer life.

2.Having fasting days.

3.Being in the Word.

4.Growing in the fruit of the spirit.

B.Economic Health:

We need a good financial plan centered around sowing into the Kingdom and providing for the life the Lord has apportioned to us.

1.Budget your regular spending.

2.Have a giving budget.

3.Savings and investing.

C.Relational Health:

The most precious things in life are the relationships, beginning with our friendship with God and then extended to every person that we’ve been given some measure of relationship with.. Having healthy friendships, ministry relationships and happy home life all take investment. These all take time to develop and maintain and the hardest part about this is that you only have so much time so you have to figure out who you are going to give how much attention to so that you don’t spend more time than you intended in places that really aren’t your priority. If you aren’t intentional about this you will end up cheating those who are really important to you.

1.Relationships with your family.

2.Friendships and discipleship relationships.

3.Ministry and business relationships.

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