Recently South Carolina pastor Perry Noble made public the goal of seeing 3000 people come to Christ in one weekend. Unfortunately, they didn’t see 3000 people come to Christ… they saw 1,251.

1,251 people!

It’s not 3,000 but it’s not too shabby either!

This tremendous victory simply illustrates the power of leader totally committed to God, the power of believing God for big things, the power behind faith, and the power of setting concrete goals.

Goals??

What do goal have to do with spiritual victories like this?

Everything!

Most people can see the power of goals in things like career advancement, getting out of debt, wealth accumulation, and such; but not for things like evangelism and “spiritual victories.”

And yet they fail to realize the universal application of goal setting.

The Power of Goals

The Bible itself is very clear about the power of goals:

“Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time;  it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:2-3 NASB)

 “If your goals are good, you will be respected.” (Proverbs 11:27 GNT)

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, speaks ardently about setting and reaching goals. Charles Lawless Jr, former Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and evangelism, spoke about setting goals for evangelism. Michael Hyatt, former CEO of Thomas Nelson publishers, spoke about using goals to turn around a badly run division when he was a publisher.

The fact is this: goals are powerful!

But many people rely solely on waiting for “the vision to come to pass.” But make no mistake about it: vision and goals are inseparable.

What are the benefits to goal setting? I’m glad you asked:

1. Goal Setting Helps The Brain

It’s been estimated that human only use 10% of the brains power is used while 90% lies dormant. One of the ways to harness the latent potential of the brain is through goals.Why? The brain loves goals! When goals are set, dopamine is released in the brain. A motivated brain will be rewarded along the way to the achievement by the release of these chemicals. The brain is a “goal seeking mechanism”-it derives its greatest pleasure from overcoming objectives.

2. Goal Setting Activates the Reticular Activation System

The brain receives millions of bits of information per second and that information goes through a filtering process. The Reticular Activation or (RAS) is the brain’s filter it decides what to accept or reject. So whenever you have a vision and that vision is made plain with goals, the RAS is activated to notice anything that will help achieve that goal.

3. God Gets Behind Goals

It has to do with the Law of Faith:

“According to your faith, so be it unto you.”

One of things Michael Hyatt,as it related to vision and goal setting, was NOT to focus on the “how” too early but the “what”:

“The problem is that people get stuck on the how. They don’t see how they could accomplish more, so they throttle back their vision, convinced that they must be “realistic.” And, what they expect becomes their new reality. This is simply faith applied negatively.”

It’s also been said that:

“Goals are the rudder of our lives, and God’s wisdom is the wind filling the sails.”

Now your “boat” is going somewhere, my question is this: where are you going? Have you started the process of goal setting?

P.S.: While you’re here why not download 4 free chapters of my book here.

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Michael – who has written 77 posts on The Simple Strategies for Startups Blog.

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