Planning is vital to success in life. Few people become successful by accident; it happens because we have a goal and a passion for that goal. We utilize organizational tools, seminars, consultations with successful people and spend time dreaming about what we want or who we want to be.  So what about our spiritual success?

I am not purporting a “health, wealth and self philosophy”; I am talking about Biblical success as defined in Joshua 1:8. Joshua challenges the people to meditate and obey the Word of God and says the result is to be prosperous and successful. Before we view this as a formula for spiritual success, we need to examine what the verse truly says.

Joshua says that we should “meditate day and night”. This is not a casual perusal of the scriptures. You do not get the idea he refers to the Bible as a magic lamp containing a genie. He is talking about consistently thinking about the Word so we can obey what we know. Although reading the Bible enriches us personally, his challenge is to meditate so we can obey what we read.

As we set our family, physical, financial and personal goals for 2010 let’s not overlook the spiritual realm. What are your spiritual goals for 2010? What specific areas of growth do you want to target this year? What is your spiritual focus?

Several years ago I began setting a yearly spiritual theme and this has proven to be a tremendous personal blessing. For example, some of my past themes have been prayer, God’s attributes, scripture memory, and worship. This does not mean that I think about these concepts to the exclusion of others. What it means is that my goal is a thematic focus for the year.

Having a theme guides my Bible study, scripture memory and reading. I do not necessarily think about it every day. It simply ebbs and flows as I do life. I have found that it provides instant conversation when I am with other believer as I am interested in what they have discovered on that topic in their spiritual journey.  

I want to conclude with a quote from J. Oswald Sanders taken from his book Enjoying Intimacy with God: “A successful fruitful ministry does not just happen -it is purchased. It cannot be paid in a lump sum; we pay for it in gradually increasing installments. There is no such thing as a cheap, fruitful ministry.”