FBC Daily Devotional – October 25, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Monday morning to you, starting off a new week, and I hope it's getting off to a good start. I hope your week got off to a good start.

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Yesterday, as you were able to gather together with God's people, worship the

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Lord together, did you learn something yesterday? What did you learn from God's Word as it was taught or preached yesterday?

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Do you remember? Remember what the theme of the message was in the morning service or key passage, key thoughts that you came away with?

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By the way, I just encourage you when you go to church to take a notebook with you.

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I don't have to be an elaborate thing. I wouldn't say an eight and a half by eleven thing or anything like that. You might even have,

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I have something that I would use if I were in such a place. I've used these kinds of things at conferences and so forth, but I have a little notebook.

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It's about this size. How big is that? About as big as my head. Really, it's what, maybe five by nine,

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I think is maybe the size of that notebook. But anyway, you take a notebook like that with you to church just to write down some key thoughts.

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Not talking about an outline. Don't worry about that. But, you know, what are some key ideas that the

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Lord is communicating through His Word to you in that Sunday school lesson or in that service?

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Just an idea. I think if you have trouble sometimes staying focused during church, just that simple little exercise can help you.

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Having a pen in your hand and a notebook or piece of paper or something like that, that can be very helpful to help you stay focused and concentrated.

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Well, anyway, that's free. That's a sidebar and doesn't really have anything to do with our scripture reading today, and I wanted to just focus on one verse from the

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Bible reading plan and today's scheduled reading. You know, in my many years, 40 some years in ministry, over the years,

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I've accumulated several books from a Christian as well as a secular perspective having to do with administration, leadership stuff, you know, goal setting and planning and all that kind of thing.

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One popular book not too long ago came out, I guess probably six or seven years ago anyway, was entitled

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Visioneering. It had the idea of getting a vision for your ministry.

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There's some good stuff in those books. They've been helpful to me in a lot of ways.

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I always, at the beginning of each year, sit down and think through some goals for the coming year.

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Of course, in any goal setting structure or plan that you follow, that plan should not only guide you in establishing some goals, but then in developing a way to achieve those goals, you know, a step -by -step process to achieving those goals.

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And, you know, so I've gone through all that kind of stuff and many cases found it to be very helpful.

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But today's verse, the verse that I want to focus on, helps to put those guiding books in perspective.

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It's Proverbs 16 and verse 9. It says, A man's heart plans his way.

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Now, no, there's no criticism here. There's no criticism of that at all.

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The writer of Proverbs is not condemning that. He's stating that as a fact. That's what we do.

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You know, God made us that way. God made us to have plans that come from our heart.

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Our heart, remember, has to do with how we think, what we desire, what we love, and what we choose.

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And so, you know, the things we think about, the desires we have within us, what we love, and our will, those things are going to work together.

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Our heart is going to develop and formulate some plans, some goals, a vision, if you will, for things down the road.

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And that's a, that's really a natural thing to take, to occur. But the second part of that verse helps put the first part of verse in perspective.

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Because here's the thing, how many times have you developed some goals, established some goals?

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Maybe like I do at the beginning of the year, you know, say by the end of this year, I want to achieve this, this, this, and this, and this.

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And then you get to the end of the year, and as you look back, I mean, some of those you never accomplish.

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You just don't, you just don't accomplish them. And as you look back, you see maybe three or four months into the year, something came up that just totally derailed that particular goal.

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So that it wasn't even a realistic goal anymore. And maybe you had to reformulate it or just scrap it all together.

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Well, why is that? Because of the second part of the verse. It says, the first part, a man's heart plans his way.

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But the second part of the verse says, but the Lord directs his steps. The Lord directs his steps.

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So, yeah, I have some goals for the balance of this year and even have some steps laid out for the achieving of some of those goals.

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But what I have to recognize and submit to that is the fact that my day -to -day walk, the steps of my everyday walk, are established by the

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Lord. So there may be some things that the Lord sees fit to send my way that will completely destroy the achieving of those goals.

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And I have to be okay with that, you see. I have to be all right with that. So this verse helps me to put that goal setting, that planning, all of that stuff into perspective.

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And it should help me to live with a sense of submission rather than a sense of frustration and and aggravation when those goals aren't accomplished.

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They're not achieved. Now, and again, we're talking about, you know, how the

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Lord will providentially work in our lives to derail some of those things. We're not talking about, you know, laziness and that kind of thing that just, you know, causes us to not achieve those goals.

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Sometimes we don't achieve goals because what we wanted to do at the beginning of the year, by the time we get three or four months into it, we've lost interest in that thing.

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And it's just not what we want to do anymore. And that's, I think, too, a work of the work of the

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Lord. Because we also know that the Lord gives a man who trusts Him the desires of his heart.

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And it is the desires of the heart that make the plans. Whatever the case, let's let's have this perspective on our our long -term goals, our short -term goals, that we, nothing wrong with having them, and they're good to have.

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It helps keep keep us moving forward and keep us moving in a particular direction. But in the end, we we trust the accomplishment of those things and the day -to -day steps toward those things.

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We we submit those things to the Lord. So let's have that perspective as we go through our days.

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All right. Well, Heavenly Father, I do thank you for just helping us to to have a good perspective on some things that could otherwise frustrate us or discourage us, perhaps even make us angry.

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Lord, I pray we'd have submissive hearts even to the day -to -day step arrangement that you have for our lives.

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We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Well, I hope you have a good rest of your