Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of having a focused life, rooted in a clear vision that guides our choices and actions. He references Proverbs 29:18, explaining that without vision, people live aimlessly and waste their potential. Bickle encourages individuals to develop a specific life vision that aligns with God's purpose, which can lead to disciplined living and fulfillment of one's destiny. He shares personal anecdotes about how he and his family cultivated their visions and goals, stressing the importance of measurable objectives and an actionable plan to achieve them. Ultimately, he calls believers to redeem their time wisely to walk in their God-given purpose.

The power of a focused life. That's been a subject that I've put a lot of time and energy and over the years in terms of my own personal life is wanting to have my life focused because I understand a little bit of the power of our present-day choices. The way we carry our heart is related to the vision that we have and the vision that we have is what brings focus to our life. Actually, we're going to look at Proverbs chapter 29. A very well-known passage of Scripture Proverbs 29 verse 18 where there is no vision the people perish that's from the King James Version where there is no vision. When people cannot identify a clear vision for their life purpose, then they perish. It means that they waste their life that they live aimlessly. They drift through life without any anchors in their life. Now the new King James says it a little bit differently, but it means exactly the same thing. It says where there is no revelation and I prefer the word where there is no vision meaning if there is no clarity in the heart about where a person is committed to go. That's what it's talking about revelation or a clarity on the inside about where your life is headed and what God's purpose is for your life and and what it is that you're aiming to be. Anyway, it says where there is no revelation the people cast off restraint. It means they live undisciplined. They cast restraint off. They don't use their time and their money, right? They live aimlessly. They're wandering about now. If we want to walk in the fullness of our calling in the Lord, which we do it is very important to have a clear vision that's established in our heart. Now that vision might change over the years, but we always want to have a clearly defined vision in our heart. In other words, we want to picture the future in a certain way and when I'm talking about a vision, I'm not just talking about boy. I hope I'm rich one day and happy. I'm talking about something more specific than that a famous psychologist Viktor Frankl who went through the Nazi concentration camps and suffered greatly and he survived those camps and went on to become a world-renowned psychologist and he is one of his premise statements was that what forms a person more is what they believe about the future even more than how they suffered in the past. I'm going to say that again Viktor Frankl this world-renowned psychologist. He said what forms a person what determines how they live is what they believe about their future. That's even more powerful than what they suffered in their past. And of course he went through the Nazi concentration camp. So he suffered greatly and he did a study of the survivors and he said that the primary thing that determined that who went on to live a successful life was the was the survivors of the camp that had a clear vision of where they were going because they all suffered in a very similar way, but some could never get through the suffering and others got through it because they had a clear picture of where they were going. So having a clear picture where we're going in our life is one of the most powerful formative forces in our life and many people even believers. They don't have that clear picture now. I mean they do believe they're going to go to heaven. So they have the picture in that sense, but I'm talking about what it is. They're going to do with in the next 10 20 30 years. I heard a preacher say that if you don't have something to die for you don't have anything to live for. What is the issue that you will give everything for and you're blessed if you have something that you will give everything for and a lot of folks what they will give everything for is just happiness in the generic sense and if happiness is your goal, then it will always elude you because happiness is the fruit of having a vision that's in the will of God a will of God vision for a happiness blessedness is the fruit of that. But if happiness becomes the vision then happiness eludes us and we live frustrated and disappointed all of our days. So I encourage people to take time talk to the Lord. You can't do this like just in just one moment, but take some time and develop a clear vision a clear picture of how you see yourself 10 20 30 40 years from now how you see your life and what you want to do in the primary sense and what you want to be in the primary sense. I mean, it's what we want to be is really what our vision is the most important part, but it's also what we want to do in those that main broad stroke sense like, you know, I really want to impact people for the Lord or or I want to be involved in this kind of profession and I want to the Lord to use me in that profession to do this or that but it's that sense of vision that will that will capture our hearts and actually cause us to live in restraint and restraint is another term for living with discipline living focused is another way to say that now the best way I have here in paragraph a to help somebody establish discipline in their life has helped them get a clear vision for their life. It's very difficult to get people disciplined for the sake of discipline really hard to do and I found very effective is instead of calling them to discipline as a thing of itself give them a new picture of what they can be they buy into the picture. They will live disciplined undisciplined people have a vision problem not a laziness problem as a rule. They have a vision problem. I remember when our sons we have two boys myself and Diane there in their 30s now, but when they were 8 9 10 12, I mean all their their days of their young life. We would want to call them to live a disciplined life and I never use the word discipline. I always employed or certainly the majority of time. I employed helping them get a picture of what their life would be because I know if they got a picture of what they wanted to be when they were 8 years old, even if the picture changed many times and it did change quite a few times, but it didn't matter that it changed because without a picture they would live idle and lazy as a rule. I mean just kids will they get a picture they'll employ their time and their energy and they'll be gripped by something. I didn't overly care what the picture was as long as wholesome and they went from you know, fireman to policeman to pro football player, you know, they went right through the list like a lot of kids do and then they landed on what they really want to be after a few years. But when I would want them to be disciplined, I would always work on helping them form a picture of what their life would be in the future and I have found that as a pastor that's a effective way to disciple people. They're stuck in sin and they're stuck in aimlessness and they can't see any reason and pouring themselves out work on helping them get a vision a vision they can buy in really buy into it can't be your vision for them. It has to be a vision that they buy into and moms and dads and future moms and dads as you raise children spend. I mean, I put a lot of time on this helping our two sons to to cultivate that picture in their mind like we would sit down and talk and I remember maybe I overdid it because a few times they're 8 9 10 12 years old. They're going are we going to have that talk about what we want to be in the future again? I go. Well, I think it's an important dog. Well, we've already talked about that many times and I asked them many questions. I couldn't tell them what they could be. I didn't want to tell them. I wanted to ask them. I wanted to draw it out and they had to buy into it. It couldn't be my vision for them. That is disaster. You give your vision to your children. I'm talking to future moms and dads mostly in this room. They will often resist and really be troubled by that but rather someone taught me before we had children help them to see their own vision and it's the same thing with pastoring people. It's the same thing with discipling people. It's the same thing with trying to bring people to wholeness and to healing help them see a new picture of what their life will be the end of paragraph a Howard Hendricks a teacher at Dallas theological seminary. He's he had this statement that I heard him say this when I was about 16 years old and I've never forgotten it. He said without a vision any road will get you there and he said a lot of people don't have a vision. That's why they're hitting the target because if you have nothing to aim for then you're always kind of hitting the target in your own imagination. He goes without a clear vision. You can be aimless and still get where you're going and that sentence really impacted me when I was about 16 17 years old without a vision any road will get you there and I determined I wanted to be a person that had a clear vision and as over the years sometimes that visions been tweaked and changed, but I'm just talking about the power of a vision paragraph B. Well Proverbs 29 says where there is no vision the people perish and to perish in a practical application means to miss out on your life destiny. It doesn't mean necessary to die physically to perish in that way but to live a wasted life in the negative sense to live to squander your destiny to squander your life resources and get nowhere with your life resources to get nowhere in the Lord to go nowhere. That's what it means to perish to miss out on your life destiny without a vision. We squander our destiny. I mean what a horrible thing. There's nothing in the world that I fear more than regret. I mean, I have several fears but regret is the thing I fear more than anything else to stand before the Lord on the last day with regret is unthinkable. That is an unthinkable tragedy to live. We have the Word of God. We have the Spirit of God. We're in a godly community of believers and to end up standing before the Lord with a deep regret about the way I spent my time and my money in my energy. I can't imagine anything more tragic than that on the last day. Well, the other translation says where there is no Revelation or vision that people cast off restraint and again to cast off restraint means we live aimless. It means we don't use our resources in a way that helps us walk out the calling of God on our life or the will of God for our life. Paragraph C. Now when I talk about our life vision, I'm talking about what it is that we believe God wants us to do and God wants us to be and I'm not talking about what you're supposed to do in a three-month period or a two-year period. I'm talking about a 70-year. I'm talking about the big picture. What is it you believe God wants you to be and what do you believe that God wants you to do as your primary occupation in your life? So what are you supposed to be spiritually before him and what are you supposed to do not the thousands of things that you do through the course of 70 years 70 plus years, but it's one of the one or two primary things you will do and engage in for even decades that you would do those things. How is it that God wants us to spend our life resources? Now when I think of our life resource, I think of our time as being probably our primary life resource. Well, our affection that would be our primary life resource right up there next to time. Our money is what we often think about as our primary life resource money is very very important, but our time and affections are actually more important of a life resource and we can squander that resource. We can waste it aimlessly. God wants us to excel in our spiritual life and our natural life and in the relational aspects of our of our life and what what the Lord would mean by Excel might be different than what the Western culture would mean by Excel. God wants us to grow in love not necessarily to grow in Fame. Now, he might make some of you famous, but that's not the goal that you'd be famous. But the goal is you'd grow in love. You grow in humility. You would grow in faithfulness to him that you would grow in your ability relationally to walk in love and excel in that. So when I think of vision, what is it that we really want to accomplish? What is the primary thing we want to hear when we stand before the Lord on the last day? And I mean, obviously we want to hear well done good faithful service servant, but I mean even a little more specific than that when the Lord looks at our time and money and our energy and affection. What what would we like him to think and say to us about the way we spent our time? That day now when I was about 18 years old our our youth pastors our youth leaders. They were really big on this subject of helping all the young people get a life vision. So they they walked us through an exercise that helped us identify our life vision and we talked about it. And by the way at the end of this message, we're going to have a little small group time for about four or five in a group and you don't have to participate in it, but we're going to talk about what a what a good schedule would be for an I help you student because we're going to work on schedule in a few minutes to think it through what would be a typical schedule not necessarily for you exactly but for what would be an ideal schedule that somebody should be aiming for and of course, we have a few non I hop you students here and we'll have you in a group as well and you'll be able to we'll just a little talk about it with each other and we're going to have you fill out a form here at the on the second page here in the last page and kind of walk that out together for a few minutes then hand that into us then we're going to post some of those to give others of you ideas on what some of you are thinking is a good way to schedule our life and to prioritize the way that we spend our time and money, etc. We'll get there in just a few moments. But anyway, when I was about 18 years old, they really focused on this and and the group I was a part of so I wrote down. I mean we had a lot of dialogue around it and I got ideas from others. I figured out the primary life vision that I wanted the primary life vision and then I worked on my main occupation. Those were the two things that we focused on in terms of our life vision what we want to be in God and what do we want to do as our primary occupation or you might have even two or three primary occupations over the course of 70 or 80 years and I wrote down that I want to be a godly extravagant worshiper of God. I wanted to be a godly extravagant worshiper of God and equipped anointed deliverer of people. So I wrote that down and 40 years later that is still that's still the sentence I use when I talk to the Lord not that you can't change that key sentence, but I said above everything. I want to be a godly extravagant worshiper. I mean, I want to be wholehearted. I don't want to find out how little I have to give of myself to the Lord. I want to know how far will you let me go? How abandoned will you let me be? When I mean worshiper, I'm not talking about a style of expression in a worship service. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about living a lifestyle of worship of abandonment to God with godly worship. I said Lord, I want to be as godly. I want you to give me as much as you will give the human spirit in this age. I want to live as godly and I want to be as extravagant as a responder in love. Worship to me means to respond in love as I can be, but that's not all I want to be. I want to be an equipped anointed deliverer of people. I don't want to just worship you and love you. I want to learn the word. I want to learn how to operate in the spirit so I can deliver other people from darkness in the name of Jesus and make them anointed. I mean godly extravagant worshipers as well. So I wrote that down and I have 40 years later. That's still the primary thing that I'm wanting to pour my life energy into. When I think of how I use my time and my money, that's what I want the Lord to talk to me about on the last day. You really were a godly man in your generation and you were extravagant the way you gave yourself to me. Oh, those are the words. I want to hear something like that. And I want to hear him say you were skillful equipped in the way you minister to people and you learned how to operate in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. You actually helped people in the spirit to be free and to touch me. And of course, I want to hear well done good faithful servant, but I want to I want to I want to hear some more detail behind it than just well done. Although that I'll take well done. I'll go with that, but I want more than that. And so I'm talking about what is the primary thing that you will give yourself to then? What is your main occupation for your life? When I was 18 years old, I wanted to be a medical doctor and my goal was to go to the mission field. My hero was Jay Hudson Taylor. I read three of his biographies when I was 17 years old. He was a medical doctor and he was a went to China and I just loved his life. And so I actually because I want to be a medical doctor. I gave myself to my school and studies in a way to prepare for that and I actually got accepted into med school. And so I was on the way accepted to med school lover of Jesus on my way. I shifted from going to China. I decided I was going to throw my life into Mexico and I was going to be a missionary a medical missionary in Mexico and be an anointed deliverer of people and an extravagant worshiper of Jesus as a medical doctor doing the work of missions in Mexico. Well, my occupation didn't exactly end up right after I got accepted into med school. Very it was a very sad moment of my life when I'm not going to give you the details right now. But when the Lord interrupted me and said, yes, you're accepted, but that's not what I want you to do. And I thought I can't fathom this. I mean, it was a sad moment when he said, no, I want you to be a going to the full-time ministry in the traditional sense of being a pastor being a preacher making it your full-time occupation. I always taught a few Bible studies, but I never imagined being a preacher. I thought I'm a preacher. I'm going to be a doctor and lead people to the Lord one on one and pray for the sick while I'm doing it. So my primary life vision did not change when I laid aside the met the vision to be a doctor when my occupational vision changed. My main vision did not change. I still wanted to be an extravagant worshipper and an anointed deliverer. That has stayed the same. Then it shifted my occupation. I go pastor. I thought I mean, honestly, I thought I really did. I thought why I don't want to be a pastor that you know, I had I had an idea of pastors that kind of wimpy and kind of not anyway, I won't go into that but I just didn't at all relate to that and I grew up with a a champion. My father was a champion boxer and international champion and won all kinds of titles and he thought pastor my son the pastor you got to be kidding me. And so that was a little bit of a of a rough moment as well. But your primary life vision doesn't need to change. If you're if you're occupational your main occupational vision does change but you want to lock in and the Lord may change that occupation but you want to be given to whatever the your vision is until the Lord changes it meaning don't be ambivalent. Maybe right now you say, you know, I could yeah, I could take that vision. You said, you know, godly anointed worship extravagant worship that good that works and you can have it. It's free. It's free to take our copyrights the right to copy if you like it. It's yours. You may change the words a little bit and maybe your occupation. I've met some very godly women. They said my primary occupation is to be a wife and a mother in my home. That's my primary occupation. While my my vision in the spirit is to be a worshiper and a deliverer. But my primary thing is to raise and and establish a godly family and to give myself to my grandchildren and those kinds of things. That's a glorious occupation. But it's you don't want that occupation separated from being a worshiper and a deliverer. You want that first in place but when you think of occupation don't go straight to something like our Western culture will tell us to something that makes you famous or makes you rich. There's nothing wrong with being famous and rich, but that's not the goal. We want to do the task or the assignment that we were built for and I know a lot that have given themselves to education. They wanted to go and not only transform an educational system, but touch those children in the classroom. I know some that want to be a coach or a music teacher. I know some that want to get into politics or the military or anyway can be whatever occupation that grips you and if some years go by and you change your occupation, no problem, but change it and be gripped by another one and be going in a direction. Whether it's establishing a godly home as a mother or being a school teacher or being a coach that's changing young men or young women in a basketball setting or I mean, that's a powerful reality. My high school football coach is the one that in essence led me to the Lord. There was another man that actually gave the testimony, but it was my high school football coach who pursued me and invited me to his home for a Bible study and I went because he was the coach and I was afraid not to go, you know, and they had free doughnuts. I mean every Tuesday night and that was pretty cool too. And I went because of him and his I mean he had tears in his eyes for Jesus. He didn't have him on the football field, but he did it in his home and I looked at him and I go, what is this? I had no grid for it. And so don't imagine that you have to be against some big position in order to do the will of God in a very successful way. And so it might be a big position. One of you may end up being president of the United States someday and big is not bad, but big is not necessarily the only thing that's good. What is good is the will of God and what he built you for and it may take you a little while to lock into that occupational thing, but you can lock into your spiritual vision even now. And again, I think it should be you know, it's really the two great Commandments love God love people. That's really what I figured out a few years later. I go the extravagant worshiper as love God anointed deliver. That's okay. Love God love people. I got it. I stumbled into the two great Commandments and didn't even know it. Okay. Now paragraph D some people simply don't know where to start when they think about their life getting changed and I'll tell you where it starts. It starts by identifying a clear vision. Take time for that. Don't rush that but don't skip that. I know believers that are 30 40 50 years old and been in the kingdom for years. They still don't have a clear vision. They can articulate for their spiritual life. If you ask them, what's your vision? Your your vision for your spiritual life. What do you want to be that go? Well, yeah, I'll just good guy and I love God, you know, what do you mean? And it's not something that they're locked into they in a general way want to love God and do good, but it's not something they think about day after day and my vision when I locked into it. I thought about it all the time. I thought about it when I determined what my schedule would be how I spent my time how I spent my money. I said extravagant worshiper anointed deliver. I mean eight equipped anointed deliver my using my time and I want an occupation where I can do that. Well it and again as a medical doctor that would have been a good place to do that. A coach would be a good place. A school teacher would be a good place many many different places in society. You can do that paragraph E now the Lord is more concerned with what we do and why we do it then where we do it meaning some people are so focused on where they're supposed to be. They don't get around to being who they're supposed to be. There's this so consumed with maybe this city, maybe that city maybe here maybe there maybe this country and I think where is you need to land where sooner or later, but God's concern is far more what you're going to be and what you're going to do than where you do it. Where is is to me secondary and I was you know, I didn't mind what city I ended up in. I just wanted to be an anointed worshiper. And I mean an extravagant worshiper and anointed deliver. That's what I want to be regardless what city I ended up in or regardless what profession I landed in. That's what I want to be with all of my heart. The Roman numeral to Roman numeral to the components of a focused life and they're all pretty straightforward. That's why it doesn't take a lot of time to present this the pretty straightforward. But in paragraph a we need the overall vision but in addition to the vision, here's what I want to say paragraph a it's our primary purpose in our main occupation. So our primary spiritual purpose in life what we want to be spiritually in our main occupation what we're going to do in our natural use of our time and focus but our primary spiritual vision is actually bigger than our occupation because that one can stay the same even if our occupation changes. Now, but in addition to a clear vision we need measurable life goals. One thing is to get a vision that's critical, but we need goals goals that we can measure goals that we can measure then after we get goals we need an action plan. What are the what are the activities the specific activities we need to do to accomplish those goals because you can have a goal but not have any action plan no activity like one of my goals was to grow in prayer. That was one of my goals. One of my goals was to be a godly husband and a godly father one of my life goals that I determined back when I was about 20 years old matter of fact. I had four main ones that I laid out before the Lord. I said when I was 20, I said when I'm 50 which I thought would never happen because when you're 20 50 is like oh my goodness. That's like never going to happen to me now. I'm 59. So 50 was nine years ago. But I said this for 30 years. I said this over and over. I said when I'm 50 there were four things I wanted in terms of goals. I said I want to have a vibrant prayer life now when I made that goal. I did not like prayer at all. That was a grit my teeth by faith. If I'm going to be a extravagant worshipper somewhere. I got to grow in prayer. So I went oh, that's what I don't really want to do, but I'm going to do it because if I'm going to be an anointed deliverer of people and extravagant worshipper of God, I've got to somewhere do something with this prayer thing and prayer was horrible to me. It was boring. It was like I couldn't figure out why God ran his kingdom using prayer and if you would have told me when I was 20, I would be leading a 24-hour prayer ministry. I would have just collapsed in despair. I think I just would have been unthinkable. Please. What did I do Lord to deserve this? No, really. That's how I would have felt at age 20, but I said I got to grow in prayer somehow and of course I could imagine the Lord smiling saying hey Pee-wee. Ah boy. Do I have a plan for you? So I had four goals that were real crystal-clear goals in front of me. I mean main goals of my life that I wanted to be true when I was 50. Number two, I wanted to have a deep friendship with my family when I was 50 years old. I want to look back and say I had a deep friendship with my wife and my children and at age 50 and 59 by the grace of God. I can say I've had a very close and deep friendship in my family my sons. I have a very close friendship with them and it's very dear to me and it has been all the whole 30 years. And so that has been whether they're 34 and 35 now and we have a up-to-date main meaningful deep friendship and we've had it all through those years. Then the third thing is I wanted to know the Word of God. I said, okay, because you know back when I was 18 1920, you know, I just had figured out the difference between a gospel disciple and epistle and an apostle. I just figured those things out and I couldn't figure out Romans or any of that stuff to save my life. And I said, okay, I want to know the Bible at least a little bit. I mean, I want to know the Bible. And the next thing is I said, I want to be in shape. I don't want to be in a disastrous physical condition. Well, several of those goals the Lord has helped me on a lot. Okay. A couple of them. I need more. I need help in all of them. But anyway. Paragraph B. Anyway, those are not my only four goals, but those are four goals. I said over and over and over because I've talked on this subject many times over the years. And it's really good if you'll say your goals and your vision to your friends because that makes you accountable to them. You know, because people come and put their little finger in my stomach going, you're not in such good shape. You're getting a little, oh man, me and my big mouth telling all my life goals. Okay, life goals are measurable objectives. There's things that help us walk out our life vision. There's long-term goals, you know, 10, 20, 30 years and I just gave you four of my long-term goals and their short-term goals, things you want to do in the next three, four, five, six months or next year or two. So there's long-term and their short-term goals. And I have identified seven areas you want goals in and I encourage you to take time on each one of these areas. Matter of fact, we have a worksheet that that that that's on the our website just at the mikebickle.org website. We have a worksheet that we got from the Intro to IHOP program from some years ago. They took this teaching and broke it down, made a really excellent worksheet and they have every one of these areas with goals, with activities, with a schedule and you fill in the blanks and it kind of helps you walk it through. But you want spiritual goals. You want relational goals. I just mentioned that I wanted friendship with my with my family, a meaningful friendship. So one of the things I did, I'm getting ahead of myself, my action plan is that all through those early years when our boys were in the home, I spent four hours a day, six days a week with my family for 15 years, 90% of the time I did that. I made a goal. I'm going to have a friendship with them. So then I had an action plan and I committed from three o'clock in the afternoon to seven o'clock, six days a week. No matter what emergency was happening at the church, I would be with my family, engaging, interacting with them with eye contact, talking to them, that our boys were younger, playing a sport with them, having a family time together, four hours a day. And that was an intensely costly action plan. But my goal was to have a friendship with my family. And for the 15 years when our boys were, you know, before they graduated high school and and then eventually went to college and moved on and one son went to Mexico as a missionary for a number of years. But that 15 years we did that and I thought, oh my goodness. This was an action plan, an action item that was really costly. But when I look back over it, I have no regrets. If I had to do it over again, I would do it over again. I wanted to have a goal, paragraph 3, for my vocation, my occupation, for ministry. And it's not just ministry in the church. I mean, then I end up being a pastor. So that's my vocation and ministry overlapped in a deep way. But you want to excel, like many of you are called to be singers and musicians. You want to excel in that. You don't want to just get by and you know, you get on a worship team. Maybe you lead one, you participate. You want to excel in whatever the ministry God has given you. Not just excel in it, but be devoted to it. Because you can give your time to it, but without growing in the skills. You want to grow in the skills and you want to give the time to it. Then in terms of economics, I've always had goals through the years about how much money I would spend. I determined that I would by the grace of God, live a simple lifestyle that no matter how much money that came into me that I would spend in a modest way to live a simple lifestyle. That's something me and Diane determined when we were you know, 37 years ago when we first got married. We wanted to determine how much we would give. We determined we would be double tithers all the days of our life and that we would increase our amount of giving before we increase the standard of our living. We made a concrete commitment. We would be double tithers and that would be the lowest we would ever be content with and we would we would increase our standard of living before we decreased the percentage of our giving. We had a ideas about saving ideas about investing. And so all of those are economic goals. And again, those goals might change over the years and they probably will but those are goals that you want to identify. I wanted to be faithful with money. I want to be an extravagant giver and I want to believe God for wealth. So I wanted to get a lot and I want to give a lot and I want to steward my money in a way that was pleasing to the Lord physically. I believe it's important to have goals about your diet, your health, your exercise. I believe it's very very vital because how what you eat and how you feel spiritually are dynamically connected. Some people are eating wrong and they're trying to cast the devil out of the spirit of depression. It's just they're eating so much bad food and they have so little exercise that just the physical consequence of that is they feel depressed and lethargic and they're trying to cast the spirit out and they need to just get a little aerobic exercise and change their diet a little bit and change when they eat and change what they eat. That's a good time to say amen. Although I'm not one of those amen guys. Okay. I'm not a yell amen guy, but a lot of guys are but anyway, I just thought I'd sneak that in there. Another very important area of your life is the area of rest. This is very important. I schedule rest. I don't only rest when I schedule but I schedule rest. You need to schedule recreation. You need to schedule whatever is refreshing and restoring to you. Meaning you can't always be in a full gear of intensity of pouring out or pressing in. Rest is a critical part of the rhythm of life. That's why the Lord says one day in seven rest. One day in seven rest and some folks they take their rest day and they deplenish all their strength. They don't really rest. They take their quote day off and they actually diminish their strength by the way, they use their day off and you need to have a clear vision of the value of rest rate or recreation vacation, whatever however you want to say it. I've always been committed to going on vacation with my wife and children pulling time away and and giving that time to them because if you don't rest you end up with this Messianic complex that your your input is so much more important than anything else that you can even defy the laws of God and beloved if you don't rest you will break but other folks they take the rest to an extreme and they're so committed to resting. They're so afraid of being tired. They will sacrifice them the whole vision of their life to make sure they're not tired. I mean, I know people they are. I mean, they are fixated with the fear of being tired. So they're always making sure they're getting enough rest and they rest so much. They don't ever do anything with their life, but make sure they rest and play. They that's what they're that's what really their life vision is about to make sure they don't get tired and there's as tired as anybody. They really are because there's other life energies that are connected with us pouring ourself out having a vision. There's I mean, there's there's energy in our heart and our soul that comes alive and expressed when we're pouring ourself out and giving ourself to the Lord in a dynamic way. Okay. Let's look at paragraph D. Paragraph D now we need an action plan for each one of those those goals and again, it takes a while to do but once you do it and particularly this electronic hour, you just you could just change it so easy back in my day. I had to rewrite the whole paper and scratch it out and read rewrite it again. But once you build your kind of a life template, you put all this in you can adjust it, you know, 5% here and there over the time but you want an action plan for every one of your goals. Like I just mentioned my one of my life goals. My long-term goals was to have a friendship with my family. Well, my action plan was to spend to block time on my schedule to that. I would not let as a rule and again 90% of the time by the grace of God. I kept to it. There's a few exceptions, but as a rule when that time was blocked off for my family, I would not allow that to be interrupted again. There were emergencies and their surprises when you when you're talking about setting your schedule. There's always surprises and emergencies that you've got to make room for but our action plan is the series of small steps the activities that you engage in that help us fulfill your goals goals that don't have an action plan won't be fulfilled. I could have said my my goal is I want a friendship with my family. What's your action plan? I just hope they like me. That's not going to work. That's not going to work. I had to put it on my schedule time blocked out that again as a as a as a major rule that I would not let something else interrupt that that was the action plan that I would set time aside block time out for that. I had a goal. I want to know the Word of God. I had to have an action plan. I had to have a study plan so I could year by year learn the Bible year by year not just a four-year Bible school. That's good. I believe in a four-year Bible school praise the Lord for that, but I believe in a lifetime of learning. I am still studying the word many chapters with commentators and I mean commentaries and other people getting resources and studying chapters of the Bible not even ones I'm going to preach just because I want to know the other just this last period of time. I've been studying Chronicles and before that I was studying various Psalms because I want to know them better. I just want to know the Bible better. I want to know God better and I mean, I want to preach better and I want to be more equipped but I don't want to just study the Bible so I can tell people I want to study because I want to be a man of the word. So I built time into my schedule to learn the Bible and that is something 40 years later. I still build that into my regular schedule. Now if I encourage people to write all this down and again, we have a thing on the internet where you can work through it, just a plan you can work through fill in the blanks on it. If you can't write out your vision, probably it's not clear. You don't really have one. If you can't write out your goals, you probably don't have clear goals. You can't write out your action plan, the actual activities, probably you haven't locked them in. And so then and you have to end with this, you got to put it on the schedule. Because an action plan that doesn't have a schedule behind it. I'm going to spend four hours a day with my family was my action plan. Well, when? Well, just I don't know, just sometime. I'm going to make it work one of these days. If it doesn't get in your schedule, that action plan is not real. That goal will never happen and your long-term bigger vision will never take place. We need all of them. We need the vision. We need the goals. We long-term, short-term. We need the action plan and we need to put the action plan on to our schedule. And the reason we put it on our schedule is so that we guard, we guard our time so that we actually do it. We block timeout. And again, there are interruptions and surprises and things you don't expect. But as a rule, my thought was always if I can keep my schedule, I've never kept it a hundred percent of the time. But I figured if I could keep it 80% of the time or 90% of the time, I mean 80%, I'd still give somebody an A if they did it 80%. You know, I'm talking about the way they schedule their free time. I'm talking about, I don't mean if they showed up to their job 80% of the time, you get fired. But I'm talking about the way that they manage their free time, that if they had a schedule and kept it 80% of the time, I would still think that they did really, really exceptional. Okay, we have to have paragraph E. We have to schedule time for our action plan. That's so because scheduling is what focuses are. So we actually have to do it in a practical, focused way, actually do our goals. A schedule is a target to aim at. A schedule is a roadmap that keeps us on track. Also, a schedule is accountability, especially if you tell your family or you tell your friends, if you make your schedule known to those that are near you, you're accountable, not only focused, schedule focuses you for your sake, but it makes you accountable when you tell those closest to you what your schedule is. Now again, in our schedule, we make room for emergencies, unexpected things, etc. Paragraph F. Good is the enemy of the best. Now you've heard that phrase probably over the years. I've heard it many times. The enemy will let you settle for good as long as he can keep you from the best. I want the best. Now we're weak and broken people. So what the best is, is in context to our weak frame as human beings. So don't get some Superman version of what the best is. The best is in line with weak people that have a human frame. But I'm just saying this, the enemy is content to let you go for good if you will give up going for the best. And he will keep us as busy and diverted from our goals to enter in the best, and he will let us do some good or some even less than good. And one of the big temptations, or no, not temptations. It is temptation, but tensions in life. One of the biggest tensions I have in my life, and you do undoubtedly, I think it's common to everyone, is to get caught up in the tyranny of the urgent instead of living with focus on your purpose in God. The tyranny of the urgent, meaning, I hear it's like, time I'm going to give to my family, time I'm going to work on my body and my health, time I'm going to learn the Word of God, time I'm going to excel and give myself to these relationships, time I'm going to relate it to money, to earn money, to invest money, and then every knock on the door. Hey, you want to go to the party? Hey, you want to come see this? Hey, social media that, and just, there's thousands of diversions, and thousands of, in the course of a lifetime, knocks on the door, or whatever, I'm using that just as a phrase there, that will get us off of our schedule to get us diverted. Well, it's urgent. I mean, the guy is upset, and I got to get him happy, and the girl's crying, and there's an emergency over there, and I just got to go, emergency. If you respond to every cry that comes your way, you will end up burnout with no vision fulfilled in your life, and none of your goals reached. I mean, if you did that in a chronic way, and a lot of folks, not very many people do that in that chronic sense, but I find a constant tension in being pulled into the tyranny of the urgent, because I want to stay focused on my purpose, and someone says, well, the tyranny of the urgent is that, you know, you're loving these people, but staying focused on your purpose will make you excel in love, because my purpose is to excel in love, but I want to excel in love in a way that has a certain, the will of God, the rhythm of my life, when I'm talking to the Lord, and I try to figure out what that rhythm is of my life, the goal is to excel in love, and beloved, if I will stay focused on my goals, and in my schedules, I actually have more strength, and I have more focus to love, than if I just take every urgent cry that knocks on my door, and you end up burnt out, distracted, and all kinds of, just the disenchantment of not actually fulfilling your goals, or going anywhere, you're just constantly being interrupted by anything that comes your way, and it's not just the tyranny of the urgent, that I'm thinking of people that are, you know, this problem you've got to help solve, but there's also the, in a similar to the tyranny of the urgent, is just the constant barrage of the social media, that I'm going to check this out, check this out, check this out, check this out, it's this disease of check this out, that keeps people from actually going anywhere in God, they're always checking something out, and they're, and the Lord might talk to them after a while, and say, yeah, but your goals were to have a friendship with your family, to grow in the Lord, you know, to grow in the Word, to grow in prayer, your goal was to be a medical doctor, school teacher, your goal was to learn your economics, invest in well, and you just lived your life checking things out, well, I never kind of got around to doing the things that I was committed to, because I was stuck into this, this, I mean, this tyranny of checking things out all the time, so whether it's the tyranny of the urgent, with a need somebody is demanding that you meet it, or a pressure they want you to solve, or just that tyranny of checking it out, I don't know what a clever phrase for that would be, but you've got to pull away from that, because you'll end up going nowhere, you'll end up going nowhere, you have good vision, good goals, good action items, but if it doesn't make your schedule, it's not going to translate into fulfilling the destiny of God in your life, if you don't determine your schedule, other people will, if you don't determine your schedule, other people will, if you don't take charge of it, I assure you there's plenty of opportunities, and people, and events that will take charge of your schedule, so I determined back in that day, I'm going to lock in, and I'm going to determine my schedule, and I broke down my schedule, because I was taught to do this by my leaders when I was young, and I, 40 plus years later, I have no regrets at all for doing that, I mean, no regrets whatsoever for giving myself to this, and I'm 18, 19 years old, and I've got my schedule mapped out, hour by hour, I broke it down to half hour increments, and then a few years later, I got so, I saw the value of this, I began to schedule my life in 15 minute increments, and what I mean by 15 minute increments, is that I didn't want to lose a 15 minute period in the course of a day, I didn't want to even one 15 minute increment in the course of a day, I wanted to either be resting, which is a very good use of your time, I wanted to be investing in a conversation with somebody that, that was a, that was a meaningful, and in line with what God's will in my life, not just the messianic concept, I just met every, you know, person's problem, and solved all their problems, not that, but I want to stay focused on the will of God, and I wanted to, again, even if I'm resting, that 15 minutes is a kingdom activity, it's a kingdom activity even then, and I could almost tell you, with a, probably 90% accuracy, maybe that's a little high, but probably it's true, I could tell you what I did 6 months ago, almost any given hour of the day, I could tell you probably what I was doing, and I could tell you probably what I'll be doing 9 months from today, probably 80-90% accuracy, on a Tuesday afternoon at 4 o'clock, I know where I will be, I know where I've been every Tuesday afternoon for 15 years at 4 o'clock, and I know where I've been every Friday and Saturday night for about 40 years, I committed, I made a commitment to the Lord when I was about 19, 20, maybe 21 years old, 20 years old, I was going to spend, I was going to go against the cry of the culture, I was going to use Friday and Saturday night, I was going to be in the Word with believers, or going to be in prayer, and I said, I'm going to do this mostly the rest of my life, and it's almost 40 years later, and 90% of the time, every Friday and Saturday night, I'm either in a Bible study, I happen to be leading it now, or I'm in a worship service, and I look back 40 years later, and not that you have to do that, but I just said in my heart that there was this fear among young adults when I was 20, that if we do Friday and Saturday night, if we do God hard, we're going to lose something, and I said, baloney, I don't buy it, I'm going to do God hard for like 40 years on Friday and Saturday night, I didn't know if I'd make it, but by the grace of God, I have no regrets, I haven't lost anything that I can discern at all by giving myself hard to God on the weekends, because the weekends, and Friday and Saturday night is where most spiritual losses take place, that's where most people lose ground, Friday and Saturday night, weekends, they lose ground in their spiritual life, when I was about 20, I just said, I'm not going to, I'm just not going to, I'm going to make that time, I'm going to go directly in the opposite spirit of that, and again, I didn't know how long I'd make it, but I want to encourage you, don't be afraid of giving yourself wholehearted to this kind of thing, I'll just read one more verse, and we'll end with that, and then I'll just leave the rest for you just to read on your own, paragraph A, Ephesians 5, Paul says to believers, awake you spiritually sleeping lethargic believers, he's talking about believers to wake up spiritually, they're born again, they're going to heaven when they die, he says, Christ will shine on you, he goes, put yourself in a position for the glory of God to touch your heart, I mean, you're going to heaven when you die, but don't you want to feel the presence of God more in your life, don't you want to experience that more, he goes, well, if you do, verse 15, see then that you walk wisely, and then he defined walking wisely, verse 16, by redeeming your time, using your time in a way that was redemptive, use your time, beloved, you use your time right, Christ, you will position yourself where you experience more of the grace of God in your life, now the grace of God is free, but you position yourself by using your time right, you will, according to Paul, walk wisely, redeem the time, and I break this down a little bit, what this would mean, I'm going to read one more paragraph, I just looked at it, paragraph E, God gave every single human being 168 hours a week, every human being, a baby, you know, somebody, every human being has 168 hours a week, so let me just give you kind of broad strokes to kind of get your mind around it, just broad strokes, if you take 10 hours a day, 168 hours a week, let's think, just to make the math easy, just round it off to 170 hours, just to make it really easy to do the math, if you take 7 days a week, 10 hours a day to sleep, eat, and put your clothes on, fix your hair a little bit, fix your hair a lot, okay, if you take 10 hours a day to eat, sleep, and get dressed, etc., maybe you spend more than that, that's okay, but 10 hours a day, that gives you 100 hours a week, 100 hours a week, to do whatever, some people they work 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week, if they work 50 hours a week, they still have 100 hours a week besides the 50 they work, and so if you eat, sleep, and get ready 10 hours a day, you have almost 100 hours a week that has been given to your stewardship, I want to look at that 100 hours I determined years ago, and I still am very zealous about this, I want to make the most of that 100 hours, and again, that doesn't mean you're always intensely engaged in learning or pouring out, there are those moments you do that, those hours, but some of this time, again, is relaxed, it's relational, it's friendship-building, it's resting, it's playing, all of that figures into the 100 hours, but again, you don't want to squander your free time, because you squander your free time and waste it in an unredemptive way, you won't walk in your life this destiny, 10 years will pass by, 20 years will pass by, 30 years will pass by, and you will still not be walking in your destiny in God, and I've been a pastor 40 years, and I've seen many 10-year, 14-year seasons pass by, with godly young people, and 10 years later, there's only a small percent of them that are pressing on to God in their 30s and 40s, they had a hot vision in their 20s, it's very, it's, it's, it's, it's, people get excited about their vision of God in their 20s, but time their 30 and 40, so many of them, the fire was out, and they think, well, technically, that's still my vision, sort of, and, and the answer is why, there's several answers, reasons why that happens, but one of the reason was the squandering of their time, and their souls became asleep, just like Paul the Apostle said, he said, wake up, you sleeper, use godly wisdom, redeem your time, use your time in a way that equips you to walk in the will of God in your life, don't be foolish, be wise, use your time well, amen, and amen. Okay, here's what I'd like you to do, turn out, take the next page, it's this one that, it's the weekly schedule, okay, so I'd like all the IHOPU students to stand up, all IHOPU students, okay, and I would like you to get in groups of about four or five, whatever you want, and we're going to take 10 minutes, we'll put the thing on the, on the clock here, the clock, 10 minutes, and I would like you to think of it, if one of you want to volunteer to tell your schedule, that's good, but if not you, think of what a typical schedule would be, you think a good schedule for an IHOPU student, okay, go ahead and you can move out in the aisles, or come up front, anywhere you want, okay, so you got room to get together, I'm going to have you hand those papers up front in 10 minutes, you don't have to put your name on it, so walk through the day, you can use your, well let's go, hold off on the night, on the clock, yeah, hold up the clock for a second, I'm going to get everybody set up, then I want the rest to stand up in the room, the other folks, okay, all the other folks, if you'll stand up, just accommodate me here for a moment, and you get in small groups, and talk about what you think a, would be a good use of time, pick one of you, and just kind of like all counsel together, or take a hypothetical person, so if you're willing to do that, go ahead and get in groups, if you're one of the non-IHOPU students, wave your hand if you want to do this with somebody, and work on a schedule, and I want you to bring those reports up here in 10 minutes, and then we're going to have a Q&A time after that, okay, anybody's free to walk up to any group and join them, okay, so don't wait to be invited, if anybody's meeting, just go join that group, and one of you become the spokesperson, and write down what you think an ideal schedule would be for an IHOPU student, or if you're a non-student, do it for you as well, thank you clock, good, pretty good, yeah, again, feel free to join any group that you want to join in, again, feel free to join any group that you want to join, make sure that you bring the paper up here, so we can have it, we're going to publish a few of these, to give you ideas to what other folks are saying, so interns, I think of you as part of IHOPU, so when I say IHOPU students, I'm thinking of the interns, because you're part of the school, so the interns should be doing this as well, because you're IHOPU students in essence.