The Best Teacher

Looking Ahead to a New Year: Experience isn’t the best teacher. 

Evaluated experience is the best teacher.

1. Faith Life: My relationship with God 

2. Marriage Life: My relationship with my spouse

3. Family Life: My relationship with my family

4. Office Life: My job/school

5. Digital Life: My time on my devices

6. Ministry Life: My purpose in life

7. Financial Life: My earning, spending, saving, giving

8. Social Life: My time with friends/others

9. Attitudinal Life: My approach to life

10. Creative Life: My dreams and plans for the future

11. Mental Life: My mind and my thoughts

12. Physical Life: My body

5 Clarifying Questions:

1. What is my life’s purpose?

If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. Proverbs 29:18 (MSG)

For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible…everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. Colossians 1:16 (MSG)

It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for… part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.” Ephesians 1:11 (MSG)

2. What am I doing to accomplish my purpose? Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should. Psalm 90:12 (LB)

3. How am I doing? Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds. Proverbs 27:23 (NIV)

4. What are my values? I Love God. I Love People. I Pursue Excellence. I Choose Joy.

5. What is most important right now?

What one thing, if it got better, would make the biggest difference?

What am I not doing that I should be doing?

What am I doing that I should stop doing?

What I Should Do:

1. Get closer to God.

Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. James 4:8 (NLT)

If I want something I’ve never had, then I need to do something I’ve never done.

2. Be honest with a friend.

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16 (NLT)

Go to God for forgiveness.

Go to God’s people for healing.

3. Discover my God-given purpose.

It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend these lives in helping others. Ephesians 2:10 (TLB)

I am created on purpose for a purpose.

4. Live my life for something that really matters. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God. Acts 20:24 (MSG)

If I dedicate my life to something greater than myself, God will fill my life with passion and adventure.