When we look back on our past lives, at night after finishing each day or at the end of the year, even though we were given the same period of time, some of us might live faithfully and some might not. The difference comes from whether we had a goal or not. When we set a goal and do our best to achieve the goal, a fruitful result is produced. That’s why an individual or a group sets a goal when starting their work.

It is the same in our life of faith. While the same period of time flows, those who have a spiritual goal live a faithful life, looking forward to the blessings and glory that they will enjoy in heaven, and those who do not have a spiritual goal cannot help but live a meaningless life, just repeating their daily routines.

Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment (Heb 9:27).

In the spiritual world, everyone will face punishment or receive salvation according to their deeds. We should keep our minds fixed on the eternal spiritual world, set goals for our faith and press on toward the goals, not focusing on the worldly things that are meaningless and vain, so that we can leave valuable footprints in our life given just once.

Set a goal for faith, looking forward to the blessings of heaven

Through the teachings of the Bible, let’s learn what kind of mindset of faith we should have. In the book of Colossians, Apostle Paul asked us to set our hearts on things above.

Col 3:1-3 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

“Set your hearts on things above.” By saying this, Apostle Paul meant that we should live a gracious life of faith by seeking the spiritual things in heaven and possessing a great will that God wants us to have. Even though we only desired the worldly things in the past, since we have been born again through Christ, we should set our minds on the life in the glorious kingdom of heaven.

Paul said that he himself pressed on toward the goal of faith.

Php 3:12-14 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Living a life with a goal means striving endlessly to reach what is ahead.
In order to gain fruitful results through the talents God has granted us, we should make a firm resolution to carry out the will of God and set concrete goals, not just thinking, ‘In due time, it will be done.’

A goal that brings out thoughts and actions

Once upon a time, there was a rich man in a village. He had a son old enough to marry, so he was going to choose his future daughter-in-law. In order to choose a wise daughter-in-law who would manage his hard-earned property, he posted a notice that he would make a maiden, who could live a month with two pounds of rice, his daughter-in-law.

Since it was announced that a rich man would choose his future daughterin-law, many maidens, even from his neighboring villages, streamed to the rich man’s house. However, they were all bewildered after they each received only two pounds of rice as their food for a month. A month passed and the maidens who participated in the test began to gather again at the rich man’s house. Some of them looked as lean as a rake because they ate very small amounts of rice a day, dividing the two pounds of rice into thirty days.

Some gave up the test because they ate to the full in the beginning and then starved later. While almost all of them were showing up with haggard faces,

a maiden appeared with a lively face, carrying a cart full of rice.

The rich man asked her, “Every other maiden is carried on someone’s back, being exhausted with hunger. How come you are all right?”

“You gave us a test to live a month only with two pounds of rice. However, it is impossible to live in such a condition. I thought that you intended something else. So I grinded the rice at a mill, made rice cakes, and sold them at a market. With the profit, I bought rice and made rice cakes again and sold them. Repeating this, I could eat enough, and have brought rice much more than what you gave me.”

As the maiden finished her answer, the rich man said gladly, “You are worthy to be my daughter-in-law.”

After setting a goal of living a month with two pounds of rice, the wise maiden thought about how to achieve the goal over and over again, and finally she discovered the rich man’s intention. As she had a clear goal and was firmly determined to achieve it, she was able to find the way to obtain the goal.

If we spend time meaninglessly without any goal, we cannot gain any good result. In preaching the gospel, when we set a goal, we come to think over it and have the will to put the word of God into practice.

If we set a goal of leading a person to the truth, we come to think about his soul and become considerate of him and love him. Even those who previously didn’t tolerate any unpleasant remarks from others come to learn perseverance and know the joy of saving a soul and realize what love is, while leading a person to God. Without a goal, there is no thought; without thought, there is no action; without action, there is no fruit. Therefore, we must set a goal in the truth.

Those who press on toward a goal

If we set a definite goal for a spiritual thing and try to achieve it, through the result we can check ourselves whether we did our best to bear fruit according to the goal or wasted our time away in vague thoughts.

Mt 25:1-7 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.”

In the above parable of Jesus, the goal of the ten virgins was to meet the bridegroom. The five virgins, who were keenly conscious of the goal, thought over how to complete the goal and even prepared extra oil for the case the bridegroom would be late. Eventually, those who had a clear sense of goal were able to receive the bridegroom.

In the succeeding parable of the talents, we can learn the same lesson.

Mt 25:13-23 . . . “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work [KJV: traded with the same] and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ . . . “The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

The man who received two talents and the man who received five talents set a goal to gain more talents until their master came back, and they thought over how to reach the goal and made ceaseless efforts.

Jesus stated that those who gained more talents would share their master’s happiness. By this Jesus meant that God would be pleased with them and give rewards to them and grant them the right to enter the heavenly banquet.

Since Apostle Paul realized this, he kept his faith, pressing on toward the goal, and was confident and proud of his life, saying that the crown of righteousness was waiting for him.

Likewise, when we have a goal, we can act with conviction. The reason that the young David was able to defeat Goliath, whom even the veterans feared, was because he had a definite goal of destroying Goliath who was defying God. It was also because he firmly believed that God would give him strength and wisdom to beat the enemy.

No goals get no results

A life with goals is beautiful. To achieve a goal people take action; and through the action, a certain outcome is produced. However, a life without goals gains nothing. A goal changes one’s life like that.

There is a great difference in action and result between the person who has a goal in life and the person who lives aimlessly without any goal. In the parable of the talents, the man who received one talent hid his talent in the ground, thinking, ‘It would be ok if I return the talent to the master when he comes back.’ He never thought that he would gain more talents through the one given to him. Because he had no goal, he complacently idled away his time playing and sleeping. Like the lazy servant, if we spend time meaninglessly without thinking of God’s will, what result will we meet on the day God comes with glory?

Mt 25:24-30 “Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

The servant who hid one talent in the ground never considered earning more talents and ended up with the one talent. In other words, he did not carry out his master’s command, “Trade with the talent given to you.” The words “trade with the talent” implies “earn many more talents with it.”

Finally, the master commanded that the worthless servant, who only kept the one talent till the end, be thrown into the darkness.

The man who had no goal gained nothing no matter whether he was capable or not, but the men who had a goal gained fruitful results according to their abilities. Thinking of what the differences were in results between the man who received one talent and the men who received two and five talents each, let’s reflect on ourselves—‘When were we able to gain more talents in our life of faith?’

In preaching the gospel, he who tries hard to completely deliver the will of God can gain many more talents. In listening to a sermon, he who has a goal always thinks about what the preacher tries to deliver, what he himself should learn and realize spiritually, and how he will make use of the contents of the sermon for preaching. Such a man makes a remarkable growth in faith although it’s not been so long since he received the truth. However, in case of a man who just sits and hears the sermon without a goal, he is not moved by the sermon and does not show any progress in faith even though he’s been in the truth for ten years or more; he is like the servant who received one talent.

If a person’s today is like yesterday and his tomorrow is like today, he will leave nothing while walking the path to heaven, like the man who received one talent and hid it in the ground. We should always think over what our goal is in our life of faith, how many talents we have gained till now, and how close we have come to our goal, rather than boast of how long we’ve been in the truth.

God helps those who make efforts

Jacob, who had worked for his uncle Laban without wages, married Rachel and had children. So he asked Laban to give him speckled or spotted sheep and goats as his wages. From this time, Jacob had a goal. In order to gain speckled or spotted sheep and goats, he made white stripes on the branches by peeling the bark and put the branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were speckled or spotted. It is difficult to explain in terms of biology, but the Bible recorded that Jacob grew exceedingly prosperous after he set a goal.

A life without a goal is meaningless and burdensome, but when we run toward a goal, our life is always full of delight. Let’s set goals aligned with God’s will and pray to God to achieve the goals and preach the truth, not just waiting without any concrete effort and action. Then we will be able to experience the joy of achieving the goals one by one and our faith will also grow.

When we look back on our past, we can realize that we prayed more earnestly when we had a goal. When we set a goal for fruit, we come to pray for fruit; after we bear fruit, we come to pray for the fruit to grow in faith. Thus, when we have a goal, prayer springs up from us. “Pray continually.” This command also implies that we should press on toward a goal continually.

A good result is given when we try hard for a goal: No pains, no gains. If we set a goal, God helps us according to that goal. He gives more blessings to those who strive with earnestness. We should seek help from heaven, not from the earth.

A wild boar likes acorns. After eating acorns fallen under a tree, it digs the ground continuously. Actually, acorns have fallen from a tree, but the wild boar thinks that acorns come from the ground because he ate them on the ground. That’s why he digs up the ground. Likewise, if we try to find a solution only through our current situations and circumstances on this earth, we are not different from the foolish wild boar. If we believe that all help and power come from above and pray to God and run toward our goal diligently, God will surely grant us good results.

Now, our lost heavenly family members hear the voice of Father and Mother and are coming to Zion from all around the world. It’s because we have firmly believed that God is with us and have set a firm goal to save the whole world by practicing God’s word. Since everything is fulfilled as God has promised, we only need to believe and follow God. Let’s answer God’s calling and preach the Word with fervent faith until this gospel is preached to Samaria and to the ends of the earth, so that we can quickly find all of our lost brothers and sisters. Instead of merely hoping to receive many rewards in heaven, let’s set a goal for the heavenly glory and take action to achieve the goal.