Do setbacks from your past hold you back? Pastor Rick Warren challenges us to realign our focus from dwelling on past failures to setting future-focused, achievable goals. Through personal anecdotes and biblical wisdom, Rick stresses the significance of attention and faith in personal development. This episode serves as a roadmap to overcome relapses and maintain momentum in life’s journey by embracing a healthy mindset and an unwavering commitment to spiritual growth.
Hey everyone, it’s so great to have you with us today on Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. We are going to continue our very encouraging series today called Life’s Healing Choices. And in these lessons, Rick Warren will guide us through a deep biblical exploration of how to overcome the hurts, hang-ups, and habits that really hold us back. So get ready for some practical insights and powerful truths that can lead to lasting change and freedom in your life. And now, let’s join Rick for part two of a message called The Growth Choice.
SPEAKER 02 :
Number three, third thing I have to do to keep on growing is focus on my goal, not my habit. Focus on my goal, not my habit. When I say habit, I’m talking about those habits, hurts, hangups, those sins, those weaknesses, the failures, the things in your life you don’t like. What I’m saying is, if you want to grow, you have to focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. Why is this so important? Because God designed the universe with one of the laws of the universe is the law of of attention. And the law of attention states that whatever you focus on, whatever gets your attention, attracts you. It pulls you. There is a natural pulling when you focus on something. Have you ever stood on a cliff or on a tall building and you looked over and all of a sudden you felt like you were being pulled over? Ever felt like that? That’s the law of attraction. That’s the law of attention. It’s whatever gets your attention you tend to move toward. Obviously you don’t move toward things that don’t have your attention. So then you need to choose to make sure your attention is toward good things, not bad things. You gotta change your mind. And when I was a little kid, my mom loved to make desserts. But your kid never had dessert until after dinner. But she would make the dessert first and then start on dinner. And I can’t tell you how many times I’d go into the kitchen and there was a hot apple pie. Man, let’s just pause there for a minute. I can smell that hot apple pie. Okay, or some other kind of pie. Or cookies, when Kay makes cookies. Oh man, that’s the quickest way to get me out of my office. When Kay loves to make desserts. And man, I like to go down and watch her make desserts. And she’s over there and she’s making the batter for chocolate chip cookies. And I walk over and I go, what are you doing? I’m making cookies. What are you doing? Watching. She knows I didn’t come down to watch. I came down to stick my finger in and get a big gob of that chocolate cookie dough. I don’t come to watch. It’s like when I’m a little kid. Mom has these hot cookies. I walk up to the, what you doing, Ricky? I’m just watching, Mom. Right. I’m watching, I’m watching, I’m watching, I’m watching, I’m watching. It’s kind of like saying, I don’t want to eat it, I don’t want to eat it, I don’t want to eat it, I don’t want to eat it, I ate it. Whatever you resist, persist. And so whatever you want to change in your life, you don’t focus on. What you focus on, you end up going toward. That’s why I love Celebrate Recovery. Because Celebrate Recovery is a forward-looking growth process. So much of today’s answers to getting over your hurts and hang-ups is looking at the past. And you could go to a counselor and spend two, three years just wallowing in your past. Moaning and moaning and mourning and just wallowing in your past. Friends, your past is past. You are not your past. Your past influenced you. Your past does not define you. You are not your past. It’s over. It’s over. What matters today is not your past. What matters today is what direction your feet are headed right now. I don’t care what you’ve done, who you did it with, or how long you did it. That’s not you. Satan will tell it’s you, but that’s not the truth. You are the direction your feet are headed right now. So stop focusing on your past, it’s over. It’s not gonna change, it’s done, it’s dead, it’s over. And if you wanna grow, you must focus on the future. Focus on what you want, not what you didn’t want. I wish I hadn’t had that happen to me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s the old way, it keeps you stuck in a rut. So what do you do? You focus on your goal, not your habit. In other words, this is why diets don’t work. When you’re on a diet, what do you focus on all the time? Food. You think far more about food on a diet than you do when you’re off a diet. What happens? You’re focused on, man, that would be good. It’s like the guy who’s smoking. One of these days, I’m gonna give up smoking. Yeah, I know. You know, these are coffin nails. One of these, I know it’s bad for me. What are you doing? The whole time you’re focusing on what you don’t want. And that’s keeping you stuck in a rut. You’ve got to focus on something else. This is what Paul talks about in Philippians. Notice these verses. He says, I don’t mean that I’ve already as God wants me to be. Well, duh. None of us are already as God wants us to be. I have not yet reached that goal. How many of you would agree with Paul? I have not yet reached that goal, yeah. Okay, but he says, there’s the word again, I continue, you might circle continue. We’re to continue connecting, continue in the word. We are to continue trying to reach the goal. I continue trying to reach it and make it mine forever. Christ wants me to do this, which is the reason he made me his. Now turn your outline over and notice the rest of this verse. The very next verse says this. No, I’m still not all I should be. And neither am I or neither are you. But I am focusing all my energies. He’s purpose driven. Focusing all my energies on this one thing. Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race, I want to get the gold medal, and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven. He says, don’t focus on what happened, focus on what you want to happen. You’re always looking at your past, you’re driving, looking in the rear view mirror, you’re gonna crash. So stop it, it’s over. You wanna finish the race, fix a daily time with God, fill your mind with God’s word and focus on his goals for your life. His future for you, not your past. Now, I believe in setting goals. I’ve set them all my life. Why? Because goals are simply statements of faith. And the Bible says the just shall live by faith. The Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God. The Bible says whatsoever is not of faith is sin. The Bible says that it is faith, according to your faith it will be done unto you. God always operates in your life by faith. And a goal is a statement of faith. That’s why you need goals in your life. A goal says, I believe God wants me to accomplish such and such by this date. If you don’t have a date, it’s not a goal. It’s a wish, it’s a dream, it’s a desire. But wishes are a dime a dozen. They’re worthless. The only thing that will change your life is setting a goal, not a wish, not a desire, not just a dream. You gotta wake up from the dream and go to work. And you have to have a goal, and a goal has a deadline. In fact, a faith goal, according to your faith it will be done and do, has five characteristics. Write these down. This is what a faith goal is. F-A-I-T-H. A faith goal, F, stands for it’s focused. It is focused. That means it is specific. It’s not vague. It’s not general. It’s not just a desire, a whim, a wish. A faith goal is focused. You’re very specific about it. And you say, I want to accomplish such and such by this date. Now, if you use the word more or less, it’s not a focused goal. I want to be more kind. I want to weigh less. That’s not a goal. I want to be more like Jesus. I want to be less angry, less impatient. I want to exaggerate less. How you gonna measure that? You can’t. It’s gotta be very specific. So don’t use more and less, that’s too vague. A stands for attainable. A faith goal is attainable. If you set an unrealistic goal, it’s just gonna discourage you. If you say, you know, I’m gonna pray three hours a day, you’ll make that one day, maybe. An unattainable goal, don’t ever set an unattainable goal, it’s worthless. Set one that stretches you, but you think in faith you can accomplish with God’s help. An attainable goal is possible, it’s practical. You say, well, I know I could do this. And you set a goal and you ask God to help you in that goal. I stands for individual. A faith goal is an individual goal. That means it’s personal. You cannot set goals for other people because you can’t control them. You can’t set goals for your children. You can’t set goals for your husband. You can’t set goals for your boyfriend or your girlfriend. You can only set goals for you because you can control you. You can’t control anybody else. Now, you can have a family goal by changing you because when you change you, it changes everybody else. If you’ve acted a certain way and all of a sudden you’ve decided you’re not gonna act that way anymore, all of a sudden everybody else has to relate to you in a new way. The only way you can change other people is by changing yourself. But you set an individual goal, not we need to do this, it’s I, I need to do this. T stands for trackable. A faith goal is trackable. That means you can measure it. It’s verifiable. You set a date, and you say, okay, by November 30th, I will have accomplished this, and by December 30th, I will have accomplished this, and by January 30th, I will have accomplished this, and on and on and on. You set a date, and it’s trackable, and you can measure it. And then H in faith stands for heartfelt. Heartfelt. It’s got to be heartfelt. If you don’t feel it, don’t set it. You see… A passionate, passionless goal, you’ll never reach. Nothing is accomplished without passion. If you’re not passionate about the goal, wait until you get passionate about it. If you don’t have a deep desire to do it, don’t set it. You’re not gonna accomplish it. Now, I wanna encourage you to set one goal today, one spiritual goal in your life. And set it, and let’s just say you’re gonna do it by Christmas. Maybe your goal is to have a quiet time every day between now and Christmas. That is all these things. It’s a F-A-I-T-H goal. I’m gonna have a quiet time with God and maybe five minutes a day, I’m gonna go out and sit down in the backyard and I’ll say, God, is there anything you wanna say to me today? And I’ll be quiet for a minute and I’ll talk to him in prayer and I’ll read his word and let him talk to me. And you say, that’s a measurable goal. Now let me explain to you that growth, spiritual growth, is not an unbroken string of successes. It’s not just like this. Nobody grows like this. Nobody goes through life with an unbroken string of successes, with no struggles, no suffering, and no sin. It just doesn’t happen. Growth is a curvy road. The road to recovery is jagged. The road to recovery is a lot of twists and turns. The road to health, to wholeness, to spiritual maturity often means three steps forward, two steps back. Three steps forward, two steps back. Three steps forward, two steps back. Relapse is a part of the process. So don’t beat yourself up. But a relapse is when you fall back into an area that you used to fall into, but you don’t fall into it as often as you used to. Now let me tell you this. Whatever your common area of weakness, you’re probably gonna struggle with it the rest of your life. That doesn’t mean you’re not gonna have victory over it. Oh, you can. It’s very possible to have victory over it. But you’re still gonna be tempted. There is an unlikely chance that you will never not be tempted. I mean, the person says, well, thank God I haven’t been tempted in 20 years. Well, guess what? You’re a liar. Because if it’s your area of weakness, you’re going to naturally tend to go back to that in times of stress. So if you’re naturally tempted… to control things. You’re going to fight that the rest of your life. If you’re naturally tempted to be shy, if you’re naturally tempted to lose your temper, if you’re naturally tempted to say certain words, if you’re naturally tempted to become bitter, if you’re naturally tempted in any area of life, you’re going to probably struggle with that the rest of your life. And when those temptations come back to you, sometimes we get intimidated. We go, what am I doing? I shouldn’t have that anymore. No, you’ll probably have those attractions your entire life. The Bible doesn’t promise a temptation-free life. It promises a victorious life, which means, as the Bible says in Galatians, those who walk in the Spirit will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. It doesn’t mean I don’t have the lust of the flesh. It means I don’t fulfill it. And if I have a natural… attraction towards something. That may be a wrong attraction, but it doesn’t mean that I’m wrong, it just means that’s a natural attraction in my life. I just don’t give into it. And so I don’t beat myself up and I go, well, oh man, I thought I was never gonna do that again. No, you just realized, you stumbled, you fell, and so you must learn how to deal with relapse. How do you do that? Fourth step. Step four is I face and forsake my failures quickly. You’re gonna stumble in life, but the key is not trying to live a perfect life. The key is to face and forsake my failures quickly, and I don’t cover them up, and I don’t blame others, and I don’t excuse myself, and I own up to it. I’ve never met anybody who didn’t want to be successful. The Bible says this here on the screen, Proverbs 28, 13. People who cover over their sins will not prosper. You want to be prosperous in life? You want to be successful in life? There it is. People who cover over their sins will not prosper. Why? Because you’ve got God on the opposite side of you. But, If they confess and forsake them, they will receive mercy. Now here’s the problem. It’s easy to confess and forsake a sin from five years ago. It’s difficult to confess and forsake the one I just did. Five years ago, oh yeah. I’m sorry God, it was wrong, I did it, it was bad, yeah. But if I am in an argument with you and I just blew it, I don’t wanna confess it at that second. That’s ego. That’s ego. I need to confess and forsake instantly. This is the key to spiritual growth. I let it go quickly. I don’t let sins pile up in my life. I keep short accounts with God. I take out the garbage on a daily basis. I don’t let garbage pile up in my life. And when I stumble, I don’t go, well, I shouldn’t be stumbling, so I’m not even gonna admit it, I’m just gonna cover it up. No, I admit it, I don’t cover it up, and I confess it and I forsake it quickly. The quicker, the better. And that’s how you deal with relapse. You don’t be ashamed, you just go, I’m on the road to recovery, I’m on the road to development. You keep short accounts of God. Now, how do you do that? One of the ways is by personal self-examination. And I’m not gonna go into this, but there are three ways you wanna examine yourself. There’s a spot check where how am I feeling right now? And there’s a daily examination where like at the end of the day, you kind of go, okay, how’d I do today? And my steps and my recovery and my growth. And then there’s an annual checkup where you kind of do like a spring cleaning and you do that. And those are all good. The Bible says this, let us examine our ways and let us test them and return to the Lord. The Bible talks about the value of personal examination. If you don’t ever examine yourself, you’re not gonna grow. In fact, look at this verse. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 11 31, if we examine ourselves, We will not be examined by God and judged in this way. Whoa, God says, now either you can judge yourself or I’ll judge you. Which would you rather do? You can judge your own sins or you can have God judge them. God says if you judge your own sins and you own up to it right away and you don’t cover it up and you just go, oh God, I stumbled again. I don’t want to say these things to my kids, but I did. And I don’t want to use that word, but I did. And I don’t want to look at that channel, but I did. And I don’t want to be controlling, but I was. And on and on and on. You just admit it to God. That’s part of the growth process. You don’t beat yourself up. You don’t tear yourself down. You say, God, thank you. I’m not the way I used to be. And yeah, I dropped the ball and the string unwound a little bit, but I’m gonna pick it up and I’m gonna wind it up again. And it didn’t completely unwind, that ball of string. It just unwound a little bit. So I’m gonna pick it up and I’m gonna wind it up again. And hopefully it’s gonna be a long time between the next one. Because I’m gonna focus on the future, not on the past.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening to Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. We’re so glad you’re here. I really hope that you were as touched and blessed by this broadcast as I was. And now here’s Rick to tell you about today’s offer.
SPEAKER 02 :
It means every one of us has developed unhealthy patterns in our lives, and as a result, we all get hurt, we all have habits, and we all have hang-ups that mess up our lives, and we need to deal with these. You know, it’s easy to assume that you’ll never be able to change or heal from the past patterns in our lives, but Jesus offers us the hope that we need to change. He offers us hope for a second chance and hope to renew our lives. That’s why I created Life’s Healing Choices Study Kit. You can use it either by yourself or even better, get a couple friends and study it together in a small group. This study kit is based on the Beatitudes, where Jesus teaches you how to make choices every day that will help you build a healthy foundation for real change in your life.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now this video and workbook Bible study shows you how to make each choice, guiding you on God’s pathway to wholeness, spiritual growth, happiness, and healing. Now today, when you give a gift to support Daily Hope’s mission of sharing the good news of Jesus worldwide, you can simply request this life-changing Bible study. It comes with a workbook and access to the teaching videos. It’s available through streaming or DVD. And it’s our way of saying thank you so much for partnering with us in this ministry. Just go to PastorRick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That’s PastorRick.com or you can just text the word HOPE to 70309. Again, that’s the word HOPE to 70309. Be sure to join us next time. as we look into God’s Word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
