Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

One of the biggest struggles many people have is figuring out what to do with their lives. Is now the time to get married? Is this the person I should marry? Do we have kids now or have another one? Is now the time to buy a house, retire, start a business, or return to school?

We stress over these decisions because they have life-altering implications.

According to the Harvard Business Review, we make 33,000 decisions a day.

But making the wrong decisions about big and small things is easy. We all fall into various decision-making traps no matter how well we think we are making decisions or figuring out God’s will for our lives. If you listened to my sermon on Sunday, you know that I don’t think God’s will is as mysterious as we make it out to be.

In Galatians 1, Paul gives us a spiritual autobiography that helps us see how to make decisions and figure out God’s will for our lives by looking backward. In it, Paul talks about the importance of personality and wiring, our family of origin and time spent learning and waiting, and the confirmation of others.

4 questions to ask to figure out God’s will for your life.
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What matters most. One of the most quoted verses in Galatians is Galatians 1:10, where Paul asks, For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Who are you trying to please with your decisions: God or your parents, spouse, or someone else?
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Paul wants us to ask ourselves, who are we trying to please? Many people end up going to school, taking a job, or making a decision related to parenting to please someone. Paul wants us to ask, whose opinion matters the most to us? Many Christians would say, “Obviously, the answer is God,” but is it really in their lives?

Personality and wiring. God’s plan for our lives closely relates to how we are wired to the talents and gifts God has given us. We often overlook these as we think about God’s will for our lives or what is next for us, or maybe you grew up in a tradition that made God’s will sound like an awful punishment. To know what is next, look at how you are wired.

In Galatians 1, Paul talks about the importance of understanding how we are wired to what God has planned for us. Paul was incredibly zealous and driven. When God saved Paul, he didn’t change that part of Paul’s personality; he redirected that passion.

God doesn’t necessarily change our personality, gifts or talents; he redirects them for His purposes.
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The personality you have isn’t an accident. The gifts and talents you have aren’t an accident. But many of us miss what God has for us because we want a different personality or talent or don’t think we are as good as someone else. Yes, God molded Paul just like everyone else as he grew in his faith and maturity, but he didn’t change who God created him to be.

I wonder if we would see God move in our lives more often if we were available to be used by Him instead of caught up in how we compared ourselves to others.

I wonder if we would see God move in our lives more often if we were available to be used by Him instead of caught up in how we compared ourselves to others.
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This is why Paul starts with the first question in verse 10: who are we trying to please?

Time spent learning and waiting. An incredibly important part of Paul’s journey was the three years he spent in Arabia. Almost every person God uses greatly in Scripture and throughout history had a waiting period. Moses waited 40 years in the desert, Elijah ran out into the desert, David was in the desert on the run from Saul (even though he had been anointed king), Jesus was in the desert for 40 years, and so on.

We overlook the importance of the desert season of waiting. But if we skip this, we will greatly reduce our effectiveness.

If you are in the time of waiting, don’t fret. Look to see what God is teaching you and how He is preparing you. You may not be ready for what is next, or someone else may not be ready for what is next for you.

Many of us miss what God has next for us because we rush what we’re in right now.
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The confirmation of others. Lastly, Paul talks about the importance of others confirming what God has placed in you. In this passage, Paul discusses the importance of Cephas and James, two apostles whose words carried much weight.

When you share what God has placed on your heart with others close to you who know you well. What do they say?

While the opinion of others shouldn’t be a driving factor (remember verse 10), it is an important part of figuring out what God is calling us to do.

4 things that might be holding you back in life & leadership.
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To figure out what’s next, here are 4 simple questions to ask: 

• What matters most to me? What excites me and wakes me up in the morning?
• How am I wired?
• Am I prepared for what is next, or do I need to learn and discover more?
• Do the people who know me best and love me the most confirm what God has placed on my heart?

The post Figuring Out What’s Next for You appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

We all struggle with something.

We all commit some sin or have some emotion we wished that we didn’t have.

Throughout Scripture (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:24; Colossians 3:5) we are told to crucify our sin, to put it to death.

But what does that look like?

Right before vs. 24, Paul has two lists: a list of sins (vs. 19 – 21) and a list called the fruit of the Spirit (vs. 22 – 23).

In vs. 19 – 21 there are sexual immorality (which is all sex outside of the bounds of marriage between a man and a woman), impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these.

What is interesting about this list is that Paul seems to put them all on the same level and says, “living in these will keep you from God” (see the end of vs. 21). While I’ve seen “Christians” holding signs that say “Gay people go to hell.” I’ve never seen one hold a sign that says, “Jealous people go to hell.” (But that’s a different post)

What Paul says though, is these are not occasional sins. In vs. 16 – 17, he describes these as overwhelming, all-encompassing desires that you cannot control the longing of. They are your identity. This is where it becomes broken for us, “I’m a gay man. I can’t control my anger. I’m a fighter. I have to win at all costs.”

For each person, vs. 19 – 21 is where the battle happens.

But how do you put them to death?

This is where the fruit of the Spirit comes in in vs. 22 – 23 of Galatians 5.

I love that Paul calls them fruit. It gives this picture of a farmer, of gradual growth, that is done by a farmer, not the fruit. The fruit doesn’t make itself grow, God does. Fruit does grow. Not always at the rate we would expect or think it should, but it grows.

The question for a follower of Jesus then, do you see growth in your life in the areas of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Do you see how God is working on your heart in those areas?

If the answer is no, I would say the Holy Spirit is not living in you because a follower of Jesus should be growing in all these areas at some point. We never stop, we never reach the pinnacle.

Now, as we take the fruit of the Spirit and put our sin to death from vs. 19 – 21.

This becomes a daily thing.

Crucifixion in vs. 24 carries this idea that it will be a death. It will be painful, hard, difficult. Freedom always involves a war.

Freedom always involves a war.
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One of the best ways to walk this road is through confession. Our family practices confession at the end of the day. We each confess to each other areas where we sinned or hurt someone. We’ve told our kids, whatever they say in this moment they will get grace. This is a way we teach them to confess their sins, but also what grace means. This can be dicey as a parent.

One thing I’ve learned about God’s grace is that, many times, the reason we don’t experience God’s grace and freedom in Jesus is because we won’t allow ourselves to. 

The post How to Put Your Sin to Death appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Recently, I did a series of posts on why a church should have a target, why every church has a target and how to make choices to reach that target (you can read them here). After the series, I got some questions about whether or not it was biblical to have a target. After all, are we told anywhere in the bible that a church should have a target.

The answer is yes.

In the book of Acts, we see how Paul had a target of the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Galatians 2:17) and how Peter had a target of the Jews (Galatians 2:17). Jesus in the great commission even gave the disciples a road map of who they were to reach and the order in which to do it (Matthew 28:18 – 20).

As you look at the New Testament, you see that certain people were better suited to reach certain people. Their backgrounds, the way they talked, how they understood certain world views, enabled them to be more effective in taking the gospel to places. The courage of some allowed them to plant churches others never would.

Does this mean that Paul never shared the gospel with a Jew? Or Peter with a Gentile? No, in fact we have evidence of them doing that. It means they were focused though and knew who their primary target was.

Churches are the same. The style of preaching lends itself to reaching a certain person. The pastors who have effective ministries are largely effective because of where they are located. That isn’t an accident. Instead of fighting against this, churches need to be clear about this. And, they need to support church planters who go to places they don’t.

Let’s admit a tension here: it sounds unloving to say we are better suited to reach a certain kind of person as a church. This is a reality though. Dress, style of music, age of the people on stage, how programmed or organic a church is. All of these go into who a church is best suited to reach. A church will reach people outside of the norm, but by and large, they will reach a certain kind of person more easily. When we fight against this, our effectiveness goes down. This is one reason that church planting is so important. It enables a church to reach different kinds of people within a city.

I think that is one reason God blessed Peter and Paul’s efforts. They led from their natural gifts, didn’t fight with each other about it (at least after Acts 15, so you can see what happens when we look down on each other) and they then encouraged each other by planting more churches in a variety of places with a variety of leaders.

The post Is It Biblical for a Church to have a Target? appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

I preached on the need and desire for approval that we all have. Granted, we all feel it to different degrees. In my sermon, I mentioned how my desire to win, to be right, to have power and control always outweighs my desire for approval. It is still there though.

This blog post may feel more like a confession that I’m letting you in on. Hopefully this will be an encouragement to you or you’ll see yourself in it.

For me, I was convicted how out of my desire for power and control, I can very easily make my relationships about my approval of someone else.

I can be good at putting incredibly high standards on people, making them feel guilty so they will ultimately do what I want.

This is how I control things. In the end, it is also how I can easily help people sin by gaining my approval.

It is interesting when we talk about the idols of the heart or the sin in people’s lives, we focus on the person sinning. We should. They are responsible. In doing this, it is easy to let the people off who cause the sinning. Granted, someone seeking my approval is not my fault and they stand before God on that. I stand before God on how I cause someone to sin or stumble.

That is on me.

As I think about legalism, the gospel, the idols of my heart and hopefully as you think about those things, my hope with this blog post is to get you to realize in your quest for approval, control, comfort or power, you cause others to worship their idol by your actions. In your quest for comfort, you might help someone seek even more control so things don’t fall through the cracks because you are so laidback and letting whatever happens happen. In your quest for approval, you cause others to seek power because you are willing to be a doormat to their sin and ego.

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The post Make me Approve of You appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.