Morning Thought: Intentional
This word has been ringing in my head for weeks. I know it is to be the theme of 2024 for our church and my personal life. As I am completing my next book, “ The List: God’s Blueprint for Living”, I see that this theme has been a thread from beginning to end.
We are living in times where we must be so intentional with everything we do. We must be intentional with the relationships we form and those we maintain. We must be intentional with life, work, ministry, time….the list continues. Intentionality carries the foundation of living a “deliberate life” of purpose, focus and vision.
Why is intentionality so important today? I believe we need intentionality because the world is so filled with confusion and chaos and it is so easy to be blown off course by the pressures of culture or the persuasion of those we deem important. It is easy to be drawn off target and spend valuable time and resources aiming in the wrong direction. We must eliminate the “Ready-Fire-Aim” syndrome that we may have been guilty of experiencing with off the cuff decisions.
God is needing for us to be intentional in all we do. We must be intentional in our prayer life. We must be intentional in our devouring of His Word, asking Holy Spirit to lead us in our study. We must be intentional in the choices that fill our calendar. We must be intentional with every decision. Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts and our ways are not God’s ways. As we seek Him, intentionally, He will reveal to us the paths to take.
It is only after we have intentionally chosen to find God in the secret place and intentionally allowed Him to examine the secret places of our heart, that we can live and move and have our being in Him. As we live our lives, we may appear to others to be anything but intentional. Why? It is because we have intentionally chosen the best part first of being in His Presence, and then we can spontaneously live, move and have our being in Him in our everyday life.
So I am excited to see how this will unfold in the days ahead. I am excited to see the changes that will come and the opportunities that will be unfolded that otherwise would have been missed. It is time to soar! It is time to remove the chains that keep us earth bound. Jesus has called us to an intentional relationship when He tells us He is the only way (John 14:6). He has called us to an intentional faith when He says the Lord God is our one and only Lord (Mark 12:29).
In a day of such visible compromise, it’s time to intentionally and deliberately confess who we are and the one we serve. “As Joshua stated: As for me and my house, we will (intentionally) serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).”
