My ministry friend, Brian Dodd, says that, “Success is a daily agenda.” I agree with Brian, but I’ve found that my life revolves around a weekly agenda more than a daily agenda. Granted, days make weeks and weeks make months and years, so ultimately the idea is to stick with things until they become true of your entire life.
Progress Requires Consistent Efforts
The point behind the concept is that if you want to be successful at something, you keep on doing it with great regularity. For example, if your goal is to be an effective messenger or witness, then look for an opportunity to share Christ every week of your life. Over time, that will give you success as a messenger. If you want success in spiritual growth and maturity, then stick with a growth plan consistently for years and you will be surprised how much progress you make.
Whether you do an activity every day, every week, or every month, the consistency factor is what you are aiming for. Maybe you have heard the phrase, “We are what we repeatedly do…” (Will Durant) There is a great deal of truth to that statement. If I consistently workout, it will pay big dividends for my physical fitness. I will become a good steward of my body if I exercise daily or several times a week. Yes, success really is a daily (or weekly) agenda.
I think the first think you need to do to achieve success is to figure out what you want to be successful in. You can’t make an agenda out of something that you have not identified as a priority, discipline, or habit. If your agenda is constantly changing, you will not likely be successful at much of anything.
Let Christ Set the Agenda
Personally, I like to let Christ set my agenda. I want to be successful in walking the way Jesus walked. I want the same things that were true of Jesus to be true for my life. Jesus made a daily agenda of withdrawing to spend time with the Father. I want that, too. Jesus made a weekly agenda of worshipping in the synagogue. I want public worship to be a part of my weekly agenda, too. Jesus looked for opportunities to serve people on a daily basis. I want to be a servant, too. Jesus spent years developing a handful of disciples that He would mobilize to reach the world. I want to invest my life in making fully trained disciples, too.
My goal is to make the character and conduct of Christ my weekly agenda. I want to focus on becoming more like Christ in “who” He was and in “what” He did week in and week out. I like to refer to the conduct of Christ as the M-7 Lifestyle. It means being a member, magnifier, maturing, ministering, managing, a messenger, and a multiplier. If I develop these outward marks of a disciple in my life, I will become more like Christ, and that helps me become a fully trained disciple.
If you need help identifying the weekly agenda Christ has for your life, let me encourage you to check out our latest resources, the Impact Series, in our online store. Impact Two and Impact Three are both uniquely designed to help you grow into the image of Christ. You can learn more at impactdisciples.com.
Originally posted here. Used by permission.