80 – 7 Keys to Significance and Finishing Well

Christian Financial Perspectives

English - July 18, 2020 05:30 - 50.1 MB - ★★★★★ - 11 ratings
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Think about great men and women of God who have lived their lives to the fullest, packing meaning and purpose into everything that they have accomplished. No matter who it is, they probably all have one thing in common. They finished well. Dr. Ken Boa of Reflections Ministries joins Bob in discussing living a life with purpose as they discuss “7 Keys to Finishing Well.”

Click below to listen to Episode 80 – 7 Keys to Significance and Finishing Well

7 Keys to Significance and Finishing Well

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Think about great men and women of God who have lived their lives to the fullest, packing meaning and purpose into everything that they have accomplished. Maybe you are thinking about a personal friend or someone from hundreds of years ago. No matter who it is, they probably all have one thing in common. They finished well.

Many people begin their journey well, but they falter along the way and get off track. This episode looks at the qualities of people that have lived a life full of significance and have finished well. Dr. Ken Boa joins Bob in discussing living a life with purpose. Ken is the founder of Reflections Ministries whose purpose is To encourage, teach, and equip people to know Christ, follow Him, become progressively conformed to His image, and reproduce His life in others. They discuss “7 Keys to Finishing Well.”

GUEST: Dr. Ken Boa of Reflections Ministries

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Keys to Finishing Well

1. Intimacy with Christ – Being

2. Fidelity in the spiritual disciplines (Bible study and prayer) – Being

3. Biblical perspective on the circumstances of life – Knowing

4. Teachable, humble, and obedient spirit – Knowing

5. Sense of purpose and calling – Knowing

6. Healthy relationships with resourceful people – Doing

7. Ongoing ministry investment in the lives of other people – Doing

Questions for Self-Reflection

1. EVALUATE: How would you evaluate yourself in pursuing the goal of finishing well? Where do you most need change?

2. INTIMACY WITH CHRIST: Does your desire to know God exceed all other aspirations on your life journey? Aspirations toward persons, possessions, or positions? Are you focused more on loving Jesus than on avoiding sin?

3. FIDELITY IN SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES: All relationships require time and investments. Are you faithful in pursuing those spiritual disciplines? If not, what can you do to become more faithful?

4. BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFE: When faced with a disruption in your day or your life, what is your typical attitude or response? What can you do to develop God’s perspective on both short-term and long-term circumstances?

5. TEACHABLE, HUMBLE AND OBEDIENT SPIRIT: Are there one or more areas in your life that you’ve become unteachable? If so, write a prayer asking God to soften your heart to learn in these area.

6. SENSE OF PURPOSE AND CALLING: How sure are you of your calling in life – not just vocational, but in your life as a whole? What do you want your life to add up to? What are you doing now and how will that affect this goal? What do you want to be like in 5 years? 10 years? What practices can you pursue now to make that happen?

7. HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS WITH RESOURCEFUL PEOPLE: What can you do in the coming weeks and months to pursue a new healthy relationship or to strengthen an existing relationship?

8. ONGOING MINISTRY INVESTMENT IN THE LIVES OF OTHER PEOPLE: What do you see as impediments to ongoing ministry involvement in your life? If you’re not satisfied with the level of ongoing ministry involvement in your life, what can you do to change it?

God has called us all to a very purposeful and risk-filled life journey. How will you pursue the goal of finishing well?

Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors

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Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Dr. Kenneth Boa

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[INTRODUCTION]

Welcome to “Christian Financial Perspectives”, where you’re invited to gain insight, wisdom and knowledge about how Christians integrate their faith, life and finances with a Biblical Worldview. Here’s your host Christian Investment Advisor, Financial Planner, and Coach, Bob Barber.

Bob:

So welcome to today’s podcast. And I got some great questions for you. We got a great podcast lined up for today and a great speaker. I’d like you to think about some great men and women of God that you’ve known throughout your life. And they really lived a life on purpose and they finished well. Maybe this is an uncle or an aunt are a grandmother or just somebody you know through business, but they did well. Maybe it’s a famous person, but think about their life. I want to share a couple of scriptures now that comes from Hebrews and Philippians, and see how these can apply towards their lives, as well as applying towards yours. Hebrews 12:1-2, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” What a beautiful scripture that talks about fixing our eyes on Jesus, and then Philippians 3:12-14, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as laying hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” These scriptures really speak of the prize that I sure hope to attain one day, and I hope you do too. I believe that nearly everyone, they start off in life wanting to run this race of life well, and then finish well someday. To be able to look back at a life that has meaning and purpose. Many people begin well, but somehow along the way, they get off track. So what we’re going to do today, we’re going to look at the qualities of people that have lived a life of significance and finished well that we can use as an example to follow. So the guest I have today that’s going to speak on finishing well is Dr. Ken Boa, founder of Reflections Ministries, whose purpose is to encourage, teach, and equip people to know Christ, follow him, become progressively conformed to his image, and reproduce his life in others. I’ve heard Dr. Boa many times through Kingdom Advisors at our conferences, as well as our study groups that we have nationwide through video. Dr. Boa has authored and coauthored numerous books and publications, including three that have received a Golden Medallion Book Award, now called the Christian Book Awards, from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, including the Zondervan NASB study Bible, which many of you may be familiar with. I know I am. So I’m very honored to have Dr. Boa as a guest on Christian Financial Perspectives today to discuss the seven keys to finishing well, and I hope this is going to be an inspiration to all of us listening. Welcome, Ken.

Ken:

Glad to be with you.

Bob:

I’m so excited about what you’re going to share with us, these seven keys to finishing well. Ken, you’ve come up with these seven keys of living a life of significance and finishing well. Let’s start with what that very first key is, and are these in order of importance or are every one of them the same?

Ken:

As it turns out, actually there is a sequence of importance. And when we go through the first two, those relate to being, and that relates to my relationship with God, and then the next three, three through five, relate to knowing, and that has to do with ourselves. And then the final two, six and seven, have to do with doing, that is to say with others. So it moves from God to ourselves to others, which is a theme of my book, “Conformed to his Image”, because essentially I talk about loving God completely, loving ourselves correctly, and loving others compassionately. And that is a sequence then that is involved in what I call relational spirituality. So this concept then actually ties these seven figures and features that I’ve observed by my own study of who were the great figures in the scriptures and also in the history of the church who have run the race with endurance and finished well. What are the qualities that those people seem to share in common? And that’s really how I arrived at these seven, but then in sequencing them, I put the most important one first, which is intimacy with Christ, and then that then animates or should animate the rest of them. So, then I saw a sequence then of what it meant to be and to know and to do those, those principles. Yes. That’s how it evolved.

Bob:

So it sounds like it’s kind of like a foundation. So you build the foundation, which is intimacy with Christ, and I tell you, Ken, today, with technology and all the outside stimuli that’s coming at us, that’s gotta be hard to have that strong intimacy with Christ. What kind of things do you notice that interfere with that?

Ken:

Oh, there’s the whole vin of this world. It’s constant, it’s ubiquitous, it’s pervasive. It’s constantly clamoring and telling us this is what you should go for. Pursuing the temporal over the eternal is what the world is calling us to do. And here’s the interesting thought that the world will define us by default, do nothing and you’ll buy into its value system. But the word, the word will only define us by discipline. And that’s why you cannot really just move along and ditz along without expecting to regress. I see the spiritual life, and this relates to this intimacy with Christ as a kind of escalator that’s going downwards. And maybe some of us as kids when we were at malls, let’s go up a down escalator, see how fast we can go against the the movement of yesterday.

Bob:

I used to love to do that, and I got in trouble by the way.

Ken:

That’s fun to do, but here’s the metaphor. There’s no neutral place. As soon as you stop moving, you’re descending. You see the concept, so that it’s always pulling us down. So to go up against that is to go against the gravity of the world, the flesh and the devil. And that’s when I talk about a higher principle of aerodynamics in which we take the wings of the spirit and we soar. Though the gravity is still there, the wings of the spirit animate us and energize us and bring us into intimacy with him. But that’s only gonna happen if we really renew our minds with the truth, as Romans 12:1-2 tells us to do, so we will not be conformed to the world, but instead be conformed to Christ the word and by being transformed by the renewing of our mind.

Bob:

Now I see where these keys, cause I know these keys, and I’ve looked at them already. I see where this second key really builds on the first key. So what is that second?

Ken:

Yes, they do build upon one another because fidelity in the spiritual disciplines, though at first look, you might’ve suppose, well, doesn’t that go under doing? But actually, the purpose of the disciplines is not that they are ends in themselves, but that they are the means to the end of intimacy with Christ. So that the point of the disciplines then is that these are the vehicles, time-tested vehicles, that universally animate the aspiration for intimacy with the Lord Jesus, because for example, the discipline of time spent with him of solitude, silence, study, the discipline where we simply pray and get to go away for a period of time. So without these fundamental disciplines that are again, as I say, time-tested, then we will not be able to have the training that’s necessary and the habituation that was necessary to be capable of leaning toward the spirit and not toward the flesh. My desire is for people to become more and more spring loaded toward the spirit. And that’s what these disciplines are designed to do. This says training, good training, will eventually form through neo plasticity. And we understand now the mechanism by that works because neurons that fire together wire together. So it is with the spiritual disciplines. If you keep showing up and you keep on doing the same thing, and it’s a positive thing, because practice makes perfect isn’t true. It’s perfect practice that makes perfect. So if you go and say renew your mind, you have a discipline of maybe memorizing some scriptures and so forth, whatever it is, that after awhile you do it long enough, and that’s what the disciplines do, they train you so that after a while you become spring loaded, it’s become second nature. It’s like muscle memory.

Bob:

You’re so right. And I’ve never seen it said like you just said it, too. Fidelity in spiritual disciplines. You think of fidelity or infidelity. When I think of infidelity, that’s not a good thing. I mean, that’s where your allegiance is not to the person you’re supposed to have fidelity to. And life is pulling us in so many different directions. I can see where our eyes focus on something else. We really have to stay true to being in the word and true to prayer. And we have to make that intentional, don’t we?

Ken:

Indeed, we do. It’s not going to happen by default. Again, just do nothing. And the world will encroach once again upon you. So it’s always this matter. It’s much easier to unlearn spiritual truth than to learn it because of the dynamics of a fallen world. And this present age then is I like to see it as a soul forming world that God is using even the adversities of this world to train us and prepare us for our eternal citizenship with him. So if we see it that way, then this world is not a living room. It’s a gym. It’s where we’re working out, we’re being worked on. And so seeing it that way, then the disciplines then of these engagements are necessary. But here’s the key thing about that. I wanted to say that relates to disciplines, but also the key thing that relates to intimacy with Christ and here it is, it is those who finish well, focus more in loving Jesus than on avoiding sin. So the key here is what do you want, not what are you trying to avoid. So, extinction never is effective. You try to get rid of something. It never goes away. The only way you can get rid of something is to replace it with something better, a higher good. And that is then replacement, which transcends extinction. What do you seek? What do you want? What do you long after? If the most important thing that you want is Jesus, then you become conformed by that which you aspire. You become shaped by your aspirations. And so, what do you really want? That’s where we have to use that as a diagnostic question. What do I really want more than anything else? I may say it’s him, but what in practice? Because my time and my wallet, basically my money, how I spend my money and my time, will tell me where my real priorities are in spite of how well I speak of my priorities.

Bob:

This reminds me of a long time ago. I’m thinking of something 20 years ago when I saw this guy talking about the filling of the Holy Spirit, and he had two glasses and he put a little bit of oil in one of the glasses. And when he started pouring the pure water in that glass and he had a drain under it, he started pouring water in it. Eventually, all that oil came out because he was pouring pure water into that glass. And for some reason, the way that you said that, when you’re pouring Jesus into you, everything else is just going to kind of fall out.

Ken:

It’s exactly right. So instead of trying to avoid sin or any of those things, what you want to do is focus on loving Jesus. Now, it goes back to the discipline. Why do I engage the disciplines? Because they are vehicles by which I can know him better. Now I have a reason for doing it. And so they’re not ends in themselves, but they’re means to the end of knowing him. It’s really the simplicity and purity of devotion to him. So the fundamental question that Jesus asked his first question, “What do you seek?” is the most important question we can ask ourselves.

Bob:

That’s extremely powerful. Ever since I became a Christian, gosh, over 35 years ago, I remember when I became a Christian. I just, I wanted the things of God, but there is this constant competition and that’s what I’m hearing. So we focused on those first couple of keys and there’s a third key to looking at everything and finishing well. What is that third key?

Ken:

The third key is going to be a biblical perspective on the circumstances of life. And by now, this is the first of the three knowing disciplines. The first two relate to being. That is to say, who am I? And who’s am I in intimacy with God? The next three relate to how do I think about the knowing dynamic? And so, it’ll involve one component of the knowing is how do I really view the circumstances of life? In other words, do I see them in terms of God’s character or do I instead view God’s character in terms of my changing circumstances? The fundamental rub there. And so if I view God to my circumstances, which are going to change, sometimes good, sometimes bad. But if I view that as the basis in which I look at God, I’m in serious trouble. It’s the unchanging character of God that I then apply to my changing circumstances, whether good or real. This is why Paul says to the Thessalonians, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything, give thanks.” Now that means in everything. So that means – I call it the hard Thanksgiving. How can I give him thanks for things that are terrible setbacks in my life. And yet, he’s inviting us to do that because all things work together, not in isolation, for good to those who love them and those who are called according to his purpose, which is the heart of Thanksgiving. So, it’s a renewed perspective that we’re shaped by suffering.

Bob:

And a biblical perspective reminded me, I’ve taught so much on a biblical worldview, is that perspective and worldview is that one in the same?

Ken:

They certainly overlap. That may be nuanced in their differences. But the idea is I tried to speak about an eternal perspective in the temporal arena, such that we treat things according to their true value. The wisest thing we can do then is to assess and view those things which are passing away and temporal as such. But the problem is the world has a mathematical blender that they miss evaluate the actual value of eternity, and they trivialize that. And they act as if the value of what they see and touch is transcendent. And so what they do is they treat it the temporal as if it’s eternal and they treat the eternal as if it’s hardly of relevance. And so, everything’s upside down.

Bob:

Yeah, it does. And they throw in there what I refer to as situational ethics, and whatever you’re doing, it just depends whether that’s right for you or right for me. Those are situations in a person’s life that can either demonstrate a biblical perspective or a secular one at that point. I had this great discussion just with a young person four days ago, a young college student that’s working for me. And it was interesting when we started getting into this discussion about a biblical worldview, and they’d never heard it. We started talking about what’s happening in today’s society. Is it okay to take a nickel or is it okay to take $50? Cause if it’s okay to take a nickel, then it’s okay to take $50 and then it’s okay to take $500. I presented this situation to this college student and she was like, I’ve never thought of it like that.

Ken:

Exactly. They don’t really think very well. So part of postmodernity in which we’re immersed is the problem that there is now a relativizing of the things that are true, good, and beautiful. Those are the three transcendentals, and God is in the unchanging wellspring of all that is true, all that is good, and all of that is beautiful. And because we are image bearers, we know and have a discernment about fundamentals of truth, goodness, and beauty, but we in our culture relativize them so that it’s just up for grabs.

Bob:

We’re nearly halfway through this thing. We’ve covered the first three keys to finishing well, so the fourth key, I guess, would be right in the middle of this. And what is that fourth key?

Ken:

It’s really, again, relating to knowing. It’s a teachable, responsive, humble, and obedient spirit. And when I speak of teachability I’m suggesting that in our youth our fundamental problem is naivete, a lack of focus in our middle years, though. It’s usually double mindedness when we’re trying to play by two sets of rules. But in our older years, I think our biggest challenge may be teachability. People succumb to the disease of the hardening of the categories. It’s a very inflexible brittle in their thinking. And so we need to have what I call the second naivete. The first naivete is childishness. And Paul says, “I learned to put away childish things,” but the second naivete, though, is child likeness. And there, we need to understand that if anything, we should become more and more surprised by the grace of God and the beauty of the created order and so forth.

Ken:

So teachability, but it also relates to humility. It’s this concept of recognizing that we are really people who’ve received grace. And so the key to humility is not trying to become humble because then you’ll be humble and proud of it. But instead, the key to humility is realization of everything that you have is gift and grace. What do you have that you did not receive? Why do you boast as if you didn’t receive it? And Paul says that to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 4:7. So that’s so critical. So humility and then humility then can lead to a greater sense of obedience, you see. I like to put it this way, and really, if you look at John 15 and put all the elements together, it would be this, that the key to glorifying God, “By this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples,” but what’s the key to bearing fruit? The key to bearing fruit is abiding in him. What’s the key to abiding in him. It’s obedience. If you keep my word, then you will abide in me, but what’s the key to obedience? It’s trust. What’s the key to trust? It’s going to be love. And what’s the key to love? It’s knowing him. So let’s go the other way. If we say to know him personally, relationally, experientially – to know him in that way is to love him and to love him is to be willing to trust him. To trust him, then, is expressed in obedience. And that is the means by which we abide in Christ and thus bear fruit and ultimately glorify the father.

Bob:

Are the differences that you observe in people that are teachable and those that are not, does it come down to just being humble and willing? Having a willingness and never feeling like I know it all?

Ken:

Yeah, that’s the component. The humility of realizing that. Another component though is an open mindedness, a willingness to be corrected, a willingness to be seen, and a sense of surprise of joy. Again, it’s child likeness. It’s the second naivete. That’s critical as well. And then the whole idea is what you’re really doing is seeing that all these things go together. It is, indeed, the mindset of one who knows who he is and whose he is and recognizes the glory of the transcendent God who also is the one who is the lover of our souls and pursued us and wooed us. On the one hand, but recognizes the greater that we see who God is, then the more we see how far apart we are in terms of our own aspirations and so forth. In other words, the greater God is, the worse we become. And then we recognize, though, the more we see that disparity, that’s actually what grace is all about. It connects the two.

Bob:

Wow. That’s just the first four keys. We’ve got three more to go. Let me again, kind of re-emphasize those first four we’ve gone through, starting off with intimacy with Christ, fidelity in spiritual disciplines. Next was a biblical perspective of everything, and then having that obedient spirit. We’re coming down to five, six, and seven. So what is that fifth key?

Ken:

Yes. The fifth one also relates to thinking. It’s a clear sense of personal purpose and calling. We have to recognize that God’s called us to a purposeful journey. Now, it’s a risk taking thing, but ultimately he says that your purpose is really a vocare, a vocation. That means that you have a calling, and that God has given each of us a unique calling. He’s given us a unique gift mix, but we need to find our purpose, find our calling through the lens of scripture and through the lens of prayer and obedience and so forth. And thus, we discover that life is a journey through various stages. Each is a preparation for another. It’s a kind of an apprenticeship, and we start off as apprentices along the way of discipleship, but then we’re called to become journeymen. We don’t need to be constantly prodded and so forth. And then after awhile, ultimately he calls us to become masters, the sages, people who we then have a wisdom enough to transgenerate. That is to say, to move this wisdom from one generation to another. And so all of this is a journey, though, and this is a calling. That’s why I say, the worst thing you can do is buy into the lie of retiring. Most think of retirement as basically they put themselves out to pasture and it’s crazy stuff. You’re taking your best years. You now you have all this wisdom, hard earned skill, and painful insights. We think that we’ve learned more from our failures than we do from our successes. And so, that’s the time to do it. I’m now writing a book called “Transitioning Well”, living so that navigating through the stages of life so that the best is yet to come. That’s critical for people. So, you may retire from a career, but you don’t retire from your vocation, your calling.

Bob:

You still have a purpose. I tell you, Ken, I ask people all the time, “What is God calling you to?” And they say, “Well, I haven’t felt God calling me to anything.” They don’t feel that calling. They don’t have that purpose. To me, that’s an emptiness that can only be filled with that relationship with God and Christ. And that’s sad. And like you say when someone retires all of a sudden, they don’t feel like they have a sense of purpose anymore. And that’s why so many of our retirees are depressed.

Ken:

Well, that’s exactly so, because now they built their life out of achievement and challenge and accomplishment. And so now what am I doing? Because if they define themselves by those kinds of external metrics, then they are really nobodies when they go into the world, as they now construe themselves, rather than having seen that no, no, no, no. Your career was a component that God used to prepare you for such a time as this. Most people though ask those fundamental questions too late. They wait until they start retiring or about to retire. Then they say, now, what am I going to do? They should have been thinking about that since their twenties. An annual kind of recapitulation or reassessment, wisdom then, is if we really review this, we would be in a better place. But even so, even if we fail to do that, the best can still be yet to come. Though, it’s not what it might otherwise have been. So, it’s a kind of a concept of transitioning well, so that we live well so that we will finish well, but there’s a transitioning process. S,o I think that God has given us a unique arena of influence. He’s given us capacities and skills. Now we have to say, how do I use them? Rather than frittering my time away in the golf course or going off this place or the other, I’m not against those things. But if that’s what you’re trying to use to define yourself, you’re going to make yourself utterly bored. And that will be a useless life and really squandered those resources

Bob:

As you’re still working, remember to work as if you’re working for the Lord and it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. Whether it’s outside work, inside work, accounting, or framing a house, or mowing a yard, just whatever it may be, work as if you’re working for the Lord, and you’ll have that sense of purpose in your life. Now, Ken, the sixth key to finishing well, I’ve got to admit to you, this is one of my favorite keys. I was just talking with my wife last night about this. This key, I think is so instrumental, too, with younger people as they start off in life. So, let’s get into that sixth key. What is that sixth key?

Ken:

Now we go to the components that relate to doing unto others. So, it has to do here with healthy alliances with resourceful people. And this has to do, then, with the need for us to understand that the spiritual life is not something led in isolation, but rather in relationship and community. So here we have, then, God has sovereignly embedded people in our lives, and we need to also have strong relationships with resourceful people. That’s why we need people who are spiritual friends. But then there’s another level up from friendship. It could be guidance and there’s some that can help us and it can be reciprocal. And then another level up is more like mentoring. And this is an important area and that’s again, a kind of an apprenticeship. And then finally, there’s even spiritual direction, but that’s where a person is gifted to discern the working of the spirit in another person’s life. Because what we need to do is have people who encourage and stimulate one another to love and good deeds without which we would then really fail.

Bob:

I think of the younger person. And I remember when I was about 30, and we moved into the New Braunfels area, and this older gentleman, he just grabbed onto me and he loved the Lord. And he said, come on, you’re coming to Bible Study Fellowship with me. He got me involved in the Christian community here. That relationship, he and I still have today. He’s closing in on 80 now. And we’ve had this incredible relationship all that time. And I think of that healthy relationship with resourceful people. That sixth key plays right into that and has been so instrumental in my life, which takes us to the very last key. And what is that seventh key to finishing well?

Ken:

It’s the final one that relates to others or to doing, that is to say, ongoing ministry investment in the lives of others. That is to say that we are looking at the fact that God has given us something that we need to now give to others. So, really, we’re not ends in ourselves in that sense, but rather we are called to give what we’ve receive to others. It’s a transgenerational thing. So that at the end, the whole dynamic of life in Christ is imparted. And it’s a matter of life on life, and then actually investing in other people. So the concept, then, is to have ongoing outreach, sacrificial ministry, and a desire to really invest everything I’ve got into the lives of others so that I will end well by really giving it to the next generation. I think that we, all of us, want to have a legacy. We all want to have something that’s going to spread. And that’s very critical. Although, I will say this. It’s not a matter of how many people know us. That’s not what true fame is. True fame is how many actually are touched by the invisible influence of one soul upon another. So, it may be anonymous, but actually not before God. So everything you do – all authentic fame is fame with God, but in the grace of hidden impact and through mutual reception, so hidden impact is your key. You do not know if what a word you said or a thing you did mattered or not. I just got a call, for example, from someone I don’t think I’ve seen since the early seventies when I lived in Knoxville. And she was telling me about the impact that my life had had had on her and her two daughters and her son-in-law over these years, even though I haven’t seen him in all those years. Something had come up and she wanted to talk with me, but I hardly could even remember them, and I had to bring them to mind. So my point is, most of your life has hidden impact. And so you want to invest and give everything you’ve been given, because if you hold back, it’ll be a matter of stewardship. And you’ll say, what did you do with the time that I gave you? What did you do with the ability that I gave you? What did you do with the influence that I gave you, the relationships, which is another realm of stewardship people. And then what did you do with the truth that I gave you, as well as the treasurer? So, it’s a question of living in such a way that we live with the end in view and live with eternity in view.

Bob:

These last two keys, Ken, that healthy relationship. I was telling you about this wonderful man that’s still around and reached down to me. And now here we are, 30 years later. It’s time for me to reach down to the next generation. That’s where that ongoing ministry in the lives of others comes and where so many of our retirees, they have so much wisdom and they’ve been through life. They can mentor that next generation and bring them into that relationship with Christ and say, “Come on, get up, come with me.” So, there you have it. Those seven keys to living a life of significance and finishing well. Again, intimacy with Christ, fidelity in spiritual disciplines, the biblical perspective, an obedient spirit, a sense of purpose and calling, healthy relationships with resourceful people, and ministry into the lives of others. Now, don’t worry if you didn’t get all of these. Remember, we always put this on our Christian financial podcast website. So that’s what you do. You just go to christianfinancialpodcast.com. You’ll be able to pull all of this information, all these seven keys, we’ve been sharing. Before we end today’s program, there’s also a list of questions that we’re going to put on the website in reference to these seven keys. Ken, these are questions that I got from the study guide that you did many years ago. I think it was back in November of 2016 that you did this for Kingdom Advisors, and here’s a sampling of these questions. I think they’re really good questions for all of us to ask ourselves. “Does my desire to know God exceed all the other aspirations in life’s journey? Everything that is out there, does my desire to know him exceed all that?” The second question of a sampling of these many questions is, “What do you want your life to look like in the next 5 to 10 years and beyond that?” Third would be, “What could you do in the coming weeks and months to pursue a new, healthier relationship or to strengthen an existing one?” So those are just a few samples of the questions, and we’ll have all seven of those keys on our website. Ken, do you have any last words before we end the podcast today?

Ken:

Well, it’s just a question of asking yourself and coming into contact with your deepest longings. I think it’s a wise thing for us to do and to have this understanding, and I think this is critical for us to embrace. We are no longer defined by the pain of our bounded past, but we’re now defined by the joy of our unbounded future.

Bob:

Can you say that one more time?

Ken:

We’re no longer defined by the pain of our bounded past. All the remorse and regrets that we have, that’s not what defines us. That’s what’s being used to shape us for our eternal citizenship in the father’s house. So therefore, we are actually being defined by the future. We’re defined by the joy, the unbounded joy, not the abounded past. We won’t even remember it when we’re in his presence, but ultimately by the unbounded joy of his presence. That’s a way of seeing and thinking that can really animate our hope in this temporal arena.

Bob:

That goes exactly with what we started off today from Philippians 3, “Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Well, that’s going to do it all for today. Thank you so much, Ken, for taking time out of your day to be with us, and remember that God has called all of us to live a purpose filled life.

[CONCLUSION]

That’s all for now.

We invite you to listen to all of our past episodes covering many financial topics from a Christian Perspective. To make sure you don’t miss any of Bob’s upcoming episodes you can subscribe to Christian Financial Perspectives on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, or Stitcher. To learn more about integrating your faith with your finances, visit ciswealth.com or call 830-609-6986.

[DISCLOSURES]

Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc. DBA Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the host, Bob Barber. Bob does not provide tax advice and encourages you to seek guidance from a tax professional.

80 – 7 Keys to Significance and Finishing Well

Christian Financial Perspectives

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