Do Periodic Assessment.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. – Gen. 1:5 KJV.

Do Periodic Assessment_01032021

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The opening verses of the Bible gives account of the creation and formation of the world by the Almighty God, an account that was related by Moses based on a revelation that he received when he went up Mount Sinai to meet with the Lord. He had revealed that in the beginning, the entire world was formless, empty and covered by darkness with the Spirit of the Lord covering the surface above the waters (Gen. 1:2), but the Almighty God wanted to arrange the disorderliness of the world and fill the emptiness with his creation so he decreed for light to appear which happened instantly. At the appearance of the light, the Almighty God was said to have assessed and concluded that it was good and immediately created a period with the light called day and that without light called night – Gen. 1:3-5. With the assessment of the day’s task, the Bible says that God concluded that it was good and what followed was the phrase, “And the evening and the morning…”. This phrase was to be repeated on five other occasions to mark the successful end to every day’s work and the beginning of every new day – Gen. 1:5; 13; 19; 23; 31. What seemed obvious was that a period called afternoon by men seemed not to exist in the time demarcation of the Almighty God. It was all about morning and evening associated with starting and finishing of the scheduled task.

Just as every creation had a morning and evening, likewise every activity of man should be seen as having a morning and evening indicating the starting and finishing of a scheduled task, but unlike the Almighty God, how many of the activities of a man can with honest assessment by the man himself, be described as being seen to be good after completion?

Man seemed not to always do a periodic assessment of his/her activities in this world, an action that is not god-like. Anyone who is progress minded will always do a periodic assessment of all that is been done so as to be able to start the next phase of the individual’s growth and development on an informed platform. That man is not doing this however does not imply that the Almighty God is that negligent – Gen. 18:20; Dan. 5:25-28. Today, many Christians live a life without a plan. No plan because there is no target set in terms of what they desire to achieve in the morning that they can now use as a standard to assess their performance in the evening and be able to decide whether it was a good and successful day or not. Every Christian that intends to succeed in life must set targets, plan on how to achieve those targets and carry out periodic assessment to determine how much success has been achieved with regards to the set targets.

For the Christian that desires succees, the goals set must be divine goals and success in them must start with defining and identifying these divine goals for his/her life. This is because a plan that focuses on achieving goals that are not of divine origin may succeed but such will still not be regarded as successful until divine goals are achieved. Divine goals must be identified at the beginning of life with daily plans set out to achieve daily targets that will ultimately end in achieving life goals.

Having identified the divine objective, the Christian must realise that there will be no success in the absence of light. Even the Almighty God had to decree the appearance of light to appear before commencement of the project of creation and formation. The default state of the earth is darkness and the one who desires to make good success must introduce light. It is simply impossible to expect any form of success whilst operating in darkness. This however should not be a challenge to the true Christian as such would be expected to have the light of the world in him/her already. That is the light that shines eternally in darkness and darkness cannot comprehend or overcome – Jn. 1:4-5. He that desires to operate in light must invite Jesus Christ into his/her life. The one who does not have the light of the world in his/her life should not expect to be successful in fulfilling divine objectives and goals.

Identifying divine objectives and operating in light, as positive as it would be will require the additional act of such a person carrying out a periodic and honest assessment of all activities so as to ensure that progress is being made in the right direction. Not to do this will be a very dangerous oversight on the part of the one that desires success in life as it is very easy for man to stray without realising it. Delay in quickly noticing the stray and effecting correction where necessary could have very grave repercussions for the individual as great and irreparable damage may have been caused due to delayed intervention and correction. It is important that a honest assessment of one’s activities is done periodically to avoid preventable failure even after all the hard work must have been put into a task.

The above three points does not apply to physical activities only but also to spiritual activities, especially in the relationship of the Christian with the Almighty God. Many Christians today still believe, and wrongly so too, that they are operating in the Lord when in actual fact they have long strayed away from him. The implication is a mis-direction of not only their own lives but also the lives of people who see and have them as mentors. Samson never knew that he had lost direction with the Lord when the philistines arrived. The result was humiliation and sudden death, spiritual and physical – Judges 16:20. Similarly, because King Saul was not carrying out honest and periodic self assessment he never realised that he had lost his relationship with the Lord until he requested for God’s direction and got no response. The Bible says that “the Lord did not answer him” – 1Sam. 28:6. He ended up having to consult the dead spirits.

The Almighty God did a periodic assessment of every step taken whilst creating and forming the earth and its contents and that was why at the end of the sixth day, everything turned out cumulatively to be good because each stage of the process was assessed and confirmed to be good. Do periodic assessment of your activities especially your relationship with the Almighty God so that there will be no room for disappointment or failure at the end of your activities in this world and your life in general. There will be no room for adjustments after death as the only event that follows death is fearful judgement – Heb. 9:27. Use the morning of every part of your life very well so that in the evening you can also assess it all and conclude that “it was good”. That is the only way you can have your deserved rest at the end of all your activities in this world and in eternity. May God assess all our works and find us deserving of rest in this world and with Him in eternity in Jesus name. Amen.