Fellow podcaster and author of the book “Redeeming Productivity,” Reagan Rose helps us understand that our productivity matters to God, and increases our motivation to live for God’s glory by answering the following questions: What does it mean to glorify God, and how is our productivity tied to this? What suggestions do you have for helping us be more productive in our morning routines? What “unfair” advantages do Christian’s have in being productive? Why should Christians be proactive in using their spiritual gifts, and do those gifts have an impact on other areas of life beyond the church? Do you have tips for how to set attainable goals? Why are heavenly rewards a reason given in scripture to be more productive in this life?
Christi: Welcome to the smiling at the future podcast. My name is Christi Rose and this is my pursuit to glean practical wisdom on femininity, homemaking, finances, relationships, and singleness from the God-fearing men and women in my life. Hope you enjoy this journey with me as we learn to smile at the future.
Christi: Hello, ladies. I am thrilled to share this discussion I had with Reagan Rose with you all, and I know it will give you that boost to your motivation that you need around this time of year to be living productively and redeeming the time. The impetus for this discussion is that Reagan recently published a book called Redeeming Productivity, and I highly, highly recommend you get your hands on a copy.
Christi: You can also win a copy because we are giving away three of them on our Instagram page. So visit there to find out how to enter that giveaway. But in a nutshell, Reagan is looking at productivity from a Christian perspective, unlike so many other self-help books that try and use selfish or worldly motivations for you to make the most of your time and your life. So here is Reagan to give us a dose of God-honoring motivation.
Christi: Welcome to the show Reagan. I am delighted to have you here and just excited to talk about the book that you just published. But before we jump in, would you please share about yourself and where the Lord has you in life and ministry?
Reagan: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s really exciting to be here with you, Christi. If your listeners don’t know, we used to work together at Grace to You. So it was cool to get to reconnect and have a conversation. I run a ministry now called Redeeming Productivity, where I try to help Christians get more done for the glory of God. So basically, we attack the subject of personal productivity from a Christian worldview.
Reagan: I’m married. I have two children and a third is on the way at the end of this month; he’s due. So we are on full baby watch mode. But we live here in Michigan now and focused full-time on Redeeming Productivity.
Christi: That’s wonderful. Yeah, so excited when you decided to do that full time, and yes, we work together but we are not related despite what people think of our last names. So no relation but just happy to have you on and I’m a big fan of your podcast and I think I’ve been listening to it since you started. How long have you had that?
Reagan: I think I started late 2019, somewhere around there. So a few years now.
Christi: Okay, well yeah, I’ll be linking that in the show notes for the listeners to go over and take a listen to all of the content that you’ve put together there. But your book is a culmination of all of your study and just really in this sphere of how to be productive as Christians. And I loved every chapter, I couldn’t put it down, it’s a page-turner. I was inspired and encouraged by your solidly biblical approach to productivity.
Christi: And the tagline of your book is “Getting more done for the glory of God” and that is our desire as believers, that our motivation would be to give God glory. But that phrase, we hear it all the time and we might not always understand what is the glory of God. What does it mean to give God glory? So could you share, explain what that means and how we can do that?
Reagan: Sure. It really is one of those words you hear all the time in church and then when someone asks you to define it, you’re like, well yeah, to glorify God means to glorify him, right? So it is one of those words that sometimes is ill-defined. And I think one of the challenges, whether it is when you talk about glorifying God, there’s really two ways that that phrase is used biblically.
Reagan: One, speaking about the glory of God, is the glory that he has in himself, right? The theologians call this intrinsic glory. Like God is objectively glorious. He’s praiseworthy. All of his deeds, his attributes, the shining forth of those are his glory. And so when we come along and say, well how do I glorify God? I can’t add to his intrinsic glory. That’s speaking more of what is called ascribed glory. It’s really if you wanted to put it in a word, it’s about pointing to God.
Reagan: So we do this, you know, on Sunday, when we worship Him, and we sing songs or when our prayer is, when we’re praising him, we’re ascribing to the Lord, “You are glorious.” But we also do it in all of our lives. All of our actions, our work, our attitude, all of those things were meant to be one giant flashing red arrow that points to God and just says “worthy.”
Reagan: And one analogy I heard somewhere a long time back, probably from a preacher, was that it’s like the sun and the moon, right? The God is like the sun, his glory, the shining forth, the light that comes from him is from him in and of himself, that’s his glory. Well, in that equation, I’m like the moon. I don’t have my own glory. I reflect God’s glory, right? Just like the moon just reflects light up because it’s reflecting the sun.
Reagan: And so my job as a Christian is, Jesus said, Matthew 5:16, to let my light shine before others, so that they may see my good works and give glory to my Father who is in heaven. I want people to look at my life and their eyes to bounce off of me and to Christ who’s the source of anything good to me to say those good works, those attitudes, those deeds, that’s Christ at work in him, so that he gets more glory, he’s magnified by my life. So that’s in a very verbose way, that’s what it means to glorify God. Your life is pointing to him.
Christi: I loved how you broke that down and I really like the analogy of the moon, because it just makes it very tangible. And we understand that, yeah, everything we have, anything good in us, any gifts, it just comes from the Lord and we reflect right back to him who he is and his greatness and goodness. So we are just reflectors and that’s just such a privilege to reflect the king of the universe.
Reagan: And you would ask how productivity was tied to that and I guess I didn’t really answer that but that is just it. If my mission in life is to glorify God, and even, you know, some of the old confessions like the Westminster Shorter Catechism, you know, begins, the first question is what is the chief end of man? It’s to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Like that’s your chief end, your main purpose. If that’s my main purpose, I reason, I want to do that as well as I possibly can, right? If I know my mission in this world is to bring God glory, I want to be as productive as I can in that mission.
Reagan: So it really is the origin. The starting place for Christian productivity is I want to live a God-glorifying life. Okay. Now how do I do that as effectively as possible? And that leads you down into spiritual disciplines, but I argue that also leads you into a desire to practically be productive with your time. Be effective with it as well.
Christi: That’s so solid. So a lot of us can have a misconception about what it means to be productive, and maybe the Industrial Evolution has something to do with this, where we just think our output, we’re kind of like machines. We just have to produce all of these results. But in your book and in the passages you bring up in the discussion, you talked about how as a Christian, our productivity looks more like a tree rather than a machine. Can you flesh that out a little bit and explain what you mean by that?
Reagan: Yeah, absolutely. I think some of it comes from, if you are into personal productivity, you read secular books on productivity. You have to recognize that the thoughts and a lot of the concepts that are sort of talked about in personal productivity books come, they descend from the Industrial Revolution, right? Like we’re just outside of Detroit right here and we go a lot of times to the Henry Ford Museum, which isn’t far from our house and they have like an exhibit there that shows the assembly line and how Henry Ford set those up and they had switched basically from this mode of producing cars. It was called, I think they called it the Craftsman method, where basically just a bunch of guys who knew everything about the car, would walk around it and slowly build a car to the assembly line.
Reagan: And as most people know this, that’s what really made Ford take off, is they specialized every set of the process of building a car to make it as efficient as possible. And so this whole idea of factory management is productivity. How do you maximize the outputs with as little inputs as possible? How do I make it cheap and as fast as possible? So that I have more outputs.
Reagan: The problem is modern productivity is descended from this notion and so even though we’ve translated it into the world of knowledge work, right? A lot of us work in offices, we work with our minds instead of our hands. A lot of the analogies we use and the metaphors we use to talk about productivity are mechanical. And I think this is actually a bigger problem than it might sound like. Great. I even like, I often fall into this where I’ll say I’ll use a computer analogy. I say talking about my capacity, how much I’m able to do. Some I’ll say my, I won’t have enough bandwidth to do that, right? Or enough space on the hard drive, or things like that.
Reagan: But the problem is, scripture does talk about productivity and it talks about it using organic metaphors, instead of industrial ones, obviously. So, one of the things I point out is, what do you call the section in your grocery store where you buy fruits and vegetables?
Christi: The produce section, right?
Reagan: Yeah. And it’s because it’s what is produced from a tree. For, you know, centuries farmers, agrarian societies have referred to the productivity of their fields, of their animals, right? An apple tree that bears much fruit is very productive. And that’s the way the scriptures talk about productivity. It’s an organic thing. It’s not about tweaking the right knobs. It’s not about optimization. It’s actually more about connection and cultivation.
Reagan: And so even you read in John 15, you know, the famous passage where Jesus says, “I am the true vine. You are the branches. If you abide in me, you will bear much fruit.” Bear much fruit, that sounds like productivity to me. And it is, we as Christians, we want to bear much fruit for Christ. He says, okay, how do we do that? I abide in him. I focus on that connection to the true vine. I walk closely with the Lord. I let him work through me. And that’s a lot different than just trying to figure out which knobs I need to turn. How do I squeeze in, you know, 10 more minutes into my day? It’s a completely different paradigm when you think about your productivity in terms of organic. It’s a tree that’s growing and not a factory that needs to be managed.
Christi: I love that you brought out the John 15:5 passage and the other verse coming to mind is in Psalm 1. “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season.” And our fruit, I mean it talks about our spiritual fruit, is what is produced through abiding in Christ and he is the power source. You bring that out so many times throughout the book, like we can do nothing on our own. It’s not our own strengths and gifts, it’s only through his power enabling us to produce this kind of fruit. That is pleasing to God, that has the right motivations and all of that. It’s not just our own willpower and our own strength.
Christi: Okay. So taking this down a little more to a practical how-to level. You’re a big proponent of maximizing, using, utilizing your morning time. And you have a course on morning routines. Can you share a little about that and maybe just how it’s impacted your own life and give us some tips for how we can use the first fruits of our day, our mornings.
Reagan: Well, you know, people often ask me like what is the, where do I start? What’s like the one thing I could change to kind of get maximum leverage on trying to get my productivity under control, trying to get a little bit more organized? And I always say, start with your mornings because in my experience that was really a turning point in my life. About 10, 11 years ago, I got married 11 years ago and my wife and I decided to make the commitment that we were always going to go to bed at the same time, you know, barring some extenuating circumstances. The problem was my wife sleeps a long time and she’s just like nine, nine and a half hours is a full night of sleep for her. And I don’t, I can’t sleep that long.
Reagan: And so when we started to go to bed at 9:00, 9:30, I started waking up at 4:30, 5:00 in the morning and I didn’t know what to do with this time. I really like, I was like, I could go watch TV. Like, well, I don’t know what to do. And then it hit me one day, wait a minute, this is a gift. Everybody’s searching more time. Everybody’s searching for focused time, right? Where you’re not distracted and all of a sudden I’m awake and nobody else is. What can I do with this?
Reagan: And so I just started testing different things I could do in my mornings, and obviously, devotion, spending time in prayer. But then trying to think about what could I do to be more organized in my life and make a plan for the day, what about exercise? And so, I started working and doing experiments over the last 10 years. I’m still experimenting with it and changing things. And then working with people through Redeeming Productivity, I found time and again people have the same testimony. They start doing a morning routine and they’re like, whoa, everything changed.
Reagan: So basically why mornings? I think of this one aspect of it is your mornings are sort of the first fruits of your day, right? You have the Old Testament concept of first fruits that people would bring to God the first fruits of their harvest. That was the first and the best that yielded from what they made. And the idea was it was, “It all of it really belongs to you, Lord, but I’m bringing you this first and best as a gesture to show that, yes, this belongs to you.” And I think that we should think that way about our days too.
Reagan: What you do first, I really do think has an impact on the rest of the day. Most of us will be doing reach for our phone. We check something, we got an email, we get stressed out, we go on social media and we just go down this entertainment rabbit hole. That’s a terrible way to start your day, honestly. I think to have a plan, how do I utilize these first fruits of my day? And I really do think most people can do this, if we don’t want to, but I think we can. If we’re serious about it, move our bedtime back a little bit. Go to bed a little bit earlier, so we can wake up a little bit earlier, so we’re not just rushing out the door. Getting ready for the day and just getting in the car and going to work. But we’re being intentional with, how do I spend the first 15 to 60 minutes of my day?
Reagan: And so I have a paradigm. I go through these five elements that make for a good morning routine and it follows the acronym POWER. So P is for Prayer, spending some time in prayer when you first wake up. O is for Organized, and that means just making a plan for the day. What are the, what are the three things I want to get done? When I’m going to do them today? What’s coming up on my calendar? W is Word, like the word of God, reading some in the word, following a Bible reading plan or studying something. E is Exercise, doesn’t mean you have to do a full workout but just do something to get the blood going. Kind of orient your body towards the day. And then the R is Reading and writing, like doing some journaling, reading in another book that you’re trying to get through.
Reagan: And I’ve just found that when I’m doing that consistently every morning, it is incredible because all these habits sort of stack on top of each other. You’re hitting all these major areas your life, you’re hitting your spiritual life. You’re hitting your mind with planning the day ahead, with writing and even engaging your physical body. It’s like when you do this, you start the day ready and it’s this incredible feeling that before even a lot of people have woken up, you’ve already accomplished so much. You’ve already set your thinking right where your focus is on God, your focus is on how do I serve him with the day that’s coming. How do I utilize my time well? I just, it is like a superpower. I could not speak highly enough of having a morning routine. I know it’s a sacrifice, yes. But I just encourage people to try it for a month. Make it a challenge to try setting up a morning routine like this for a month and just see how it changes your life.
Christi: Love the emphasis on meeting with the Lord at that time. And I think I just think about how God gives grace to the humble and you just that’s just such a sign of humility. When you come to the Lord needing his strength and help for that day, putting him first and you’ll get more grace, I think, throughout the day and you’re going to start, I think, in a better frame of mind instead of hitting snooze 20 times and rushing out the door all frazzled. I mean, what that’s going to do. Yeah. Just make you more confident and settled and peaceful as you move through your day when you can get those things started in a correct way.
Christi: One of the quotes that I love from your book, Reagan. You said, “The Christian’s morning routine should not begin with speeding up to meet the workday but rather slowing down to meet with God.” And yeah, and I also appreciate how you said, you know, that means you’re going to also have to go to bed earlier to get your sleep. And I’m an early to bedder. I’m in bed by 9:00 p.m., yes. I’m a little bit of a grandma in that way but and yes, you know, it does. Sometimes hamper some social activities. It seems like just a lot of things tend to be late, but a lot of people know that I’m early to bed. So they try to coordinate things earlier. I’m more of a brunch person. I’m like, hey, sign me up for brunch, not for a movie at 9 p.m.
Christi: But another thing that you talked about in your book that I thought was really interesting is you talk about how Christians specifically have an unfair advantage in being productive and I would love for you to explain to the listeners what you mean by that.
Reagan: Yeah, you know, I’ve read other productivity books by Christians and always glean helpful things for them. But a lot of times I think, when Christians talk about productivity, we just kind of take like whatever the advice is that the world has, which a lot of it’s really good. There’s a lot of good common grace wisdom and tips and tricks for squeezing more time out of your day. How do you stay organized? How do you set goals? Like I talked about all that stuff too, but one thing that I think we can miss is that if we have a Biblical mindset about productivity, we need to recognize we have things that the world does not have.
Reagan: If the object of our productivity is to glorify God, lead lives that are fruitful for him. We have an ally in the Lord of the universe and he’s given us several really amazing things that the world doesn’t have. That’s better than a to-do list, better than a good goal setting framework. One of them is prayer, which is probably the most neglected of the spiritual disciplines if we’re all being honest, but can draw on the power of the Almighty to help you set your priorities, right?
Reagan: He says in James, if we ask for wisdom, he will give it to us. We talked about committing your plans to him, right? We can ask God for heavenly aid to live lives that are pleasing to him and we can have confidence that we’re asking things according to his will. If our aim really is to glorify him and be fruitful, we can pray with so much confidence that he will supply the power to do that and I just think that’s so overlooked even from folks who are into productivity. Even Christians, they’re into productivity, we miss that, man, we have this incredible advantage.
Reagan: Another one of course is the local church, the community that God has given us to help us be fruitful. This is not a solo mission that we’re on, right? We’re in it together and we’re more fruitful, we give God more glory when we do this in the company and finding our place in a local church. A big part of that is taking full advantage of our spiritual gifts that he’s given us. He has empowered us to be fruitful in specific hand-picked ways, and that is a very big, quote-unquote, unfair advantage that we have.
Christi: Yeah, and the two passages that you brought out in that portion of the book, Philippians 2:3, “It is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure,” and in 2nd Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you. So that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” It’s the Lord working in you, spiritual gifts. So I would like to take that thought a little bit further. People are sometimes unsure, how do I find out what my gift is? And yeah, just love to hear your thoughts on how people can identify their spiritual gift and then why is it essential that we are proactive in using those spiritual gifts.
Reagan: Yeah, I think one place to start with this is God, he doesn’t put us on like a holy scavenger hunt, right? Like he intends for us to know what our giftings are. And so that’s one thing to start with. It’s not some mystery. You need to go on like a quest to go find, right? But yeah, we are unsure. And so I think I just say that to say we can have confidence that we seek out to be faithful to God, and find how he specially equipped us, we can become at, he’s in it with us, he wants us to know that, he’s not trying to keep it from us.
Reagan: So the couple things you can do. There are these like tests like a spiritual gift inventory test. Some people have found those more helpful than I have. I find them of limited utility but they do help in the regard of making you aware of the spiritual gifts. So I would start there not with the test necessarily, but reading the passages on spiritual gifts or finding an article that sort of summarizes the different key passages that talk about the different gifts. So you know they are, so you know what to look for in your life, right? It’s not just like one of the spiritual gifts isn’t flight, unfortunately. But like I said, people need to know what they actually are learning to look for.
Reagan: But the second thing is pray. I mentioned before, and James talks about praying for wisdom. Again, God wants you to know what your gifts are. Ask him, “Lord, how, how have you equipped me? How have how has your spirit hand-picked what you would have me be fruitful in?” And God wants to show that to you. But mostly it happens. You discover your spiritual gifts through trying, through serving in your local church. The primary sphere for the spiritual gifts is in the serving of one another in the local church. That’s what God designed them for.
Reagan: So try out different things in your church. Don’t just be a consumer. Volunteer for different things. And what you’ll find is that other believers will begin to affirm certain things in you. They might say, “Oh, you’re very gifted in administration” or “Wow, you just have such faith” or “Look, you’re gifted to teach.” Even myself, when I was in middle school, it was my junior high pastor really kind of twisted my arm to like, give my testimony in front of the group. And then eventually he’s like, do a short devotional. And it was through that that I discovered that I was gifted to teach. I wouldn’t have known that, right? Except that you wouldn’t know except that you tried it and other people affirmed it in you.
Reagan: And so there is this very natural way that God uses the local church to help us discover our giftings. And as those become more clear to you, and as you recognize, here are some unique ways that God’s equipped me, recognize that you do need to be proactive with it. You, if you are part of the body of Christ, and in this is an amazing thing that I think we think enough about, is each local church in God’s sovereignty in his providence, he brings people there with specific sets of spiritual gifts to serve that and so, when we are not using the gifts God has given us in our local church, something’s missing. We’re like a piece of the puzzle that’s not there, a piece of the machine that’s just not functioning.
Reagan: And so we need to be proactive because in as much as we speak about stewardship as being like we need to steward our money, what more important thing do we have to steward than a spiritual gift has been hand-picked by the Holy Spirit for us, especially to use in the context of our local church. And so once you know it, don’t be shy. Obviously, don’t be a bully. But don’t be shy about going to your elders or deacons or whoever runs different ministries that you, you think you might be equipped for and saying, “Hey, I think the Lord has gifted me in this way. Is there a way I can serve in this area?” And seek those things out. Don’t just wait around and say, “No one ever asked me to do anything.” Be proactive. Don’t waste it.
Christi: So good. And I also appreciate how you brought out in the book, that it’s a process. It’s not just something that you like wake up one day and like, okay. The gift of encouragement, better use that. So it might take some time to get there. But yeah, as you, as you explore this, as you try different opportunities, as you’re affirmed by people in your church, that’ll just solidify more and more where you should be focusing your efforts within the local church.
Christi: Another thing that you mentioned in the book, which I thought was interesting, is how your spiritual gifts can apply even outside of the local body. I mean, that’s your primary focus and where you’re supposed to use them. Would you be able to talk a little bit about how it can help just in all areas of your life?
Reagan: Yes, this is something. I don’t know how widespread this notion is because the scriptures do specifically talk about using your spiritual gifts in the context of local church. But my sort of hypothesis is when you view the Christian life holistically, you think all the way back to you know the created in the image of God, you called to be fruitful, multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it, to this mandate to utilize all of our lives for God’s glory. It does seem to follow to me that the unique ways that God has gifted us would also impact, I think, even naturally without us, even trying, impact our work. And even the vocations, we are most suited for.
Reagan: So, for example, you mentioned the gift of encouragement. If you’re gifted in encouragement, doesn’t it follow that you would be especially suited not just to use that maybe in a greeting ministry or church but also maybe in some sort of a customer service role, or a hospitality type situation that there’d be, there’d be certain jobs and vocations that would be very suited to those gifts and which you can use those spiritual gifts to honor the Lord, even outside of the church and still fulfill that calling of glorifying him because you’re showing forth an aspect of what God is like through the way that he’s gifted you even outside the church.
Christi: Yeah, really helpful perspective and I think as you brought out in the book, this also can help you filter decisions in your life, especially in the area of jobs. I mean, that’s a lot of what this audience, that you’re speaking to, a lot of us, our jobs are a big part of our life. And so how do you decide what to do with your life and how to, what vocation to pursue? So that can narrow some of that down, which is so helpful when we can filter things and and kind of yeah, take that from a broad spectrum down to a simpler one.
Christi: Okay, so next question here, I’m a big fan, love goal setting, making goals. Every New Year’s, I make this a big priority in my life and I try to revisit it around my birthday and other points throughout the year, but not everybody is a fan of making goals. And I think New Year’s goals kind of get a bad rap from people. But can you share why as Christians it’s so vital for us to be intentional and set goals in our lives? And do you have tips for how we can do this and actually stick with them and be effective?
Reagan: Yeah, I’m really big on goal setting too because I find it so helpful to me, but it does, it does get a bad rap. And I think part of it, I’ll address this two ways. Part of it is a lack of understanding of how to set a good goal. So, a lot of people that, you know, you fall off the wagon on a New Year’s resolution. Some of that is related to just not knowing how to set and keep an effective goal.
Reagan: But I think for Christians, there’s another layer to it that makes us hesitant. And that’s that some of us kind of harbor this notion that is it even right for me to be setting goals? Right? Because goal is very closely related to ambition, right? And we were like, well doesn’t the Bible say shouldn’t we not be like ambitious? Like isn’t this kind of messed up for us to be making goals for ourselves? Shouldn’t we just kind of let go and let God, something like that, right? So I think that it is true biblically that vain ambition is wrong. That’s what’s condemned in scripture, right? Vain ambition is self-glorifying ambition.
Reagan: But if we consider goals as a way to glorify God, or as I put it in the book, “The goal of goals is the glory of God,” then we can see setting effective goals, having holy ambitions are actually a vehicle we can use to live more God-honoring lives. Right? And, so, a lot of times, with our goals, we are purely self-focused, right? So, a lot of people, like, me. New Year’s resolutions, people talk about a lot of times it’s fitness goals. Like, what percentage it is, but most New Year’s resolutions are either financial or fitness related. And a lot of times the reason behind that is, “Well, I want to get in shape so that, you know, people will look at me. So I’ll have more confidence.” So it’s a lot of me-me stuff.
Reagan: And it’s not, it’s not complete. Those motivations, you know, can be part of the equation, right? I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong, but all of your goals should have reference to, “How does this make me better glorify God with my life?” Right? There can be spiritual goals related to your spiritual growth. But also, even goals that are seemingly unspiritual, even like fitness, you can subsume those under this chief mission of glorifying God in and reshape those and think, “Okay, my fitness is part of me stewarding this body God’s given me for his glory so that I can be a sharper instrument in his toolkit so I can be more effective so I can be healthier.” And I think there’s wisdom in that.
Reagan: So, so I would say that’s do have goals, just don’t have arrogant goals, that’s what’s condemned in scripture. You know, James again talks about, “Come you say, who next week, we’ll, we’ll go to such and such a town and make trade and do profit,” right? I’m paraphrasing here. I’m not like, I’m probably misquoting, but he says, “No, that such boasting is evil. Instead, you should say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will go to such and such a town and make trade to make profit.'” Right? The his point was, you have to hold your goals with an open hand. He doesn’t condemn them making the goals. He condemns the attitude. Those guys said there was nothing wrong with them saying, “We’ll make trade to make profit.” He said, but what they should have done is said, “I’m committing these plans to the Lord.” I’m going to hold them with an open hand.
Reagan: So that, I think for Christians, I would hope people would take away. You can set goals. You should set goals. The Apostle Paul had goals. And when you do it, just do it in humility that perhaps very often God’s plans are better than your plans and be open to sometimes your plans going to get scuttled and that’s a good thing.
Reagan: But with regard to the other side of the equation, the actual specifics, how do you set a good goal? A lot of times, our goals are really more of just a wish. This is, I like to use the fitness thing. We say, “Okay, I want to lose 10 pounds.” And you, “I set a goal of losing 10 pounds as my New Year’s resolution, and I didn’t do it. So, New Year’s resolutions don’t work.” It’s like, “Friend, you can’t just say, I’m going to do a thing and then not make any plan to do it and say, okay, New Year’s resolutions don’t work.” All you did was make a wish.
Reagan: Goals work when they’re specific. You make a definition of “done.” You decide what exactly do I mean? What does it mean to lose 10 pounds? And how am I going to get there? I’ll make a plan to get there. What’s the deadline? What are the habits? Really, this actually build this thing out into a plan that you can follow. That’s how you set a good goal and then keeping it visible and constantly referencing that goal. And of course, part of that is as you define it is defining in respect to how this helps glorify God. That actually one of the neat side effects of that is when you set goals and you’ve written down how it’s going to glorify God, that provides the ultimate motivation to keep doing it. You’re like, I’m doing this as part of my chief end. So it’s often been said that a goal without a plan is just a wish and I think that’s the practical side of it is you’ve got to attach a plan to your goal and then you’re going to be a lot more successful.
Christi: Yes. Yeah, I totally 100% agree with that and I really like how you bring out how when you, when motivation, inspiration strikes, harness that to help you build a plan. Don’t just like, okay, I’m going to the gym right now. I got motivation, and then, you know, that’s where it dies after that one day. But you take that energy and you make a plan. So that on the days when you’re feeling less than motivated, you still have a plan. You still can follow that through and build a habit from that to achieve that goal.
Christi: So in the scriptures, God uses Heavenly rewards to motivate us in this life but I know some people can feel like, “Is that, is that self-centered? Like how do, how do we rationalize that as a good motivation for living the Christian life?”
Reagan: Well, yeah, this is like my hobby horse, the idea of having heavenly reward. I was listening to a podcast just this last week with Kevin DeYoung and he was quoting someone else, but he said something about, like every author only really writes one book just over and over again. And I definitely see this as being my own trajectory, is I keep writing books about eternal reward being like a positive motivation. Like I wrote a book on video game addiction and like Christians and I, I have another one coming out this summer, that’s about actually about stewardship and the parable of the talents and goes more into that. And especially that, that whole paradigm of “well done, good and faithful servant” and how that’s a positive motivation.
Reagan: But this is like my favorite topic because we’re missing something so vital in the church today, this is so under emphasized. The fact that we in scriptures are presented unashamedly with the motivation of eternal reward as being a positive thing for us to pursue. So I talked about this in the book because this is what it’s all about is when we glorify God, it’s not disconnected from our highest good. John Piper talks about this a lot. I like Piper. There’s there’s certain things. I’m not on the same page with him on but I think he hits the nail on the head. When he gets into this thing about our highest good is tied together intrinsically with God’s glory.
Reagan: And I think one way of coming at this is to think about it like this: heavenly reward as a motivation is the stuff of faith. It is what faith is all about. And what I mean is, we talk about faith in God. There’s, there’s two big components to it. There’s faith that God is who he is, right? But there’s faith in the promises of God. And I think we forget this that the Christian life is lived by faith. We walk by faith. When we walk by faith in the promises of God, what does that mean? The things that God has told us are true.
Reagan: And so part of that is the temporal aid that he gives us while we’re here. A part of that is looking back to the cross but a major emphasis in the New Testament especially is the promises that our good works will be rewarded in heaven. And so you can see why when it gets to that point, you know, Protestant Christians, we get kind of like itchy, we’re like, “This that doesn’t sound right to be rewarded for good works.” No, it’s not about salvation. Our salvation is based on Christ on his merits, his good works and his perfect sacrifice. We are justified by faith, that’s not according to works. But the New Testament goes out of its way to say that there is a positive motivation for good works in that we will be rewarded for them as Christians and those things are not at odds with each other.
Reagan: I think the best place you see this actually is in Hebrews 11, right? The Hall of Faith. So this passage goes through all these different Saints of old and talks about their great faith. The presenter says this example, this cloud of witnesses that we look to that encourages us to to also live by faith in his life. But to a person in that list, it talks about their faith being in eternal reward that they were like, think of Abraham. Why did he leave Ur of the Chaldees? Why did he leave his family? Since he left them because God promised he was going to make of him a great nation. He was going to bless him. He did it for the reward.
Reagan: Moses. Why? Why did he leave the pleasures of Egypt? Why do you exchange them, the pleasures of Egypt for the sufferings of Christ? It says he was looking unto the reward. And then it goes on to say that those people didn’t see the reward in this life. It was an eternal thing. It was something that they will receive eventually. And then Hebrews 11:6, even defining faith says, “Without faith it’s impossible to please him for whoever would draw near to God must two things, believe that he exists.” That’s kind of table stakes for faith, you got to believe that God is, “And that he rewards those who seek him.” Part of faith is believing that God keeps his promises to reward us for seeking him.
Reagan: And so we talked about, but it does seem kind of mercenary, right? It does seem a little bit messed up to be like, “But shouldn’t I just do it purely like out of an altruistic desire? Like I want God to be glorified. Isn’t that enough? I love Christ, therefore I serve him.” But I think what we forget is. Our own satisfaction is not necessarily, it’s not at odds with our chief end of glorifying God, because selfishness is really or self-centeredness, it’s a lack of consideration for others. If we say it, “Wasn’t that selfish?” Selfishness, your self-centeredness, is talking about being so self-focused, you’re excluding others, your operating chiefly for your own personal profit or pleasure.
Reagan: I think one of the amazing things in this can only come from God’s divine wisdom is this economy where by our motivation is completely entangled. Our eternal good is completely entangled with our glorifying of God and serving of others. That when we serve him faithfully, when we set his glory as our highest end, when we serve others with the right attitude, according to his empowering, we are rewarded by grace in heaven for that and we don’t have to put on this phony, kind of sanctimonious altruism be like, “I’m only doing this out of a desire to serve the Lord. There’s nothing I get out of this.”
Reagan: No. Christian piety recognizes that the more we serve, the more we go out for God, the more we even forsake the pleasures of this life, it honors him because we show him to be a God worth trusting. When Moses regarded the pleasures of Egypt and instead chose the sufferings of Christ, that evidenced that God was a God worth trusting. That his promises are sure and true. And we trust in God’s promises for eternal reward. There is this amazing thing that happens. We glorify him, we get our highest good, which is, which is eternal blessings, and we serve others from a true heart. Those things, those things, it’s like this virtuous circle. God has not made our eternal destiny separate from our chief end of glorifying him. They’re perfectly congruent with each other, they’re coextensive.
Christi: That’s powerful for us to realize and to motivate us to give us the right motivations and to not be ashamed of doing things for eternal rewards. He looks at our heart, as well as what we’re producing in the fruit and rewards us for those right motivations as well. And they all come from him anyway. So we can’t take credit, right?
Reagan: Well, and it’s such a, it’s such a bulwark against sort of like hypocrisy as well. Right. Remember when Jesus, talking to the Pharisees and he tells them, you know, “If you do this, you do these things for the praise of men, you have your reward.” Like you got, you got a good job, everyone clapped for you. You have your reward. The opposite of that is, “But you, why didn’t you do it for me with the right attitude and the right heart? So that you would receive a much better reward.” Or even when it talks about generosity that “the one who gives in secret is rewarded, in secret,” right? It has this purifying effect on our motivations. It saves us from sort of religious hypocrisy when we recognize that our reward comes from Christ and we’re waiting for it.
Reagan: And the things we do in this life, we’re not just in a waiting room for heaven. It actually matters what we do here and even our eternal destiny, not having her help but our estate in heaven is tied in some way to the faith-wrought works we do in this life. It’s just, it’s everywhere in the Bible and it’s crazy to me that it’s underemphasized.
Christi: Yeah, so it’s crucial that we understand that, Reagan. I so appreciate you breaking that down and helping us wrap our mind and heart around it. We are just, I feel like, just barely skimming the surface this topic of your book, of your study. So I know the listeners are going to want to go and get a copy of this. I’m going to link your book in the show notes for them to do that and you give a lot more specific just examples and ideas of how you can live productively as a Christian, how you can maximize your skills and gifts and just do that wisely, how to walk wisely in this life. So definitely want the listeners to have to go and take a look at that.
Christi: But do you have any other resources you would recommend if someone just wants to grow in this area of their lives? Where would you direct them?
Reagan: Yeah a couple of book recommendations. One is Do More Better by Tim Challies. Challies.com the Christian blogger. That book, it’s older now, I think it’s from 2015. It’s very practical, talks about these four systems you can set up for your life to managing your tasks and very much a God glory focus. So Do More Better is a good one. I always recommend. There’s a newer one called Redeeming Your Time by Jordan Raynor. Also very practical. I don’t think I can agree all the conclusions he has on the from the biblical side of it but it’s probably one of the best programmers on like the best of even secular thought on productivity and being efficient with your time and what tools you need while also catching it in a Christian worldview. So check those out.
Reagan: And then I have a bunch of stuff on my website at redeemingproductivity.com. Probably the best thing people could grab is, I have a morning routine planner that’s free. If you just go to redeemingproductivity.com/morning. There’s a PDF, you can download. And it literally walks you through how to build out one of these morning routines. And it gives you little worksheets, you can print these off and use them to plan your day and your devotions. It’s got Bible reading plans, all that, plus spaces for all of that. So if people want, just one thing to start with and they’re intrigued about the morning stuff, just go to redeemingproductivity.com/morning.
Christi: Okay, that’s excellent. And I have a feeling you’ll be coming out with an app one of these days.
Reagan: That’s in the long-term plan, Lord willing, okay.
Christi: Well Reagan, if you could say one thing to people that are in the season of singleness, a lot of the listeners fall into that category, how would you exhort them to be living in this unique season they’re in?
Reagan: I’m sure that you hear this all the time, Paul’s exhortation to singles in First Corinthians 7, but thinking about it in the context of productivity, you know, he basically says those who are unmarried have the the privilege and the gift of undistracted freedom to serve Christ. You can do things in this season of life, that people who are married, people who have kids or even retirees cannot do and I would just encourage you not to overlook that gift.
Reagan: It’s so easy to focus on what’s the next phase and all this. But look, here’s where you are. This is what God has for you. Lean into that. I think back on my single days and how much time I wasted and how much I didn’t understand what an amazing season it was for doing good for God’s glory. Lean into it. Take advantage of it. Seek to maximize the season of your life for God’s glory, because it is a blessing.
Christi: Wonderful. I love that verse. It’s kind of my anthem verse, that undistracted devotion to Christ, and our goal should be from moving from victory and a victory. Moving through each season, maximizing the opportunities, serving the Lord well, embracing what his plans are for you as you move through life and are a faithful steward of what he’s given you.
Christi: Reagan. So appreciate you coming on, excited to share this conversation with others. And I’m inspired even more to set more goals, to be purposeful with my time and with my life and opportunities God has given. So thank you for fresh inspiration on that front and yeah, just encouraged to see how you are using your unique gifts for the Lord, and to help Christians understand these concepts better, and to live well, and to walk wisely.
Reagan: Thanks so much for having me on, Christi. It’s such a joy to get to talk to you about these things.