Minecraft Devotional #5: Achievement Get! [Series]

[This is week 5 of  The Minecraft Devotional]

I still remember when I checked my inventory for the very first time and saw “Achievement get!” appear on the screen. I didn’t really know what it was all about, but I was excited about it. It didn’t take long and I had gotten other achievements for chopping wood, making a crafting table, and even taking out my first zombie. I realized that these achievements are rewards for accomplishing various tasks throughout the game.

Some of these achievements like “Taking inventory” and “Time to mine” are achievable soon after starting the game while others will likely take a while. Although these achievements are not a requirement of the game, they do give us things to accomplish.

Really, these achievements are similar to goals that we try to accomplish as we play the game. They will carry us through defeating the Ender Dragon and there are even more things to accomplish after that. You don’t have to focus on them, but they help progress the game if you do.

We Need Goals

It is important for us to set goals for our life. These begin when we are very young and someone asks us, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It may not be an official goal at that point, but it is helping us to understand the importance of thinking ahead to our future.

In Philippians 3:14, Paul says, “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Paul knew what his goal was and was determined to not lose sight of it. In the verse 13 he says, “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.” We cannot let distractions from the past keep us from achieving our goals.

Sometimes We Need Help

There is one achievement in the PC version of Minecraft that you cannot achieve on your own. You have to give a diamond to another player. This may seem unfair, but aren’t there plenty of things in our life that we cannot achieve without the help of others?

That is why it is so important that we surround ourselves with people who will help us achieve our goals. Jesus chose twelve men to surround himself with while He was on earth. These guys helped keep Him encouraged when others were trying to bring Him down. Yeah, they messed up and made some pretty big mistakes, but they served a great purpose in helping Jesus do what He needed to do.

The Final Block

If I were to tell you what all of my goals were, they would probably be very different from what yours are. And that is OK. As we’ve already seen in these studies, we are all different so we should all have different goals. I have to set goals that are the most helpful for my life and that will in the end help me get to heaven. You have to do the same.

Questions:

1. List five achievements (goals) for your life.
2. What will you have to do to achieve each of them?
3. Read Philippians 3:12-14. What can we learn about achieving our goals from Paul?

Steven Holt

I am a husband to Kaycee, father to Jackson, youth minister to a bunch of awesome young people, a christian, and a nerd. I love life and the people I am blessed to experience it with.