Category Archives: Personal Growth

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Good Advice for Great Leadership

ThanksLiving: 365 Days of Gratitude

This is the essence of the kind of leadership that God blesses: If you will position yourself to be a servant of the people, the people you serve will always serve you. Unfortunately, most leaders don’t grasp the brilliance of God’s logic. Humanistic thinking leads them to see the people as their servants, and once they attain power, their overriding effort is to retain it—on the backs of the people. Ultimately, that philosophy of leadership always fails—either in a shortened shelf life of that leader’s administration, or in the negative consequences of future administrations. Rare is the leader who understands that his or her divine mandate is public servant. When a leader truly understands that at an organic level, there you have the making of a leader for the ages.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Kings 12:6-11

Then King Rehoboam discussed the matter with the older men who had counseled his father, Solomon. “What is your advice?” he asked. “How should I answer these people?” The older counselors replied, “If you are willing to be a servant to these people today and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your loyal subjects.” Rehoboam rejected the advice of the older men and instead asked the opinion of the young men who had grown up with him and were now his advisors. “What is your advice?” he asked them. “How should I answer these people who want me to lighten the burdens imposed by my father?” The young men replied, “This is what you should tell those complainers who want a lighter burden: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist! Yes, my father laid heavy burdens on you, but I’m going to make them even heavier! My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions!’”

What a contrast we find in this account between really good and really bad advice. Especially if you are a leader, or aspire to leadership, you ought to listen up on this one! What you will get here in just a few lines is better than anything you will get through years of education in the world’s best business schools—and a lot cheaper.

The story revolves around the transition of leadership from King Solomon to his son, Rehoboam. We don’t know for sure, but we can surmise that growing up in the luxurious living of his father’s kingdom had led to a sense of entitlement. His sense of reality was askew from all Solomon’s well-known kingly excesses—all the women and all the wealth. As the new king, Rehoboam wanted what his father had amassed, and them some, without doing any of the hard work to get it. But his father had gained much of his wealth on the backs of the Israelites; the people had paid heavy taxes, endured the conscription of their sons for the king’s army and the confiscation of their property for royal use. And now that Israel had reached an unprecedented level of security and success, the people rightly asked for a little relief from governmental demands as administrations changed hands.

When the request for relief was presented to the new king, he wisely asked for advice, first from his father’s experienced counselors, then from his untested friends. But he unwisely rejected the former and heeded the latter. In essence, his posses of spoiled friends advised him to double down on the demands his father had made of the people, and it turned out to be a mistake of epic proportions. Of course, the spiritual forces for a national rebellion had been seeded during Solomon’s backsliding, but Rehoboam didn’t help himself by following the bad advice of his tin-eared buddies. As a result, the nation split apart—the north broke from the south, and Israel never again existed as a unified nation.

So what is the leadership lesson we learn from Rehoboam? It comes from the rejected advice of the older counselors: “If you are willing to be a servant to these people today and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your loyal subjects.” (1 Kings 12:7). Don’t miss that—it is the essence of leadership that God blesses:

If you will position yourself to be a servant of the people, the people you serve will always serve you.

Unfortunately, most leaders don’t grasp the brilliance of God’s logic. Humanistic thinking leads them to see the people as their servants, and once they attain power, the overriding effort of their administration is to retain it—on the backs of the people. Ultimately, that philosophy of leadership always fails—either in a shortened shelf-life of that leader’s tenure, or in the negative consequences of future administrations. Rare is the leader who understands that his or her divine mandate is public servant. When a leader truly understands that at an organic level, there you have the making of a leader for the ages.

Are you a leader, or do you aspire to leadership? Serve your people, and your people will always serve you.

Going Deeper With God: Memorize the words of Jesus found in Mark 10:42-45, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

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Let Cooler Heads Prevail

ThanksLiving: 365 Days of Gratitude

God created us with a high capacity for passion, and that’s a wonderful thing. Much of the good that has been accomplished in the world began in passion. But while passion is a powerful spring, it’s a horrible regulator, and when it’s untempered, can do much harm. So how do you temper your passion? Internal and external controls—develop the fruit of self-control, but also give cool-headed friends access to the kill switch of your passion for those moments when your self-control get wobbly.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 25:10-13

“Who is this fellow David?” Nabal sneered to the young men. “Who does this son of Jesse think he is? There are lots of servants these days who run away from their masters. Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I’ve slaughtered for my shearers and give it to a band of outlaws who come from who knows where?” So David’s young men returned and told him what Nabal had said. “Get your swords!” was David’s reply as he strapped on his own. Then 400 men started off with David to kill Nabal.

David heart was on fire with passion for God—he was characteristically a man after God’s own heart. But at times, David’s heart was on fire with passion for other things, too. That got David into trouble on more than one occasion. 1 Samuel 25 is one of those occasions.

Nabal, a man whose name meant “fool,” foolishly refused to share provision with David and his men. David had politely requested it, and it would have been customary for Nabal to graciously grant such a request since David’s small army had afforded Nabal and his ranching operation protection from thieves and marauders that harassed the locals. Not only did Nabal refuse, he insulted David to the men who had made the request. When they reported back to David what this fool had said, David’s knee-jerk response was, “strap ‘em on boys, we going to make Nabal pay up—with his life.”

Now it just so happened that this brutish man, Nabal, had a lovely and wise wife, Abigail. Sensing the looming disaster, she skillfully intervenes—intercedes really—with David and averts the death of her husband and destruction of all that he owned. However, when Nabal found out what his wife had done, rather than react with gratitude, he went into such a rage that he had a stroke or a heart attack, or something really bad, and died!

Among the many streams of life application from which we might drink in this story, the one I want to call to you attention is David’s unregulated passion. Let it stand as a warning to us that when we let anger rule our emotions, we are in danger of allowing it to ruin our lives. Anger almost ruined David’s life on this occasion—had he followed through on it, he would have been guilty of murder.

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that passion is a powerful spring, but a bad regulator. It will get you motivated, but don’t depend on it to manage you. David’s passion got away from him—he let it regulate his emotions—and it led him to the brink of doing something really dumb.

Which, by the way, I think, is why we love David so much—he was so thoroughly human. In David, we don’t get the polished ideal to which we aspire but never attain, we get a rough-edged reality in a meandering journey of spiritual transformation. And we can relate to a guy like that. You’ve got to love a guy who’s capable of unmitigated dumbness. But you certainly don’t want to follow his dumb ways. In this moment, David was full of passion but empty of God—in an instant, he’s become a fool. He was on the verge of becoming Saul.

And that is where Abigail comes in. She steps in and puts David in touch again with the beauty of God as David had done for Saul in the cave (1 Samuel 24:16-21). Through Abigail, David realized who he was, he recognized what he was about to do, and he remembered what his life was destined for. Thankfully, on that day, cooler heads prevailed.

God created us with a high capacity for passion, and that is a wonderful thing. Much of the good that has been accomplished in the world began in passion. But, as Emerson noted, while passion is a powerful spring, it is a horrible regulator, and when it is untempered, can do much harm. How do we temper our passion? Internal and external controls—we must develop the fruit of self-control internally then empower cool-headed friends externally and give them access to the kill switch of passion.

Make sure to cultivate a cool head. But on the occasion when emotions get the best of you and you shift into hothead, make sure you check in with your Abigail.
Without exception and at all times, let cooler heads prevail.

Going Deeper With God: Who is your “Abigail?” Believe, you need one, and so do I!

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Waiting Time Is Not Wasted Time

ThanksLiving: 365 Days of Gratitude

While you may be languishing away in your prison of undesirable circumstances, God is above it all and he clearly sees the road ahead of you. Embrace that time between the frustrating and the fruitful, your period of waiting, not as a waste of time, not as prison time, but as God time.

Going Deep // Focus: Genesis 40:23

Pharaoh’s chief cup-bearer, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.

Twenty years in prison. Two decades. 7,300 days of mistreatment (see Psalm 105:18) for doing nothing wrong whatsoever. One-third of the years typically allotted to a man, the prime years of his life, wasted in a dank, fetid Egyptian prison. But were those years really wasted? Bible commentator, Warren Wiersbe, notes,

More than one servant of God has regretted rushing ahead of God’s schedule and trying to get to the throne too soon. Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to say, “It’s tragic when a person succeeds before he is ready for it.” It’s through faith and patience that we inherit the promises (Heb. 6:12; see 10:36), and the best way to learn patience is through tribulation (Rom. 5:3-4). “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4 nkjv). God often removes our crutches so we’ll learn to walk by faith and trust Him alone. (Wiersbe, BE Bible Study Series)

God took away Joseph’s crutches and replaced them with the characteristic he would later need to run the greatest empire in the world of that day, Egypt, through what he learned during those twenty-years in jail: he endured injustice—what truly great rulers must know to fairly govern their subjects; he developed discernment—he learned how to properly interpret dreams; he grew in trust—what the Lord’s servants must have to be greatly used in carrying out his eternal plans. The two decades of waiting on God were not wasted.

As you read the prison portion of Joseph’s story, you can’t help but be impressed with this young man’s deep and abiding trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God. Joseph believed in the core of his being that God was in control, and that God was fundamentally good, and those beliefs became settled law for Joseph. Neither his current circumstances nor his emotions at the moment would trump the fact that his life was in God’s hands. So when Joseph’s ticket out of prison, the cupbearer, forgot about him and when Joseph languished for another two years in a squalid jail, Joseph trusted.

I would like to think that’s how I would react to the disappointing and hurtful things that will get thrown at me in life. I’m guessing you would like to think that about yourself, too. The “Joseph way” is certainly the heroic way to do life—and one that must be so pleasing to the Father who takes such delight in our trust.

But to live life like Joseph, you have to understand that there are two views of the road ahead. The first view is the human perspective. That is where you simply and only see what is right in front of you—which means that sometimes all you see are bumps, barriers and beat downs. Obviously, it is quite normal to look at the world from such a point of view; you are human, after all. But if that is the only view you have, you will be prone to discouragement, enslaved to the emotional ups and downs that come from being slapped around by life, and view the unwanted circumstances that envelop you as a waste of time.

What you really need to have in order to live the “Joseph way” is an eternal perspective. That is the other view, and it is a grand one! The “Joseph way” of viewing life comes only by way of fundamental trust in the care and competence of your Heavenly Father. It understands that while you may be languishing away in your prison of unexpected and undesirable circumstances, God is above it all and he clearly sees the road ahead of you. Furthermore, this view embraces the time between the frustrating and the fruitful, the period of waiting, not as a waste of time, not as prison time, but as God time.

If you can’t learn to enfold your human perspective into that kind divine perspective of ruthless trust in the God who is in control of all things and works all things to his glory and your good, get ready for a frustrating stay in Pharaoh’s prison. If you can order your life by the “Joseph way”, everything that comes your way—especially the bad stuff—becomes fodder for the God who takes what was meant as harm and turns it to good. (Genesis 50:20)

If you are a God-follower, never forget this: Waiting on God is never time wasted.

Going Deeper With God: From the bottom of your heart, as sincerely as you know how, keep saying, “thank you, God” in the midst of your waiting. Practice gratitude until it becomes the natural response to life—giving thanks in everything, for this is the will of God.

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No Stopping The Unstoppable God

He Will Perfect That Which Concerns Me

Read: Psalm 138 // Focus: Psalm 138:8

“The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever—do not abandon the works of your hands.”

“God will perfect everything that concerns you.” (Psalm 138:8, NKJV) I have heard my wife use King David’s phrase many times in her public prayers. I like that thought, don’t you? Nothing will stop God from fulfilling his purpose for my life—nothing!

That was the essence of David’s thinking in this psalm. Nothing could get in the way of what God had in mind, that is, God’s perfect will for David’s life—not even his own fleshly desires. That’s the caveat to this truth: the perfecting is of that which is according to God’s will, which of course, is what ought to concern us more than anything else in this life.

The New Testament writer Jude capture the essence of this truth in his benedictory prayer when he wrote, “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” (Jude 1:24-25) Likewise, the Apostle Paul wrote similar words in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

How comforting and empowering to know that if we are passionately pursuing God’s purposes, God has passionately committed himself to fulfilling his purposes in us. No matter what things may look like—horrible circumstances and hateful people notwithstanding (Psalm 138:7)—God will never abandon the work that he has lovingly and painstakingly invested in us, and he will ultimately bring that work to perfect completion.

What David had discovered was that when we are for God, and when God is for us, we cannot lose! 2 Chronicles 16:9 reminds us this profound truth,

For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

Wow! God so desires to fulfill his purposes in this world that he is actually scouring the earth looking for fully devoted people in order to release his enabling power in their lives. Is your heart fully committed to him? If it is, then God will find you, and sooner or later you will come into the greatest joy that anyone can ever experience in this life: God fulfilling his purposes for you and through you.

Yes, God will perfect that which concerns you!

Making Life Work:What are the obstacles standing in your path to pursing God? According to Psalm 138:8, God will repurpose those stumbling blocks into building blocks. Try praying a thanksgiving prayer for everything that seems to impeding your progress. Then ask God to empower you to work with him to use those very things to perfect you. Pray this risky prayer: “God use this to shape me.”

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Bad News Immunity

When You Fear the Lord, You Have Nothing to Fear

There is no such thing as bad news for the God-fearing, commandment-keeping believer. I didn’t say they are immune to bad things, only to bad news. You see, when God is on your side, or perhaps more correctly, when you are on God’s side, no matter what, you win—always! And that’s good news.

Read: Psalm 100 // Focus: Psalm 112:1,7

“Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands. They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.”

You’ve heard it said, “no news is good news.” The psalmist puts a different spin on that old bromide: There is no bad news! You see, for the one who “fears the Lord” and “takes delight in his commands” (Psalm 112:1), good things will happen and even bad things will be turned into blessings (Psalm 112:4). Furthermore, God will not only pour out blessings on the one who fears him, but ensures prosperity to their posterity, according to Psalm 112:2,

“Their children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.”

When you fear the Lord, you have nothing to fear! (Psalm 112:1,8)

Now I know what you are thinking: “No bad news for the believer—you gotta be kidding!” Yes, there is no such thing as bad news for the God-fearing, commandment-keeping believer. I realize that you could point to any number of faithful people in the Bible—Joseph, David, Daniel, Jeremiah, the disciples, Paul, even Jesus himself—and remind me that they indeed experienced bad news during their respective journeys on earth. And talk about bad news—what about Job? If you were to look up the definition of bad news in the dictionary, you would find Job’s picture there.!

I wholeheartedly agree with your point, but that is not what I am talking about. I didn’t say that the godly are immune to bad things, only to bad news. You see, when God is on your side, or perhaps more correctly, when you are on God’s side, no matter what, you win! And that’s good news. How so? God turns even bad things into good things for you, and while he is at it, he uses them to bring glory to himself as well. That’s what is promised to God-fearing, commandment-keeping believers in his Word. I love how John Newton, the former notorious slave trader who was dramatically and profoundly converted to Christ, put it,

“We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage.”

Wow! No bad news for believers! If you doubt Newton’s theology, take a moment to absorb Roman 8:28,

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose.

Now please don’t think I am promising a pain-free life. I am not; nor is God. What God is promising is to use all the things that occur in your life for his purposes, and even use them as the very catalyst that will conform you to the image of his Son. From that perspective, what others consider bad news you can embrace as good news. So in a very real sense, you, dear God-fearing believer, are immune to bad news.

Now that’s what I call good news!

Making Life Work:Make a list of all the difficult, unwanted things you are facing right now. Once you’ve done that, pray over each one this prayer: God, thank you for using this to shape me!

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Built-In Reminders

Ponder Anew What The Almighty Can Do

God wants you, on a regular basis, to call up from your memory banks the things that he has done. He wants you to delight in his sovereign acts and stand in awe of the mighty works his hand. God didn’t perform them only to have the written in the history books. They are to be pondered, delighted in, publically extolled.

Read: Psalm 111 // Focus: Psalm 111:2

“Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them.”

When was the last time you took some time just to remember what God has done? Psalm 111:4 says, “He has caused his wonders to be remembered.” In other words, built into the mighty acts of God is a reminder to remember the One who performed them.

God wants you, on a regular basis, to call up from your memory banks the things that he has done. He wants you to delight in his sovereign acts and stand in awe of the mighty works his hand. God didn’t perform them only to have the written in the history books and then forgotten. They are to be pondered, delighted in, remembered, and as Psalm 111:10 says, they are to lead his people to offer him eternal praise. (Psalm 111:10)

Now there are reasons God has built these reminders to praise and thank him into his mighty acts. The most important reason is the reminder that he is worthy to be adored, plain and simple. But another very pragmatic reason is that it benefits your own soul. Arthur Pink said, “Happy the soul that has been awed by a view of the majesty of God.” But the downside of failing to recognize what God has done is huge. John Piper powerfully points out,

“If you don’t see the greatness of God then all the things that money can buy become very exciting. If you can’t see the sun you will be impressed with a street light. If you’ve never felt thunder and lightning you’ll be impressed with fireworks. And if you turn your back on the greatness and majesty of God you’ll fall in love with a world of shadows and short-lived pleasures.”

Let me suggest a profound way to engage the greatness and majesty of God: read and reflect on Psalm 111 in its entirety. Then take a moment to speak forth your delight in the great things God has done. The psalmist has even provided a wonderful template of praise just for you. For instance,

• You can reflect on the undeserved compassion that God has extended to you. (Psalm 111:3)

• You probably ought to include a verbal gratitude list for the gracious provision he has made for your daily needs.

• While you are thinking about that, thank him for staying true to his character and his promises. (Psalm 111:5)

• You might want to bask in the Divine power that has led to victories in your life. (Psalm 111:6)

• You could add your appreciation for his fair and just rule, too. (Psalm 111:7-8)

• And best of all, why not let the reality of your redemption cause you to be undone with love all over again. (Psalm 111:9)

If you allow yourself some time to ponder anew the past acts of God on behalf of his people, and on your behalf, too, I am sure that nothing but good things will come from it. I can’t think of a downside to a session of praiseful pondering, can you?

Making Life Work: Take a few minutes to listen the hymn, Praise To The Lord, The Almighty, the offer your own heartfelt praise to the Lord, the Almighty! Here is a good link to this beautiful hymn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNq0WtMSmIY

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Confidence!

When You Know The Outcome Before The End

Pray with confidence! God has helped you in the past, given you victory at each turn, supplied your every need and seen you through when there was no way through. After all that, you’re still standing. You will be tomorrow, too. So stand firm today!

Read: Psalm 108 // Focus: Psalm 108:1

“My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my soul.”

A few years ago, since I was unable to watch it live, I recorded a pro football game on television in which my favorite team was playing. I’m not normally a big fan of recording anything because I like the sense of watching something “live.” I like knowing the outcome has yet to be determined.

So I broke my own rules and watched a game that had already been played. But also I broke a second rule: I had purposely found out who won the game before I watched it. I didn’t want to waste my time and get all bummed out if my team was going to loose. I know—I’m a fair weather fan! But I’ll tell you what: I watched my team play with a lot more confidence, because I knew they were going to crush the other team.

In a sense, that is what David is doing in this psalm. He is asking God for help in giving him victory over his enemies, but he is doing so confidently, knowing that the outcome has been predetermined. He has viewed the end of the contest in advance, and now he is going back to play the game.

You see, the words of David’s psalm are taken from two previous psalms in which he had cried out to the Lord for help, and in both cases, the Lord heard David and gave him victory. The first of these psalms is Psalm 57:7-11, where David fled into the cave to escape from King Saul. And you know the outcome of that contest: David ultimately triumphed over the murderous efforts of the unhinged Saul. God took care of Saul by taking him out of the picture, and God took care of David, taking all the way to the throne by making him King over all Israel in place of Saul. The second is from Psalm 60:5-12 where God gave David an overwhelming victory against an extremely large Edomite army.

There is something about a past victory that gives you present confidence going into a new battle. When God has helped you in the past, given you victory over the Enemy, supernaturally supplied your need, provided a spiritual breakthrough, seen you through when there seemed to be no way through, you pray a little different in the next crisis. You go to him with greater assurance, firmer expectation, and deeper peace than you might otherwise.

What are you facing this week? Has God helped you in the past? Why wouldn’t he help you again?

As you pray over this situation, call to mind the mighty acts of God from your past—and let the Holy Spirit birth confidence within you for the present. What God has done for you yesterday, because he is the unchanging and dependable God, and because he loves you with an everlasting love, he will do for you today, then again tomorrow and the next day after that!

The outcome has been predetermined. You win! Now, get in there and play the game of your life.

Making Life Work: As you pray over whatever is currently threatening your peace of mind, health, family relationship, financial stability or walk with the Lord, call to mind the mighty acts of God from your past—and let the Holy Spirit birth confidence within you for the present. Consider what God has done for you yesterday—and declare it aloud in your prayer. Then lean into this: because he is the unchanging and dependable God, and because he loves you with an everlasting love, he will do for you today, then again tomorrow and the next day after that!
Making Life Work