They Shall Mount Up With Wings

This often-used scripture has always challenged the believer, for most want to be able to live up above the earthly arena of life. The one key is written; They that wait, they that serve the Lord with life and lips will surely learn the art of mounting up. I read an article about birds that stated, "The hearts of birds are heavier in proportion than the hearts of man or other animals." The reason given was, the more the body works, the greater the demand on the heart, which causes it to become heavier. Birds are very hard working creatures and so should the believer be.

A lofty life lived on spiritual wings requires an enlarged heart, which means constant fellowship with God Himself. If we are to live in the Heavenlies, to arise we must ask God to give us a bigger heart. Our desires must be for Spiritual things and only a heart after God will allow that.

In Psalm 119:32, the writer shouts, "I will run in the way of thy commandments, when thou shall enlarge my heart!"

What Motivates Me?

Have you ever thought of the various motivators in your life?

Early in my life I found my father to be a great motivator. His way of motivating is not one I would quickly recommend. I remember one morning when my brother and I were making a little too much noise, a little too early in the morning. Dad wanted to encourage us to “Quite Down!”. His way of motivating us to a more docile nature was to cause our heads to come together with such force as to render us almost unconscious. This was one of the more unkind ways my dad had of motivating his kids.

Thank God that all the people in my life weren’t so barbaric in their way of motivating me.

I remember Mrs. Klewer. She was my 8th grade English teacher who motivated me to learn to read. She allowed me to get a passing grade if I would read a short story of about 20 pages. The reading material was probably on the 1st or 2nd grade level. However, she knew that even this was a great challenge for me and encouraged me in my struggle. As soon as I finished the short story, she put another one in front of me. And so on and so on, until I was getting straight A’s in her class and found a love for reading which I never knew I had. Throughout my high school and college career I would get straight A’s in English because of the gentle nudging (motivating) of someone who could have overlooked my potential but didn’t.

Motivators, some times they come in the form of the Policeman who writes the citation motivating us to “slow down”. In other times they are the kind hearts around us who cheer from the sideline of our life, “You can do it!”. We are all motivated by something. Money. Recognition. Love. Personal Ambition. This list could get very long and would change depending on the person making it.

I wonder though, how often I have allowed God’s Purpose be my motivation. His Purpose takes me beyond my personal goals. Why do I want to be a good preacher? Is it to be heard of men and recognized as such? Or is it so I may persuade men and women to come to the Lord?

Why do I want to be a good father? Is it so my children will call me blessed and so I would have the respect of my neighbors as being a good father? Or is it so my children will learn of my example that their Heavenly Father too is One who can be trusted to keep them and minister to their needs.

God’s Purpose.

What is God’s purpose in my life? I want to find it. I want to know it.

Compassion

I'm trying to understand Mark 9. I have been examining every word spoken by the disciples and our Lord. We know that the disciples wanted with everything that was in them to be able to deliver the boy. Why else would they later risk criticism and His strong rebuke to ask why they had failed. We know that the Lord wanted them to be able to do the miracle because of the rebuke. So what went wrong? Why a prayer and no miracle.

I've been praying for the answer to that. I have always thought that if I prayed enough or fasted enough, the prayer would be answered. If I could somehow earn enough points by fasting, then a miracle was sure to come. But then I read IS 58. Here we find that it's not the fact that you are fasting, but rather the intent or purpose for which you are fasting. And so I have been praying and fasting with Isa 58 in my heart and mind. Lord help me to fast for the right reasons, to provoke Love.

Beyond Isa 58 though, I have found what I believe is a key to what I am searching for. "Compassion"

When I read the account of Mark 9, I was looking at what the Lord said. How could we not hear Him. "O faithless and Perverse generation, how long shall I suffer you?" Then I was looking at what the disciples asked when they desired to know why they had failed. But what I had totally overlooked was what the little boys father said to the Lord. Did you get it? "If thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us"!

COMPASSION

As a father, I have felt that man's compassion. I have held my sick children up to the Lord with tears of compassion for a sick baby. So, I think I understand the pleading and hunger he had in his heart when he asked the Lord to have compassion on them. When I read that I began a search on the word compassion.

It is in the Bible 41 times in 39 verses. The Old Testament is full of verses which tell how the Lord is "Full of Compassion".

• Mat 9:36 Compassion on the multitude...of lost people.
  
• Mat 14:14 Compassion caused Him to heal the sick of the multitude there.
  
• Mat 15:32 Compassion caused Him to feed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes.
  
• Mat 18:27 It was the lack of compassion which caused the servant to be given to the tormentors.
  
• Mat 20:34 Compassion caused Him to heal blinded eyes.
  
• Mat 1:41 Compassion moved Him to heal the Leper.
  
• Luke 7:13 Compassion made Him raise the widow's son.
  
• Luke 15:20 With compassion the father received the prodigal son.
  
• COMPASSION!

Do You Need A Mentor?

Leadership is a complex issue in the 21^st Century. Christian leaders at every level in business, church, school, and at home are faced with numerous challenges. A common feeling is that of being overwhelmed. 

Christian leaders face difficulty and uncertainty every day. The world is changing rapidly. The political, economical, and social pressures are encroaching more and more into everyone’s daily lives. Although leaders face the same challenges as everyone else, they have the added burden of trying to have answers for others as well.

Ask Yourself a Few Simple Questions

As a leader:

·        Who do you turn to for guidance, advice, and instruction?

·        Who can you trust not only in their advice, but also in confidentiality?

·        Who already knows what you need to know and is willing to share their knowledge with you?

·        Who equips you to meet challenges when you do not yet know what tomorrow’s challenges even are yet?

·        How do you know if you are lacking the skills required to lead and succeed in the 21^st Century?

·        Are other leaders outpacing you? 

·        Are you facing new and more complex challenges that you never faced before?

·        Are you struggling with the challenge of developing leaders around you?

If so you need a mentor.

Are You Stuck in a Rut?

Has your church replaced truth with tradition?  Have you done the same things for so long that neither God nor man could change things at your church? Do committees and programs substitute for the moving of the Holy Ghost? Has your church become boring and predictable? If so, your church may be stuck in a rut and may be unable to see a way out.

In his book, Rut, Rot or Revival, A.W. Tozer states,

"The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes "lord" in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can predict next Sunday's service and what will happen. This seems to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut.

The routine dictates, and we can tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been, determines what is, and what is, determines what will be. That would be perfectly all right and proper for a cemetery. Nobody expects a cemetery to do anything but conform. The greatest conformists in the world today are those who sleep out in the community cemetery. They do not bother anyone. They just lie there, and it is perfectly all right for them to do so.

You can predict what everyone will do in a cemetery from the deceased right down to the people who attend a funeral there. Everyone and everything in a cemetery has accepted the routine. Nobody expects anything out of those buried in the cemetery. But the church is not a cemetery and we should expect much from it, because what has been should not be lord to tell us what is, and what is should not be ruler to tell us what will be. God's people are supposed to grow. As long as there is growth, there is an air of unpredictability. Certainly we cannot predict exactly, but in many churches you just about can. Everybody knows just what will happen, and this has become our deadliest enemy."

Ministering Amid Pandemonium

As technological progress continues, it axiomatically leads to increasing rates of stress, overload, complexity, and change, speed, debt, and meaninglessness. Yet how can we protect ourselves, or families and our churches from the exhaustion and burnout of our age? The following suggestions may provide some relief, both for you and for those you minister to.

• Put more control in your life.
• Learn to laugh.
• Generate good will. The greatest thing we can do to buffer ourselves against the ravages of stress is to continually spread good will to those around us.
• Limit negatives. Stop negative self- criticism. Limit your time with negative people.
• Stop digging. If you're in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging. If you're overloaded, start saying "NO!"
• Accept your limitations. God is the author of limitations, and He gave them to us for our protection. We violate them at our peril.
• Defend your boundaries. Establish appropriate boundaries and defend them against the onslaught of an extraordinarily demanding world.
• Prune the activity branches. Like new branches on a fruit tree, additional activities and commitments add themselves to our lives every year, often without our permission.
• Value simplicity. No one ever lived a simpler, more unencumbered than Jesus.
• De-accumulate. Everything we own also owns us. Each possession must be cared for, maintained and paid for.
• Control the "paper tumor." Every year the amount of paper and information it contains seems to metastasize without pity. When at all possible, use the "OHIO" rule - "Only Handle It Once."
• Restrain technology. Maintain a healthy skepticism of any new technology and don't buy it unless you can control it.
• Value traditions. Identify the traditions in your personal, family and church life that have special significance and protect them vigorously.
• Establish stability zones. People generally benefit from having certain areas in their lives where change is kept to a minimum, and stability and reliability are assured.
• Move less often. Church leaders are often called on to relocate frequently. But at a time when the rest of the world continues to change so wildly, leaders who have a choice may want to consider the benefits of greater longevity in one position.

The Dark Side of Spiritual Abuse - Part 4

Leadership seems to be the buzzword of our times. Bookstores now have multiple rows upon rows of books concerning this particular subject. Some of the content is very good and can help a person to hone their management skills and work toward becoming self-disciplined in a manner that will prove good for the organization that they are serving. I personally have benefited from some of the secular leadership books that I have read over the years. Despite all of these necessary and good resources only a small, in fact, microscopic amount of these books address spiritual issues in the life of the leader.

There aren’t any spiritual leadership concepts given in the books that Jim Collins has written. Patrick Lencioni does not address the spiritual side of a man who wants to build a Fortune 500 company. Peter Drucker’s works have almost elevated him posthumously to an exalted messiah among the leadership gurus of the last century. If we are not careful, there can be a tendency to think that we can build a church the same way that Steve Jobs made Apple successful. Once a spiritual leader buys into that particular idea that he can build a spiritual church with the same techniques that a profit-driven company is built, he deceives himself and he will create spiritual mayhem with the sheep he is meant to feed.

Spiritually abusive leaders are often very ambitious and driven toward success. It is important to understand the motives that drive men in spiritual leadership because our motives say much about our true intentions. Gary McIntosh in his book, Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership, identifies five types of leadership styles that lead toward tendencies to be spiritually abusive. The compulsive leader is characterized by being status conscious, looking for reassurance and approval from those in authority. He will have a tendency to try to control activities and keep order at all times doing this by being an extreme workaholic. They can be excessively moralistic, conscientious, and judgmental. He may have an angry and rebellious attitude but will repress his true feelings and hold in the anger and resentment. When these dark emotions turn on the church, the atmosphere immediately turns into one of control and extreme authoritarianism.

There are certain traits that usually show up in the preaching style of a compulsive leader. He will frequently be a gifted and charismatic speaker but has the tendency to minimize any impact of the Scriptures unless they are going to serve his own agenda. He will also be the hero of all of his stories and listeners will be “amazed” at his feats in personal outreach/evangelism, prayer schedule, and devotion to the Scriptures. He may even say something like this; “I am God’s appointed authority in your life. If you oppose me you’re opposing God.” He will almost have the capacity to turn himself into a rock star for a lack of a better description. He leads people to follow him instead of the Lord.

Guard The Gates - Part 4

I have taken my inspiration from this series from the book written by John Bunyan called The Holy War. The previous messages (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) were instructional in how we should work to control the gates of our mind. Early in the book, Bunyan introduces us to what he terms the Council of War. At this council, there is a conglomerate of devils that all are sitting down trying to make a determination of how they are going to get into the city of Mansoul to destroy it. There are four schemes that they consider prior to the attack of the city.

1. Whether or not all of the wicked hordes should attack the city or should they send just a single soldier in to gain access to the city.

2. Whether or not they should go as they are, which would be easily recognizable to the citizens as intruders, or should they go in disguise.

3. Whether or not to show their real intentions at the start of why they have come into the city or to assault the city with words and ways of deceit.

4. Whether or not they should determine which of the citizens were the most prominent and influential and then destroy them before attacking.

This council of devils finally made a decision that they will go in by subtlety and deceit. Giant Diabolus will go in as a Dragon (Rev. 20:1-2) but by clever disguise in the role of the serpent. A decision is also made that they will kill Mr. Resistance who is the greatest man of Mansoul because he has such a godly influence over the people who are living there.

So once all of these decisions are made, Giant Diabolus in the form of a serpent ascends up close to the Gates—primarily the Eye Gate and the Ear Gate—and sets up the ambush. The Eye Gate is described by Bunyan as the place of Perspection. We might call it our perspective, perception, mindset, attitude, aspect, or our viewpoint. The Ear Gate was the place where the entire Town gathered to hear any information that would be applicable to them for direction of life. What Bunyan was hitting at was the thought that what we see and hear has a huge amount of influence into how we think.

Giant Diabolus begin presenting his spiel of things and when his great swelling words began to capture the residents of Mansoul, they started moving closer to him so they could see him. This was the great mistake because when Captain Resistance moved out of his place of protection and stood on top of the Gate, one of the cruel archers shot him in the head and killed him. Shortly after the death of Captain Resistance, Lord Innocency dies from an unclear reason. Bunyan says that he died either by a “sinking qualm” that came over him or from the “stinking breath of that treacherous Villian old Ill-pause.”

Reasons For Financial Difficulties

     According to the latest statistics, over one-half of all families in America are experiencing financial difficulties. This includes single parent homes.  Most people have financial problems, but don’t know why! 

     In order to be aware of the financial difficulties one has and know what causes them, a person must educate himself to the reasons for the difficulties.  The following are a list of reasons that most people find themselves in financial difficulty.

1. FAILURE TO FOLLOW SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES.  The Bible is full of guidelines regarding financial principles.  In fact, one-half of all parables and one out of six verses in the New Testament deal with stewardship.  Get your Bible out and start studying.  Ask your pastor for more information.  See a Christian Financial Counselor for assistance.  You will find great guidelines and principles in the Word of God.
2. FAILURE TO IDENTIFY YOUR PRIORITIES.  Just exactly what do you want?  More things or better financial stability?  Prioritize your desires and needs and stick to it.
3. NO DISCIPLINE!  That one horrible word causes us more problems than anything else in the world.  We need to exercise discipline in every phase of our life, especially when it comes to discipline!  Discipline yourself to limit unnecessary purchases and wasting money.  Discipline yourself to set down once per month to analyze your finances.  Discipline will be the greatest thing you can establish in your life. Work diligently with disciplining yourself.
4. FAILURE TO ESTABLISH GOALS.  A person who has no goal is a person without direction.  A person without direction is going…nowhere!  To solve your financial difficulties, you have to establish a clear goal.  Where do you want to be one year from now; five years from now, etc.?  Write your goal down and work toward it.
5. NO CONTROLS.  This compares to discipline, however, it means to have written controls over your spending.  Write down what your limits are.  Review them frequently. 
6. FAILURE TO ESTABLISH A BUDGET.  A budget is not a nervous breakdown on paper.  It is a clear cut guideline of where your money comes from and how it is to be spent.  It only takes about 1 hour per month to maintain a budget so that you can control the process of knowing where your money is and how it is spent.  Don’t negate the importance of a written budget…it will be the greatest factor in helping you get your finances under control.
7. UNABLE TO CONTROL IMPLUSIVE SPENDING.  If you don’t follow the direction of your budget and discipline yourself, you will be unable to stop spending when you see that item that you just must have.  Don’t spend any unnecessary money until you discuss it with someone. You must control your spending if you ever hope to get ahead financially.