One trait of a leader is when someone trains others to lead beyond himself.
Biblically, one such man was the Apostle Paul. I’d take leadership pointers from him any day! He lived it and taught others to do the same. Check out this great article from Rick Warren’s website about Paul’s leadership criteria:
7 Things the Apostle Paul Looked for in Leaders:
http://pastors.com/7-things-the-apostle-paul-looked-for-in-a-leader/
“The great falling away.”
“The love of many will grow cold.”
Lately (and not intentionally) I’ve opened my Bible to doomsday passages. Joel 1. Isaiah. A bunch of other hard-to-pronounce names ;) What’s happening globally, economically, spiritually seems to point to the same thing:
Seems like God is saying this time is upon us. Let’s take an honest look in our mirrors: we’ve been rebellious people! Eventually that catches up with you, no?
The day comes when it’s time to pay the penalty, for those who have strayed from His ways. But when that day arrives, I believe He will protect His people, His faithful ones.
Part of me rejoices! No, I’m not a sadist – I’m anticipating the outcome. Perhaps judgment will turn the hearts of fellow Americans back to the Lord we once worshipped, the One we founded our country on! These days, we’re largely seeking pleasure and counsel from the world, not our Father, and as we all know, the world doesn’t play nice. Or fair.
Remember? We don’t want to serve the prince of this world, its current ruler. We want to serve the Lord of everything, Jesus! When we bow to the world and its ways, we are consumed.
You disagree? Just give it some time. I’ve learned the hard way, friends, that this world will chew you up and spit you out if you entertain it too long. Especially Christ-followers.
Lord, help us! We are weak, we know. We haven’t spent the time with You we needed. We’ve failed over and over again.
You are our Help. Please rescue us from the world and ourselves. Please love on us and set us free from “this body of death” drawn to sin. We crave that which destroys us. Please change our cravings. Set us free. Give us new hearts of flesh, not of stone!
Set us free to serve you and serve others. To love people. Get us OUT of our self-made, self-focused worlds.
We love You. Our spirits are willing. Thank You Father for loving us through our stubbornness!!!!! Give us grace to love You back and pour out on those around us. Let us feel Your sincere love for us to our cores.
Thank You Father for being so kind and so near. We love You.
“Come. Eat.”
The Lord has been speaking to me the last few days about bread, over and over again. Bread is something we all need. Often.
Give us this day our daily bread!
Jesus taught us this simple prayer, one we should say to the Father when we don’t know what to pray for. We don’t know what we need, but He does, so when you’re in need and don’t know what you’re yearning for, follow Christ’s example and ask your good Father for your daily sustenance. He’s ready to give it.
But we must ask for it. And we must come to Him to receive it.
—
1 “Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to Me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
My steadfast, sure love for David.
4 Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,
and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,
for He has glorified you.
6 “Seek the Lord while He may be found;
call upon Him while He is near;
7 let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways
and My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall My word be that goes out from My mouth;
it shall not return to Me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
12 “For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
-Isaiah 55
The Benefits of Wisdom
Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gains understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver
and yields better returns than gold.
She is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are pleasant ways,
and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who embrace her;
those who lay hold of her will be blessed.
-Proverbs 3:3-18
Such a beautiful song — I heart it!
In the last few years, over and over again this realization has swept over me. The more I fail the more I’m faced with this truth. Enjoy his words, his message, and listen all the way to the end. Gorgeous!
Putting God first (AKA firstfruits). Remember when I wrote about that last month? http://youaretheoneiwant.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/first-fruits/
He’s taught me a lot in 30 short days. Today I opened His word to this passage (a book I’d never paid attention to!). The passage is a little lengthy but the message, AWESOME.
“Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins? This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!
This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. You hoped for rich harvests, but they were poor. And when you brought your harvest home, I blew it away. Why? Because my house lies in ruins, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, while all of you are busy building your own fine houses. It’s because of you that the heavens withhold the dew and the earth produces no crops. I have called for a drought on your fields and hills—a drought to wither the grain and grapes and olive trees and all your other crops, a drought to starve you and your livestock and to ruin everything you have worked so hard to get.”
-Haggai 1
Um, whoa. Harsh much? Not so fast…
What is God saying here? His message is: ”Get your priorities straight! This is why your house is in ruins…. why you have addictions you can’t satisfy…. why you work so hard but it’s never enough! You are giving what belongs to God – the firstfruits of your heart, your money, your devotion, your time – to another.”
Hasn’t God said He’s jealous for us (Exodus 20)? He will not sit by while we worship something else, something false. We are His children! Like any good father, He shows us when we veer off course, when we chase things that destroy us.
What kind of wife/husband would you be to ignore your spouse dating someone else — or to let your kids wander down a bad path that will cause them pain or even death, without correcting them? Would you be able to say you truly loved them?
So what did our loving God do to His people, who left His temple unbuilt and thus rendered them unable to worship Him? He sent disaster upon what they were relying on.
Why - because He hated them?
No, because He loved them intensely and wanted them to realize they were devoted to the wrong thing. He wanted to turn their hearts back to Him. He was crying out for them to love Him back, to return to Him, to rebuild His temple so they could worship Him once more.
THAT IS A PASSIONATE LOVE!
So the people of Judah responded: They started building God’s temple! And what did God do? Check out Haggai 2:
“Look at what was happening to you before you began to lay the foundation of the Lord’s Temple. When you hoped for a twenty-bushel crop, you harvested only ten. When you expected to draw fifty gallons from the winepress, you found only twenty. I sent blight and mildew and hail to destroy everything you worked so hard to produce. Even so, you refused to return to me, says the Lord.
Think about this eighteenth day of December, the day when the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid. Think carefully. I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn. You have not yet harvested your grain, and your grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olive trees have not yet produced their crops. But from this day onward I will bless you.”
He blessed them!!! For even beginning to walk in obedience, He spoke His blessing over their lives.
The coolest & most exciting part (to me)? This morning God spoke the same message to my heart: From this day onward I will bless you.
Why?
I believe it’s because we’ve been giving Him our firstfruits, honoring Him with the first of our crops (which we actually have, from our new garden!), our time (our mornings and the beginning of each month), our wealth (the first of our paycheck).
Have we been perfect? No, but we’ve started plodding the path of putting Him first. Proverbs 9 says God blesses people who give Him their firstfruits. We recognized this — that the firstfruits already belong to Him — so when we give Him what’s rightfully His, He blesses the rest.
And He wasn’t kidding: He’s blessing our faces off. No, we don’t share this to toot our horns. We share this to demonstrate that the Bible, when applied, changes our lives :)
May God give you grace to do the same!
xoxo Summer
This weekend I opened up to this passage. The words jumped off the page – a message for me! And I hope for you.
‘Comfort, comfort My people,’
says your God.
‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.’
-Isaiah 40:1-2
Hallelujah, what great news! There is more to share – but another time.
