-
Start With the End in View
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Jesus started with the end in view. From the first day of His earthly ministry to the last, He had His two-fold purpose before Him: redemption and preparation, the cross and the commission. He came to provide redemption for dying men and women. But what good would His redemptive death be if there were no one to tell others what it means? How could He establish a redemptive movement if He had no one to start it? That’s why He declared to His Father before the cross that He had accomplished His will by making the Father known to those He had…
-
The Beatitudes Attitude: Introduction
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Today we start a new series drawn from the Beatitudes which describe the abounding blessings of Christ in us. We start with the introduction this week, go to a preview with our next entry, and then we will look at each of the Beatitudes to see what these blessings mean to us as we seek to grow in the Beatitudes Attitude. Blessed are . . . (Matthew 5:1-12) The first recorded words of Jesus to His future disciples were words of blessing, and what blessings they are! These blessings are the essence of life that have endured through the ages and define…
-
The Ultimate Wilderness – Series Finale
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series Finale: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life AD 33, 9:00 AM Passover Friday, the Place of the Skull, a public place near Jerusalem. Many people are coming and going, some stopping to see what was happening, observing three men on crosses, two criminals with Jesus in the middle. A large crowd had followed the crucifixion detail out of the city to the place of execution, the place of the ultimate wilderness… No one knew it was the ultimate wilderness on that spring morning. Not the Pharisees or the Sadducees, the instigators of the crucifixion. Not the high…
-
The Lucky Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life John Paine calls himself “the luckiest man in the world,” and most agreed with him some years ago. When John was in the seventh grade he decided he would be physically strong, and he worked until he became a superior athlete who played for college football. Then he decided to transfer to a top ten engineering school and strive to become intellectually strong, and he succeeded by graduating Summa Cum Laude. Upon graduation, John married his high school sweetheart and started his family. At the same time he decided he would…
-
The Parenting Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life Among all the books on parenting that are floating around these days, there is one missing. It’s hard to believe that we’ve overlooked anything, but we are lacking one vital title. I’m not sure how the publishers would respond to this, but in this time of self-publishing, they are not as dominant as they once were, which means this book might make it to the market. The title? Parents Who Did Everything Right and Got it Wrong. There, I told you it would be a best seller. Well, maybe not. Unwanted…
-
The Self-Imposed Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life Striving to Meet Needs that Should Never be Met Many of my wilderness experiences have been self-imposed. They grew out of drivenness within me, the fruit of selfish ambition, fear, and anger that created unmet needs in my heart… And those needs should never have been met. That means that many of my wilderness experiences could have been avoided if only I had been aware that my drivenness and my ambition—pursued sincerely, I believe, in the name of Jesus—were mixed with the slag self glory. I did not understand that…
-
The Island Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life He must have been too hot to touch, that ancient elder of Ephesus, or the Roman authorities probably would have taken him in much sooner than they did… Maybe they were concerned that, since he was so beloved, there would have been a strong reaction in Ephesus, the number two city in the Roman Empire, if they took him into custody. Ephesus was a place where they did not want any unrest. Whatever their reasoning, by the time they exiled him he was in his nineties, perhaps frail and declining in health. His…
-
The Grace Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life A Majority of One Among a Minority of the Many Some men are a wilderness in themselves. Full of anger and hatred, they lash out at others like a fire-breathing dragon, setting the entire landscape aflame. Saul of Tarsus was one such man… Apparently a small man based on his comments about himself, he made up for his size with a brilliant mind. Saul grew up in a devout Jewish family among the Gentiles in Tarsus, then part of Syria in the Roman Empire (now modern day Turkey). It appears that his growing…
-
Hidden With Christ in God
“Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:2–3 (NLT), bold and italics mine Much of our esteem arises from various aspects of our lives—gender, heritage, possessions, accomplishments and how others perceive us. Yet, when we entered into a relationship with Christ, we “died to this life” and our “real life” began “hidden with Christ in God.” The phrase hidden with Christ in God means our life now rests safely locked away in Christ. He is our life now. We are in Christ and we have all the…
-
Five Time Killers
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Time is like money: invest it well early in life, and you will gain great returns later. Waste time early in life and lose fruit later. Wasted time is never resurrected; invested time never dies. Avoid the five time killers… 1. Anger: anger runs a spectrum from disappointment to murder. None of this is fruitful. Much anger is self-imposed. You’re hemmed in by unchangeable circumstances or God hasn’t given you the gifts to get where you want to go or you grew up in a flawed family, and you respond with burning anger. Anger takes time. Every moment you spend angry is a…
