internal power plant

A man went to an atomic power plant to see how they produce power. Do you know what he found out? He found out they don’t produce power at all, all they do is release power that is in those elements. That is exactly like us as christians… you don’t produce any power at all. All you do is release the power of God that is in you… the Holy Spirit. You have a dynamic power plant in you just waiting to be released through the power of the Holy Spirit. How do you tap into that power? Through prayer. We will never know how much artillery we have in our arsenal until we unleash our prayers with power. Spurgeon once said in a sermon, “Bring your prayer as an ancient battering ram against the gate of heaven, and force it open with a sacred violence.” Now that’s praying with power.

telling the story – #3

Stephen Grellet was a missionary back in the pioneer days of the United States of America. He was a Quaker evangelist, preacher, and missionary. He was out on the western borders of our nation, at the foot of the Rockies while praying and seeking the face of God when he felt that inner urge, that word from the Lord that said he was to go to a certain lumber camp and preach an evangelistic message. God said he was to go so he went to this particular lumber camp. He was expecting to preach a revival crusade and when he arrived there was not a soul in the lumber camp, not one. He looked around and thought; maybe they are over in the mess hall. Stephen Grellet went over to the mess hall and no one was there. He said, “Lord, you’ve told me to come and preach, I don’t understand it, but I’m going to be obedient.” So he stood in that empty mess hall and preached his heart out. He preached Jesus, salvation, and pled for souls to be saved to an empty place. He gave an invitation for people to receive Christ, then had a benediction, and then went his way satisfied that he had been obedient not understanding it at all.

Years later across the ocean, Stephen Grellet was standing on the London Bridge when a heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. The man asked, “Are you Stephen Grellet?” He said, “I am.” This man said, “I’ve been looking the world over for you. Do you remember going to such and such lumber camp at the foot of the Rockies and preaching a sermon to an empty mess hall? You thought no one heard you, but I heard you. I was the foreman of my crew and we were out in the woods cutting trees and I had to come back for another axe. I heard you in there preaching and I stood behind a stack of wood and I listened to you and I was ashamed to make myself known. What you said penetrated my heart and brought me under conviction. I went back into the woods and gave my heart to Jesus Christ. I shared what happen with three other lumberjacks and all three of them gave their hearts to Jesus Christ. I want you to know sir that the four of us have become missionaries and evangelists, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Here is a man, obedient, not knowing why, but just simply being obedient. Doing what God told him to do.

rest assured

When I hear the word ‘Rest’ it sounds lazy. It sounds like something sissy’s do… or better yet… what small children and senior citizens do so they don’t get irritable and cranky. The first thought that comes to mind when I hear of people who need to rest is that they can’t hack it in this fast paced world. Poor little me that I’ve worked so hard that I need to lay my head on a soft fluffy pillow and start the inception or my body will just crash on the floor as if dead.

Leonardo Da Vinci was known for taking short naps throughout the day instead of sleeping in a 6-8 hour chunk of time. He believed he could accomplish more and make the most out of his day if he slept less more often. I have always rebelled against the fact that my body needs sleep. I have always pushed my body to stay up longer so I can accomplish more. I have had this mentality that when I get to heaven I will get a new body so why not push the envelope while I’m alive so when I do get to heaven I will need a new body because I flat wore this one out. That kind of thinking might be fine every once in a while, but I’m finding out quickly how much I need to take time to rest.

We all need rest and we all need sleep. Without it, our bodies will shut down both mentally and physically. I am slowly learning how important it is to carve time out of the day to rest. God even took time to rest on the seventh day after speaking everything into existence in just six days. Now He didn’t need sleep or rest… come on… He’s God. But He did want to be the first example in Scripture to model a life of work with rest. When we as leaders miss the opportunity to rest we miss out on another opportunity to be more effective, more creative, and more innovative. We tax our bodies and our minds to a breaking point that we become useless.

Plutarch said, “Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.” Rest is critical. Rest is mandatory. Rest is Scripturally sound. As a leader, I need to make time to rest, recuperate, revive, renew, and refresh my mind and my body so I can be used by God to my fullest potential.

telling the story – #2

An experience from the life of Ira Sankey dramatically underlines the all-caring God we serve. It was Christmas Eve 1875 and Sankey was traveling on a Delaware River steamboat when he was recognized by some of the passengers. His picture had been in the newspaper because he was the song leader for the famous evangelist D. L. Moddy. They asked him to sing one of his own hymns, but Sankey demurred, saying that he preferred to sing William B. Bradbury’s hymn “Savior Like A Shepherd Lead Us.” As he sang, one of the stanzas began, “We are Thine; do Thou befriend us. Be the Guardian of our way.” When he finished, a man stepped from the shadows and asked, “Did you ever serve in the Union army?” “Yes,” Mr. Sankey answered, “in the spring of 1860.” “Can you remember if you were doing picket duty on a bright, moonlit night in 1862?” “Yes,” Mr. Sankey answered, very much surprised. “So did I, but I was serving in the Confederate army. When I saw you standing at your post, I thought to myself, ‘That fellow will never get away alive.’ “I raised my musket and took aim. I was standing in the shadow, completely concealed, while the full light of the moon was falling upon you. At that instant, just as a moment ago, you raised your eyes to heaven and began to sing…’Let him sing his song to the end,’ I said to myself, ‘I can shoot him afterwards. He’s my victim at all events, and my bullet cannot miss him.’ “But the song you sang then was the song you sang just now. I heard the words perfectly: ‘We are Thine; do Thou befriend us. Be the Guardian of our way.’ “Those words stirred up many memories. I began to think of my childhood and my God-fearing mother. She had many times sung that song to me. “When you had finished your song, it was impossible for me to take aim again. I thought, ‘The Lord who is able to save that man from certain death must surely be great and mighty.’ And my arms of its own accord dropped limp at my side.” How utterly amazing is our God and his keeping power!

____________
Hughes, Kent & Barbara. Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008), 69-70.

telling the story – #1

A dear friend of mine who was quite a lover of the chase, told me the following story: “Rising early one morning,” he said, “I heard the baying of a score of deerhounds in pursuit of their quarry. Looking away to a broad, open field in front of me, I saw a young fawn making its way across, and giving signs, moreover, that its race was well-nigh run. Reaching the rails of the enclosure, it leaped over and crouched within ten feet from where I stood. A moment later two of the hounds came over, when the fawn ran in my direction and pushed its head between by legs. I lifted the little thing to my breast, and, swinging round and round, fought off the dogs. I felt, just then, that all the dogs in the West could not, and should not capture that fawn after its weakness had appealed to my strength.” So is it, when human helplessness appeals to Almighty God. Well do I remember when the hounds of sin were after my soul, until, at last, I ran into the arms of Almighty God. (A. C. Dixon)

____________
Bounds, E. M. E M Bounds The Classic Collection on Prayer (Orlando, FL: Bridge-Logos, 2001), 3.

hear my cry

The essence of prayer is talking to God as you would to a beloved parent. It is intimate and loving communication. Prayer is not only an intimate privilege; it is also a passion. The passions of the heart will come out in prayers. If we examine what we pray for and find we are praying only for our own needs, problems, questions, and struggles, that is an indication of where our heart is. If we pray infrequently, briefly, and in a shallow manner, we need to do a spiritual inventory to see if the problem is a cold heart. A call to the duty of prayer will not overcome spiritual indifference, because prayer is an internal compulsion born out of a love for and dependence on our heavenly Father. Lack of prayer doesn’t mean merely that we are disobedient; it is also an indicator that our love for God has grown cold.

How do we align our praying with the will of God? By getting to know the Scriptures. That is where God’s will is revealed. Let the truth of Scripture shape your thinking and feed your appetites, and then you will know how to pray according to the will of God.

Clearly, the repeated message of Scripture is that prayer moves the riches of God’s supernatural grace from heaven to earth… from His throne to our need. He will respond to our cries and do what is best for us in each experience of life, while still fulfilling His perfect eternal purpose for us.

“ Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” ~ Hebrews 4:16

____________
The paragraphs above were taken from the following book on prayer: MacArthur, John. Lord, Teach Me to Pray: An Invitation to Intimate Prayer (Nashville, TN: J. Countryman, 2003), introduction.

are we living in the end times?

Coming up on Sunday, June 6, I will be teaching through various subjects that pertain to end times, prophecy, and the book of Revelation. If there is a subject that is confusing, a future event that needs explanation, wordage that doesn’t make sense, or simply a period of time in prophecy that interests you… I hope to address it in my teaching on Sunday mornings. Write a comment below or simply email me your questions, concerns, and interests. I will be collecting your comments and will be using them as teaching points throughout this series. I look forward to unpacking this subject and hope to clarify what has been obscure to so many people. See you in class.

training leaders

Training leaders beside you and under you on how to do your job is a vital task in leadership. There will be times when the leader will be absent and the position needs to be filled by someone who is capable. If the ship begins to sink while you are away, there are two things happening. First, the leader standing in your place cannot adequately sail the ship because they have not been given the proper tools to work with. Second, the leader standing in your place cannot effectively sail the ship because they have not been trained on how to use the limited amount of tools that were given to him.

From time to time the ship will get hit and begins to take on water while sinking—don’t panic, there is always a learning curve as long as the ship still floats. The leaders job is to take the sinking ship and make it float again. There is no time to port and repair the ship. You are at sea and time demands a sudden change of plans—repair the ship at sea. Once afloat, show the team everything it takes to keep it floating. Sinking ships always point back to the captain, not the sailors. That’s why everything rises and falls on leadership.

Insecurity within the leader can be a third reason why the ship begins to sink. Insecurity rises within a leader when one leaves their post and another stands in their place and things begin to fall apart. The leader feels they are needed and wanted so they don’t train others to do their job effectively. It keeps the employees begging for the leader to come back. Once insecurity has set in, pride is always sure to follow. A leader needs to feel secure enough about their position and leadership to the point that everyone thrives and succeeds while you are away. If the team wins, you win, but if the team loses, you lose. Feed a leader that has a desire to win and model it for them so they know how to win. That is the key to true and great leadership.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

time is money

I make it a habit in my life to continually increase my knowledge in the area of leadership. One of the things I have learned while walking down the road of leadership is that if you are not a man of character, all is lost. One of the ways that has helped build my character is what I like to call “The 5 Tips of the Leaders Toes.” They are as follows: Time, Talent, Treasure, Tongue, and Testimony. Walk with these five things in check and your character as a leader will stand the test of time. Without them, you will fall. Speaking of time; I want to spur you on by opening your eyes to the cost of time.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” He further stated, “Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.” King Solomon—the wisest man to ever live—said in Proverbs 10:4 “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” Jesus even said in John 9:4 “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”

Suppose a bank would credit your account each morning with $86,400 to spend that day. Any balance left at the end of the day could not be added to the next day’s amount, but would be canceled. What would you do? Of course, you would make every effort to spend the entire amount each day. Each of us has a time account in the Bank of Heaven. Each morning God deposits 86,400 seconds in it. They are ours to invest for Him that day. When the ends, that day’s allotment of time is completely gone.

Our daily walk is made up of these choice seconds given to us by God. The important question is not the amount of time we have, but how we spend it. We must make a wise investment of it. Every day is ours to use or lose.

“Wasted time is more fatal than wasting money. For money can still be acquired, but time is gone forever.” ~ Unknown

in case of emergency

Is this our mentality about prayer and reading the bible—“in case of an emergency”? Have we as Christians reduced the basic daily routine of a quiet time down to whenever it is convenient for us? Have we arrived on the battle lines without weapons because they are burdensome and weighing us down? Why is it that we have such a hard time having a consistent daily quiet time?

I admit at times, prayer and reading the bible was laborious and boring. My attitude was, “I’ll read and pray when I need to or when time allows.” That was not only painful to write, but as I reflect back on how I felt at the time, it makes me sick at my stomach. How could I ever treat my personal time with Almighty God with such a flippant attitude. I would read and pray only when I needed something from God like direction, healing, or money. Many times, prayer was so foreign that I didn’t like praying in front of people because I didn’t know how to talk to God. I love what John Piper says in his book, Let the Nations be Glad, when he writes. . .

So I do not tire of saying to our church, The number one reason why prayer malfunctions in the hands of believers is that they try to turn a wartime walkie-talkie into a domestic intercom.

Until you believe that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for. Prayer is for the accomplishment of a wartime mission. It is as though the field commander (Jesus) called in the troops, gave them a crucial mission (“Go and bear fruit”), handed each of them a personal transmitter coded to the frequency of the general’s headquarters, and said, “Comrades, the general has a mission for you. He aims to see it accomplished. And to that end he has authorized me to give each of you personal access to him through these transmitters. If you stay true to his mission and seek his victory first, he will always be as close as your transmitter, to give tactical advice and to send in air cover when you or your comrades need it.”

But what have millions of Christians done? They have stopped believing that we are in a war. No urgency, no watching, no vigilance, no strategic planning. Just easy peacetime and prosperity. And what did they do with the walkie-talkie? They tried to rig it up as an intercom in their cushy houses and cabins and boats and cars – not to call in fire power for conflict with a mortal enemy, but to ask the maid to bring another pillow to the den.”

The battle is before me, my enemy is eagerly waiting, the trumpets have sounded, the marching has begun, flaming arrows have lit the sky. Stay with me Lord Jesus. I need You!

“What you do before sunup determines whether you have victory before sundown.”
~ Lester Roloff