Power To Advance

In God’s Kingdom, very often leaders are called to do the opposite of what comes natural to most people.  To increase, they give.  To abundantly live, something in them must die.  To lead, they have to follow the Holy Spirit.   To be honored, they first choose humility.   To reign, they must fellowship with Christ in His suffering.  To be strong, they will first be weak before God.

Ultimately, the godly leader’s confidence is in her fear of God.   The godly leader is as powerful as he is powerless before God.

Prayer is as powerful as we are powerless.  When you go to God, get low.  Abandon all of your power.  And, with arms stretched wide, endure the cross.

Grace is released at the cross – the ultimate place of voluntary powerlessness.

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

A monumental moment in the lives of Jesus’ disciples occurred in Matthew 10.  Jesus sent them out to do what He had been doing. Up to this point, they have watched Jesus do the work.  Now, it’s their turn.

This is leadership at it’s best: modeling the behavior you want to see reproduced and then empowering people do it, while cheering them on. Lord help us, as leaders, to be the word we preach while taking people along for the ride!

I believe God is calling leaders in this hour to be like Jesus – to do before teaching, to take people with them on their journeys with God, to show people how to pray for others and how to share their faith (by doing it with them) and then releasing them to do the same.

This is the ultimate growth strategy – leadership at it’s best.

$900B in the hands of the same greedy folk will produce the same greedy result:  grief.

Greed will always bring grief. (Proverbs 1:19)

Giving to the poor is a loan to God.  He repays.  (Proverbs 19:17)

What if we took that $900B and gave 9 million productive middle-class citizens $100,000 each and told them, this money must go towards a savings that can’t be spent for 2 years, a mortgage, credit card, student loan, food, or some community organization that is helping people during this crisis?   They would also have to volunteer 300 hours of community service over the next two years.  Would that not stimulate the economy?

The outcome of our work can be worship.

The Heavens declare the glory of God!   When God finished His work, He said “This is good.”   Let’s be like God: produce good work that gives Him glory.

Every product we produce, every task can bring glory t0 God.  This happens through excellence.   Because God is excellent our work can be excellent.

To what extent will your work speak of the glory to God today?