Consider your ways

The Prophet Haggai gives good and godly counsel to those who despise God and to whom God was justly displeased with.   He asked them to reflect upon their actions and to consider their ways.  This good prophet ask them this on multiple occasions to evaluate their actions before the Lord.  This prophet is not alone in calling God’s people to “Consider Your Ways”.  Read Psalms 119:59, Lamentations 3:40, and Proverbs 4:26.

1. Take inventory of your life!

·       Are you satisfied with the use of your money?  Is God satisfied with the use of his money? 

·       Is the use of your wealth disturbing to God?  Study again verse 2, 3 and 4 from chapter 1.

·       Is the use of your wealth distressing to you?  Study again verse 5 and 6 from chapter 1.

·       In what ways have you procrastinated in accomplishing God's will for your life?

·       Knowing that God will hold us accountable for the way that we will have lived are we prepared to stand and give that account?

2. Decide today to be a good steward of your resources!

·       In what ways this week cannot avoid procrastination and kingdom work?

·       What can you decide to do that you are capable of doing that you're not?

·       In what ways can you make God's work a priority in your life this week?

Distractions Destroy

As a leader I'm constantly bombarded with distractions.  Distractions can be fatal to our creativity, our drive for success and excellence, and our effectiveness. Most of the time distractions produce death by degrees, slowly consuming are calling, vocation, and our lives. Dodd Caldwell recently gave an interview to Crossleadership where he said:  “ it's easy to lose focus on what's important and spend our time and energy on temporal things.”

He's right you know. Distractions but nonessential things causes us to waste our lives. So as a leader, and a pastor with people who have legitimate needs, and other responsibilities that are legitimate, and even fit within the framework of kingdom life, how do we limit and maybe even destroy the distractions that lurk?

First:  it would be important to identify the distractions we cannot stop an attack from the enemy unless you first identify the enemy.  Sometimes we just need to stop for a moment, and think: what are my distractions?  Maybe it's something as simple as a constantly vibrating phone. Distractions come in all shapes and sizes like that all-important text message, or someone commenting on our Facebook status.  Maybe it is that tweet from someone halfway around the world that we've never even met, whatever it is it's distracting.  There are other distractions that tend to be a part of our normal daily life yet they eat up large amounts of time.  The project maybe we should delegate to someone else.  The TV program that will be on Netflix for free in less than  5 years, or maybe it's the all-important sporting event that we won't remember this time next year.   What you don't watch sports or TV?  Maybe it's a hobby or a book?  Whatever it is like everything else it must find a rightful place in our lives. If we continue to devote too much time to them, it will distract us.

Second:  to destroy the distractions we must focus on what's important.  Do you ever find it hard to focus?  To be completely transparent I do.  Maybe it's my undiagnosed ADD?  I think one major way to destroy a distraction and Life is to focus on our God-given mission and priority.    I know this sounds crazy, but whenever I outline my month, week or day it's easier for me to focus on what's really important and to eliminate the distractions that continually creep into my schedule.  At times I'm better at it than others but one thing I've noticed of the years, is this:  if before I begin work I pulled out a piece of paper and jot down 3 or 4 things that I need to accomplish today it helps me prioritize and keep in my mind what really needs to be done.

Third: lately I tried to block my distractions.  Sometimes it's simple as fording a phone call to the office so that my secretary or voicemail answers the phone.  There are programs that you can install on your computer to prevent the access of Facebook or twitter if you need to self-discipline.  If you're one who spends hours in front of the TV do something radical…  Recently we canceled our TV subscription, most of the TV shows that we watch our free anyway on the Internet,  and if you're creative enough you can stream the signal to your TV.  It has really cut down our TV watching.  Not radical enough for you?  Why not sell your TV?  Here's my point:  do something to block your distraction!

Forth:  it's probably a good idea once a distraction is blocked to replace it with something meaningful.  As helpful as it is to cut our distractions out from our lives if we do not replace it with a God-given goal and work there will be another distraction to take his place, justice time draining, and just as devastating.

Fifth:  it is important that we live in the moment.  Jamal it was a martyr for the Christian faith.  Once he said, “ Wherever you are, be all there!”  Isn't that good advice?  We live in a world where we may be trying to eat dinner with our family and our noses are constantly in the phones.  None of us have any idea how much longer we will live on the earth and to live with an all-consuming focus for the kingdom of God is important. Don't neglect the calling to God on your life.    And if you're like me, you have a family:  don't neglect the family.  I was privileged to have Dr. WA Criswell as a professor.  At the end of this class he would always invite the students to ask him questions.   He called it, “A leaf from his life.”  One day a student asked him, “If you could live your life over and repeat your ministry what would you do differently?”  To which he said, “ I would make my family a greater priority.”

I've always remembered those words.  I may have other regrets but I hope and pray for my family really does know how much I love them.

The Good Fight

NIV 1 Timothy 6:12  Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses

Today, I was finishing up a sermon from 1 Timothy chapter 6 that I'm going to share on Father's Day in just a few weeks.  I was looking at verse 12 and just fell under great conviction from the Holy Spirit. 

For good reason the Christian life is often referred to as a contest or a battle.   Just this week I was speaking to a friend in ministry who was relating the difficulties of the past few weeks.  We were discussing the real possibility of the things that he faced being a spiritual attack.  For those of us in ministry spiritual attacks are common.  However, I would also think that spiritual attacks are real, no matter who we are or what walk of life we journey down.

This passage describes a person who is straining and giving their best to win a prize of battle.  It is my desire that I give my best years to Jesus, that my best effort and my best energy are offered up.  God desires the majority of my time, effort, and my resources for the kingdom to which I serve. 

The word fight means to agonize.  {i wish it were easy, but it is not}  It describes concentration, discipline and conviction. It requires great determination and commitment.  This is a personal battle that I take on but it is also a cooperate battle that we are fellow believer’s together engage.    This word fight, is a present middle imperative, that doesn't mean anything to those who speak only English, and it means very little to most of us who have an elementary understanding of Greek, but from what I can tell here's what this word means: I make the choice to “fight the good fight.” God does not make me fight the good fight.  It is a personal choice that I make.  This speaks of a noble cause, an excellent campaign worthy of my time and devotion.  The object of the fight is the extension of God’s kingdom! 

To be transparent, I must confess that in my heart I battle against self-apathy, and cynicism.  I have often encountered lethargic believers, and apathetic church members.  And daily I fight to keep the right mindset, and the correct concentration to determine to do what is good and right before the Lord. 

The faith referred to in verse 12 is the Christian truth and the content of the word of God!   Who is to wage this war?  The Bible says “to which you were called.”  What do you mean, Paul?  This is the call of Salvation.  So, believers are to enter into battle.  {See what Paul said in Ephesians 6:10-20} All of us were lost and headed for a devils hell and God in His, sovereignty, reached out to you and to me.  The only reason we think about God, is because God thought about us.  He initiated it all.   I did not choose Him, but rather He chose me first!  I like what Adrian Rogers used to say: “God chose me so that I could choose him.”

You have a choice to make today, as did I. Are we going to get in this fight of fights?  Will we wage war on the enemy?   {Many of us will play it safe today} Are we determined not to give up?  {So many in the pew and the pulpit are about to give up} I do not want to become a POW in this spiritual war!    Today, let us pray and ask God to provide within each of us a determination to take hold of the eternal purposes to which we have been called.  This phrase in verse 12, “ to which you were called”  Paul uses a different tense here in the Greek's, an aorist passive, which means God called this to be.  There  was a time When God spoke.   The fact that it is in the aorist means that the effect of this call is still effective.   I praise the Lord today that God has called, and his callings still have an effect on my life, in the present tense of my life. 

Through the years people have asked me,  “Do you believe in the internal security of the believer?”  Yes I do!  I love what Paul said in  NIV Romans 11:9, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.”

I was called by God and in his grace I responded to the gift of salvation.  As I study the Bible I have learned that his callings and gifts have an eternal present impact on my life!  Let me tell you today what I struggle with:  it is when people use that eternal security, as a clause to get away with iniquity harbored in the heart.    When people claim to be called but there's never any effect of those callings, I stand concerned.  My Bible tells me that when God calls, his callings affect you!

As Paul told Timothy, may we live out the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.