V a l o r L e a d e r B l o g

Run with Endurance

I fin­ished my only marathon sev­eral months ago.  I knew as the race started that my only goal was to fin­ish.  I had trained for months and devel­oped strength and endurance to com­plete this task.  As the race began I was amazed at the crowd of peo­ple who were com­pet­ing with me.  So many started, how many would fin­ish.  My mind grav­i­tated toward Hebrews 12.

As we embrace God’s call­ing toward a life-time of  min­istry, the inward affect of God’s love and work in our lives should over­flow to an out­ward love and com­pas­sion that enables us to share God redeem­ing mes­sage and work with oth­ers.  I remem­ber as a new believer I was so eager and pas­sion­ate to share the Holy Spirit’s redeem­ing work with oth­ers.  I was dra­mat­i­cally changed.  I could hardly keep inside the good news.

But then life began to creep back in.  And sin weighed me down, and shame and guilt over­shad­owed the redeem­ing work of Christ in my life.

I’m not sure when I first rheard Hebrews 12, but it  applied so read­ily to me back then and  undoubt­edly now as I still wres­tle with giants in my own life to give God more access and con­trol over my heart and mind.  How do I “lay aside what holds me back?” another ver­sion tells me to “Strip off every encum­brance that weighs me down”

I want to lay out three steps to help free us from the slav­ery of sin (both as a believer and unbe­liever) and help us lay aside what weighs us down and run with endurance the race that God has set before us:

1.  Acknowl­edge our need for God–We all fall short of what it takes.  Where do we need Jesus to change our heart TODAY? (Romans 3:23)

2.  Con­fes­sion–Con­fess your sins to one another so that you will be healed (James 5:16)

3.  Repen­tance–Turn­ing from our sin by depend­ing on God for our strength and not our­selves.  (Acts 3:19)

Philip­pi­ans 3:14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heav­en­ward in Christ Jesus.

Testing Faith, Perseverance

Lead­er­ship demands a high call­ing.  You’ve prob­a­bly heard this from any num­ber of sources, the Bible agrees (read Titus). One of the tough­est attrib­utes of lead­er­ship that I’ve wres­tled with is an under­stand­ing of the atti­tudes and moti­va­tions behind my actions.  Whether lead­ing in the home or lead­ing in the field, being too focused on myself causes me to lose touch with the real­ity of my cir­cum­stances.   That causes poor lead­er­ship.  Tri­als develop that test our com­pe­tency, endurance and atti­tudes.  11 years ago I counted the cost and decided to give up every­thing that fol­low­ing Christ demanded.  Admit­tedly, I didn’t know the depth of that cost.  I haven’t retracted my offer to give Christ my all, but it is much more work than I could have ever imag­ined at that time.

We all face tri­als and tests.  I face them daily whether I am aware of it in the moment or not.  God loves to develop our char­ac­ter and our obe­di­ence to His word.  As I grow and mature, God brings to fruition a refine­ment that changes me to the core.  How deep does the refine­ment go?

His word tells me that if I con­tinue in His word then I am truly His dis­ci­ple, I will know the truth and the truth will set me free (John 8:31–32). I want to know His truth and see myself as He sees me, but rooted deep in my heart is deceit that has yet to be unseated or dis­cov­ered fully.   My faith is tested daily as the out­ward fruit of my dis­ci­ple­ship is given oppor­tu­ni­ties to flour­ish or fail.  My actions either give life or death to the refine­ment that God is work­ing out in my life.  Change should be evi­dent by the way I live and breathe and move, but I must pre­serve, endure and decide to fol­low Christ, not fol­low my sin­ful nature.  How do I per­se­vere? I must con­tinue in His word!  This is an inward view of dis­ci­ple­ship, per­ma­nent con­tin­u­ance in the Words of Jesus.

In tri­als and test­ing, the inward refine­ment of my atti­tude com­pels me to con­tinue in His Word.

“Con­sider it pure joy, my broth­ers, when­ever you face tri­als of many kinds, because you know that the test­ing of your faith devel­ops per­se­ver­ance.  Per­se­ver­ance must fin­ish its work so that you may be mature and com­plete, not lack­ing any­thing. …Blessed is the man who per­se­veres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him… When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempt­ing me.” For God can­not be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt any­one; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has con­ceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1 (2–4, 12–15)

Deep inside at my core lives the very thing that Jesus died to free me from.  Here sin sur­vives, it tempts, drags away, entices and gives birth to death.  But I have the choice to con­tinue in His Word, to be His dis­ci­ple and live by daily endur­ing and count­ing the cost for His name sake.

The Fruit of Discipleship

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask what­ever you wish, and it will be given you.  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, show­ing your­self to be my dis­ci­ples” john 15:7–8; ital­ics added)

This pas­sage reveals the upward view of dis­ci­ple­ship.  A fruit­less dis­ci­ple­ship of Christ is not the way Christ laid out for His fol­low­ers.  If there is no real fruit in our lives, we can­not claim to be true disciples.

The fruit that the Lord spoke of results in a changed life and is pri­mar­ily man­i­fested in one of these two ways:

Fruit in Char­ac­ter—in the inward life.  “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kind­ness, good­ness, faith­ful­ness, gen­tle­ness and self-control” (Gala­tians 5:22–23)

The fruit of the Spirit’s work­ing in our lives is expressed through these nine qual­i­ties.  A tree is known by its fruit, as Jesus tells his dis­ci­ples.  The dis­ci­ple is rec­og­nized by his like­ness to Christ in inward char­ac­ter.  It was to this end that Paul toiled.  “I seek the fruit that increases to your credit” (Philip­pi­ans 4:17).

Fruit in Ser­vice—in out­ward min­istry.  “Open your eyes and look at the fields!  They are ripe for har­vest.  Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he har­vests the crop of eter­nal life, so that sower and reaper may be glad together” (John 4:35–36).  Fruit is seen when souls are won for Christ and through dis­ci­ple­ship lead on to spir­i­tual matu­rity and a life changed.

The fruit-bearing that is an authen­tic mark of dis­ci­ple­ship is not auto­matic but con­di­tional.  Jesus made this clear when He said, “I tell you the truth, unless a ker­nel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a sin­gle seed.  But if it dies, it pro­duces many seeds” (john 12:24).  He thus links fruit-bearing with the cross.  And did He not exem­plify this prin­ci­ple in His own death?  A sin­gle ker­nel of wheat fell into the ground at Cal­vary and died, but on the Day of Pen­te­cost it pro­duced three thou­sand ker­nels, and fruitage has resulted ever since.

The oper­a­tive words in the state­ment in John 12 are “unless” and “if.”  The glo­ri­ous pos­si­bil­ity of “much fruit” lies in our own hands.  “It is enough for the stu­dent to be like his teacher, and the ser­vant like his mas­ter” (Matthew 10:25).  As we apply the cross to our lives and die to our self-dominated life, the Spirit can make our lives fruit­ful and our lives are changed as a result of our per­sonal rela­tion­ship with the Lord.

Father work in our hearts to change what holds us back.  Renew a stead­fast spirit, ripe with fruits of the Spirit and out­wardly to reap a bounty of fruit for Your glory

Spir­i­tual Dis­ci­ple­ship — J.O.S

Compelling Community

Lead­ing peo­ple toward a com­pelling cause and a com­mit­ted com­mu­nity are two facets of lead­er­ship that should be an inte­gral part of the way we lead.  Moses faced this chal­lenge as the Israelites grum­bled in the desert and rebelled against God and Moses’ lead­er­ship.  Moses con­tin­ued to draw them back toward both the cause (spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion of their own heart) and com­mu­nity (by fos­ter­ing unity and one­ness).  Moses lead both out and in and rec­og­nized that peo­ple need to be lead in both direc­tions.  Moses’ heart becomes appar­ent after God pun­ishes him for dis­obey­ing and tell him that he would not enter the promised land.  Moses speaks, in Num­bers 27: 16–17 :

“O Lord, you are the God who gives breath to all crea­tures. Please appoint a new man as leader for the com­mu­nity.  Give them some­one who will guide them wher­ever they go and will lead them into bat­tle, so the com­mu­nity of the Lord will not be like sheep with­out a shepherd.”

Do you sense Moses’ con­cern for the Israelites?  He clearly states his con­cern for lead­ing toward the cause of Christ and also lead­ing inward by cre­at­ing an atmos­phere that fos­ters community?

We can look at few more exam­ples…  As William Wilber­force led the move­ment to end slav­ery he gath­ered a close team of men and women who relent­lessly fought for this cause.  Called the Clapham cir­cle, they started from mem­bers who were cap­ti­vated by the com­pelling cause of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery.  They undoubt­ingly face huge chal­lenged as they sought to change soci­ety view point of the moral­ity of slavery.

The Clapham Cir­cle embod­ied the Acts 2:42 lifestyle, meet­ing together for prayer, shar­ing meals together, liv­ing in com­mu­nity. Wilber­force and Henry Thor­ton began the Clapham Cir­cle with inten­tion­al­ity. Accord­ing to Wilber­force biog­ra­pher, Kevin Bel­monte, “Years later [Wilber­force] would insist that this net­work of sup­port had been indis­pens­able in enabling him to serve effec­tively in pol­i­tics. Oth­ers might dis­miss such a seem­ingly triv­ial notion, but Wilber­force knew that his friend­ships were one of the most impor­tant parts of his life.” — Charles Colson

A third exam­ple comes from one of the great­est move­ment lead­ers of all time, Mar­tin Luther King (MLK).  King speaks, “This hour in his­tory needs a ded­i­cated cir­cle (com­mu­nity) of trans­formed non­con­formists(the cause). The sav­ing of our world from pend­ing doom will come not from the actions of a con­form­ing major­ity but from the cre­ative mal­ad­just­ment of a trans­formed minority.”

Don’t miss it.  A com­mit­ted com­mu­nity is what pro­vides the per­se­ver­ance nec­es­sary for the cause to reach its full poten­tial.  Father help us to build rela­tion­ship among our peers and extend the reach Christ to bring glory and honor to your name.

Authenticity

If we aspire to be spir­i­tual lead­ers in ROTC and even­tu­ally the mil­i­tary, than we must decide to live as dis­ci­ples of Jesus; live authen­tic and trans­par­ent lives.  A big lie we allow our­selves to believe is that we need to have most every aspect of our lives together or at least pre­tend that we do.  It is nat­ural for us to hide what doesn’t look good.  Vul­ner­a­bil­ity is not our enemy but it our great­est tool to con­nect to a bro­ken world.  If we desire to have an impact on oth­ers then we must share our lives with oth­ers by reveal­ing our bro­ken­ness to oth­ers, not cover it up.

1^st Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 2:8 says, Having so fond an affec­tion for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

• How are we able to impart our lives to oth­ers if we are hid­ing sig­nif­i­cant parts from them?

Often in evan­ge­lism, we ask oth­ers to take a chance and trust what we are telling them but what we are offer­ing maybe the appear­ance of Chris­tian­ity.  “Come fol­low me as I fol­low Christ” should com­mu­ni­cate that I too am learn­ing how to walk, not that I have arrived (which is pride­ful).  I used to think that if other really knew the truth then they would never lis­ten to me. Some­times I still default to this think­ing but when I share the truth of where I am at and not fab­ri­cate the appear­ance of hav­ing it all together,  I usu­ally find myself iden­ti­fy­ing and con­nect­ing at a greater level with others.

It helps me to real­ize that it takes God a life­time to change my heart.  In a moment, I gave my life to Christ, but every day I am pre­sented with oppor­tu­ni­ties to allow God to save me from my sin­ful nature.

God give me a new heart.  Renew my spirit and trans­form my mind so that I  can live for more of you and less of myself.  Help me to gen­uinely put on love.  A love that brings about per­fect unity and authenticity.

Our Passion and Purpose

I recently had the priv­i­lege of hear­ing Eric Swan­son speak.  What really stood out to me were some remarks on pas­sion and how they relate to evan­ge­lism and relationships:

1. Evan­gel­i­cally, if we can con­nect peo­ple to the pas­sions God cre­ated in them, then we have an entry point into the Gospel.
2. Rela­tion­ally, if we can con­nect the pas­sions of peo­ple to the big­ger story of the world’s bro­ken­ness, we can help   peo­ple “change the world”.

Have you ever asked your­self or oth­ers if it is pos­si­ble to help change the world?

Ask your­self, what are you pas­sion­ate about?  How has God uniquely gifted you to change the world?  Many of you are head­ing for mil­i­tary ser­vice.  Is the mil­i­tary your pas­sion?  It may or may not be.  Our pro­fes­sion doesn’t have to have the sole own­er­ship of our pas­sion.  But the greater ques­tion is how you can serve the Lord in what you are pas­sion­ate about.  It will take pas­sion to change the world!

We are all very famil­iar with Eph 2:8–9:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of your­selves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast”.

But also with it should be read verse 10:

“For we are His work­man­ship, cre­ated in Christ Jesus for good works, which God pre­pared before­hand so that we would walk in them.”

This should tell us that our sal­va­tion is not just for our secu­rity, but it is what will allow us to ful­fill the pur­poses God cre­ated us for .

Now con­sider 2 Cor 5:10:

“For we must all appear before the judg­ment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

God not only calls us to ful­fill the good works He pre­pares for us, but He also equips and  pre­pares us to do it.  God has uniquely cre­ated each of us with dif­fer­ent pas­sion and He has pre­pared dif­fer­ent works for us to accom­plish.  We each have a unique assign­ment from the Lord. Pas­sion is an emo­tion that can be repressed through doubt or fear; or it can be embraced and used might­ily to accom­plish the tasks that He has assigned us.

Pas­sion is an indis­pens­able qual­ity for any leader.  Authen­tic pas­sion cap­ti­vates and inspires those around us.  By lead­ing spir­i­tu­ally, truly lead­ing, our pas­sion for fol­low­ing Christ should moti­vate oth­ers to catch fire.

Father help us under­stand how you cre­ated us for a pur­pose to help change the world. Help us to access the pas­sion that you have put inside our hearts.  Allow us to live unhin­dered from the thorns of this world and to live freely, pas­sion­ately for Christ.  Amen.

Inspiring Others

I read John Maxwell’s blog post this morn­ing and it made me think about the effect of our lives on oth­ers.   Do we inspire them?  Maxwell pro­poses this Inspi­ra­tion Equa­tion to reveal how we inspire others:

What They Know(about us) + What They See(about us) + What They Feel (about us)=(are they) Inspired

I think how we inspire oth­ers is a good mea­sur­ing line for effec­tive­ness con­cern­ing Spir­i­tual Lead­er­ship.  Break­ing down this equa­tion makes us think from oth­ers’ van­tage point and should cause us to ask ques­tions of ourselves.

• Do peo­ple know that we care or just know our agenda?
• Have we sought to under­stand oth­ers where they are at?
• Are we trust­wor­thy enough to con­fide in and be vul­ner­a­ble with?
• Do we live out what we talk about?

Our abil­ity to influ­ence, moti­vate and inspire oth­ers helps us lead.  No other man ever did this as well as Jesus when He poured His pas­sion out and inspired 12 men and ulti­mately the world.

As we build rela­tion­ships and live out our pas­sion for the Lord, we can cause a rip­ple effect that moti­vates and inspires oth­ers to live boldly for Him.

Spiritual Training-Spiritual Weapons

One char­ac­ter qual­ity of a dis­ci­ple is a reg­u­lar study of God’s Word. John 8:31. We know that both a dis­ci­ple and a sol­dier must abide in train­ing. The mil­i­tary spends lots of time and money train­ing a sol­dier to act with instincts in the most dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions. The word of God trains a dis­ci­ple to be able to dis­cern good and evil and be equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16–17).

Think about the hours of train­ing you are endur­ing to equip you to fully per­form your mil­i­tary duty. Think of the equip­ment and weapons you are being trained to oper­ate and exe­cute. What kind of mil­i­tary man or woman would you be with­out your equip­ment or your training?

God trains us and equips us to fully fol­low Jesus as His dis­ci­ple.. He equips us for bat­tle. The fol­low­ing pas­sage is cast in mil­i­tary terms.

Eph. 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our strug­gle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the pow­ers, against the world forces of this dark­ness, against the spir­i­tual forces of wicked­ness in the heav­enly places. 13 There­fore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and hav­ing done every­thing, to stand firm. 14 Stand firm there­fore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, 15 and hav­ing shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; 16 in addi­tion to all, tak­ing up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extin­guish all the flam­ing arrows of the evil one. 17 And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (NASB95)

There are many com­par­isons we can make with this pas­sage; how­ever, I would like to focus on one aspect. We know we should abide in the word because God uses it to train us. But notice that it is also our weapon. It is the “sword of the Spirit.

The word of God not only trains us, but it is the weapon we use when we are in the mid­dle of the bat­tle. This is an impor­tant con­cept to think about. It trains us, and it is our weapon.

When­ever I attend mil­i­tary brief­ings made to civil­ians, there is always one thing that the mil­i­tary attrib­utes our dom­i­nant world power to. It is not our supe­rior weapons, tech­nol­ogy, or num­bers of troops. It is the qual­ity of our mil­i­tary men and women. It is the fact that the U.S. mil­i­tary puts more time and money into train­ing than any other coun­try. Our pilots have more train­ing flight hours, our sailors have more time at sea, and our sol­diers have more time with their weapons. Not only are they trained to use their equip­ment, but also they are trained to make deci­sions that are right and just. Marines are con­sid­ered Teach­ers and Schol­ars. Always learn­ing, always teach­ing. Our U.S. mil­i­tary puts much time and money into the devel­op­ment of the indi­vid­ual mil­i­tary per­son so that they can be the best that they can be.

The great­est weapon against ter­ror­ism is a highly trained mil­i­tary per­son. So the train­ing becomes the great­est weapon. The abil­ity of a mil­i­tary per­son to be strong, to stand firm, and to apply the sword in bat­tle is a result of their training.

As a dis­ci­ple of Jesus, the Word of God not only trains us, but it makes us into the great­est weapon against the schemes of the devil. As you are bat­tling for the hearts and souls of those around you, and even your­self, what are the weapons that are unbeat­able? Love, humil­ity, for­give­ness, peace, trust, faith, hope, etc… God uses the Word to train us to have such unbeat­able weapons. We become the weapons. We become love, for­give­ness, peace, trust, faith, hope, etc…

The great­est weapon against the schemes of the devil is a fully devoted fol­lower of Jesus. So our spir­i­tual matu­rity becomes the great­est weapon. The abil­ity of a dis­ci­ple of Jesus to be strong, to stand firm, and to apply the Word of God in bat­tle is a result of their training.

“If you abide in My word, then you are truly dis­ci­ples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31–32)

In the Face of Stress

Our faith has oppor­tu­ni­ties to be refined as we encounter var­i­ous stresses, over­come obsta­cles and endure the hard­ships of life.  School, fam­ily, work, con­fronta­tion, injury, sick­ness, even death are a part of life that adds pres­sure.  No one’s life is free of stress.  A mature faith that rests solely on the Lord is cul­ti­vated over time.  A matur­ing faith demands that we learn to depend on the Lord in all circumstances.

Our response often reveals the con­di­tion of our heart.  Read James 1:2–4

“Con­sider it all joy, my broth­ers, when you encounter var­i­ous tri­als, know­ing that the test­ing of your faith pro­duces endurance.  And let endurance have its per­fect result, so that you may be per­fect ad com­plete, lack­ing in nothing.”

Con­sid­er­ing tri­als “all joy” is one of the hard­est things for me to put into prac­tice.  I have strug­gled to find peace at dif­fer­ent times in my life.  I remem­ber as a newly mar­ried man how I strug­gled try­ing to merge our lives together.  Wrestling with self­ish­ness and sac­ri­fice, the con­di­tion of my heart showed that I need to mature in many areas.  There were times when we wanted com­pletely dif­fer­ent things and I had no idea how God was going to rec­on­cile our hearts.

I expe­ri­enced tri­als at work as I faced dead­lines and pres­sure from my employer to give qual­ity results in lim­ited time.  I’ve lied and cheated my peers try­ing to look more put together than I actu­ally was.  I lamented my sin after­ward rec­og­niz­ing that I was more con­cerned with look­ing good then uphold­ing my integrity.

When faced with these chal­lenges, many of us will try to rise up in our own power, draw­ing from our own expe­ri­ences and press for­ward doing what we believe is best.  That is my ten­dency, but it lacks spir­i­tual wis­dom.  It leaves God out of the equa­tion and trains us to be self-reliant, self­ish.  Every­one fails at some point.  Sorry to be so dis­cour­ag­ing, but it is true.  No one has ever been that good, no one except Jesus.  And unless He died in vain, then every­one will fall short and does have need of His power, strength and sovereignty.

Spir­i­tual endurance requires a mature per­spec­tive that sees the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion as an oppor­tu­nity to grow and not merely fail. It demands that we put our focus on the Lord on not our own suf­fer­ing.  When we place our trust and our faith in Jesus we sub­mit to His power, author­ity and sov­er­eignty over our lives.  This doesn’t hap­pen imme­di­ately; it must be learned, tested and refined over time.

Be assured that ser­vice in the mil­i­tary will afford you the priv­i­lege of mak­ing dif­fi­cult deci­sion under stress.   What sep­a­rates you from oth­ers is where you draw your strength from and what defines your values.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own under­stand­ing, in all your ways acknowl­edge Him and He will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:5–6

Supreme Commitment

Another way that spir­i­tual lead­er­ship takes form is con­nected to how we pri­or­i­tize our time and com­mit­ments. Our rela­tion­ship with God should be above all oth­ers. In my last post I alluded to giv­ing up time with fam­ily as a way that a ser­vant leader could sac­ri­fice in order to love oth­ers. This mode of sac­ri­fice is eas­ily under­stood by those in the mil­i­tary because of the very nature in which ser­vice men and women do their job.
Most every­one who serves in the mil­i­tary knows that they may be asked to give up pre­cious fam­ily time dur­ing a deploy­ment or their assign­ment in order to serve their coun­try and accom­plish the mission.

Under­stand that a lifestyle of sac­ri­fice becomes nec­es­sary as we live out ser­vant lead­er­ship. This should be evi­dent in our pri­or­i­ties. In Matthew 10:37 Jesus says, “Any­one who loves his father or mother more than me is not wor­thy of me; any­one who loves his son or daugh­ter more than me is not wor­thy of me.” Christ wants us to love Him more than even our clos­est rela­tion­ships. We are told that even the close rela­tion­ship of a father, mother, sis­ter or brother should not be idol­ized or become more sig­nif­i­cant than our rela­tion­ship with the Lord.

While there are many who lose their fam­i­lies in their drive for suc­cess, there are oth­ers who swing to the other extreme. We don’t want to be worka­holics and lose our fam­i­lies while we are ful­fill­ing God’s assign­ments, but some have made fam­ily an idol. They have neglected, and in some cases, abdi­cated God’s call for their lives because they wrongly assumed that this was an either/or proposition—they refused to let any­thing come in the way of fam­ily com­mit­ments. God may want to use the sac­ri­fices asso­ci­ated with your call­ing to build and strengthen your fam­ily…. This doesn’t sug­gest that we neglect our fam­i­lies. We should give them what they need and deserve in terms of our time and atten­tion. One of the most impor­tant lessons in life is that some­times there must be jus­ti­fi­able sac­ri­fices that require us to do the right thing because it is the right thing.

Whether mar­ried or sin­gle, our life requires a bal­ance that hinges on Jesus and the grace that He con­tin­u­ally offers us.

Father, plant in our heart a supreme com­mit­ment to serv­ing you and let noth­ing else replace it. Let your exam­ple of sac­ri­fice be exem­pli­fied in our lives as we live out love, joy, peace and right­eous­ness in the Holy Spirit. Amen!