Jan
8
2010

Our Passion and Purpose

categories Launch Movements, Love God

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 askeworldd 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.

| comments Comments (0)
Nov
30
2009

Inspiring Others

categories Launch Movements

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.

“If your actions inspire oth­ers to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” John Quincy Adams

  • 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.

| comments Comments (0)
Nov
12
2009

Spiritual Training-Spiritual Weapons

categories Learn for a Lifetime, Love God, Transformational Discipleship

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 enbibsworddur­ing 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)

| comments Comments (0)