Isaiah 6:5 & 8. "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
Bill Hybels uses the term “holy discontent” in describing the search for your passion. What keeps you up at night? What is just plain wrong? What breaks your heart? What injustice can’t you stand to see any longer? Think hard about this.
Effective leaders have found something that they are passionate about. Passion is crucial for a leader because leaders get attacked and face tremendous opposition at times. Moses dealt with people who felt they would be better off as slaves than living as free people under Moses’ leadership (ouch). Nehemiah faced opposition from his enemies as well as his own people as he led the effort to rebuild the wall.
God opened Isaiah’s eyes to see the sin around him. Isaiah saw the stark contrast between a holy God and a sinful people – “people of unclean lips”. It affected him so much that he cried, “I am ruined!” That produced a passion in him to be used by God to bring a very unpopular message to Israel – basically, repent and clean up your act. Isaiah knew that his career was not going to be marked with a lot of people’s choice awards and big bonuses. But he had a passion and that’s what drove him.
What ruins you?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Before You Lead, Know Who Your Leader Is
Joshua 24:14-15. "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
If you check in with me regularly, you will have noticed that I have been MIA for a few weeks. So before I get into some thoughts about Joshua, I ask for your indulgence in my absence which involved a taking nice vacation, playing a benefit for Young Life with my garage band (Guava Jam), and then coming down sick for the last ten days. All things considered, it has been a great month, even counting the sickness. (In all things I will thank God!)
I want to spend a few weeks talking about leadership. Joshua was a great but fairly unsung leader. We remember how he and Caleb spied out the promised land and were the only ones of that group to argue that God’s people should take the land as God directed. 40 years later he was the leader of the nation that entered and conquered the land. Besides being a tremendous military leader, he then went on to successfully govern the new nation.
Joshua always put God first. He always trusted God to deliver. The simple message I’d like us to think about today is who (or what) is really our leader. Most of us have the opportunity to lead, and I define leadership as influencing people toward a desired end. We do this among our friends, in our place of work, at school, in our families, etc.
Good leaders follow God. As he spoke to the new nation of Israel at the end of his life, Joshua realized that the people could easily choose to follow other gods. He told them that they had a choice. Then he told them what his own choice was in those powerful words, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
So think about who or what your god is, especially as you are in positions of influence and leadership. Is your god fame? Money? Power? Prestige? Or is it the one true God, from whom all blessings flow?
If you check in with me regularly, you will have noticed that I have been MIA for a few weeks. So before I get into some thoughts about Joshua, I ask for your indulgence in my absence which involved a taking nice vacation, playing a benefit for Young Life with my garage band (Guava Jam), and then coming down sick for the last ten days. All things considered, it has been a great month, even counting the sickness. (In all things I will thank God!)
I want to spend a few weeks talking about leadership. Joshua was a great but fairly unsung leader. We remember how he and Caleb spied out the promised land and were the only ones of that group to argue that God’s people should take the land as God directed. 40 years later he was the leader of the nation that entered and conquered the land. Besides being a tremendous military leader, he then went on to successfully govern the new nation.
Joshua always put God first. He always trusted God to deliver. The simple message I’d like us to think about today is who (or what) is really our leader. Most of us have the opportunity to lead, and I define leadership as influencing people toward a desired end. We do this among our friends, in our place of work, at school, in our families, etc.
Good leaders follow God. As he spoke to the new nation of Israel at the end of his life, Joshua realized that the people could easily choose to follow other gods. He told them that they had a choice. Then he told them what his own choice was in those powerful words, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
So think about who or what your god is, especially as you are in positions of influence and leadership. Is your god fame? Money? Power? Prestige? Or is it the one true God, from whom all blessings flow?
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