God can Do a Lot with Your Little

⁸Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ⁹“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”                           John 6:8-9

Do you ever look at where other people are at life, and feel like where you are is insignificant? Or to get where they have gotten in life would be impossible? I promise you they didn’t just arrive at that place. Everybody who is doing something great had to start with something small, with what they had.

God will take what little we do have and make it much

The reality is, we more to offer than we may think. When we offer what we have (our gifts, our talents, our money, our service) with everything we got, God will take what little we do have and make it much.

Jesus took the boys 5 loaves and two fish and used it to feed 5,000 men plus thousands of women and children.

What we may consider insignificant, is significant to God. He said if you’ll be faithful in little, He’ll make you faithful over much.

So wherever you are in life, no matter how little you may think you have to offer, give everything you do have. Give God your best and watch what He does with it.

In time – being faithful with what seems little now, in retrospect, will just be a small step into the bigger things God has planned for you.But God can’t bring you into more, until you’ve valued and proved yourself with the little you have now.

Zachariah 4:10 says, “Don’t despise the day of small beginnings.”

What is before you that you could give to God that you deem insignificant, but could be used to bring glory to God? That could reach people? Don’t miss out on opportunities to minister to people just because you don’t think you have anything to offer – because God will take your little, and make it do much.

Please Help Me . . . But Don’t Talk to me About God.

⁴ Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, “Look at us!” ⁵ The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. ⁶ But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”                                      -Acts 3:4-6

It’s amazing to me how many people want help in their lives, but when you go to help them, they say, “I want you to help, but you’re not going to like…uh… bring God into this are you?”

I love this story in Acts about a lame man on the street. He was constantly in need of help. Everyday he would sit outside the temple begging. He sees Peter and John and expects them to help. He expected them to give him money. Instead, Peter says listen, I’m going to give you the only thing I have that can actually help you. What was it? Jesus.

Giving this man money wouldn’t have helped him at all. He would have used it and been back at the temple begging for money again the very next day. Peter and John refused to give him something that would, in the end, leave him the same. Instead, they gave Him Jesus, and the man was healed and his life was never the same again.

The only thing we can give others in need that will actually help them is God.

In most cases, I’ve found that most people that don’t want you to bring God into the equation, don’t really want to change their lives. They want their circumstances to change while they continue to live the lifestyle they are living which is impossible.

The greatest thing we can do for anyone is point them to an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Do that, and their lives will never be the same.

What if Nobody Remembers You?

¹⁰ Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.                                                                                                       Galatians 1:10

It’s hard to go through life not wanting people to like you, to be impressed by you, or even wanting others to envy you. But in reality, not that many people are thinking about you as much as you think they are anyway. My friend Zack Blair taught me this truth when I was asking him his opinion about what I thought others thought about a decision I was making and he said, “Bubba, people don’t wake up every morning thinking about you.” Ouch! Haha! But it’s true!

I’ve heard it said that we spend the majority of our lives trying to impress people we don’t even like and in this case, that don’t even really think about us as much as we think they do.

I was thinking along these lines and the question came up, “What if I lived and died, and nobody remembered me?” Because in reality – regardless of what I do in life, 50 years after I die, nobody is going to remember me.

My conclusion: What I do in life will matter in eternity. Jesus said to Peter that he should have one focus in life if he loved Him: “Feed His Sheep.“  I believe that is God’s call on all of our lives – to point people to Him. That’s it. If that becomes our focus in life – lifting people and pointing them to God -> we’ll be free from wanting to please and impress people and our focus will turn to pleasing God.

“What we do in life, echoes in eternity”

And while people here won’t remember me, there will be people in Heaven as a result of what I did while I was here. They will come up to me and you in Heaven and say, “Thank you for pointing me to Jesus, I’m here because of you.” I’d rather have 1 person tell me that I made a difference in their lives for eternity than 10,000 remember my name in 5 years.

Application? Lift people and point them to Him. Stop caring what people think of you. God will remember what you did for His Kingdom, and so will the people that are in Heaven because of your life – that is all that matters so do what God has called you to do and at the end of your life you’ll be able to say along with the apostle Paul - I’ve fought the good fight and finished my race and to the people I’ve touched, it’ll have made all the difference.

The Butterfly Circus

This is a powerful 20 minute short film that you need to watch. You could show this at church, youth, or to your family at home. I first saw this on Michael Hyatt’s Blog – it definitely grabbed my attention. To see it in full screen you can view it here. It’s starring Nick Vujicic from Life without Limbs, who has changed my life several times with his words. Take a few minutes and check it out:

My favorite part is about 11:30 into the story. It made me think – what things do we believe about ourselves that are holding us back from our God-given potential. I’ve rewound that part a ton of times, thinking about the beliefs that are in my heart that are a result of my past that simply aren’t true.

I hope this film encourages you, allows you to see yourself how God sees you, and encourages you to recognize that you can make a difference in the world just by being who you are.

Book Review: Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership

My friend, Zack Blair, recommended I read this one. After reading it, this is another book that should be required reading for everyone who aspires to lead in any capacity.

This book doesn’t focus on principles on how to lead, but rather focuses on you. It’s more of a self-assessment book. It teaches that we all have a dark side to our leadership that’s developed in our lives through our upbringing and experiences that will cause us to seek and pursue success for the wrong motives.

If these motives go unchecked and aren’t dealt with, ultimately, if we reach what we thought would be success, we won’t be satisfied, and the outcome is usually a moral fall, misuse of people, or some other less than ideal outcomes.

This book will help you identify your dark side and provide the steps to overcoming it.

Must read for any leader.

Final Grade: 10/10    Buy it HereSome Highlights:

• Personal dysfunction, in one form or another, can often  serve as the driving force behind an individual’s desire  to achieve success as a leader.

• The problem arises from the fact that success is not something one  can have or possess. True success is a state of being not having.

• • The “dark side” refers to our inner urges, compulsions,  motivations, and dysfunctions that drive us toward success  or undermine our accomplishments.

• The 5 Dark Sides of Leaders are: The Compulsive Leader, The Narcissitic Leader, The Paranoid Leader, The Passive Aggressive Leader, and the Co-Dependent Leader

• The sooner we stop denying our dark  side’s existence the sooner we will stop blaming the devil, our  parents, bad breaks, and every other possible reason for our  struggles. Blaming others is one of the symptoms that denial  is taking place. It is always easier to deny we have any problem  if we can lay the blame for our shortcomings at somebody else’s feet.

• Any attempts to overcome the dark  side apart from the application of spiritual truth about our true  position and identity in Christ will end in failure.

The Quote of the Week

With these posts I usually like to post the best quotes from what I read and listened to throughout the week. However, I had a lunch with a mentor, and he shared one quote with me that is going to challenge me for months to come. He said:

“Giving theory that doesn’t produce an outcome,  is never an accomplishment.”

For someone like me, who loves principles, I always have to purposefully check if I’m actually applying them. In this situation, he was telling me that about when I spend time developing others. If I just give people theory without a process that produces an outcome, then I didn’t accomplish anything.

I’ve typed this quote up and laminated and now I carry it with me everywhere I go and pull it out often, so I can always be asking myself – is my theory producing an outcome?

Are you a theory person or an application? Application will always trump theory.

You’re Not That Bad and Neither am I!

Serve Your Way to the Top – 7 Lessons I Learned While Serving My Way onto a Church Staff

Lesson 7 – You’re not that Bad

⁶ And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. – Phil 1:6

I heard John Maxwell say this to young leaders once, and it’s encouraged me to this day: “In the beginning, you’re not as bad as people think. Don’t you just want to say that sometimes to people, “You know I’m bad, but I’m not that bad.” But if you do things right in life – in the end, you’re not as good as people think. Somewhere in between those two, is where you should live.”

“I’m not where I’m supposed to be, but Thank God I’m not where I used to be.” -Joyce Meyer

When we’re young it’s so hard to get this, I know it’s a struggle for me. We place huge expectations on us that often, aren’t fair at all. We expect to be where others are, without recognizing it took those people 30 years to get there. Here are a few thoughts:

1.) Just Get Good – A mentor once told me, “Your 20’s isn’t for fruit, it’s a time to be developed. Follow your passion and grow as much as you can.” Get good at what you’re doing – it will pay off down the road.

2.) Remember the Faithfulness of God – it’s so easy to forget that God’s been faithful in the past isn’t it? However, when we look back, none of us can say that God hasn’t done incredible things in the past, He’s doing them right now, and He’s faithful – He’ll do them in our future if we’ll follow Him with everything we got.

3.) Surround Yourselves with Encouragers - We all want to throw in the towel at times. Make sure you have safe relationships in your life. People you can share struggles with, and don’t be afraid to ask for encouragement. Everybody needs it, and in reality – encouragement will push you through the toughest moments in your life.

4.) Enjoy the Journey – easiest thing to talk about, hardest thing to live out. Success is never a destination, success is living everyday giving God your best. Take time to enjoy where you’re at right now, because in just a little while, you’ll be saying “I love that season of my life, I wish i enjoyed it more than I did.”

So there you go – 7 lessons I learned while serving my way on staff at a church. I hope it blessed you!

What lessons have you learned through serving?

It’s the Changed Life, Not the Crowd that Makes the Difference

Serve Your Way to the Top – 7 Lessons I Learned While Serving My Way onto a Church Staff

Lesson 6 – It’s the Changed Life, Not the Crowd that Makes the Difference

^19-20My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.                                                      James 5:19-20

Something I’ve been recognizing lately is that whenever Jesus would heal someone or impact one person’s life, often the crowd would be wowed by the actual event other times the crowd would be upset and in disbelief. However, Jesus never really cared what the crowd thought. He cared about the person He was ministering to. Jesus didn’t care about attracting crowds, He cared about impacting individuals.

Too often – we focus on drawing a crowd and forget about the individual. While crowds are great because it means more people are hearing the Word, we forget that it’s each of those individuals being changed by God that truly makes the difference. A marriage restored, an addiction broken, someone with no purpose grabbing hold of God’s purpose for their lives – it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a compilation of changed lives that makes a move of God and a crowd an amazing thing, not a crowd of people just there for an event or experience.

Some Thoughts on this:

1.) The Crowd will Never Be Big Enough – Unless we recognize the power of one changed life and value it for what it’s worth, we’ll never think there are enough people in our ministries.

2.) When the Crowd Comes, It’s not a Big Deal - We often think if we’re able to minister to a large crowd, we’ll be satisfied. That is not true at all. We have to find our worth in Christ, so when God does bless us with more influence, we won’t be disappointed that it doesn’t provide the feelings of success we thought it would. A big deal in life is when we’re free from worrying about attracting a crowd and worrying more about impacting one life.

3.) Nothing is More Fulfilling than Touching One Life – There isn’t anything more fulfilling than knowing you’ve made a difference in one person’s life because you were obedient to God.

4.) Be Faithful with One, God will bring Many - The bottom line is that if we’ll be faithful with the one person in front of us, God will continue to bring people in front of our path so we can minister to them. In time, you’ll be impacting more people than you could have dreamed of, and it’s not because you’re so awesome, it’s because God knows you’ll be faithful with the one.

Focus on ministering to one person today – make a difference in their life!

Grow Something

Serve Your Way to the Top – 7 Lessons I Learned While Serving My Way onto a Church Staff

Lesson 5 – Grow Something

⁸This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” -John 15:8

This is probably one of the hardest lessons I learned and that I’m continually learning. To recognize that part of serving isn’t just showing up and doing what you’re told. It’s taking what you’re given and growing it. Making it better. Your ability to grow something will always result in your promotion. You’re inability to grow something will result in frustration and possibly demotion.

You won’t serve your way to the top just by showing up. You’ll serve your way to the top when you grow something.

So how can you grow the area you oversee?

1.) Get Coached - I’m a young leader – there is so much I don’t know it’s not even funny. To be honest, I don’t know a lot about how to grow an organization. So what do I do to make up for my incompetency? Surround myself with people who have grown something and ask them lots of questions. Experienced people will take your farther, faster.

2.) Steal Everything! – Don’t know what to do? Find out who is doing it well and steal their model! Steal their creative ideas! In time, you’ll be able to take others ideas and mold them with your own. Never stop coming up with creative ideas yourself, but never be afraid to copy someone or some organization that does it really well.

3.) Develop Potential Leaders - Find the potential leaders in your organization and develop them. When they’re ready – put them in charge of an area and help them grow it. To be honest, if you have the right leader, growth will take care of itself. Believe in people and let them go to grow!

What are some things you do to grow something in the areas you lead?

Be a Great Number 2

Serve Your Way to the Top – 7 Lessons I Learned While Serving My Way onto a Church Staff

Lesson 4 – Be a Great Number 2

This is very similar to the last lesson, “Serve as Though You Were on Staff”, the difference – this one you’re actually on staff. Most people have aspirations of going to higher levels as a leader. Higher levels of leadership comes through higher positions.

Be a great number 2, and when your time comes, You’ll be a Great Number 1

A lot of people want to have the position of the person they report to. Unfortunately, they go about this by trying to out do them, talk poorly about them, some just flat out tell the person – I want your position and I’m coming for it. None of these approaches are healthy or effective. My advice – would be the same advice a mentor gave me a long time ago – “Be a great Number 2″

What does being a great number two look like?

1.) Supporting Your Supervisor No Matter What -believe in them regardless of anything that comes up that upsets you.

2.) Submitting to Your Supervisor no Matter What - If you’re not the #1 guy – that means that it’s not your organization. You don’t get to make the decisions, they do. When you have your own, you’ll call the shots. Until then – always give your input, but once a decision as been made – you submit and support it, no matter what!

3.) Allow Him/Her to Focus on the Big Picture - #1’s shouldn’t have to set-up/tear down, sweat the small details, or anything else along those lines. They need to be freed up to focus on the vision of the organization, provide direction, and then lead. Take care of everything else!

God said if you’re faithful with little, He’ll make you faithful over much. If you’re faithful as a number 2, you’re time to be number 1 will come. When it does, you’ll be grateful you were a great number 2.

Next Page »