The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.
Psalm 24:1
One day when the English theologian and preacher John Wesley was riding back home after a time away, someone came running up to him as he approached the area where his home stood, saying, “Your house has burned down! Your house has burned down!” Wesley replied, “No, it hasn’t, because I don’t own a house. The one I have been living in belongs to the Lord, and if it has burned down, that is one less responsibility for me to worry about.”
One of the most important growth moments in the life of a believer is when they come to realize that everything is God’s and we are just the managers.
God owns everything and everyone on earth, and God has appointed us as His management.
If we are called to manage what we have been given, we should have a plan, a vision for our financial lives.
I am not talking about fanciful dreams about being a billionaire. I am talking about a real, solid, plan and vision for managing and growing what you have been given.
Here are a few practical goals for family finances: Start living on a budget Get out of debt Start saving every month Start a new job/career or something on the side
Just examples, but these are vision! These are goals, plans, something to pursue. Your debt will not pay itself off. You will not magically have the money to pay your electric bill at the end of the month if you don’t save for it, etc.
A wise family has a vision for the story of their financial future, and they take steps to write it. They manage what God has given to them for His glory.
What kind of vision (preferred idea of the future) do you have for your family’s finances?
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the Christian life is: a healthy lifestyle.
We do not often think of eating healthy or exercising as spiritual activities, but they are wholly connected to our lives in Christ. As Christians we are to glorify God in our physical body, because it has been bought with a price – the precious blood of Christ. It is now the temple of the Holy Spirit! It is the dwelling place of God!
This verse is one of the main arguments for abstaining from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, etc. They destroy the temple of the living God! It is comparable to vandalizing the temple of God. But even more than abstaining from “bad” things, it means involving yourself actively in making wise health decisions.
Make healthy eating choices. Get physical exercise. Get proper rest.
This is not a health or PE class, but the point is biblical – we have a stewardship to care for our body – because it is not our own. So don’t just do it for yourself and your own benefit – do it for the Lord!
A wise family has a vision for their physical health and well being and makes plans accordingly.
Last week I started this series discussing having a spiritual vision for your family. Today, let’s consider an intellectual vision as part of the process of inventing the future of our families.
The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. Proverbs 18:15
Prudent gives the idea of someone who is discerning, who considers things, who is careful intellectually. In other words, someone who is thoughtful. Thoughtful people acquire – or find – knowledge. Amazing concept right? A wise person seeks – begs for, longs for – knowledge.
Interestingly, this verse does not say that only school children ages 3 to 14 do this. It does not say that this only applies to a new worker during the first few weeks on the job. God gives no age limit or categories here. This is for everyone of every age and station of life. A biblical picture of lifelong learning.
An intentional family will have an intellectual vision for each person of the family and the family as a whole.
We know that knowledge begins with the fear of the Lord (Prov 1:7). So start with yourself. Grow in your knowledge of the Lord. Feed yourself.
There are so many ways to learn today that we have no excuse! So many things available at our finger tips.
Reading is the greatest intellectual advantage in the world. If you are a reader, you can teach yourself anything, you can acquire knowledge about any subject.
Supplementary to that are podcasts, videos, sermons, Bible study books, devotional books, etc, etc.
Learning opens opportunities to excel in your life. Learning opens doors and enable you to serve other people.
Parents – turn off the TV. Turn off the tablet. Teach your children to seek knowledge. Teach them to be hungry to know the Lord, and to explore the world that He has given us to explore.
A family inventing the future is made up of wise people, prudent people, who have a vision to pursue knowledge and benefit from it.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it”
– Alan Kay
Over the next few weeks, I plan to post a series of blogs centered around 5 key areas for a family vision. Today, we focus on the most important: a spiritual vision.
Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. Luke 9:23
Jesus said that if you are following Him, that it means something. It means you will take up your cross – that you will sacrifice and suffer with Him, for Him. Daily! This is what it means to be an active follower of Christ.
The spiritual life of your family is not a joke. It cannot be a game. It cannot be something else on your calendar.
You must have a spiritual vision for your family members:
A vision for their salvation A vision for their service A vision for their surrender
Those are really three areas of spiritual growth. You get saved, you begin to serve, and you fully surrender. It’s a process we can see in the Bible, and in our own lives.
Parents – your children need to see the reality of your faith.
They need to know your faith in Christ is real.They will not see that if you never come to church. They will not see that if you never read your Bible or pray. Your spouse needs to see that your relationship with the Lord has a real impact on your decisions, on your actions, on your life.
Pray for your spouse, your children, your extended family and their spiritual growth.
Have a vision for every member to be an active follower of Christ.
Studies from the Carnegie Institute of Technology revealed that 15% of success in a career is the skill/expertise/technical knowledge applied, while 85% is due to skill in relationships – personality and the ability to relate to and lead other people. [1]
This finding can definitely be applied to all areas of our work, including and especially ministry.
We all want to improve. We all want to develop our technical skills. Many times, we focus on improving our game in areas like preaching, teaching, writing, facebook live editing (as of 1st quarter 2020!), etc. We pursue degrees. We join cohorts. We attend live webinars. Most of them related to expertise in our area.
But what about our people skills?
I’m not a huge fan of “studies” and “models”, but if Carnegie is even half right about the above percentages, it would seem that we should focus more attention on developing the skills of relating to others.
Leadership is influence. Influence comes from relationships.
Build your relationships, build your influence, build your leadership. That’s the process.
“Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” Colossians 4:17
“Take heed” means to consider, to think about, to look out for.
Literally, it means “to see” your ministry.
I must take regular, intentional time to think about, pray about, plan, and prepare my ministry – the ministry the Lord Jesus has assigned to me – or I may be in danger of missing the mark.
Intentional, thoughtful service is a hallmark of a mature believer.
When do you take time to think deeply and pray earnestly about your ministry?
People follow leaders that they can trust and respect.
Trust is based on integrity and respect is based on vision.
A leader with no integrity will soon have no followers. Even more so a leader with no vision.
Jesus is the greatest leader Who ever lived, and this is what Isaiah said about Him:
In mercy the throne will be established; And One will sit on it in truth, in the tabernacle of David, Judging and seeking justice and hastening righteousness.
Isaiah 16:5
Mercy. Truth. Justice. Righteousness.
That is a Leader I am grateful to be following for all eternity!
*this blog is a summary of a sermon I preached recently at our church. You can watch the sermon above, starting around the 16:30 mark -or – enjoy the whole service at Midpoint Baptist Fellowship 🙂
During this pandemic of 2020, our weakness has been revealed in many areas:
The weakness of our economy
The wiping away of literally incalculable wealth, almost overnight.
The U.S. economy – the largest in the world and affects every country on earth in some respects – is now projected to have a GDP contraction of -5.9%.
Here in the Philippines, the economy is predicted to contract. ASEAN nations are expected to experience a contraction of -0.6% – no growth at all.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said this week that the world economy will experience the worst recession since the Great Depression. [1]
By comparison, many people remember the global financial crisis of 2009. That was a -0.1% negative growth rate globally. This 2020 recession could be as high as -3.0% – a huge difference.
The cumulative loss to global GDP could be $9 Trillion dollars. Unfathomable!
The weakness of our expertise
We have seen that experts in the medical field and government have been wrong about their “projections”. Despite our sophistication and our technology, we have missed the mark on many things. Facemasks – to wear or not to wear? Is the virus transmissible to humans? To lockdown or to allow herd-immunity?
We have all learned a new phrase “social distancing” and have been told to stay 3-6ft apart, but at the same time other experts say that the virus can travel up to 20 feet away![4]
In all of this, who can you believe? Well, I think that is a question with no answer. It is like shooting at something in the dark. You may get it right, you may not.
This pandemic has revealed the limits of our knowledge and our understanding of the world we live in.
The weakness of our expectations
This virus has revealed the weakness of our reliance on and trust in the Lord – of our expectation of what He can and will do for us. Many Christians have experienced panic, anxiety, restlessness – all signs of a failure to trust the Lord with this situation.
I am not convinced that God is not using this to remind all of us of our frailty, our insecurity, and our hopelessness apart from Him.
If our biggest hope is in a new vaccine then we as believers have lost our focus, lost our vision. If our biggest desire is for the economy to come back to life, then we as believers have lost our center. My hope is not in a new vaccine – my hope is in Jesus! Our final hope is not in a comfortable, growing economy, our final hope is in the Lord! I’m not hoping in this world getting fixed, I am hoping on Jesus coming back and taking me out of this world!
Do I want the economy to come back? Of course! Do I hope we develop of vaccine? Yes! But those are not the limits of my expectations, of my hope.
Question: What are you looking forward to?
If you are only looking as far as the end of this virus, you are not looking far enough. If you are just waiting for all of this to be over so that life can return back to a normal routine, then we don’t understand the world that we truly live in and our place in it.
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. John 16:33
Jesus told us that we would have problems in our lives in this world. This pandemic is just the newest iteration of that truth. But He has overcome the world. To overcome means to conquer or triumph over.
In other words, as Christians we are not living subject to what happens in this world, ultimately, because this world is not our ultimate home.
We belong to the Kingdom of God, and His Kingdom has conquered! Radical stuff, then and now!
Onesimus was a slave and servant of Philemon. He had run away from Philemon and evidentally robbed him in the process. This runaway slave came into contact with the Apostle Paul and through Paul’s witness, trusted in Christ. An incredible divine appointment!
So Paul is writing his letter, which we know as the book of Philemon in the Bible, to address the situation. He is informing Philemon that he is sending Onesimus back to him.
I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus Philemon 4-6
In times of difficulty, we can get distracted from our true priorities. Paul prayed that during this challenging time, Philemon would do some specific things, and they apply to us as well.
How to Live with Purpose in Difficult Times:
1 – Grow in Our Knowledge of Christ
“Acknowledgement” in the verses above means a deep or true understanding.
The more fully we understand the blessings we have in Christ, the more willing we are to share Him with others.
In times of crisis, there is often more “free time” as a result. Whether a natural disaster, social unrest, or health pandemic, crises often create margin for people that they are not accustomed to while waiting for the situation to pass.
So use this extra time to grow closer to the Lord!
2 – Grow in Our Witness for Christ
Even in times of trouble, we should be focused on sharing our faith. Don’t let a crisis distract you from telling others about Christ!
Has salvation become any less important during times of crisis? Of course not! In fact, more people are thinking about life and death, more people are experiencing fear, more people are looking for hope.
Look for divine opportunities to share Christ even during a crisis time.
Doing these two things will give purpose to difficult seasons in life.
Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
Matthew 8:23-26
The disciples experienced a frightening circumstance. And they reacted with panic and fear – “we are perishing!”. But wait a minute. Were they really dying? Did any of them die? No. They were judging their situation by their senses – not by their faith.
The disciples forgot Who was in the boat with them. If Jesus is in the boat, and Jesus is God, and Jesus loves me – what do I need to be afraid of?
“Why are you fearful?”. What was Jesus saying to them with this question? He was reminding them of the same thing that John would later write about – that if they were mature in their understanding of Who God is and how much He loved them – their fear would have been removed.
In other words, a perfect (mature) love would have cast out this fear:
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
I John 4:18
If our love for God is mature and His love in us is mature, all fear is gone.
