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On the Church Lobby podcast, Karl Vaters asked me for the best piece of advice I have received as a pastor. Here’s what a wise mentor told me that changed my leadership style.
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Paul makes it so clear that the Holy Spirit is a Person with Whom I should be in regular and intimate conversation. In the span of just a few verses in Galatians, Paul uses five different Greek words to fill out the definition for what it means for a Christians to walk by the Spirit.
(1) Walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). This word means to conduct my life at the Spirit’s speed. Not rushing ahead; not lagging behind. As Solomon might say, “Trust the Holy Spirit with all your heart, and do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take” (paraphrase of Proverbs 3:5-6).
(2) Led by the Spirit (5:18). This means to be attached to the One Who is conducting my life. Just like Jesus explained about branches staying connected to the Vine in John 15:1-5.
(3) Live by the Spirit (5:25). To consider the Holy Spirit as my one and only vitalizing Source. He is more important than the air I breathe, the food I eat, or the water I drink.
(4) Keep in step with the Spirit (5:25). I march obediently as a soldier under direction from my Superior Officer; attuned to His voice to obey His every direction.
(5) Live by the Spirit (6:1). This describes one who is filled with and governed by the Holy Spirit’s life-force.
Christians who live this way cannot help but exhibit the fruit of the Spirit in such abundance that their very lives become a living, breathing testimony to others of the delight in walking by the Spirit on every single step of our life’s journey (5:22-23).
Dead flies cause the ointment of the perfumer to putrefy and send forth a vile odor; so does a little folly in him who is valued for wisdom outweigh wisdom and honor. (Ecclesiastes 10:1 AMPC)
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Anyone who has been verbally or emotionally attacked needs time to recover. Your self-care is absolutely essential to your personal health and the health of the people with whom you live and work. Your pain will eventually become their pain if you remain in a bruised and weakened place.
Chapter 12 in my book When Sheep Bite is entitled ‘Self-care is Not Selfish.’ In that chapter I wrote—
When you are recovering from biting sheep, you will need to be very intentional about self-care. I said earlier that self-care is not selfish. What is selfish is self-centeredness and self-reliance. When you think, “I cannot possibly take a break right now; too many people need me—besides, how will the work get done if I step away,” you are attempting to be self-reliant. This is a natural response, but it doesn’t give us the supernatural, refreshing oxygen that comes from sabbathing with Jesus.
This isn’t to diminish the importance of the true Sabbath Day, and I am not saying that sabbathing can be anything you want it to be. For Jesus, it was time alone with His Father—both set times and spontaneous times. But sometimes you will need a nap (like Elijah) or a meal with a trusted friend (as the disciples had with Jesus in Mark 6:30-32). These sabbathing breaks have a singular agenda: To get you to the place physically and emotionally where you can concentrate on your prayer time. After all, it’s hard to receive refreshing from God when you cannot keep your eyes open or your thoughts from straying.
You can check out the article I wrote for Influence magazine here, and then pick up a copy of When Sheep Bite to help your recovery time. Check out what the public ministry of Jesus teaches us about the healthy practice of sabbathing.
I also recommend these related posts and videos about self-care:
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Last week we were reminded that sanctification (or as I call it “saint-ification”) is an ongoing process that usually involves the help of other saints. There is something else we need to do with other saints: serve them.
We are all a part of the same Body so it is beneficial for the whole Body if we care for every part of the Body (1 Corinthians 12:25 AMPC; Ephesians 5:30).
In order to serve others, we are going to have to check our attitude. We have been called to have the attitude that Jesus had about the Church (Ephesians 5:29; Philippians 2:3-7; John 13:3-5, 14-17).
We must all know:
I have a gift—notice the phrase each of you in 1 Peter 4:10
I must use my gift to serve the Body of Christ (Luke 17:10)
In the early Church, we see so much togetherness that they rewrote the definition of the Greek word koinonia (see Acts 2:42). Here’s what koinonia looks like in the Church:
(1) Testifying in church (Psalm 40:9-10 NLT)
(2) Being present with saints outside of church. From Acts 20-28, the pronouns “we” and “us” are used over 80 times! Paul was blessed simply by Luke being with him, just as saints are blessed when you are truly with them.
(3) Love notes when a saint is absent. The apostle John was brilliant at this. Look at his three epistles:
dear children 9x in 1 John
chosen / dear lady 2x in 2 John
dear friend 4x in 3 John
(4) Hospital-ity whenever it’s needed. Be a place of healing and refreshment for the saints God has placed in your life, just as Philemon did (Philemon 2-7, 22).
What a testimony it is when we live this way (Romans 12:10, 13)!
Remember the saint-ification process brings fruitfulness, joy-fullness, and an enhanced testimony. I love this quote from Richard Stearns, “The beautiful simplicity of our faith is that it distills down to the exact same bottom line for both the brilliant theologian and the five-year-old child: love God and love each other—period. Everything else derives from that.”
Isaac Newton said, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler are two gigantic figures in the world of science. These men were both devout Christians. Check out these mini-biographies from the ICR.
“What made David’s heart remarkable wasn’t the absence of sin but his unrelenting pursuit of restoration with God.” —YouVersion reading plan Men of God: Ancient Virtues for Modern Warriors
It’s always fascinating to read about archeological discoveries that overlap with the historical accounts of the Bible.
Whether you are a pastor, a Sunday School teacher, or just a Christian sharing your testimony with your friend, we need to handle God’s Word correctly. John Piper’s lesson on 2 Timothy 2:14-15 is spot-on.
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Everyone knows that we all make mistakes. Good leaders know more than this: They know that it is their responsibility to help those around them recover from those mistakes.
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God called Gideon to lead Israel to victory over the oppressive Midianites. He told Gideon, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel” (Judges 6:14). When Gideon hesitated because he didn’t think he had much strength nor influence to raise an army, God assured him of two things: “I am sending you” and “I will be with you” (vv. 14, 16).
Gideon’s initial recruitment netted him 32,000 soldiers from four tribes: “And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and the Manassites were called to follow him; and he sent messengers to Asher, to Zebulun, and to Naphtali, and they came up to meet them” (v. 35).
God said this large army would be tempted to take the credit for themselves for defeating the Midianites, so God pared down the army to 10,000 men and then to 300 men (7:3, 6).
When God said He would deliver Midian into Gideon’s hands (v. 7), He meant it! HE would do the delivering, with Gideon’s 300 men merely being the instruments He would use. These men would defeat the invaders simply with trumpets and torches.
When these 300 men surrounded the Midianite forces during the night, I want you to notice the bracketed phrase in the AMPC:
And the three companies blew the trumpets and shattered the pitchers, holding the torches in their left hands, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow [leaving no chance to use swords], and they cried, “The sword for the Lord and Gideon!” (v. 20 AMPC)
The Israelites had to leave their swords hanging on their belts to fully obey God!
It was only this posture of full obedience that brought the victory. “They stood every man in his place round about the camp, and all the Midianite army ran—they cried out and fled. When Gideon’s men blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every Midianite’s sword against his comrade and against all the army” (vv. 21-22).
Those who weren’t in the 300 were still needed to finalize the pursuit, as they were called up to complete the victory (v. 23).
Perhaps only the 300 had enough faith to not drop their torch and their trumpet and grab their sword.
If it seems like God has stripped you of what you considered your source of security—like the swords that hung unused on the belts of Gideon’s 300—perhaps that is because He is getting ready to do something that only He can do! Whether you feel well armed or simply left holding something as simple as a trumpet and a torch, trust God’s strength. He can deliver you far better than you can deliver yourself.
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Did you know that’s possible for your greatest strength could become your most limiting weakness? Let’s learn how to spot and avoid this pitfall on this episode of The Podcast.
As leaders, we need to continually work on the “unconscious” areas of our lives. Here are some additional resources to help you.
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Sanctification (saint-ification) is an ongoing process that brings out fruitfulness, joy-fullness, and enhances our testimony to others. And an essential part of this process involves other saints. Notice that this word “saints” it plural. That’s because it is a plural word every place it appears in the Bible.
Saints have gotten themselves into trouble when they tried to go solo. Like David’s sin with Bathsheba, Elijah’s slide into depression, or Peter’s denial of Jesus. But we also see saints thriving through difficult situations when they have a fellow saint alongside. Like how Barnabas gave Saul his start, Paul and Silas could sing together in prison, Silas and Timothy helped Paul minister, and how Jesus sent out His ambassadors by twos (Luke 10:1).
How does accountability to other saints work? Since we see togetherness so much in the early Church (look for the phrases like “each other” or “one another”), think A.C.T.S.—
(1)Admit my need for accountability. James tells us that we all stumble and that even my so-called little slip-ups are major in God’s eyes (James 3:2, 2:10). So I need help.
John Maxwell said, “Every person is undisciplined in some area of their life; in the area that I am undisciplined, that is the area where I need greatest accountability. I will not do well in my areas of weakness unless I am held accountable for better results.” We all have blind spots, we all have weak areas, and we must be humble enough to admit to those things.
(2)Choose my accountability partners prayerfully and carefully (Proverbs 12:26; 2 Corinthians 6:14). These should be trustworthy people who have the emotional and spiritual capacity to be able to come alongside me (Proverbs 17:9; Galatians 6:2).
(3)Trust my friend. Trust their counsel even when it stings a bit (Proverbs 27:6), and trust the effectiveness of their prayers for me (James 5:16).
(4)Stick with them through thick and thin. Be your brother’s keeper and let them be your keeper (Hebrews 3:12-14). We need to keep at it especially in difficult times. Notice the phrase “let us” that appears five times in Hebrews 10:19-25.
If we are living with a biblical worldview, we realize that the saints here on earth are those we will also be with for eternity. Our biblical worldview should form our understanding of both being accountable to another saint and holding other saints accountable as well.
As Jack Hayford so wisely noted, “The believer’s best defense against self-deception is through mutual accountability to one another.”
If you would like to check out the other messages in our series B.A.S.I.C. Christianity, you can click here.
Craig T. Owens 