Thursdays With Oswald—The Master’s Standard

November 18, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

The Master’s Standard

     Jesus Christ’s standard for the worker is Himself. Am I allowing His standard to obsess me? Am I measuring my life by His all the time? The one standard put before us is Our Lord Himself; we have to be saturated in this ideal in thinking and in praying, and allow nothing to blur the standard. We must lift up Jesus Christ not only in the preaching of the Gospel but to our own souls. If my mind and heart and spirit is getting fixed with one Figure only, the Lord Jesus Christ, and other people and other ideas are fading, then I am growing in grace. The one dominant characteristic in the life of the worker is that Jesus Christ is coming more into the ascendant. The motive is not a sentiment but a passion, the blazing passion of the Holy Ghost in the soul of the worker; not—“because Jesus has done so much for me,” that is a sickening, unscriptural statement. The one attitude of the life is Jesus Christ first, second, and third, and nothing apart from Him. The thing that hinders God’s work is not sin, but other claims which are right, but which at a certain point of their rightness conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ. If the conflict should come, remember it is to be Jesus first.

From Approved Unto God

Am I measuring my life by His all the time? Great question!

Am I?

Are you?

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Thursdays With Oswald—Work-In-Progress

November 11, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Work-In-Progress

     If you are a worker whom God has sent, and have learned to live under His shadow, you will find that scarcely a day goes by without your Father revealing the need of further chastening. If any child of God is free from the goads of God, he is not in the line of the succession of Jesus Christ.

From Approved Unto God

The writer of Hebrews said the same thing…

And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as His children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when He corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes each one He accepts as His child.”

It’s true: No pain, no gain. God will continue to work on you and me as His child.

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Private Good Deeds

November 8, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Betsy and I went to school conferences and discovered that our youngest son has been staying after school—by his own choice—to help his teacher tidy up the classroom. Are you kidding me?! This is the first I had heard of this. Wow, am I one proud Dad!

I’m not sure if he knows this verse or not, but Brandon is living out what Jesus said:

Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.

He’s serving just because he wants to serve. I didn’t know about it, but his Heavenly Father did. Thank you, Brandon, for giving me this wonderful example of servant leadership!

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Attractional Or Missional?

November 5, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Yesterday was a full day at The And Conference. I’m so glad I came to this! All day long I had so many thoughts swirling through my head and emotions tugging at my heart.

The idea behind And comes from the conundrum of The Tyranny of Either-Or versus The Genius of Both-And. Is there a way for two seemingly opposing ideas to coexist, or even to enhance each other? In the case of this conference, the both-and/either-or tug is between attractional churches and missional churches.

Yesterday I listened to profound thinkers like Alan Hirsch, Rob Wegner, Hugh Halter, Matt Carter, and Dave Ferguson. Many of them shared their personal tension with the attractional/missional models. There were so many other terms that were thrown around too.

But sitting in my hotel room last night debriefing, I began to think about Jesus. He is the only One to ever balance both-and perfectly.

  • He both attracted and repelled people.
  • He both called and sent.
  • He was both in the church and in the community.
  • He was both religious and irreligious.
  • He spent time with both crowds and individuals.
  • He was both attractional and missional.

Of course, the Bible doesn’t use any of these terms—they’re all man-made—but Jesus embodied them all.

He embodied them.

He was Himself.

He is “I AM.”

That’s what I want: To be myself … be who God created me to be … be more and more conformed to the image of Jesus … be listening more attentively to the counsel of the Holy Spirit.

If I am myself, terms like missional and attractional will take care of themselves.

(By the way, I’ll be tweeting throughout the conference again today. Follow me on Twitter here, and search for the hashtag #and10.)

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Creativity

November 2, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Even being “Boring” can make the message memorable!

God is Creator, which means His creativity knows no limits. One of the ways I love seeing His creativity on display is in the ways His love story is communicated to humanity. The prophets used some highly creative and sometimes startling ways to get God’s message across. But I especially like how Jesus communicated the message of the Kingdom of God to His audience.

He used…

  • Seeds and sheep
  • Farmers and friends who needed a late-night snack
  • Lost coins and lost sons
  • Grapes and goats
  • Pearls and prodigals
  • Stuffy judges and smart bride’s maids
  • Bridegrooms and buildings
  • Banquets and bread
  • Servants and silver coins

He told people who had gotten locked into an inaccurate interpretation of Scripture, “You have heard it said…but I tell you” just to get their attention.

These simple, everyday, common items reminded people of the eternal message. The objects didn’t become the message, but just a way to remind and reinforce the biblical truth Jesus was sharing.

That’s why I use poker chips … Lego pieces … plastic eggs … bookmarkers … flip-flop key chains … aluminum tabs from pop cans … glow sticks … and even name tags to creatively tell the Creator’s love story in a memorable way.

How are you using God’s creativity to tell His story?

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Idle Words

October 20, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Researchers say the average American male speaks 6073 words per day, and the average American female speaks 8805 words per day. That’s a lot of words! Can you remember everything you said today?

Can you at least remember the gist of your major conversations?

Hmmm…

Here’s what Jesus said:

But I tell you, on the day of judgment men will have to give account for every idle (inoperative, nonworking) word they speak. (Matthew 12:36)

The dictionary defines idle as “something of no real worth, importance, or significance.” And the Greek dictionary says idle in this verse means “free from labor; barren.”

So I’m taking a little time to reflect…

  • Are all my words worthwhile?
  • Are they important?
  • Are they significant?
  • Did all my words do some good to someone?

If I can’t say “Yes,” it’s time to change my vocabulary, or maybe I just need to speak fewer words.

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Thursdays With Oswald—Not Imitating Jesus

October 7, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Not Imitating Jesus

      God does not expect us to imitate Jesus Christ: He expects us to allow the life of Jesus to be manifested in our mortal flesh. God engineers circumstances and brings us into difficult places where no one can help us, and we can either manifest the life of Jesus in those conditions, or else be cowards and say, “I cannot exhibit the life of God there.” Then we deprive God of glory. If you will let the life of God be manifested in your particular human edition—where God cannot manifest it, that is why He called you, you will bring glory to God.

From Approved Unto God

This so encourages me, because it tells me that every difficult situation I’m in is God-engineered. He put me in these tough spots because He wants the life of Jesus to be seen through me. And He wants to be glorified. If God desires these things, then He will give me His Holy Spirit to strengthen me to shine in difficult places.

Shine on!

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Serve More To Lead Better

October 1, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

As King Solomon’s son Rehoboam was ascending the throne, he received some wise counsel:

If you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.

I also like the way The Message paraphrases this same verse:

If you will be a servant to this people, be considerate of their needs and respond with compassion, work things out with them, they’ll end up doing anything for you.

In other words: the more you serve, the better you will lead. Unfortunately, Rehoboam chose to reject this counsel, and his leadership disintegrated.

If you will be a servant [position] and serve [attitude] they will serve you.

This Hebrew word for serve is used quite a bit in the Old Testament. Interestingly, the first five times it is used are all in the agricultural sense: farming the land, tending to the plants, working, waiting, and ultimately harvesting. Leadership is never developed quickly. Servant leaders must be in it for the long haul.

Jesus also emphasized servant-leadership…

But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else.

Bottom line: The more you serve others, the better you will lead others. 

I take a deep dive into this kind of leadership in my book Shepherd Leadership.

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

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Engaging Culture

September 29, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

I read something very interesting: Next to Christmas, more money is spent on Halloween than on any other holiday event. Halloween?!? Wow! We’re in the midst of planning our church’s role on Halloween night, so I’ve been thinking quite a bit about engaging our culture.

It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

So here’s how I think followers of Jesus Christ should light a candle to engage culture:

(1) Have the right motivation. In Jesus’ inaugural sermon, He said He was coming to preach the Good News about God’s love. He purposely left out the part of Isaiah’s prophesy that talked about God’s coming judgment. There will be a time for that, but for now, our motivation should be to make known the favor of the Lord.

(2) Get out of your box. If you only hang around with Christians, your ability to effectively engage culture will be diminished. If you never get around others, it’s sort of like salt that sits in the saltshaker too long. Paul told the Athenians that he had been walking around their city looking at their culture.

(3) Listen. As Paul talked to the Athenians, he quoted their poets to them. He knew what they were listening to because he was listening too. What are people watching on TV? What movies are they talking about? What music are they listening to? You can find the key to their heart by knowing something about what interests them.

(4) Collaborate. There are lots of other faith-based organizations, non-government organizations, and churches that are already active in your community. Join forces with them.

(5) Just be there. Go to local restaurants, cheer on the local sports teams, join a rec league team, attend the city council meetings, volunteer at a shelter or food pantry. Just be there! After a while, people will begin to ask you why you are so involved, and you’ll have a great platform to speak to them.

It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.

Are you engaging your culture? It’s time to go shine!

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Manufactured Success

September 22, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

Does success come from hard work, or does it have another origin? We can certainly manufacture success by doing some public relations, some spin, some creative promotion. And from the outside, it can look very successful. Someone may even do such a good job manufacturing their success that they begin to believe their own press releases.

But humanly manufactured success rarely lasts.

Consider the case of a man named Adonijah. He was the heir-apparent in Israel. As the oldest living son of the famed King David, Adonijah was the odds-on favorite to be the next king. And so Adonijah began to manufacture a successful transfer of power for himself. He invited all the right people and ignored those who he knew wouldn’t go along with his plan. He set up everything just the way a prince ascending the throne should have it. His followers joined him for a party and began to raise their glasses in a toast: Long live King Adonijah!

Except God—and King David—had other plans. Just as God directed, David had his son Solomon anointed king. When the few followers that were toasting Adonijah heard this, they all bailed on him and ran away. Even Adonijah recognized that something else can trump manufactured success. Here’s what he said:

“As you know,  the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king. But things changed, and the kingdom has gone to my brother; for it has come to him from the LORD.” (1 Kings 2:15)

“Success has come to him from the Lord.” God’s success always trumps humanly manufactured success.

Manufactured success leads to pride (the kingdom was mine). And pride over-exaggerates our self-worth and obscures reality (all Israel looked to me as their king). God’s success comes to the humble who recognize His lordship and their place in His Kingdom. God’s success lasts.

Although Adonijah eventually recognized this, he didn’t learn from it. In the next scene, he is again trying to manufacture a way to ascend to the throne. And this time he not only loses his position but his life as well.

Here’s what Jesus says: For whoever exalts himself will be humbled [manufactured success], and whoever humbles himself will be exalted [God’s success].

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials, like this recent Bible study tip from the Book of Ecclesiastes. ◀︎◀︎

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