Links & Quotes

Leaders would do well to remember that they lead a group of unique individuals. Let the unique gifts of those unique people be used in unique ways, and watch both the individuals and the organization grow! 

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“As Tyler Cowen wrote in The Free Press, ‘Whether or not you work in the AI sector, if you put any kind of content on the internet, or perhaps in a book, you are likely helping to train, educate, and yes, morally instruct the next generation of what will be this planet’s smartest entities. You are making them more like you—for better or worse.’ Now, maybe someone thinks, ‘I’ve hardly got any followers, who cares what I post? It probably won’t matter.’ But the principle means we should care. The philosopher Immanuel Kant famously offered his ‘categorical imperative’ as a test for ethical decisions: ‘Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.’ In other words, we should only do what we think would be good for everyone to do.” —Axis.org

How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live ’em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give ’em. —Shel Silverstein

A fantastic mini-biography of Otto J. Klink who went from being a Christian, to an atheist socialist, to failed presidential assassin, to a Pentecostal author and evangelist. Wow!

“My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty. The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are to leave because it is miserable. It is the fortress of our family, with the flag flying on the turret, and the more miserable it is the less we should leave it. The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.” —G.K. Chesterton 

Marshall Segal said this about our daily Bible reading time, “I want to walk through a five-step prayer you could pray when you sit down with your Bible to meet with God. The five steps are built on an acronym for FEAST. Focus my mind; Enlighten my eyes; Address my sin; Satisfy my soul; Train my hands.”

“A man of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given.” —Mahatma Gandhi 

“A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness. Successful people forget. They know the past is irrevocable. They’re running a race. They can’t afford to look behind. Their eye is on the finish line. Magnanimous people forget. They’re too big to let little things disturb them. They forget easily. If anyone does them wrong, they consider the source and keep cool. It’s only the small people who cherish revenge. Be a good forgetter. Business dictates it, and success demands it.” —Elbert Hubbard 

“Leadership is not about being in charge, but about taking care of the people in your charge.” —Simon Sinek 

Flowing Data has a fascinating look at how people spend their time during the day. Their adjustable chart shows activities by age, sex, and time of day. It reminds me of a blog post I shared about time management, where I noted, “You cannot add more Tick, Tocking! time to your day, but you can keep more of your day from Drip, Dropping! away.”

“We might think, ‘Well, hey, if I’m devoting myself all the time to looking out for others’ needs, who’s going to be looking out for mine?’ The Lord, of course, because He knows what you need even before you ask Him, and He has ways of meeting your needs that are more wonderful than you in your cleverness or strength could ever conjure or provide (cf. Matthew 6:25-34).” —T.M. Moore 

“We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important—and fascinating—than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain.” —Dr. John Ratey 

T.M. Moore has a hard but good word for Christians: “If this day, and this expectation and hope [when we heard King Jesus say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’], are not the driving force for every aspect of our lives and work, then it is doubtful we have really understood the Good News of the Kingdom or received the salvation freely offered to us by the King. I say this again: If we are not motivated and driven, day by day, by the prospect of hearing ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ then we need to examine ourselves, whether we truly know the Lord of glory. That’s pretty hard language, I know, but let’s face the reality: If we have not submitted to Jesus as Lord of every area of our life, all the work we’ve been given to do, then we are still living for ourselves, not Him.” —T.M. Moore

Links & Quotes

God made you uniquely YOU! You have been made on purpose and for a purpose. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.

This is an exciting archeological discovery: the first Koine Greek rendering of a psalm ever discovered inscribed on stone rather than on parchment or papyrus.

“The wise recognize before the fight that adversity will come and therefore are not surprised by it. The wise recognize in the fight that adversity is a formidable foe and thus steel themselves for a long, hard struggle to the death. The wise recognize after winning a fight that the war is not over and so never let down their guard nor release their weapons.” —Dick Brogden, in Proverbs: Amplified and Applied

Astronomers have discovered planet-sized objects that are puzzling the best minds. In fact, they have had to create a new category for these objects: Jupiter Mass Binary Objects (JuMBOs). What is baffling the brightest minds is that these planets don’t orbit a star but appear to be gravitationally bound to other JuMBOs. My favorite line is this one: “The new phenomenon challenges current frameworks explaining how stars and planets form within nebula, with astrophysicists claiming such objects should not exist.” There is at least one who isn’t baffled: The One who created JuMBOs along with everything else in our universe.

T.M. Moore is in the midst of a series of posts about the Christian and the government. They are excellent! Here is just a short sample—“The Christian understands that government is a servant of God for good, and that God, therefore, must define the terms of goodness by which a government fulfills its appointed task. As Paul reminds us, the Law of God is holy and righteous and good (Romans 7:12). It is important, therefore, that Christians understand the Law of God and consider the best ways of bringing its influence to bear in the arena of public policy. … Public policy is not about what governments can do, but what they should do, that is, if they are to fulfill their callings as God’s servants for good. When it comes to applying the Law of God to public policy, Christians must make this first principle foundational in the logic with which they approach the work of influencing and shaping public policy.”

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” —Mahatma Gandhi

Leaders are naturally wired to be either confident or humble. Both kinds of leaders need to remain coachable. Greg and I unpacked this idea on this episode of The Craig And Greg Show, and I also discuss it in greater depth in my book Shepherd Leadership.

19 Quotes From Other Authors In “Love Like That”

As Dr. Les Parrott presented the five ways Jesus showed His love to us, he supported his thoughts with some insightful quotes from other authors. Check out my full book review of Love Like That by clicking here.

“If you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path.” —Mary Webb 

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.” —C.S. Lewis 

“Pride is our greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.” —John R.W. Stott 

“Jesus was the Man for others.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

“Jesus was able to love because He loved right through the layer of mud.” —Helmut Thielicke 

“They that know God will be humble; they that know themselves cannot be proud.” —John Flavel 

“Those who judge will never understand, and those who understand will never judge.” —Wilson Kanadi 

“Mercy gave the Prodigal Son a second chance. Grace gave him a feast.” —Max Lucado 

“Christ accepts us as we are, but when He accepts us, we cannot remain as we are.” —Walter Trobisch 

“Jesus did not identify the person that with his sin, but rather saw in this sin something alien, something that really did not belong to him, something…from which He would free him and bring him back to his real self.” —Helmut Thielicke 

“While every other religion offers a way to earn approval, only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.” —Philip Yancey 

“Judgmentalism finds its identity in what is not. … Rare is the person who can weigh the faults of others without putting his thumb on the scale.” —Byron Langenfeld 

“To love a person means to see him as God intended him to be.” —Fyodor Dostoevsky 

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” —Anne Lamott 

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” —Flannery O’Connor 

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” —John F. Kennedy 

“We often err not because we find it hard to perceive the truth (it is often right there, at the surface), but because it is easier and more pleasant to be guided by our feelings, especially if self-centered.” —Alexander Solzhenitsyn 

“A ‘no’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.” —Mahatma Gandhi 

“Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply.” —Henri Nouwen 

Check out some of Dr. Parrott’s quotes from Love Like That which I shared here. 

13 Quotes From Others In “Developing The Leader Within You 2.0”

John Maxwell does an excellent job of including insightful words from other authors—past and present—in his books. Developing The Leader Within You 2.0 is no exception. Here are a few of the quotes he shared. 

“There have been meetings of only a moment which have left impressions for life, for eternity. No one of us can understand that mysterious thing we call influence… Yet out of everyone of us continually virtual goes, either to heal, to bless, to leave marks of beauty; or to wound, to hurt, to poison, to stain other lives.” — J.R. Miller 

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” — William James 

“A man of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given.” —Mahatma Gandhi 

“Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them, day after day.” —Arthur Gordon 

“We set young leaders up for a fall if we encourage them to envision what they can do before they consider the kind of person they should be.” —Ruth Haley Barton 

“What we achieve inwardly will change outward reality.” — Plutarch 

“Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning.” — David Brooks 

“Our world has replaced the word soul with the word self, and they are not the same thing. The more we focus on our selves, the more we neglect our souls.” — John Ortberg 

“The most effective leaders approach problems through a lens of opportunity.” —Glenn Llopis 

“Face reality, and let your first loss become your last loss.” —Larry Maxwell 

“If we learn to appreciate more of what we already have, we’ll find ourselves having even more to appreciate.” —Michael Angier 

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for someone else.” —Benjamin Franklin 

“Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.” —Martin Luther King Jr 

You can check out my full book review of Developing The Leader Within You 2.0 by clicking here. And you can also read some John Maxwell quotes from this book here. 

Dichotomy & Ricky Gervais

Dichotomy is a big word that means two parts that are opposed to each other. But it also means that they were once joined together—they were once in unity. Much like the first Christians: when people looked at them they saw Jesus; when they heard them speak they heard Jesus; when they watched their lives they saw the life of Jesus.

Christ and Christian were the same unified picture.

Today this is, sadly, far from the truth. People have a lot of wonderful things to say about Jesus, and a lot of nasty things to say about Christians. An unfortunate, and unnecessary, dichotomy exists.

I read an editorial from Ricky Gervais, a self-proclaimed atheist, entitled “Why I’m A Good Christian.” You can read his full editorial in the Wall Street Journal here, but for me this was the key passage:

I am of course not a good Christian in the sense that I believe that Jesus was half man, half God, but I do believe I am a good Christian compared to a lot of Christians.

It’s not that I don’t believe that the teachings of Jesus wouldn’t make this a better world if they were followed. It’s just that they are rarely followed.

Gandhi summed it up really. He said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

I have always felt this way, even when I believed in God, and in a weird way I feel I am still a pretty good “Christian” who doesn’t believe in God.

I think the way back from this dichotomy is two-fold:

(1) Christ-followers need to make an intentional effort to act more Christ-like.

(2) We Christians need to be more thoughtful in our responses to people like Ricky Gervais. I like the pattern Peter recommends

Honor Christ and let Him be the Lord of your life [our motivation for action]. Always be ready to give an answer when someone asks you about your hope [“hope,” not theology, not bad behavior]. Give a kind and respectful answer and keep your conscience clear [there is zero justification for a Christian to give a crass, disrespectful, or sarcastic answer]. This way you will make people ashamed for saying bad things about your good conduct as a follower of Christ [good conduct = we live, talk, and act like Jesus].

C’mon, followers of Christ, let’s close this dichotomy between us and Jesus!

Life’s Hardest Work

I’ve been reading through the life of Joseph in the Bible. If anyone had a lot to forgive, it was Joseph:

  • Sold out by his own brothers
  • Falsely accused and imprisoned
  • Forgotten in prison
  • Waiting years and years for God’s promise

Yet, he forgave so fully and so freely. Forgiveness isn’t easy. In fact, it may be one of the hardest things to do.

Here are a few quotes I’m mulling about forgiveness:

“We all agree that forgiveness is a beautiful idea until we have to practice it.” —C.S. Lewis

“For we find that the work of forgiveness has to be done over and over again. We forgive, we mortify our resentment; a week later some chain of thought carries us back to the original offense and we discover the old resentment blazing away as if nothing had been done about it at all. We need to forgive our brother seventy times seven not only for 490 offenses but for one offense.” —C.S. Lewis

“The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.” —William Blake

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“Forgiveness is love’s toughest work.” —Lewis Smedes

It is hard work, but the results are so worth it. Don’t let your life be controlled by someone who wronged you in the past. Forgive them and free yourself.