Henry and Richard Blackaby had some amazing thoughts to share in their book Spiritual Leadership (check out my review here), but they also pull together insights from so many other noted leaders.
“The American church is dying due to a lack of strong leadership. In this time of unprecedented opportunity and plentiful resources, the church is actually losing influence. The primary reason is the lack of leadership. Nothing is more important than leadership.” —George Barna
“Human communities have always had a need for people with very strong drives to do tough jobs like leadership.” —Malcome Davies
“Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.” —James MacGregor Burns
“Popularity is not leadership. Results are.” —Peter Drucker
“Continual success probably means our bar is too low or our tape too short.” —Max De Pree
“Good times blind us. Bad times reveal truth to us.” —Peter Koestenbaum
“If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.” —Seth Godin
“There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
You can check out the other quotes I shared from Spiritual Leadershipby clicking here.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Fifty-eight years ago this weekend, on April 4, 1968, just after 6pm on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was cut down by an assassin’s bullet. A powerful voice in the struggle for civil rights for African Americans was silenced, and yet his legacy still lives on more than a half-century later.
A couple of days ago, we remembered another historic death: the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. But unlike Dr. King, today we also celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead!
Does it matter that Jesus was raised back to life? If Dr. King’s legacy can still live on in the life of his followers, even though his body is in the grave, couldn’t the same thing happen for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth? The answer, quite simply, is “No!” This is because Jesus claimed that His kingdom was an eternal Kingdom, and that He came to bring people eternal life (John 3:16). If the Founder of this Kingdom could be held in the grave, what would His followers have to look forward to? Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19.
(I’m not going to take the time to go through all the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus here, but I would encourage you to check out our series A.L.I.V.E.
We have named this series after a statement from Jesus, “I will build My Church.” He made this statement before His death and before His resurrection, which tells us that He knew the outcome before those events even occurred.
Look how Paul concludes that the resurrection of Jesus is what gives meaning to the terms “saints” and “Church” in Ephesians 1:15-23. Our faith in what Jesus did for us on the Cross—namely, paying the penalty for our sins—is what justifies us, allowing us to be called saints (2:4-5). Notice how saints are to now live (2:6-10).
Look at those two phrases: “saved…not by works” and “created…to do good works.” As my friend T.M. Moore noted, “We are not saved by good works, but we’re not truly saved without them.” Good works is what characterized the earthly ministry of Jesus (Acts 10:38), and good works are what His saints are now freed and empowered to do (Romans 7:4; 1 Peter 2:12).
Paul goes on to say that saints are who make up the Church of Jesus (Ephesians 2:14-22). The Church is not a building, but saints following the example of Jesus to make the Kingdom of God known in the world (Acts 4:32-35).
A hundred years later, Aristides wrote a letter to Emperor Hadrian about these saints (who were now known as Christians):
“They help those who offend them, making friends of them; do good to their enemies. They don’t adore idols; they are kind, good, modest, sincere, they love one another; don’t despise widows; protect the orphans; those who have much give without grumbling, to those in need. When they meet strangers, they invite them to their homes with joy, for they recognize them as true brothers, not natural but spiritual. When a poor man dies, if they become aware, they contribute according to their means for his funeral; if they come to know that some people are persecuted or sent to prison or condemned for the sake of Christ’s name, they put their alms together and send them to those in need. If they can do it, they try to obtain their release. When a slave or a beggar is in need of help, they fast two or three days, and give him the food they had prepared for themselves, because they think that he too should be joyful, as he has been called to be joyful like themselves.”
Jesus is the eternally-living Founder of His Church, and those who have had their sins forgiven by their faith in His death and resurrection are the living stones of His Church (1 Peter 2:5).
Coming to the Cross makes us saints. Making the Savior known by the way we live makes us the Church.
We can’t do this unless Jesus is alive and actively empowering us (Matthew 28:18-20).
Let me reiterate what my friend wrote, because this is how saints should live: “We are not saved by good works, but we’re not truly saved without them.”
The resurrection of Jesus makes it possible for us to not only be delivered from trying to earn our salvation by doing good works, but to be empowered to do good works so that we compel others want to know Jesus for themselves.
As the saints go, so goes the Church.
Check out all of the messages in this series “I will build My Church” by clicking here.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
A couple of weeks ago I shared a recap from my sermon called Eloquent Silence. Jesus serenely remained silent when He was being falsely accused by those who wanted Him out of the way. Yet, His silence was eloquent and convicting.
We would do well to learn this lesson from our Savior.
There is a flip side to this: Sometimes our silence can signal compliance or acceptance of those who are speaking or perpetrating evil.
David wrote, “Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones? Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men?No, in heart you work wickedness; you weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth” (Psalm 58:1-2 NKJV).
Commenting on this psalm, Charles Spurgeon wrote, “It would be well, if people would sometimes pause and candidly consider this: ‘Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones?’ Some of those who surrounded Saul were passive rather than active persecutors—they held their tongues when the object of royal hate was slandered. In the original, this first sentence appears to be addressed to them, and they are asked to justify their silence. Silence gives consent. People who refrain from defending the right are themselves accomplices in the wrong.”
Silence does have its place. King Solomon wrote, “He who despises his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding keeps silent. He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy conceals a matter” (Proverbs 11:12-13 NASB1995). But to remain silent in the face of evil or falsehood could also be a sin.
Consider a few other wise words:
“No one wants to be thought of as holding to a ‘minority position’ on anything, so, rather than speak up in the face of many who are doing so, most will remain silent. This is where the Christian community finds itself at this time, trapped in a spiral of silence before a blustering but empty secular and unbelieving worldview. So it is very important that believers in Jesus Christ make the best use of every opportunity to talk about what is good and pleasing to God.” —T.M. Moore
“Don’t be a bystander, be on stand by. I will not allow a bully to bully others. I will not laugh at his jokes, I will not remain silent. I will stand up and say ‘Enough is enough.’” —Nick Vujicic
“As Christians we are tempted to make unnecessary concession to those outside the Faith. We give in too much. Now, I don’t mean that we should run the risk of making a nuisance of ourselves by witnessing at improper times, but there comes a time when we must show that we disagree. We must show our Christian colors, if we are to be true to Jesus Christ. We cannot remain silent or concede everything away.” —C.S. Lewis
“Our lives begin to end the day we remain silent about things that really matter.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
When to speak up and when to remain silent is a huge issue for Christians. This is why we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit telling us when to hold our tongues and when to speak out boldly.
Star Struck by Dr. David Bradstreet is an insightful book for astronomical issues, but I found it lacking in the way he missed multiple opportunities to use the mind-boggling discoveries in astronomy to point to a majestic Creator. Check out my full book review by clicking here.
“Those who study the stars have God for a teacher.” —Tycho Brahe, a sixteenth-century astronomer
“Almost all ancient civilizations believed that the universe had existed forever. Throughout the ancient world there was just one civilization that didn’t subscribe to this cyclical vision of eternity. Jewish Scripture, with the story of the Creation, stated clearly that the world had a beginning.” —Martin Gorst, historian
“Science is great as science, but it makes a lousy religion.” —Guy Consolmagno
“The atoms that so liberally and congenially flock together to form living things on Earth are exactly the same atoms that decline to do it elsewhere.” —Bill Bryson
“Eratosthenes of Alexandria (276–194 BC) “did the math, concluding that the earth was 24,662 miles around. His results were shockingly accurate: within 1 percent of our current estimate of 24,859 miles.” —Dr. David Bradstreet
“The sun is so powerful that we sometimes must shield ourselves from its heat, even after that heat has taken an eight-minute journey to earth, losing a third to half of its radiant energy to the protective atmosphere of our clouds. ‘Nothing is deprived of its warmth,’ says the psalmist (Psalm 19:6).” —Dr. David Bradstreet
“I wanted to become a theologian. For a long time I was restless. Now, however, behold how through my effort God is being celebrated in astronomy.” —Johannes Kepler
“Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“If we study science without Scripture, we risk falling into the ditch of atheistic evolutionism; on the other hand, the study of Scripture separated from God’s laws in nature risks ideologies that misinterpret God and distort His character.” —Timothy Jennings
“Holy Scripture and nature are both emanations from the divine Word.” —Galileo
“God cannot be reduced to the role of a scientific hypothesis.” —Father Georges Lemaître
Interesting astronomical tidbits:
Unlike everyone else in the neighborhood, Venus rotates backwards.
Jupiter rotates on its axis in slightly less than ten hours, faster than on any other planet.
Saturn is twice as far away from the sun, lowering its temperature and stretching out its orbital period to nearly thirty Earth years.
Neptune is so far away that it takes 164 years to orbit the Sun.
Uranus’ North Pole is tipped a whopping 98 degrees to its orbital plane.
Every day our powerful atmospheric shield hijacks some 100 tons of small rocks and other pieces of space stuff heading our way, breaking up and incinerating everything before it can hit us.
Our own Milky Way galaxy is home to more than 200 billion stars. There are more than 200 billion additional galaxies in the cosmos. These galaxies serve as gigantic star factories, each of which has its own 100 to 300 billion stars. Do the math and the numbers are mind-boggling: our Sun is merely one among some 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.
Prayer changes things. That makes prayer dangerous and the pray-ers themselves a danger to anything that opposes the kingdom of God. Dangerous Prayers is a collection of powerful prayers and a brief biography of those who prayed them.
Growing up, a constant refrain rang in my ears from my parents whenever I faced a problem: “Have you prayed about it?” I’m not sure why we make prayer our last resort instead of our first response, but it often seems that some of the most heartfelt, passionate prayers are offered up in the darkest of times.
Dangerous Prayers offers a short biography of some world-changing people who changed the world in large part because of their desperate dependence on God’s help, as seen in the frequent and bold prayers they prayed. Many of these prayers were prayed in dark places—prisons, before the executioner, in the midst of war, in unimaginable poverty, or staring down the evils of slavery. These men and women repeatedly turned to God, and God repeatedly strengthened them to accomplish amazing things. Some of the answers to prayer came in their lifetimes, and some prayers were only answered long after they had died.
Dangerous Prayers is an excellent coffee table book. By that, I mean it’s a great book to leave out in the open as a conversation-starter. Parents could read these short biographies and prayers with their children, and friends could use them as a bridge from past history to current events. But more than anything, keep Dangerous Prayers close at hand will—I sincerely hope—cause you to turn to prayer frequently and boldly.
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.
“The trouble isn’t so much that we don’t know enough, but it’s as if we aren’t good enough. The trouble isn’t so much that our scientific genius lags behind, but our moral genius lags behind. The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. The problem is with man himself and man’s soul. …
“The great danger facing us today is not so much the atomic bomb that was created by physical science. Not so much that atomic bomb that you can put in an aeroplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and thousands of people—as dangerous as that is. But the real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness—that’s the atomic bomb that we’ve got to fear today. …
“My friends, all I’m trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., February 28, 1954 (empahsis added)
“The trouble isn’t so much that we don’t know enough, but it’s as if we aren’t good enough. The trouble isn’t so much that our scientific genius lags behind, but our moral genius lags behind. The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. The problem is with man himself and man’s soul. …
“The great danger facing us today is not so much the atomic bomb that was created by physical science. Not so much that atomic bomb that you can put in an aeroplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and thousands of people—as dangerous as that is. But the real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness—that’s the atomic bomb that we’ve got to fear today. …
“My friends, all I’m trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind.” —Martin Luther King, Jr. (February 28, 1954)
In preparing for a recent book review, I re-read Dr. Martin Luther King’s amazing Letter From A Birmingham Jail. Dr. King was addressing some pastors who had advised him to slow down in his push to abolish segregation.
I believe there are some amazing parallels to what Dr. King wrote about abolishing segregation, and what many are writing and speaking about today in abolishing abortion.
Below are a few quotes from Dr. King’s Letter that I think are appropriate in the context of calling the church to not slow down in her push to abolish abortion. Just as Dr. King spoke up for the people whose voices were not being heard, we need to speak up for those children in the womb whose voices are not being heard.
I have taken the liberty to make a couple of changes in Dr. King’s original letter, to clarify how I believe he would have addressed the abortion issue. My changes are in brackets.
“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since [many] so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of [1973 ‘legalizing’ abortion], at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’
“Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades the human personality is unjust. All [abortion] statutes are unjust because [abortion kills an unborn] soul and [destroys a] personality. It gives the [abortionist and those who advocate for abortion] a false sense of superiority and the [aborted human baby] a false sense of inferiority. …
“An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is a difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made it legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to [live], had no part in enacting or devising the law. …
“One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the [murder of innocent human beings] but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
“So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremist for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of [abortion laws] or for the [saving] of [life]?”
“I have heard many ministers say: ‘Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.’ And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and secular.”
“Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! how we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.”
“There was a time when the church was very powerful—in that time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were ‘a colony of heaven,’ called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be ‘astronomically intimidated.’ By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.
“Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often even the vocal—sanction of things as they are.
“But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the [twenty-first] century.”
“Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”
Henry and Richard Blackaby had some amazing thoughts to share in their book Spiritual Leadership (check out my review here), but they also pull together insights from so many other noted leaders. 
Craig T. Owens 
Book Reviews From 2016
December 27, 2016 — Craig T. Owens#struggles
Alive
An Angel’s Story
Answering Jihad
Archeological Study Bible
Chase The Lion
Churchill’s Trial
Culture
Hope … The Best Of All Things
How To Read A Book
I Stand At The Door And Knock
Jesus Always
Letters To A Birmingham Jail
Light & Truth—Acts & The Larger Epistles
Light & Truth—Revelation
Light & Truth—The Lesser Epistles
More Than A Carpenter
Of Antichrist And His Ruin
On This Day
One Of The Few
Our Iceberg Is Melting
Shaken
So, Anyway…
Streams In The Desert
The American Patriot’s Almanac
The Bad Habits Of Jesus
The Beauty Of Intolerance
The Blessing Of Humility
The Dawn Of Indestructible Joy
The Duty Of Pastors
The Gospels Side-By-Side
The Mathematical Proof For Christianity
The Philosophy Of Sin
The Place Of Help
The Porn Circuit
The Psychology Of Redemption
The Seven Laws Of Love
The Shadow Of An Agony
The Tabernacle Of Israel
Think On These Things
Today’s Moment Of Truth
Useful Maxims
Your Sorrow Will Turn To Joy
Here are my book reviews for 2011.
Here are my book reviews for 2012.
Here are my book reviews for 2013.
Here are my book reviews for 2014.
Here are my book reviews for 2015.
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