Links & Quotes

For personal growth and team growth, consider how you can set both small, bite-size goals that can be done daily and also bigger, stretching goals that energize the competitive drive. Check out more leadership content from The Craig and Greg Show.

I have a lot of new video content on my YouTube channel every week. Please check it out and subscribe so you don’t miss anything.

“This chapter contains the premier teaching of Christianity. It is an undying expression of Jesus’ doctrine of heavenly love. This chapter is more potent for the building of the church than any, or all, of the various manifestations of God’s power. Love is the church’s most effective weapon. Love is the essence of God’s nature. Love is the perfection of human character. Love is the most powerful, ultimate force in the universe. Without love, al various gifts of the Spirit are of no avail. … What a call to self-examination!” —Dr. Henry Halley, commenting on 1 Corinthians 13

“The transition from the good man to the saint is a sort of revolution; by which one for whom all things illustrate and illuminate God becomes one for whom God illustrates and illuminates all things.” —G.K. Chesterton 

T.M. Moore launched a new series of articles about the coming of God’s Kingdom in these last days. In the first article, T.M. wrote, “In his Pentecost sermon Peter announced that, with the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the pouring out of God’s Spirit, the ‘last days’ had begun (Acts 2:14-17), the new economy has been put into effect. Paul says Jesus came in ‘the fullness of the times’ to inaugurate His great work of redemption in these last days (Galatians 4:4). The ‘fullness of the times’ in which the divine economy is unfolding, is now. We are living in the last days, the fullness of the times, when the Lord of heaven and earth is establishing and expanding His divine economy.”

Once again, a new fossil discovery doesn’t fit into evolutionary models, but instead bolsters the facts recorded in the Bible about Creation and the Flood.

“For years, Michael Pratt operated in the shadows of the internet, profiting from coercion, deception, and exploitation under the guise of adult entertainment.” Pratt has now pled guilty to sexual trafficking charges. Fight The New Drug wrote, “The story is more than a courtroom headline. It’s a stark reminder of how the porn industry can weaponize vulnerability, disguise abuse and trafficking, and sell it as fantasy.”

A really penetrating question from John Piper: Why do so many PhDs in theology commit adultery?

Links & Quotes

One of the things that contributes to “quiet quitting” is a lack of passion. But when the leader has conveyed a compelling vision for all that the organization is doing, that vision fuels the passion to work excellently. Vision can change a “have to” attitude into a “get to” attitude. Check out the full conversation Greg and I had about quiet quitting on the Craig And Greg Show. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.

“One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” —Arthur Ashe

“Strange as it may seem, the first rule of gracious speech is sincere listening: ‘So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath’ (James 1:19). Being an attentive and sincere listener is like cutting a swath through the jungle. It creates a path along which conversations can develop and people can journey together.” —T.M. Moore

J. Warner Wallace discusses how scientists who were Christians used their biblical worldview to drive their scientific pursuits. As a result, Christian scientists have been awarded more Nobel Prizes than any other group of scientific contributors!

“The devil will not stand by quietly and watch his realm decline and erode. He counterattacks with rage; his onslaught is fierce. One of the tricks he uses is to preoccupy Christian workers with issues that are detrimental to a healthy relationship with Christ. The scenario is all too familiar: a Christian worker gets busy in the ministry and work takes priority over relationship with God. He no longer has the time to sit at Jesus’ feet in quiet solitude and listen to God’s Word. Spiritual emptiness comes unnoticed and with it vulnerability to satan’s sifting (Luke 22:31-34); dishonest handling of monies or power or an illicit relationship is justified, and whoa! immorality has lured and sent such a Christian worker tumbling. He commits what he has preached against. Sin is dangerous. Sin is destructive. Its price is very costly—separation from God, irreversible stigma, damage to family relations, loss of ministry, loss of reputation, a black mark on God’s work, and the list goes on.” —Sobhi Malek

Our Creator gave us an amazing gift of the human brain! I love the fascinating new discoveries that scientists are continuing to make. Like this one: “To be spatially capable creatures, humans need their brains to tell them 1) where things are in relation to themselves and 2) where everything is in relation to everything else—the so-called allocentric map of space. To navigate an environment, the brain seems to generate a mental representation of its surroundings. This is often called a cognitive map.” Read more about our cognitive map here.

I hope you have had a chance to see the movie “Sound of Freedom.” Thankfully, this has gotten a lot of people talking about how to eliminate sex trafficking. Fight The New Drug has an excellent post on how you can spot and report human trafficking, and you should also check out Operation Underground Railroad, which was founded by Tim Ballard (whom Jim Caviezel portrays in the movie).

“It will be a comfort to me all my life to know that the scientist and the materialist have not the last word, that Darwin and Spencer, undermining ancestral beliefs, stand themselves on a foundation of sand.” —C.S. Lewis

Links & Quotes

The Holy Spirit can speak to us through other people. Be sure to check out all of my videos on my YouTube channel.

“A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” —Charles Spurgeon

“Every word from God comes with the power to make that word happen.” —Kevin Berry

“The question is not, ‘Should we pray for the lost people of our community?’ The question is, ‘Will we?’ Will we pray for our neighbors, our community, our nation, and our world? Will we seek the peace of the world and the wellbeing of all our fellow humans before the Lord in prayer? [Jeremiah 29:7]
“If we will not, then we must face up to the fact that we are disobeying a divine mandate, abandoning our neighbors to their folly, and stoking the fires of indifference—if not outright scorn—for the unbelieving world around. But if we will pray, who knows what God might be willing to do?
“Those prayers may be prayers of anguish and anger at times; but they must also be prayers for God to work in the hard hearts of our unsaved neighbors, just as He has worked in ours, to bring new life, forgiveness, and hope to those who now live apart from God in a world full of rebellion and sin.” —T.M. Moore

Axis is a great resource to help parents communicate effectively with their pre-teen and teenage children. In the wake of the school shooting in Nashville, Axis posted this: “We have created resources to help parents and caring adults have conversations about violence and school shootings. Consider our Conversation Kit on Violence, our Parent’s Guide to School Shootings, our Parent’s Guide to Talking About Violence, and our Parent’s Guide to Anxiety, for starters.”

This is an excellent post from Fight The New Drug on how to spot online sexual predators.

“Failure is a part of success. There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life. But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it.” —Hank Aaron

Links & Quotes

There has never been anyone as perfectly healthy as Jesus. He was wise, physically healthy, spiritually strong, and emotionally resilient. My co-host Greg and I talked about this on a recent episode of our leadership podcast The Craig And Greg Show. Check out this snippet. I dive deeper into this topic in five chapters in my book Shepherd Leadership.

Fight The New Drug reports how easily sex trafficking happens in the porn industry. They also share a recent survey of how many teens are watching pornography while at school.

Links & Quotes

Ken Blanchard shared a blog post based on one of the chapters in his book Simple Truths Of Leadership (which I highly recommend to leaders!). He wrote, “When you catch yourself doing things right, everything in your life will improve—especially your relationships. Why? Because it’s fun to be around people who like themselves. After all, if you’re not your own best friend, who will be? And as my dad used to say, ‘If you don’t toot your own horn, others might use it as a spittoon!’”

For all Christians, but especially for those in leadership positions, Jon Bloom shares How to Watch for Wolves: Three Signs of False Teachers.

Fight The New Drug shares the research behind 15 Basic Facts About Human Sex Trafficking.

This is a great lesson from church history on the power of importunate prayer: The Hundred-Year Prayer Meeting.

Mary Slessor set a high bar for missionaries. John Stonestreet reminds us of this amazing woman.

Pornography: Let’s #Endit

Today is the day the End It Movement is shining a light on the dark slave trading and human trafficking practices around the globe. One of the biggest things fueling slavery is when people click on pornography.

NOT COOL!

ftnd-facts-on-trafficking“However harmless or private pornography may seem, it is not.

  • Pornography blinds us to God (Matthew 5:8). It blurs our eyes to his goodness, truth, and beauty.
  • Pornography trains us to treat women as objects, as less than human. It portrays them as possessions to be used and enjoyed, and then thrown away.
  • Pornography fuels sex slavery—real people held against their will and raped repeatedly—all over the world, even in the United States, even in your city or the major city near you.
  • Pornography belittles real beauty—like the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 31:30)—and replaces it with a cheap and fading imitation.
  • Pornography makes sex small and momentary, like a cigarette, instead of massive and lifelong, like it is in marriage.
  • Pornography robs us of some of the delight we might have had with our spouse. It keeps us from experiencing and enjoying them and their bodies without a fog of images from our past.
  • Pornography quickly bankrupts trust in a relationship. It encourages us to lie and hide from others, to walk in darkness and then build walls around ourselves in the darkness.
  • Pornography grossly stunts our maturity, the development of our mind and our gifts—our abilities to understand God and love others.
  • Pornography pursues an undergraduate degree in selfishness, training us over and over to focus on ourselves, prefer ourselves, and serve ourselves.
  • Pornography keeps us from all kinds of ministry, disqualifying many and demotivating even more.
  • Pornography is teaching many children an awful, evil distortion of love and sex even before their parents explain the truth to them.” —Marshall Segal

We can make a huge step toward helping to #ENDIT if we can convince others of the damage pornography is doing to themselves, as well as to countless sex slaves around the world.

In It To End It

download-end-it-logoSlavery is illegal in every single country of the world, and yet slavery still exists in 167 nations today! One-in-five of those in slavery is under the age of 18, and 55 percent of those trapped in slavery are women.

NOT COOL! 

One of the biggest industries fueling human trafficking and human slavery is the pornography industry. Every time you click on a porn link, you are helping to keep someone in bondage. Those clicks mean money in the pockets of those who peddle in human flesh, so they do whatever they can to keep you clicking and viewing.

Think about this—Your porn viewing is keeping someone’s daughter or son in slavery! 

Thursday, February 23, is the day the End It Movement wants us all to shine a bright light on the vile practices of those slave-holders who are keeping people in bondage all over the globe.

What can you do?

  1. FullSizeRender 2Wear your bright red X tomorrow, and share it for the world to see. Use hashtag #endit to let slave traders know you are on to them.
  2. Pray for those held in slavery and traffickedRemember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies (Hebrews 13:3).
  3. Support groups like The End It Movement or International Justice Mission who are working to free slaves around the globe.
  4. Stop viewing pornography!

I am in it to #endit in my generation! Will you join me?

Refuse To Click

#EndIt Today

End It Movement

End It MovementPornography has fueled the sex trafficking market. In The Porn Circuit, Sam Black reports that “between 14,500 and 17,500 sex slaves are trafficked into the US each year. Another 300,000 American children are at risk for trafficking each year.”

NOT COOL! 

You see, every time you click on a porn link, you are helping to keep someone in bondage. Those clicks mean money in the pockets of those who peddle in human flesh, so they do whatever they can to keep you clicking and viewing.

Think about this—Your porn viewing is keeping someone’s daughter or son in slavery! 

February 25 is the day the End It Movement wants us all to shine a bright light on the vile practices of those slave-holders who are keeping people in bondage all over the globe.

What can you do?

  1. FullSizeRender 2Wear your bright red X tomorrow, and share it for the world to see. Use hashtag #endit to let slave traders know you are on to them.
  2. Pray for those held in slavery and traffickedRemember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies (Hebrews 13:3).
  3. Support groups like The End It Movement or International Justice Mission who are working to free slaves around the globe.
  4. Stop viewing pornography!

We can #endit in our generation!