After we all woke up, we talked about the thunder and the fact that it shook the house. All of our attention had been gotten. I like thunderstorms like that.

Psalm 29 is all about the voice of God and the author talks about God’s voice in the context of thunder. I hear God’s voice in my life often. Rarely is it like thunder, but I hear it. When it is like thunder though, my whole life shakes and my attention is gotten. God’s voice has power and authority and much like the thunderstorm from the other night, it has effects to where it shakes us and causes us to talk about it later.

I am thankful for the voice of God in my life. I’m humbled by it.

It is on us to stay so close to God so that we hear His voice clearly each day and we are called to be obedient to it. But when it’s so blatant, like thunder, we better pay attention. We better be shaken by it. We better talk about it later.

How in tune are you with the voice of God?

But I’ve transitioned to being completely paperless and I love it.  It took a little adjusting, but thanks to YouVersion Bible App and Evernote, the adjustment has been easy.  The things I can do and the access that I have to ALL of my notes and details is so helpful.  Using YouVersion to do my study, whether a designed reading plan or just my own meanderings is great.

Sample of a YouVersion Reading Plan - Happens to be Day 3 of my Psalms Study

But then, combine it with Evernote and it’s incredible.  Using my IPad and it’s handy 4 finger swipe, I can copy and paste key scriptures and also take notes in my study notes notebook on Evernote.  It’s pretty awesome.

key scriptures from study

If you have an Ipad or Iphone, I encourage you to give it a try for a month.  Use YouVersion and Evernote and see what happens.  The amazing thing is, if you carry your phone or IPad with you everywhere, you always have your Bible, your notes and deets with you as well….always.  That’s priceless.

Don’t fight technology.  Lean into it.  Benefit from it.  Grow with it.

It’s so important when we receive encouragement and appreciation from people to internally and even externally when appropriate to deflect that praise back to God.  I don’t mean false humility, but true humility, which starts on the inside.  I HATE false humility that is only present on the outside and no where inside.  You know what I mean and you know people like that.  True humility starts on the inside and just naturally comes to the outside.

When people encourage us through words of praise, we must hand that back over to God.  He created us.  He wired us.  He does His work through us.  Praise is not meant for us.  It’s meant for Him and we must return to Him what’s His.  On the inside, we must return the praise of men back to Him.

In Acts 14, there’s a great example of this.  Paul and Barnabas are praised by men to the point that they are ready to sacrifice to them in worship.  These guys appropriately deflect this praise and rebuke the people.  Interestingly enough, the same people who were ready to sacrifice to them, stone Paul and drag him out for dead just a few verses later.

The praise of men to men is hollow.  God, and only God, deserves praise.  Remain humble and return to God what is God’s.  Genuinely.  Internally first and let humility naturally flow from the inside out.  It shouldn’t be work and it shouldn’t be something we have to be conscious of.  Return to God what’s God’s.

This is a very frustrating and painful thing to watch.  Why does it happen?  Why is that folks who have working brains will make destructive life choices and decisions that are so obvious to so many around them?

It comes down to wisdom and understanding.  Or I guess, a lack thereof.

In Job 28, Job is raising the value of wisdom and understanding.  He’s making a point about where these come from.  In verse 28, he reveals where these can be found:  (remember, this is a guy who was living a real Hell of a life.)

“The fear of the Lord is true wisdom; to forsake evil is real understanding.”

When we do not fear the Lord God but rather we place ourselves at the center of the universe, wisdom is lost.  We begin to rationalize sin because when we occupy the throne of our lives….when we ourselves become the lord of our lives….when we are so selfish as to place ourselves above God, wisdom is lost.  Our vision is skewed and it’s skewed in every aspect of our lives.  We start making statements like,

I deserve this.  It’s about time I get what I deserve.  I’ve never been happy so now I’m going to be.  She doesn’t treat me the way I deserve to be treated.  He doesn’t make me happy.  I I I I…..me me me me.

No God, no wisdom.

When evil is not forsaken in our lives, we don’t have understanding.  We do not have peace.  We play with sin and entertain it rather than rooting it out and hating it.  The more we entertain sin and evil, the more comfortable we get with it.  It’s impossible to do this if God is at the center of our lives.  It’s impossible if He’s on the throne.  It’s impossible if we do not fear Him, but choose to call our own shots.

The only way to avoid the crash is to stop driving.  When we hand the wheel over to God, surrender our rights to ourselves and stop playing the I, me, my games, we can begin to realize true wisdom and understanding.

Take time to memorize Job 28:28 and allow God to take the wheel and be cool with that.

Judges 7 is a great example of how amazing and unpredictable our God is.  If you’ve never read it, you gotta.  It’s the story about God whittling down Gideon’s army from 32,000 fighters to 300 fighters.  Gideon was charged with attacking the Midianites but God did not want the men or Gideon to be victorious, so He, being unpredictable, shrunk the army so that it would be impossible for man to take credit for what only God can do.

The “how” God shrunk the army is cool too….again, very unpredictable.  Go read it.

Here’s the deal…..I wouldn’t want to follow and serve a predictable God.  If I could predict God, I might as well claim to be my own god and if I’m going to claim to be my own god, well, that’s what living the life in the flesh is all about.  (See what happens in Galatians 5 when we choose that route.)  So often we get to places in our lives when we ask God the “why” questions.  ”Why would You let that happen?  Why don’t you step in fix this?  Why does she have to suffer?  Why does so much bad stuff happen?…etc….”  But the deal is, if we knew those answers, God would be predictable and well, in a lot of ways, not God.  He asks us to trust Him, even in the midst of His unpredictability.  It’s easy to trust Him when He’s predictable, but in His unpredictability…..that’s when we realize He is God and we are not…..and we need Him.

Gideon must have had some of those “why” questions swirling as he watched his army shrink and his battle “on paper” seem impossible.  But he trusted the unpredictability of His God.  And I bet he’s glad he did.  And so am I.  Without Gideon’s complete trust, I would have less motivation to trust myself.  But I read Judges 7 and I’m encouraged that at times, my chances “on paper” seem impossible…..and if I move only “on paper”, in the flesh, it is impossible.  But because my Father is unpredictable and extremely trustworthy and faithful, I can simply follow and not need to ask the “whys”.

Be thankful today that our God is faithful.  Be thankful for His unpredictability.  Be thankful that He is God and we are not.

Where is God being unpredictable in your life these days?  Any areas in your life where you are struggling to trust?  Why is that?  Fear?

Part of being a disciple of Jesus, regardless of whether you call yourself a pastor or not, is giving counsel to others.  It goes with the territory.  As a disciple of Jesus, we have knowledge of how to live with hope, completely free, content, joyful and at peace.  When we have that knowledge, we have a responsibility to share that with others who are living lives in bondage, frustration, in pain, addicted, in conflict and without hope.  Honestly, it’s a blessing to be able to share with someone who has no hope and does not know Jesus – the hope I’ve found in Him.

But also being honest, I’m not a great “counselor” in the true professional sense of the word, especially when it comes to sharing with those who have already been exposed to the light of Jesus, but who are choosing to live contrary to what they know.  Being even more honest, I get frustrated in these situations.  I want to tell folks who know Jesus, know the Bible, but continue to make choices that do not reflect this knowledge to stop being dumb!  Stop making bad choices!  Return to what you know in the Word.  That may seem contrary to compassion, but it’s not.  Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do is tell someone the truth.

If someone is living like they don’t know Jesus because they don’t know Jesus, that’s completely different.  But the opposite deserves to have truth slap them across the face.  Stop being dumb!  Really, that’s what we are doing when we have knowledge and refuses to implement it in our lives.  We are being ignorant.  We are being dumb.

Proverbs 1 has some interesting wisdom along these lines.  Consider some of these verses:

1:22 “How long you simpletons, will you insist on being simpleminded?  (Dumb)  How long will you mockers relish your mocking?  How long will you fools hate knowledge?”

1:25 “You ignored my advice and rejected the correction I offered.”

1:29 “For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the Lord.”

1:31 “Therefore, they must eat the bitter fruit of living their own way, choking on their own schemes.”

1:33 “But all who listen to me will live in peace, untroubled by fear of harm.”

If we know the Way and choose not to live accordingly, I’m sorry, but we can’t whine about how hard our life is or about we don’t know what to do.  Here’s Christian counseling 101 for us…..”Stop being a simpleton.  Stop mocking the God we know.  Stop hating the knowledge we have and lean into the knowledge we have.  ”Stop ignoring the advice and correction from God.  Stop hating knowledge and start fearing God by surrendering to Him and obeying Him.  Listen to Him and what we already know and live in peace.”

If we choose otherwise, then it’s on us to eat the bitter fruit of living our own way.  We will choke on our own plans and choices.

See, I told you I’m not a very good counselor!!

Mordecai was a “pure at heart” kind of leader who had his priorities in the right place.  One quality of a good leader is that he or she is not into self-promotion, but is out for the best of their organization and the people it serves and employees.  If you look around at some of the most effective organizations in our country, you’ll most likely find that the leader(s) of those organizations are not about bettering themselves, but place a greater priority on serving their customers and employees.

Mordecai is an example of this type of leader.  In Esther 10:3, we read, “Mordecai the Jew became the prime minister, with authority next to that of King Xerxes himself.  He was very great among the Jews, who held him in high esteem, because he continued to work for the good of his people and to speak up for the welfare of all their descendants.”

Notice that Mordecai “continued” to work for the good of his people even after he received such great authority.  He did not “rise to power” and then lose his perspective.  This happens so often in leadership.  When good-intentioned folks get to a certain level of leadership, many of the trappings of self-promotion can skew the vision and cause their perspective to be jaded.  Mordecai remained grounded and focused on his mission.

Mordecai worked for the good of his people.  That was his mission.  He knew it and he stuck to it.  A good leader puts the good of those he or she leads above his or her own good.

And this one is interesting…..Mordecai spoke up for the welfare of his people’s descendants.  He was not only looking out for those he was serving now, but also for those who will be impacted in the future.  This is huge.  As we lead, are we only looking out for those we are leading now or do we have in our view those who will come behind us?  Mordecai’s example of leading the current generation as well as the next generations is a good reminder for those of us who are in leadership positions.

Around Southland, we talk about making sure we are creating a culture and systems for those who will come behind us and lead next.  We want to hand off leadership well.  We want to not only lead well those who are in our care now, but also those who will be in our care and the care of the next generation of leadership.  What we do now determines how well that will work.

Learn from Mordecai.  Put the needs of those you lead and those you will lead above your own needs.

We were in a discussion about making a tough decision for the church and he made a comment like, “this is just how business works.” But the problem is, it was not congruent with how Jesus works.  His heart is good, believe me.  But his thinking was skewed.  I love him, but he wasn’t seeing things through the proper lens.

The church is called to be Jesus in the flesh in this world we live in.  Yes, business is business and there’s a lot of difficult things you have to do in business to be successful in our culture.  Not necessarily sinful things, but not things that are aligned with how Jesus operated.  As the church, we should be putting ourselves in positions to bunk the skewed and misaligned thinking of our culture.  We don’t bunk it by shouting against it.  We bunk it by acting differently in the midst of it.  As a church, we should be making decisions that are always aligned first with Jesus and the Word.  If that happens to work in the world of business, great.  But if it goes against the “business is business” model, then what do we do?

Well, we stick with Jesus and we bunk the “business is business” culture.  We move in alignment with scripture and allow God to do what only God can do.  God is not frightened by business culture.  He’s not limited by an MBA.  He’s bigger and can do more when we stay true to His truths, His favor and His ways, even if it’s not popular in our culture.  God can overcome “bad press”.  He can work around and through boards and processes.  He doesn’t need leverage.  He can take down whatever needs to be taken down.

As church leaders, let’s not compromise the favor of God and the truths of God by succumbing to the “ways of the world.”  I’m good with being naive to business and the world as long as I’m completely sold out to being aligned with God and His Word.  Stay aligned and move forward.  God will do your bidding for you.

The burden has nothing to do with the time pressure of preparing a message for next weekend.  It has nothing to do with to-do lists.  It has nothing to do with our full schedule of appointments.  Those things are not the burden.

The burden which should buckle the knees of all of us as church leaders is Matthew 25:29.  It’s easy to read this verse in terms of possessions.  It’s easy to read it in terms of individual giftedness.  But as a church leader, when I read this verse in terms of the church, I get what my friends and I call “bad news belly.”  It’s a very heavy verse in light of church leadership.

Those of us who’s “job” is in church work, sit in seats of responsibility for Matthew 25:29.  I don’t care if you are a department leader, assistant, administrative assistant, lead pastor, teaching pastor, custodian, executive pastor or a coordinator of a small part of a larger ministry area.  The day we sign up to be in the ministry by being employed by a church, we sign up to carry the burden that goes with Matthew 25:29.

You see, in the church, we have been entrusted with the Word…the Truth…the Light…freedom…wisdom…love.  Every day, we wake up and we “go to work” at a church, possessing these things which we’ve been entrusted with.  Every day we put in a full day’s work and then we pack up and go home.  All the while, we hold a bag of unreal amounts of responsibility to steward well what God has entrusted us with….these things of the Spirit.

What did we do with them to strengthen the church?  Did we multiply them?  Did we bury them?  Did we forget about them?

Sure, some churches have greater influence than others.  Kind of like 5 bags of silver churches.  Some have 2.  And some, some only have 1 bag of silver’s worth of influence.  But all have at least one and all are equally responsible for leveraging whatever we have to make a difference.  To simply keep safe what we have is like squandering it away.  We will be held accountable for whatever we do or don’t do with what’s been entrusted to us.

So if you work at a church and you simply “work at a church.”  Quit your job and go get a job somewhere else.  If you work at a church and you don’t feel the burden of spiritual responsibility…resign.  Do your church a favor by not bringing greater accountability to the whole because you simply like working at your church.  Quit.  Go find somewhere else to work.  If you are simply collecting a paycheck in an environment that is positive and presents less temptation…please…resign.  You’re killing your church.

If you do feel the burden…good.  Let that burden motivate you to be a “wise risk-it-all steward.”  See everyday as a new day to make wise decisions which take bold risks of faith to further the Kingdom of God in your community.  Resist the temptation to bury what you have.  Go put what you have to work.  Go lead and influence like there’s no tomorrow.  Because there may not be and we will stand before God with the task of explaining how and why we led His church in the way that we did.  Lead with no regrets.

Esther 6 for example.  What happens in the space between verses 10 and 11?  This guy Haman hates this guy Mordecai and is getting ready to ask the king about impaling Mordecai on a stick…a human kabob.  The king asks Haman how he would honor someone who pleases the king.  Haman thinks the king is talking about Haman so he gives him an elaborate plan of public honor.  The king is talking about Mordecai…who Haman hates.  So the king takes Haman’s plan and tells Haman to go honor Mordecai in this way.  Ouch.

So in verse 10, the king tells Haman to go give Mordecai the king’s treatment of public honor.  In verse 11, Haman goes and does it.  In verse 12, Haman is humiliated.

Something has to go on in the heart and mind of Haman in the space between verses 10 and 11.  Scripture leaves it out, but it’s there.  It’s there in that space.  You know it is.  Haman is a jerk….an arrogant jerk.  Up to verse 9, Haman has it all figured out.  In verse 10, the hammer falls.  In verse 11, his life is changed.  In the space between 10 and 11, Haman is revealed to Haman.

I know what happens between the verses in my own life when my flesh has taken me down one path but then the Spirit brings justice swiftly.  There’s a lot that happens between those verses in my life.  There’s a lot of conversation with myself and a lot of conversation with God.  There are a lot of emotions that get dealt with in between those verses.  A lot of conviction by the Spirit.

I bet Haman hated the space between verse 10 and 11.  That’s a painful space.  It’s a very raw and real space.  It’s a space of confrontation and realization with who he really was.

And the space is the same in my life.  I hate the space because of what it says about me.  But I’m thankful for the space because of what it does for me.  The space changes me.  The space reveals the true me so that I can change.  It’s in the space where I truly encounter the Holy Spirit’s convicting work.

How do you handle the space between the verses of your life?