Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. Proverbs 16:3 (NIV)
Solomon on Trusting God in Our Work
Aug 13, 2018
All throughout Scripture, we are told that it is God, not us, who produces results through our work. 1 Chronicles 29:12 says âWealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things.â Deuteronomy 8:17-18 reads, âYou may say to yourself, âMy power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.â But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.â
In an age in which anyone can launch a business, write a book, or start a podcast, it can be tempting to think that it is our hustle that is producing results through our endeavors. As we will see next week, God commands that we hustle and uses our hard work to produce results through us. But as we enter into any new work, we must begin by recognizing the indisputable fact that results are ultimately being produced by the Lord.
In Proverbs 16, Sol...
New Series: Trust, Hustle, and Rest
Aug 06, 2018
You may say to yourself, âMy power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.â But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. Deuteronomy 8:17-18 (NIV)
âHustleâ has got to be one of the most popular buzzwords in startup culture today. Shark Tank investors press entrepreneurs to âhustleâ harder to generate sales. Everyone seems to be working on their âside-hustleâ while keeping their 9-to-5 job. But what does the Bible have to say about our hustle? On the one hand, Scripture clearly celebrates hard work. Colossians 3:23 commands âWhatever you do, work at it with all your heart.â But while Christians can join in cultureâs celebration of hard work, we must also wrestle with the Biblical truth that it is God, not us or our hustle, that produces results (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). As Christians, we must embra...
When Jesus Said âNoâ
Jul 30, 2018
As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simonâs mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: âEveryone is looking for you!â Jesus replied, âLet us go somewhere elseâto the nearby villagesâso I can preach there also. That is why I have come.' Mark 1:29-38 (NIV)
As...
How to Budget Your Time
Jul 23, 2018
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Wonât you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, âThis person began to build and wasnât able to finish.â Luke 14:28-30 (NIV)
Itâs no secret that to be successful with your finances, you must plan where you will spend your money before it winds up in your bank account. We should apply the same disciplined approach to our time. After all, unlike money, we canât earn more time, so we should be even more inclined to budget our hours than our dollars.
If you followed Jesusâ lead that we explored a few weeks ago, you should have clear boundaries outlining how much time you have dedicated to be productive in a given day. With these boundaries set, your commitments collected, and your essential few projects and tasks identified, itâs time to enter into...
Discerning Whatâs Essential
Jul 16, 2018
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lordâs feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, âLord, donât you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!â âMartha, Martha,â the Lord answered, âyou are worried and upset about many things, but few things are neededâor indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.' Luke 10:38-42 (NIV)
Martha gets a bad rap in our preaching of this passage in Luke 10. But the fact is, we are all Martha from time to time, struggling to identify which tasks are the most essential at any one given time. Clearly, someone needed to make dinner, and Iâm willing to bet that Jesus greatly appreciated Marthaâs hospitality. It wasnât that cooking dinner ...
How to Keep Track of Your Commitments
Jul 09, 2018
All you need to say is simply âYesâ or âNoâ; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:37 (NIV)
Jesus commanded that our âYesâ be âYes,â but more and more frequently, a Christianâs âYesâ really means âNo.â Every time we fail to follow-through on a commitment, show up late, donât complete a project on time, or fail to keep our voicemailâs promise that we will âreturn your call as soon as possible,â we are disobeying Jesusâ command that our âYesâ be âYes.â In our fast-paced lives, we are saying âYesâ more than ever, while more and more frequently failing to keep our word. The fact that this sin seems so innocuous should set off alarms within the Church. We are images of God, representations of Jesus Christ to a lost world. To reflect our Savior well, we must be keepers of our word.
But how practically do we do this? It starts by having a system to effectively collect all of our commitments. This could be as simple as a piece o...
Setting Boundaries With Your Time
Jul 02, 2018
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Luke 5:16 (NIV)
Throughout the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John repeatedly note the amount of time Jesus spent in solitudeâaway from the disciples, the crowds, and the busyness of his ministry. The frequent mention of this behavior suggests that Jesus was a master at setting boundaries with His time. Likewise, if we are to effectively manage our time and make our greatest contribution to the world, we too must establish clear boundaries with our schedules.
Like Jesus, this should start by allocating regular time for prayer (Mark 1:35) and study of Godâs Word. Most of us are are used to the idea of tithing our money. But what about tithing our time? If we fill-up our schedules with demands from work and home and then try to find time to spend in prayer and study of Godâs Word, we are setting ourselves up for failure. If you havenât already, take some time this week to determine wh...
New Series: Time Management Principles from Godâs Word
Jun 25, 2018
Now listen, you who say, âToday or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.â Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:13-14 (NIV)
I get asked for a lot of time management advice. Not because Iâve got this topic âfigured out,â but because Iâve had a tremendous amount of practice seeking to balance the many different productive activities in my life. In addition to serving as the CEO of a venture-backed technology startup (Threshold 360), I am also an author, doing my best to help my fellow Christians connect the gospel to their work. At home, I am a husband and a father to two wonderful girls under the age of three. To say my life is insane right now is a bit of an understatement. But by the grace of God alone, I am âmanagingâ it all and still somehow get 7 hours of sleep every night...
The Boldest Entrepreneurs on the Planet
Jun 18, 2018
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Galatians 3:26-27 (NIV)
Immediately before Jesus spent forty days in the desert resisting relentless temptation by the adversary, he was baptised in the Jordan River. The last two verses of Matthew 3 recount the event: âAs soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, âThis is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.ââ
The very next verse (Matthew 4:1) says, âThen Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.â The fact that these events are found back-to-back arenât coincidental. Before Jesus kicks-off his public ministry with what must have been an agonizing forty days alone in the wilderness with Satan, God the Father audibly...
Hope in Times of Failure
Jun 11, 2018
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 (NIV)
In the booming Chicago of the 1860s, there lived a young Christian family of six whose patriarch was a prominent lawyer and investor. All was going well for the young man and his family until the Great Chicago Fire destroyed much of his real estate. The loss was significant, but it paled in comparison to the tragedy the man would experience just two years later when his wife and daughters were in a shipwreck as they sailed from New York to England. All four daughters died in the crash. Upon arriving in England, the mother telegrammed her husband in Chicago. âSaved alone,â she said.
The husband left Chicago right away, sailing off to England to meet his grieving wife. We donât know much about his journey across the Atlantic, but I have to imagine the man spent his days alone, grieving his loss and qu...
