What is real leadership? According to Jesus, a leader is the servant of all.

When Jesus came to the earth, He came disguised as a servant. He came as an ordinary person. The Bible teaches us in Isaiah that He was so ordinary you would have walked right past Him and never noticed Him. He could have come looking any way He wanted. But He came to serve — no pomp, no ceremony — as a baby born in a barn. That should tell us a lot about how we should live.

So many today excuse themselves from truly serving, as if it’s beneath them. Their station, status, or wealth somehow determines whether they serve or not. But if we want to be like Jesus, Who is the King of all kings — God Himself — then we must humble ourselves and serve. Serve God by serving others. The Church is the place Jesus established where you can serve others.

It’s amazing to me that Jesus said, “The greatest among you must be a servant” (Matthew 23:11 NLT), and yet we excuse ourselves. We say we are too busy living life — too busy with our career, too busy getting an education, too busy making money.

Live life but serve.
Get a career but serve.
Get an education but serve.
Make millions of dollars but serve.
Be busy but serve.
Take care of your family but serve.

No matter what we have accomplished, or our status in life; if we are going to be more like Jesus, we must serve.

Just a thought,

PSS

The Bible talks about trials, troubles, and temptations. It also says when we experience trials and troubles we should see it as an opportunity to grow — to mature in our relationship with God and in how we deal with problems.

Now temptations are different from trials or troubles. Temptations come from the inside, while trials come from the outside. The Bible teaches that temptations don’t come from God but from the evil desires that dwell in our hearts and minds. But trials come to us from circumstances, sometimes beyond our control. We will all have them — no one is immune to trials or troubles in life. But how we see them is of vital importance. The Bible teaches we should see them as opportunities to grow and mature as a Christian and as a person.

Some think when we face hardships of any kind it’s because God doesn’t care or doesn’t love us. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t believe God causes hardships, but if we honor Him and keep His word, they can cause us to become stronger, better in life.

Trials will let you know what you are all about, what you really believe. They can tell us what our weak spots are and what our strengths are. Next time you find yourself in a trial, stay true to God and look for the solutions and learn from them. See James 1:2-4, 13-14.

Just a thought,

PSS

In life, we get to choose. God created us with the ability to choose — to make choices. In Deuteronomy 30:19b, He said to choose life, that we and our descendants will live. So many of us believe more strongly in our past than in our ability to choose. While we may not have had the ability to control the past events in our lives, we do have the ability to choose how we respond to those events.

The solution to all the problems in our lives lies within us. We can choose to become bitter or resentful of the past, to become a victim of the past, or to become prideful of the things we have accomplished in the past. But it is still our choice. We get to choose how we respond to the past. The past may guide our choices moving forward but it doesn’t make our choices for us. If we make better choices moving forward, we will get different results. We can blame others for what we are or have experienced in our lives, or we can choose to move forward from it. Again, it’s our choice!

It’s always easier to put the responsibility for our actions onto someone else than to accept responsibility for ourselves. We — not anyone else — will be held accountable for our own actions. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in our bodies (2 Corinthians 5:10b NLT). Let’s quit making excuses, living in the past, and blaming others, and let’s choose life.

Don’t allow the past to determine your future. Let’s ask God to heal the past hurts so we can move forward to what lies ahead of us. The possibilities are endless for those who believe. 

Happy New Year. May 2017 be the greatest year yet.

Just a thought,

PSS

I hope you had a Merry Christmas — the time of year when we get to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus. He is the Christ, Anointed One, God with us. It’s not only His birth, but the reason for His birth. He came to take away the sins of the world — that whoever would believe in Him would have everlasting life. What a great thing God did for all of us. He wishes all would come to know Him as Savior and Lord. But, unfortunately, so many reject Him. They reject His Son. 

Now we look forward to a New Year. For some, it will be a new start. For some, a rededication to continue to do things they believe will help them in life. My prayer is that we will dedicate ourselves to getting to know God even better than we do right now, that we will continue to serve Him and support His Church, that we will take one or two areas of our lives and purpose to work on them — to get stronger in them, to grow in those areas so we overcome anything that is weighing us down or keeping us from realizing His greatness in our lives.

2017 can be our greatest year if we truly humble ourselves and pray, and every day ask God to be merciful toward us and give us strength to become more like Him. May you finish this year strong and enter 2017 with great purpose. 

Just a thought, 

PSS

Our level of disappointment is directly proportionate to our level of expectation. We all need to live life with great expectations. But our expectations need to be reasonable ones — ones based on facts and truth — expectations that have been communicated. 

At times we have unspoken expectations of people, of work, of our bosses, and especially of God. We will have expectations that are not based on anything concrete. But, nonetheless, our disappointment is real.

We must all learn to manage our expectations and base them on something more than a wish. The sad truth is so many are disappointed with a variety of things that were never discussed or agreed upon.

I might have certain expectations of my spouse that are a constant source of disappointment. But what we find is that our expectations were never communicated to them. We get mad and upset because somehow we think others should just know what we expect. We must learn to articulate: let people around us know what our expectations of them are. If we don’t, then that is on us, not them.

This is especially true with God: We expect things from Him that He never said He would do. We will accuse Him of not caring or not loving us. Why? Because He didn’t do this or that. Some of our expectations are based on wrong thinking or lack of knowledge. We must learn what God actually promises in His word, then pray and expect what He actually says. 

We all need to live with expectation — that good will come or good things will happen. Learn to believe and think the best of people. Let’s all learn to manage our expectations based on truth and knowledge.

Just a thought,

PSS