Continue to be Good, Generous and Caring

I gave some thought to what could be shared in this blog format we have to keep it ongoing. I have had the following statement pinned next to my desk at work for a long time and thought I would share it.  Maybe you have some favorite statements, poems, etc. that you may want to [...]

giving your life to Jesus

So, where do we go from here?
Our class has participated in two forty day studies this year — each of them designed to engage and “transform” us.  Actually, that has to happen off the page.  While helpful, no book can substitute for living a transformed (or purpose driven) life.
It takes work, it takes patience, it [...]

Day 40 – claim your treasure

I had gotten a little behind on my reading this week.  Rob and I have tried to read the chapters together in the mornings, but sometimes schedules (and forgetfulness) have gotten in the way.  As I was looking over the remaining chapters for the week, I was struck by an idea that I remembered from [...]

day 39 – a standard of excellence

A standard of excellence….. 
Bur he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.   II Corinthians 12: 9 
Jesus was our model for excellence and perfection.  As John Ed [...]

Servanthood Leadership

Fellow Class Mates,
I know many of you are in leadership positions, whether you admit it or not,  and I wanted to share the following email devotional I received with you. It summarizes servanthood leadership at its best.  Enjoy.  
The qualifications for being a leader do not consist solely of sitting behind a desk and barking out orders [...]

Another pithy quote

While flipping through the channels last night, I heard one of those cable TV preachers with the really strange hair make a pretty clever comment about how things generally all work out in God’s own good time:
“We take care of our character; God takes care of our calendar.”
Just thought I’d pass that along.
I didn’t hear [...]

Day 38 – Sharing your faith

In this chapter the topic of Sharing your Faith is compared to going fishing.  Mathison uses a good illustration that a winning fisherman claimed his ability to win the fishing tournament was not because he was an expert at using the equipment or that he watched or studied the other fisherman but it was do to [...]

Day 37: Spiritual Maturity

We will forgo any discussion as to why Teacher Tom felt compelled to assign the most senior of our class members the lesson about “maturity” — the one that begins with a treatise on old lobsters.
We will instead move ahead with our topic for today — spiritual maturity — and perhaps even discuss how we [...]

Day 36 — where you’re headed

I guess it’s no secret that I ride horses.  One of the classes I like is competition trail. Simply put, In a trail class, a horse and rider maneuver through a course of obstacles and receive a score over each obstacle. (Neutral, plus or minus).  There are usually only a few strides between each obstacle and [...]

Day 35 – small price to pay

What more can you say?
John Ed Mathison sums up this week by reviewing each of the week’s previous chapters.  We should imitate Christ in offering ourselves in service:  humbly and with a motivation born of gratitude and love for God and empathy and love for our fellow beings.  We should also volunteer ourselves with the [...]