What have we go to lose?

I was just listening to Joyce Meyer today as she refered to the story of four lepers in 2 Kings 7:3-11.

I love this story. Four guys suddenly realize that they've got nothing to lose. They could do what they've always done and end up dying of starvation at the gate or they could get up and go outside the gate. The worst that could happen would be that the army laying siege to their city would kill them. If the army spared them they'd live.

Isn't that so much like our lives? I've heard many speakers say, "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got." A similiar saying is, "The definition of 'insanity' is doing what you've always done and expecting different results."

Are you expecting Kingdom breakthroughs? If you are, good. But have your actions and attitudes changed? They don't need to change to "get" the breakthrough. But they should voluntarily change because of God's grace-filled promise of a breakthrough.

Look at the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector in Luke 19:1-10. Jesus extended friendship to him before he promised to clean up his act. His extravagant promise of restitution--which went far beyond the legal requirements of the day--came as a spontaneous response to Jesus' grace-filled contact.

That's how our actions should change too. Not to get His grace but because we've already received it.

How about you? Are you sitting in the gate of your life today or are you going to venture out? After all, what have you got to lose?

More on waiting

I've been camping out in Matthew 25 for more than a week now. Check out the story of the man giving money to his servants. He gave to "each according to his ability" (25:15).

Isn't that radical? We in North America seem to think that all things must be equal. People should have equal access and equal recognition. I'm not prepared to say that equality is a bad thing! But it doesn't appear that God is worried about equality. He's more interested in equipping us to do the task he knows we're able to do. Isn't that encouraging?

Think about it: He gives gifts to each of us according to our ability. If we're feeling overwhelmed, perhaps one of the best things we could pray is: "Ok. You obviously think I have the ability to handle this. Could you show that ability to me?"

Waiting on the Lord

God gave me an epiphany at church. Sorry Phil, it was during your sermon but I wasn't in the sanctuary. I was praying with a person who'd stood up for prayer earlier in the service.

During his prayer, he refered to the Parable of the 10 Virgins found in Matthew 25:1-13. He mentioned them in the context of waiting on God to fulfill the incredibly huge dreams He's given both of us.

That's when a light went on. I've often avoided saying "I'm waiting on the Lord." because it can sound so hokey. Sort of a sugar coated cop-out for sloth. But in this parable (and the one right after it) Jesus is teaching exactly about waiting on God by giving examples of what to do and what not to do.

Our waiting is really waiting but it's also active. The wise ladies were prepared for a wait. They brought extra oil with them. When the bridegroom showed up, when the kingdom broke in, they were ready.

I can easily relate this to financial stewardship. My wife and I worked our butts off for the first five years of our marriage to get out of debt. At one point, a full 50% of our paycheck was going against credit card debt. All the while we kept tithing and building up a savings.

So when God radically called us to a whole new life in January 2003, we were ready. We had 3-6 months salary in the bank which made us much more flexible than if we'd been strapped down by debt. I guess you could say we had oil in our jars.

So what's my point? I'm not entirely sure but, hey, it's my blog so I can ramble, right? *grin* I guess my point is that "waiting on the Lord" is both active and passive. In our hearts and beings, we know we're waiting for God to break in. With our actions and time, we're making the most of whatever we have so that we'll be ready when He does break in.

I'm so glad Jesus has given us examples of how waiting on Him is not the same as being lazy!

How many times have you practiced your routine?

Whether you're in sales, speaking, or even parenting, you know that appropriate practice leads you closer to perfection. Well, at least with sales and speaking. *grin*

Watching the Olympics over the weekend, I heard a lot of commentary about the judges changing scoring that led Blaine Wilson and Jason Gatson to change their routine a mere 48 hours before their Olympic performance. (You can read about it at: MSNBC - Confusion Contributes to Gymnast's Fall.)

I was shocked to learn that these athletes practice the same routine for an entire year to be prepared for the few minutes of Olympic competition. An entire year!

What would your sales or speaking look like if you devoted an entire year--6-8 hours per day--practicing the same routine? What if you devoted simply an hour a day to improving your core speach or sales presentation? Or your parenting?

I know I get bored easily and am always moving on to the next thing. But hearing about the training the Olympic athletes do has inspired me to reconsider.

Will you join me in identifying a routine you're currently doing and sticking with it for a year? Let me know! My email is: marc@fundraisingcoach.com.

Church of the Customer

One key to personal productivity is being around people that don't think like you. Thanks to the web, this ability is almost limitless!

If you haven't checked out the Church of the Customer blog, you're missing out. Ben and Jackie share creative and terrific thoughts on marketing and "evangelism."

Another great blog that I'm constantly reading is Seth Godin's. There are some incredible thoughts going under that hairless scalp! Fortunately he gifts them to us via his blog.

Finally, I've really appreciated BlogLines.com. It's helped me keep current on the blogs I'm interested in without having to keep going to each blog's site.

If you sign up for Bloglines, be sure to subcribe to my blogs. Here are the addresses:

**This blog: http://smellingcoffee.blogspot.com/
**My blog on my thoughts about fundraising:
http://blog.fundraisingcoach.com/

Marc

Rob Bell's June 13th "God is too Big for Your Bucket"

I just listened to Rob Bell's 14th message in his "Mastering the Art of Living" called "God is too Big for your Bucket". If you haven't heard his teaching on life and Scripture, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

He looks at stories in Luke 9:49-50 and Numbers 11:24-29. Both places the prophets' disciples get bent out of shape that people outside of their clique are moving in God's power.

Isn't that just like us? We think we've got God figured out and we start defending our formula--trying to manage Him. But God irritatingly keeps on pouring His Spirit out according to His rules, not ours!

Jesus and Moses both have the lenses of "Father, where are you moving? Where are you breaking in?" They don't get bent out of shape when the Father moves in ways they didn't necessarily expect. Instead, they rejoice that the Kingdom is expanding.

May we all respond like that.

[Free aside: check out all of Luke 11 and notice all of the parallels with Jesus' ministry and Moses'. Jesus splits up the crowd into groups like Moses did after he took Jethro's advice. Jesus goes up a mount, speaks with God, and radiantly glows...just like Moses. (In fact, Moses was there with Him!) Then he has an almost identical story of his followers trying to stop the Spirit's movement outside of whatever they think the lines are. Do you see what Luke is doing? He's showing that Jesus is not only like Moses, but superior to him. He's the new Moses, the one Moses himslef prophesied about in Deuteronomy 18:15: "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him."]