In 2018, Stacy Edwards and her daughters were in a horrible accident caused by a lady running a red light at 45 MPH. While Stacy and her daughters walked away without serious injuries, the statement of the lady who ran the red light was confusing. The lady at fault made a statement, included on the police report, that she “felt like the light was green.” (Homelife, December 2018)
Can you imagine the look on Stacy’s face as she read what the lady had said? Her life was put in jeopardy because someone “felt like the light was green” instead of the fact the light was red.
While feelings matter, they do not trump facts. In the case of Stacy Edwards and her family, the facts were simple; their light was green and the cross-traffic light was red. When we rely on only our feelings, we risk putting ourselves in danger as well as others.
Take Ananias and Sapphira for example. I am sure that both felt their decision was justifiable. However, the fact was they were lying. The knew the truth, but possibly relied on feelings to guide their path to danger.
Consider these verses:
“Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” (Proverbs 28.26)
“The way of a fool is right in his own eye, but a wise man listens to advice.” (Proverb 12.15)
Your feelings do matter, but we must remember our feelings do not trump facts. As Christians, the facts of spiritual life and given to us by God and we must live by them. (2 Peter 1.3)
John Maxwell made the statement that, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” I believe he is correct.
Leadership is going to, and already is a major topic across the globe and people are realizing it more and more every day. In a recent newsletter from a friend in another country, this statement was said,
“And everything is blamed on the same Ukraine war, even though we know the primary problem is our inept leaders.”
Leaders do not provide excuses, they provide solutions.
Who is leading you today?
The church needs spiritual leaders to rise and shepherd the flock of God. We need leaders who are actively seeking solutions to guide our congregations, by the word of God, into the future.
We need leaders/shepherds who will not shirk from their spiritual duties and becoming entrapped in the world excuses. We need those leaders to seek the solutions found in the word of God and bring that message to others.
We need leaders/shepherds to be in the front leading people. They do not need to inhabit a pew, but they need to be in leading.
Sin is vicious and it takes a toll on a person and the ramifications can be great. In this lesson, I borrowed a few points from John Maxwell’s book “The 21 Most Powerful Minutes in a Leader’s Day.” In this book, John Maxwell, makes the points that sin does more than what we know.
The three points John Maxwell makes became valuable points in my lesson:
(1) Sin always takes you farther than you want to go.
(2) Sin always keeps you longer than you wanted to stay.
(3) Sin always costs you more thanks were willing to pay.
As we all know, the Christian life is one of action. James writes Christians should be “doers of the word and not hearers only.” (James 1.22) James goes further in his writings be saying that faith without works is dead (James 2.14,26)
Actions matter to a because, not only is it required, but when Christians act on their belief, it keeps us going. The example of the early church is powerful because, even in the face of persecution, they never stopped meeting (Acts 5.42) and they never stopped serving and growing (Acts 6.1-7). Just as they kept moving, so should we.
During the pandemic, the Giant Dipper rollercoaster in Mission Beach, California, kept on moving, but there were no human passengers. When the pandemic happened and places were shutting down, the staff at Belmont Park determined the rollercoaster needed to run 12 times a day to keep in it good repair.
They wanted to maintain the rollercoaster so it would be ready for its centennial birthday in May 2024. To do this, they would need to keep running the rollercoaster. Instead of human passengers, the Belmont Park staff filled the rollercoaster with large stuffed animals from the nearby games. Videos of the stuffed animal filled rollercoaster circulated across the internet bringing publicity to the park, and the rollercoaster kept moving.
Christians need to keep moving as we press on toward the prize. (Philippians 3.14) Even in the hard times, like a pandemic, we need to keep moving so we do not let our spiritual lives deteriorate. (Galatians 6.9).
To circumvent the road rules in Jakarta, consider to be the world’s most congested city, people are becoming “professional passengers.”
The idea of being a professional passenger began after city officials created a new rule for the roads. The new rule, called the 3-in-1 rule, created car-pooling to lessen traffic on the roads, but it created another issue – professional passengers.
Professional passengers are people hired to sit in a car and do nothing. They do not know about the journey or the destination. They are there to be paid. The professional passengers (sometimes called jockeys) include single mothers and children. Officials have found that children have left school to become professional passengers because of the money.
Would you become a professional passenger? Would you sit in a car and just “be there?” You would not know the destination and have no care for what might take place?
The question I would ask is, “Are there professional passengers in the church?” Are there individuals who are filling pews instead of living a Christ filled life?
Certainly, we know that being a Christian is more than filling a pew. It is living a life of a higher purpose (1 Thessalonians 2.12). While we are to be listeners of the word of God, we are also to act on what we hear and have learned. (James 1.22)
Remember what Paul said to Timothy, “who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…” (2 Timothy 1:9)
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