Life is too short and the world too compassion-starved for you to keep subsisting in situations that drag you down and curtail your potential to help advance the Kingdom. There’s just too much at stake.
The Lord’s Prayer is an excellent model, but it was never intended to be a magical incantation to get God’s attention. Jesus gave this prayer as a pattern to suggest the variety of elements that should be included when we pray.
People will not follow a leader with moral incongruities for long. Every time you compromise character you compromise leadership. The foundation of firm leadership is character.
Wise leaders understand that the single greatest determinant of whether followers will ever own a vision deeply is the extent to which whose followers believe the leader will own it.
Prayerless people cut themselves off from God’s prevailing power, and the frequent result is the familiar feeling of being overwhelmed, overrun, beaten down, pushed around, defeated. Surprising numbers of people are willing to settle for lives like that.
Jesus is not directing the angelic choir, taking long naps, or doing crossword puzzles. He is completely focused on building his church, the hope of the world.
And when enough churches are thriving, you can affect a region, a country, and eventually the entire world with the positive, life-changing power of Jesus Christ and the redeeming and restoring work of his people.
Religion is spelled ‘D-O’, because it consists of the things people do try to somehow gain God’s forgiveness and favor. But the problem is that you never know when you’ve done enough. But thankfully, Christianity is spelled differently.
