Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Leaders Work With God In Mind

Proverbs 23:4 –5 (MSG) Don't wear yourself out trying to get rich; restrain yourself! Riches disappear in the blink of an eye; wealth sprouts wings and flies off into the wild blue yonder.

Being known as a “hard worker” is good: working for the right reasons; now that is important.

We are called in our work life, to use a heavenly screen, as it were, to filter out everything that is about us. Doing it for me is dangerous: God warned us that. "...when your herds and flocks grow large and your sliver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

It is all about attitude - about what is in our hearts. New cars. New houses. Hobbies. Vacation homes. Traveling. Season tickets to the Symphony, Opera, to sporting events. All of these are subject to our attitude. God has given us a certain level and ability to accumulate resources. What we do with those resources, what we think about this resources, what we say about them reflect our heart.

The question is do these things possess us or are we stewards of God's bounty to us?

Leaders Want To Be Known For The “Right Stuff”

Proverbs 22:1 (NIV) A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.

Two attributes are more desirable than all the wealth we can accumulate: to be well spoken of and to be held in high esteem by others.

Both point to personal purpose: knowing who you are and what your purpose is. I hope you have a handle on that.

A.W. Tozer offered seven “tests” for us to use when we want to understand better how we are “known” and what really drives us:

  1. What we want most
  2. What we think about most
  3. How we use our money
  4. What we do with our leisure time
  5. The company we enjoy
  6. Who and what we admire
  7. What we laugh at

And remember, as my Mom used to say: “What you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you say.” How are you “doing?”

Copyright ©2007 by P. Griffith Lindell

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