The PF Women Team at our Annual Team Retreat ~ 2018 Today on Seth Godin's blog, he said: It's tempting to decide to make a profit first, then invest in training, people, facilities, promotion, customer service and most of all, doing important work. In general, though, it goes the other way. Yes, it does. If you are waiting to make a profit before you do these things, in my experience you're not going to make a profit. So many organizations, ministries and churches are struggling with financial issues. I know your pain. As anyone who follows our story knows, our ministry was in a ton of debt four years ago when I came on as director. Since that time, we've gotten out of debt and turned a profit every year. God has done amazing things through out team, for which we give Him the glory! I find that what Seth is saying here is absolutely true, with one disclaimer. For Christian leaders, spiritual disciplines must always be first. Before we started i...
Today My Utmost for His Highest says: "Jesus Christ did not say, "Go and save souls" (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but He said, "Go . . . make disciples of all the nations . . . ." Yet you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples returned from their first mission, they were filled with joy because even the demons were subject to them. But Jesus said, in effect, "Don’t rejoice in successful service— the great secret of joy is that you have the right relationship with Me" (see Luke 10:17-20 ). The missionary’s great essential is remaining true to the call of God, and realizing that his one and only purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus."
This is the cry of my heart ~ to be a true discipler of people. I feel like so much gets in the way of that. So much stuff that I never ask for but feel powerless over. I do not mean just tactical work, but I speak of distractions that call me away from discipleship. Not planned tasks or initiatives, but the tyranny of the urgent that so often creeps in, and years later I have nothing to show for those precious hours. I am asking God to help me know what do do about that. I have a feeling it's going to come in the form of some armor bearers that will help me to keep distractions at bay.
My one purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus - starting with my family - emanating out to the world around me. Remaining true to THE CALL.
First I do want to be more of an effective disciple myself. I know what that means. More time in the Word, more time in prayer, and coming more under the control of the Holy Ghost. I am asking God to help me to align myself with Him daily, not to align Him to me, but to bring me into perfect harmony with His desires.
I already finished reading Night. I'm giving it to Dustin tonight. We were riding to take him to the store for gadgets to go with his PSP and also to dinner, and while he was sleeping in the car, I held my cell phone up to the pages in the dark and read them. I was so incredibly intrigued by the book. Wow. This is a life changer. Why in the world did I never hear of this book before? Every American should read it. I brought Joyce Landorf book with me to read but truthfully all I want to read before bed tonight is the Word. I think I'll finish the Landorf book on the plane. Good stuff but honestly as I read it, it's bringing up painful things for me to deal with and so I'd rather take it in smaller doses, and work through it.
Dustin and I practiced a few times but I'm still a bit raspy. Things will get better by tomorrow. I'm sleeping as long a I want to. A rare luxury although Larry has given me 2 sleep in days lately to try and get my strength back. I miss him. He and Jordan are watching a movie at home and he is IM'ing me right now. I can't wait til' our next day off together. We need it. So much has been going on we haven't had a day together in a few weeks, but our time is coming.
In the midst of all that's happening, I find myself saying, "God please make me your disciple more and more on a daily basis. Because if that's not what I'm doing, I've truly wasted the last 20 years and blown it if my goal is anything different than truly being your disciple.
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