By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
Nehemiah 8:10 “This is a sacred day before our Lord.
Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the LORD is your strength!”
There are foundational moments in life in which the Lord requests us to complete a task that is clearly beyond your strength, natural gifts and comfort zone. When that time comes, whom will you serve? Will I act in faith, get out of the boat, and walk on the water, or will I run as fast as I can in the opposite direction? Irrespective of our decision, we will experience a range of emotions, from excitement, joy, and anticipation, to fear, anxiety, and dread. The key element is how we respond. The analogy the Lord gave me recently is that of a roller coaster. Life is a mandatory roller coaster that we all must ride, and we can either enjoy the trip, or go “kicking and screaming.” We choose how we respond to the situation, either with faith and confidence, with what psychologists term eustress (positive emotions), or with stress (negative or damaging emotions). When Dr. Campo graciously offered me the Interim Dean position, it was like a giant scary roller coaster, with sheer mountain steep climbs and deep canyon chasm dips. It had those warning signs that all with heart and back conditions should get out of line now! The emotions are boiling, and the enemy is screaming in your head you will die or throw up!
However, the truth is that those who love roller coasters and those that fear them are experiencing the same physiological responses, but with radically different emotional interpretations. To the person who loves roller coasters, it is an adventure and an ecstasy producing a wonderful adrenaline rush. To those who would choose to fear, it is a form of torment and torture. We make the choice. God will complete the good work in us one way or another. Stress or eustress, death or life. We make these little choices every day. The Devil uses fear to steal the joy of eustress, or turn eustress into stress. It is another act of deception, designed to steal, kill, and destroy. We need to pray for the Lord’s help to change our stress to eustress for the Glory of God!
Satan uses our “fear of fear” to deceive us into labeling and transforming natural eustress (childlike wonder, excitement) into stress by not trusting God for Romans 8:28 protection (all things produce good). Conversely, when we trust the Lord, we can change our stress into eustress. When we face our fears (Psalm 56:3 When I am afraid I will trust in thee), you are “working out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12)” and pleasing God. When faith and fear are equal, you are still in faith when you stand your ground and move forward. The Devil is liar. You will complete the roller coaster ride and eventually learn to enjoy it! In addition, even if you do run away, the Lord is patient, forgiving, and grace filled.
Remember Elijah bolted into the desert after his great victory on Mount Carmel when Jezebel threatened him and the disciples fled in their moment of testing at the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. Did God condemn them for acting on fear? No, God restored and strengthened them all after their abject failures. The Devil is a liar, and even when our fears do come true, God’s grace and protection is greater and He completes the good work began in us (Philippians 1:6).
This was illustrated by my own roller coaster rides with the fear of public speaking (a fear worse than death for many). About 15 years ago, I had a major presentation to the Provost with a colleague. It was an important meeting, but my anxiety over the speaking situation increased significantly given that I had a petty rivalry with my colleague. I had prepared well, but for some reason in the middle of my presentation, I looked into the eyes of the Provost and lost my place. I could not regain my composure What stress! My worst fear as a public speaker came true, the deer in the headlights! What shame and suffering! The Provost had the other colleague do the follow-up presentation the next day to the Board. I felt humiliated with permanent damage, or so I thought.
However, I gradually recovered with God’s gentle grace and teaching. The reality was that even though I “vomited on the roller coaster,” life went on and God taught me valuable lessons. My colleague was supportive, and we reconciled. I repented for my jealousy. My boss still had confidence in me, my promotion and tenure went through, and students still took my classes. God used this situation to humble me. The enemy still uses the memory of this event to instill stress in public speaking situations, but I have learned to respond with God’s word and transform my stress into eustress. Below are seven principles in your battle against stress:
1. Face your fears with the Word: Courage is not the absence of fear, but persisting in its presence (Psalm 56:3, When I am afraid, I will trust in you).
2. Embrace trust and humility and reject pride and perfectionism: We are not responsible for the outcome (God gives the increase, 1 Corinthians 3:7) and allow yourself to fail with grace (God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, 2 Corinthians 12:9). Our role is to obey by getting on the roller coaster!
3. Reject emotional reasoning or decision making by feelings. Even when our conscious condemns us, God is greater than our feelings and will lead us through the trial (1 John 3:20).
4. In personal conflict situations with others, respond in love, and don’t personalize the situation. Learn to love your enemies and serve just and unjust masters. Use the example of David. When Saul threw spears, David ducked (1 Samuel 18:11)!
5. Our Spiritual job description is the most important element: We need to serve with Love until God relieves us (Don’t get out of line!). Resist the temptation to flee challenging situations. Stand still, and as the Lord opened the Red Sea, God will enable us to walk through our fears and God destroys the Egyptians (our fears) behind us (Exodus 14:11-13).
6. Practice Grace: When others or institutions fail us, reject bitterness. We are all works in progress and prodigal sons requiring forgiveness (Luke 15). Let others get on their roller coaster again.
7. Reject complacency: Learn from Elijah (1 Kings 19). In your battles, you are not alone. The enemy will try and steal the victory and say that you lack the strength to re-board the roller coaster. That is a lie!
I pray for that you will win the battle against stress in your life and experience the joy of the Lord in every life event. May the Lord provide the courage to get on your own personal roller coaster! To Him be the glory!
Monday, July 2, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
Reflections on Life Margin
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
John 15:1-5 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
As John 15 so eloquently portrays, “connection to the vine” is a foundational requirement for good fruit. Life margin is the intentional cultivation of a God honoring lifestyle that embraces harmony and balance among the key life domains, (God, family, work, church, community, rest, and recreation) under the direction of the Holy Spirit. We cannot reduce margin to a legalistic formula given the complexity of life and God’s intricate plans. There are seasons of intense work followed by rest and family emphasis. What are some of the key principles for remaining “connected to the vine?”
We are frequently our own worst enemy when it comes to life margin. Regent professors and students are very achievement oriented, and we do not like to lose. Satan inflates the importance of the ends to encourage the use of illegitimate means, or to deceive us regarding the moral integrity of the ends. Our drive to succeed can enslave us as we attempt to achieve goals that we falsely believe equate with enduring success. We use the wrong standards and measuring stick to assess success. Godly success occurs through the ongoing work of sanctification and Christian character development as we learn to live, work and play like Christ. It is a pernicious lie that success and peace comes from things, not the creator. Our challenge is to recalibrate our standards of excellence and the goals/ends pursued according to God's metrics. As author, Richard Swenson states in his book Margin, the most important criterion of success is the cultivation of obedience through loving relationships.
Satan adroitly uses the temptation of accomplishments and recognition to distract each of us from our true mission and purpose. In effect, our spiritual job description is always the most important element. The pride of performance, recognition, and wealth is a powerful drug that manifests diminishing returns thereby increasing our craving for more attention and recognition. Many Christians are enslaving their lives to the God of mammon blinded by the allure of power, wealth, and material comforts over relationships. No one on their deathbed regrets not making more money; it is the deep pain of lost time and relationships that trouble the soul. Let us commit to place our hearts and minds on the things of God. Only the blood of Jesus provides the solution.
We must make time for the simple, but profoundly important elements that are the heartbeat of God, which is time spent in loving God and others. Modern life presents the continual temptation to substitute activity over being, by the need to prove our spiritual mettle by works. Busyness disconnects us from the vine and the life giving presence and voice of the Holy Spirit. A hectic level of activity promotes legalism, a spirit of works, and a spirit of pride as we are unable to discern the best from the good. Our frenetic activity level leaves us vulnerable to compassion fatigue, discouragement and an absence of joy. We become vulnerable to all forms of temptation given that we are not walking closely with our first love. Is the root cause of our malady the amount of time, or is it something else?
The key factor is to ask the Lord to identify our root motive for what we do. We must rest in the spirit of grace if our motives are to flow from God's perfect will. The challenge is to separate the “best from the good.” Clearly, the answer is resting in the grace of God and receiving his instructions that define the true “best” elements.
God frequently brings us to the end of our personal resources to snap our lethargy and spirit of self-sufficiency. The absence of Godly vision distorts our lenses. When we operate under our own power and authority, we alternate between pride and fear, impatience and procrastination. I understand how frustrating and painful such a time of overload represents (both in a physical and emotional setting), but this weapon that the enemy formed against you will not prosper. I pray for the liberating presence of the Holy Spirit to guide your steps as you "right-size."
Working mothers have great challenges in this area, and the key is to avoid labeling family member “wants” and luxuries as necessities forcing women to become "super moms." Our journey in life takes many circuitous paths, and one of the burdens we add is assuming an inordinate degree of responsibility for our family success and safety, especially for single parent families. Being from a broken home myself, I understand the pain and the fear. We must focus on the essentials as directed by God. Given the inherent stresses and spiritual warfare burdens that single parenting create, the single parent's level of margin is narrower than a fully intact family. This requires an even more enhanced prioritization process. The absence of margin can assume the role of a spiritual stronghold and a generational curse. God provides the means to deliver us from generational sins if we confess, repent and renounce our sins and seek first the Kingdom of God. Breaking the yokes of oppression includes remedying the absence of margin and simplicity. We must be available for our children. The family is ground zero of the spiritual warfare battle. The wounds inflicted on children are designed to imprison and yoke them with lifetime burdens and to promote sinful and dysfunctional means to meeting needs.
Margin entails the ongoing practice of spiritual disciplines. To pray continually means that we are mindful and God communicates to us in our everyday activities. When we dedicate our everyday activities to the Lord, they become a sacred prayer and hymn of worship. To meditate on the word is important, as quantity is not nearly as important as heart-based reflection. The challenge for each one of us is to build Godly margin so we can engage in a vital two-way relationship. We must set God-honoring boundaries to cultivate margin and the energy to love others deeply. One key element is to keep the Sabbath a time of God, rest and family. This entails limiting our work hours, taking time for exercise, sleep and rest, and eating correctly.
We must separate the best from the good through ongoing communion with the Lord. One of the great temptations that we must face is simply adding unessential tasks and duties. If we sweep our house clean, and do not keep it filled with the Holy Spirit, we will continue to add more clutter. Our role is to obey God and perform to the best of our abilities. An honest day's work and be content with our wages. God is responsible for the outcome and the fruit. If we take responsibility for success and failure, we are implicitly assuming control over the outcome promoting a prideful attitude. May the Lord provide His ongoing blessings guidance as He provides greater levels of margin based grace.
Swenson, R. (2004). Margin: Restoring emotional, physical, financial, and time reserves to overloaded lives. Colorado Springs, CO: Navigation Press.
Robertson School of Government
John 15:1-5 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
As John 15 so eloquently portrays, “connection to the vine” is a foundational requirement for good fruit. Life margin is the intentional cultivation of a God honoring lifestyle that embraces harmony and balance among the key life domains, (God, family, work, church, community, rest, and recreation) under the direction of the Holy Spirit. We cannot reduce margin to a legalistic formula given the complexity of life and God’s intricate plans. There are seasons of intense work followed by rest and family emphasis. What are some of the key principles for remaining “connected to the vine?”
We are frequently our own worst enemy when it comes to life margin. Regent professors and students are very achievement oriented, and we do not like to lose. Satan inflates the importance of the ends to encourage the use of illegitimate means, or to deceive us regarding the moral integrity of the ends. Our drive to succeed can enslave us as we attempt to achieve goals that we falsely believe equate with enduring success. We use the wrong standards and measuring stick to assess success. Godly success occurs through the ongoing work of sanctification and Christian character development as we learn to live, work and play like Christ. It is a pernicious lie that success and peace comes from things, not the creator. Our challenge is to recalibrate our standards of excellence and the goals/ends pursued according to God's metrics. As author, Richard Swenson states in his book Margin, the most important criterion of success is the cultivation of obedience through loving relationships.
Satan adroitly uses the temptation of accomplishments and recognition to distract each of us from our true mission and purpose. In effect, our spiritual job description is always the most important element. The pride of performance, recognition, and wealth is a powerful drug that manifests diminishing returns thereby increasing our craving for more attention and recognition. Many Christians are enslaving their lives to the God of mammon blinded by the allure of power, wealth, and material comforts over relationships. No one on their deathbed regrets not making more money; it is the deep pain of lost time and relationships that trouble the soul. Let us commit to place our hearts and minds on the things of God. Only the blood of Jesus provides the solution.
We must make time for the simple, but profoundly important elements that are the heartbeat of God, which is time spent in loving God and others. Modern life presents the continual temptation to substitute activity over being, by the need to prove our spiritual mettle by works. Busyness disconnects us from the vine and the life giving presence and voice of the Holy Spirit. A hectic level of activity promotes legalism, a spirit of works, and a spirit of pride as we are unable to discern the best from the good. Our frenetic activity level leaves us vulnerable to compassion fatigue, discouragement and an absence of joy. We become vulnerable to all forms of temptation given that we are not walking closely with our first love. Is the root cause of our malady the amount of time, or is it something else?
The key factor is to ask the Lord to identify our root motive for what we do. We must rest in the spirit of grace if our motives are to flow from God's perfect will. The challenge is to separate the “best from the good.” Clearly, the answer is resting in the grace of God and receiving his instructions that define the true “best” elements.
God frequently brings us to the end of our personal resources to snap our lethargy and spirit of self-sufficiency. The absence of Godly vision distorts our lenses. When we operate under our own power and authority, we alternate between pride and fear, impatience and procrastination. I understand how frustrating and painful such a time of overload represents (both in a physical and emotional setting), but this weapon that the enemy formed against you will not prosper. I pray for the liberating presence of the Holy Spirit to guide your steps as you "right-size."
Working mothers have great challenges in this area, and the key is to avoid labeling family member “wants” and luxuries as necessities forcing women to become "super moms." Our journey in life takes many circuitous paths, and one of the burdens we add is assuming an inordinate degree of responsibility for our family success and safety, especially for single parent families. Being from a broken home myself, I understand the pain and the fear. We must focus on the essentials as directed by God. Given the inherent stresses and spiritual warfare burdens that single parenting create, the single parent's level of margin is narrower than a fully intact family. This requires an even more enhanced prioritization process. The absence of margin can assume the role of a spiritual stronghold and a generational curse. God provides the means to deliver us from generational sins if we confess, repent and renounce our sins and seek first the Kingdom of God. Breaking the yokes of oppression includes remedying the absence of margin and simplicity. We must be available for our children. The family is ground zero of the spiritual warfare battle. The wounds inflicted on children are designed to imprison and yoke them with lifetime burdens and to promote sinful and dysfunctional means to meeting needs.
Margin entails the ongoing practice of spiritual disciplines. To pray continually means that we are mindful and God communicates to us in our everyday activities. When we dedicate our everyday activities to the Lord, they become a sacred prayer and hymn of worship. To meditate on the word is important, as quantity is not nearly as important as heart-based reflection. The challenge for each one of us is to build Godly margin so we can engage in a vital two-way relationship. We must set God-honoring boundaries to cultivate margin and the energy to love others deeply. One key element is to keep the Sabbath a time of God, rest and family. This entails limiting our work hours, taking time for exercise, sleep and rest, and eating correctly.
We must separate the best from the good through ongoing communion with the Lord. One of the great temptations that we must face is simply adding unessential tasks and duties. If we sweep our house clean, and do not keep it filled with the Holy Spirit, we will continue to add more clutter. Our role is to obey God and perform to the best of our abilities. An honest day's work and be content with our wages. God is responsible for the outcome and the fruit. If we take responsibility for success and failure, we are implicitly assuming control over the outcome promoting a prideful attitude. May the Lord provide His ongoing blessings guidance as He provides greater levels of margin based grace.
Swenson, R. (2004). Margin: Restoring emotional, physical, financial, and time reserves to overloaded lives. Colorado Springs, CO: Navigation Press.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Rising Above Circumstances, Part 1
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
2 Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight
Most non-believers and many Christians are circumstance focused, evaluating their situation in the workplace based upon the naturalistic evidence provided by the senses. This walking by sight isolates us from God’s power. As we approach Memorial Day weekend, one of the “signature” elements of servant leadership as demonstrated by our military men and women throughout history is the ability to rise above the storm of circumstances. By its nature, life presents many painful external situations that we cannot change, but we do possess the ability to transform our reactions with God’s help. This is a fertile area for Christian growth through the implementation of applied consecration principles that contribute to character development (dying to the self).
Many Christians mistakenly say to God, “First change my circumstances and how I feel, and then I will believe or obey.” A clear spiritual law is that we must have faith in God, in spite of our circumstances and the evidence of the senses. In essence we choose to follow and believe God in spite of how the intellect directs us. Once we act on faith, God will either change our circumstances or he will transform us and provide the ability to cope and transcend. In certain cases, we learn to cope within the pain and suffering, preparing us for future trials and Kingdom service. God will fulfill our true needs (not our wants) at just the right time (not on our time schedule). The reason for this is to perfect patience and endurance in our character.
A related point is the importance of maintaining our commitment to excellence in helping others in the midst of the storm of trial. When we willingly and unselfishly share our time, talents, resources and encouragement when we are suffering, it is a powerful act of faith and trust in God that will not go unnoticed by unbelievers. The light of God will shine brightly in the darkness. As evangelist Joel Osteen notes, God recognizes our efforts and stores up blessings to be dispensed later in our lives when we are in great need. Most people follow the selfish and self-defeating principle of how they can be blessed, rather than on how they can become a blessing to others. Agree with the word of God rather than our senses, and watch His power released in your life!
Robertson School of Government
2 Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight
Most non-believers and many Christians are circumstance focused, evaluating their situation in the workplace based upon the naturalistic evidence provided by the senses. This walking by sight isolates us from God’s power. As we approach Memorial Day weekend, one of the “signature” elements of servant leadership as demonstrated by our military men and women throughout history is the ability to rise above the storm of circumstances. By its nature, life presents many painful external situations that we cannot change, but we do possess the ability to transform our reactions with God’s help. This is a fertile area for Christian growth through the implementation of applied consecration principles that contribute to character development (dying to the self).
Many Christians mistakenly say to God, “First change my circumstances and how I feel, and then I will believe or obey.” A clear spiritual law is that we must have faith in God, in spite of our circumstances and the evidence of the senses. In essence we choose to follow and believe God in spite of how the intellect directs us. Once we act on faith, God will either change our circumstances or he will transform us and provide the ability to cope and transcend. In certain cases, we learn to cope within the pain and suffering, preparing us for future trials and Kingdom service. God will fulfill our true needs (not our wants) at just the right time (not on our time schedule). The reason for this is to perfect patience and endurance in our character.
A related point is the importance of maintaining our commitment to excellence in helping others in the midst of the storm of trial. When we willingly and unselfishly share our time, talents, resources and encouragement when we are suffering, it is a powerful act of faith and trust in God that will not go unnoticed by unbelievers. The light of God will shine brightly in the darkness. As evangelist Joel Osteen notes, God recognizes our efforts and stores up blessings to be dispensed later in our lives when we are in great need. Most people follow the selfish and self-defeating principle of how they can be blessed, rather than on how they can become a blessing to others. Agree with the word of God rather than our senses, and watch His power released in your life!
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
The Powerful Weapon of Grace
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
Romans 5:21 "So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." NLT
Have you ever felt under condemnation because you believed you lacked the courage or strength to face a trial? Are you ever concerned that you will fail and let God “down”? I frequently question and doubt myself by fearing that I will not “measure up” in the time of crisis. In most cases, this catastrophic “what-if” thinking is a lie from the pit of hell designed to discourage us from following God’s will. I was recently lost in the wilderness of self-defeat when the Lord revealed a powerful manifestation of grace, a pre-emptive “lightening strike” against the attacks of the enemy through scripture. The life and ministry of Jesus demonstrated that in spite of His omniscient knowledge of the disciples failures and sins, their serious lapses and deficiencies in judgment, character and courage, Jesus always loved and forgave, disciplined, encouraged, showered grace, and said “peace be unto you”! The amazing fact is that God knows our actions, feelings, emotions, thoughts, desires, sins, temptations, and failures before we feel and act on them. David Seamonds, in his book “Healing Grace,” states that because God is pure love, our failings do not influence or change His love towards us. God loves unconditionally, and the ministry of Jesus consistently demonstrates unconditional love, patience, and loving discipline towards the disciples, who doubted, denied, betrayed, and abandoned Him. God earnestly desires fellowship with us, to walk with us, to love and serve, even with full advanced knowledge of our weaknesses. What amazing grace! The best way to defang condemnation is to recognize that the only failure is to bury our talents and quit trying, but even then, God still loves and provides opportunities for redemption. If you desire to achieve a higher degree of inner peace, become more Christ like and emulate Jesus and die to the prideful self and embrace the same spirit of pro-active grace, love, and forgiveness and Godly discipline with your own failures, sins and weaknesses as well as the weaknesses and sins of others. To God be the Glory!
Seamands, D. (1999). Healing grace: Finding a freedom from the performance trap. Indianapolis, IN: Light and Life Communications. ISBN: 0-89367238-6.
Robertson School of Government
Romans 5:21 "So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." NLT
Have you ever felt under condemnation because you believed you lacked the courage or strength to face a trial? Are you ever concerned that you will fail and let God “down”? I frequently question and doubt myself by fearing that I will not “measure up” in the time of crisis. In most cases, this catastrophic “what-if” thinking is a lie from the pit of hell designed to discourage us from following God’s will. I was recently lost in the wilderness of self-defeat when the Lord revealed a powerful manifestation of grace, a pre-emptive “lightening strike” against the attacks of the enemy through scripture. The life and ministry of Jesus demonstrated that in spite of His omniscient knowledge of the disciples failures and sins, their serious lapses and deficiencies in judgment, character and courage, Jesus always loved and forgave, disciplined, encouraged, showered grace, and said “peace be unto you”! The amazing fact is that God knows our actions, feelings, emotions, thoughts, desires, sins, temptations, and failures before we feel and act on them. David Seamonds, in his book “Healing Grace,” states that because God is pure love, our failings do not influence or change His love towards us. God loves unconditionally, and the ministry of Jesus consistently demonstrates unconditional love, patience, and loving discipline towards the disciples, who doubted, denied, betrayed, and abandoned Him. God earnestly desires fellowship with us, to walk with us, to love and serve, even with full advanced knowledge of our weaknesses. What amazing grace! The best way to defang condemnation is to recognize that the only failure is to bury our talents and quit trying, but even then, God still loves and provides opportunities for redemption. If you desire to achieve a higher degree of inner peace, become more Christ like and emulate Jesus and die to the prideful self and embrace the same spirit of pro-active grace, love, and forgiveness and Godly discipline with your own failures, sins and weaknesses as well as the weaknesses and sins of others. To God be the Glory!
Seamands, D. (1999). Healing grace: Finding a freedom from the performance trap. Indianapolis, IN: Light and Life Communications. ISBN: 0-89367238-6.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Affirmation Anxiety/Addiction
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
Proverbs 29:25
Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.
John 12:43, For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
1 Peter 5:6 , Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
Our collective journey into the realm of servant leadership carries us to many uncomfortable places. Self-awareness regarding our weaknesses and sins increases greatly with the removal of our conventional defenses that provide a false sense of comfort and security. For those of us who experience what is termed “affirmation anxiety,” the performance evaluation process is clearly a “step on the water” experience. Affirmation anxiety is the term used for the apprehension associated with the need to receive positive feedback and recognition. We all experience this condition at one time or another given the inherent human need for affirmation, support, and direct evidence regarding the fruit of our labors.
Christian servant leadership management requires us to recognize, support, and encourage employees to cultivate hope and confidence. Concurrently, we must provide accountability (tough love) entailing setting standards and providing corrective feedback. As scriptures states, those whom God loves he disciplines (Proverbs 3:12). It is important to seek out and be responsive to external feedback, but resist control by emotional responses. When we place more weight on the praise and feedback of men more than the word of God, we are vulnerable to a whole range of dysfunctions. Only God can love us and forgive us unconditionally, and if we assign more importance to human feedback, it becomes an idol and a source of fear and insecurity.
Our inherent worth derives from our priceless and unique creation in the image of God. Natural affirmation anxiety frequently morphs into affirmation addiction absent a complete reliance on God. The root lie is that in order for us to achieve meaning, self-purpose, and success, we must “earn” the approval of others and achieve worldly definitions of success. In essence, we defer to human standards and judgment the primal definition of our self worth and the meaning and degree of our success discounting God’s success standards of obedience, Christ-like character, and love. We thereby lose control of our emotional and spiritual peace. In effect, we delegate our sense of self worth and well-being to the frequently fickle, unreliable, and invalid assessment of human wisdom and judgment.
God calls us to work to the best of our ability and to seek excellence while maintaining a sense of Godly perspective and priority. When we recognize the primacy of the eternal performance standards, we understand implicitly that the temporal assessments of the workplace will not stand the test of eternity unless founded upon Godly love. As the Apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13, we can possess all knowledge, wisdom (and we can infer worldly success and the praise of men as well), but without love it profits us nothing. When we place workplace performance feedback in its proper perspective, we are better able to learn from our mistakes and improve performance, be more emotionally stable, and pursue excellence rather than perfectionism. Perfectionism inhibits growth through linking our worth and identity to performance outcomes instilling a fear of failure by yoking us with impossible achievement standards robbing us for our joy.
I am growing in this area as well as I am learning not to obsess over less than perfect teaching ratings. The perfectionist in me gets discouraged when one or a small group of students provides a low rating (the lost sheep phenomena). The Godly perspective is to recognize that Jesus did not please, nor did He attempt to please, everyone, and so it is foolish for me to attempt a feat that is both impossible and contrary to the example set by Jesus and scriptural teachings. I do not have to be perfect to be a good instructor. My goal is to be open to feedback and make improvements (the teacher must be teachable!). I am improving in this area, but it is an ongoing challenge given our inherent tendency to focus on the exception. Let us all commit to place Christ at the center of every area of our life and adopt the liberating standards of Godly achievement.
Robertson School of Government
Proverbs 29:25
Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.
John 12:43, For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
1 Peter 5:6 , Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
Our collective journey into the realm of servant leadership carries us to many uncomfortable places. Self-awareness regarding our weaknesses and sins increases greatly with the removal of our conventional defenses that provide a false sense of comfort and security. For those of us who experience what is termed “affirmation anxiety,” the performance evaluation process is clearly a “step on the water” experience. Affirmation anxiety is the term used for the apprehension associated with the need to receive positive feedback and recognition. We all experience this condition at one time or another given the inherent human need for affirmation, support, and direct evidence regarding the fruit of our labors.
Christian servant leadership management requires us to recognize, support, and encourage employees to cultivate hope and confidence. Concurrently, we must provide accountability (tough love) entailing setting standards and providing corrective feedback. As scriptures states, those whom God loves he disciplines (Proverbs 3:12). It is important to seek out and be responsive to external feedback, but resist control by emotional responses. When we place more weight on the praise and feedback of men more than the word of God, we are vulnerable to a whole range of dysfunctions. Only God can love us and forgive us unconditionally, and if we assign more importance to human feedback, it becomes an idol and a source of fear and insecurity.
Our inherent worth derives from our priceless and unique creation in the image of God. Natural affirmation anxiety frequently morphs into affirmation addiction absent a complete reliance on God. The root lie is that in order for us to achieve meaning, self-purpose, and success, we must “earn” the approval of others and achieve worldly definitions of success. In essence, we defer to human standards and judgment the primal definition of our self worth and the meaning and degree of our success discounting God’s success standards of obedience, Christ-like character, and love. We thereby lose control of our emotional and spiritual peace. In effect, we delegate our sense of self worth and well-being to the frequently fickle, unreliable, and invalid assessment of human wisdom and judgment.
God calls us to work to the best of our ability and to seek excellence while maintaining a sense of Godly perspective and priority. When we recognize the primacy of the eternal performance standards, we understand implicitly that the temporal assessments of the workplace will not stand the test of eternity unless founded upon Godly love. As the Apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13, we can possess all knowledge, wisdom (and we can infer worldly success and the praise of men as well), but without love it profits us nothing. When we place workplace performance feedback in its proper perspective, we are better able to learn from our mistakes and improve performance, be more emotionally stable, and pursue excellence rather than perfectionism. Perfectionism inhibits growth through linking our worth and identity to performance outcomes instilling a fear of failure by yoking us with impossible achievement standards robbing us for our joy.
I am growing in this area as well as I am learning not to obsess over less than perfect teaching ratings. The perfectionist in me gets discouraged when one or a small group of students provides a low rating (the lost sheep phenomena). The Godly perspective is to recognize that Jesus did not please, nor did He attempt to please, everyone, and so it is foolish for me to attempt a feat that is both impossible and contrary to the example set by Jesus and scriptural teachings. I do not have to be perfect to be a good instructor. My goal is to be open to feedback and make improvements (the teacher must be teachable!). I am improving in this area, but it is an ongoing challenge given our inherent tendency to focus on the exception. Let us all commit to place Christ at the center of every area of our life and adopt the liberating standards of Godly achievement.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Avoiding Instrumentalism
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you." Psalm 139:13-18 NIV
Servant leaders recognize the danger of adopting worldly standards of analysis that are contrary to scriptural principles. To my consternation, management frequently uses the term “fat” to describe the inefficient use of human resources. This term reduces flesh, blood and spirit-possessing employees to instruments of production that are to be discarded or purged based upon the “rational analysis” of management. This is prime example of the dehumanizing influence of rational instrumentalism, a deeply ingrained value system, in which employees are a means of production and “costs” to be managed and minimized. A poignant example of instrumentalism is in Charles Dickens’s classic “A Christmas Carol.” The main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, callously rebuffs all requests for charitable contributions and states that the poor should “die to decrease the surplus population.” The Ghost of Christmas Present convicts Scrooge when he gives him a glimpse of the starving children he condemned by his callous statement and states that in the eyes of heaven Scrooge is the “hard-hearted” member of the true “surplus” population.
I am not advocating that leaders ignore staffing efficiency, effectiveness, and fiscal stress considerations. However, these decisions require the integration of moral and ethical value assessments founded upon a covenantal relationship. A workplace covenant is the presence of a long-term relationship with a mutual commitment between employer and employee to promote the best long tern interests of all stakeholders and achieve the mission with excellence. In a workplace covenant, a moral and ethical framework governs all human resource decisions in which the value of maintaining the employment relationship is of critical importance and layoffs and termination are “last resort” options. When organizations are willing to reduce profits or reduce expenditures or adjust service levels to retain employees (while still meeting the mission objectives), it produces a climate of good will, confidence, and trust. Clearly, there are instances when fiscal pressures justify layoffs, but we approach such decisions with “fear and trembling.” We possess a higher calling as Christians to remove the judgmental log from our own eye before we can clearly identify the “surplus” population. The “fat” in management decisions is not removed in cosmetic plastic surgery removed by liposuction, but is a decision of profound importance that involves human being employees with souls, feelings and families. Let us all commit to cast down all vain imaginations and renew our minds to purge ourselves from worldviews and standards that place barriers to God-honoring employee treatment.
Robertson School of Government
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you." Psalm 139:13-18 NIV
Servant leaders recognize the danger of adopting worldly standards of analysis that are contrary to scriptural principles. To my consternation, management frequently uses the term “fat” to describe the inefficient use of human resources. This term reduces flesh, blood and spirit-possessing employees to instruments of production that are to be discarded or purged based upon the “rational analysis” of management. This is prime example of the dehumanizing influence of rational instrumentalism, a deeply ingrained value system, in which employees are a means of production and “costs” to be managed and minimized. A poignant example of instrumentalism is in Charles Dickens’s classic “A Christmas Carol.” The main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, callously rebuffs all requests for charitable contributions and states that the poor should “die to decrease the surplus population.” The Ghost of Christmas Present convicts Scrooge when he gives him a glimpse of the starving children he condemned by his callous statement and states that in the eyes of heaven Scrooge is the “hard-hearted” member of the true “surplus” population.
I am not advocating that leaders ignore staffing efficiency, effectiveness, and fiscal stress considerations. However, these decisions require the integration of moral and ethical value assessments founded upon a covenantal relationship. A workplace covenant is the presence of a long-term relationship with a mutual commitment between employer and employee to promote the best long tern interests of all stakeholders and achieve the mission with excellence. In a workplace covenant, a moral and ethical framework governs all human resource decisions in which the value of maintaining the employment relationship is of critical importance and layoffs and termination are “last resort” options. When organizations are willing to reduce profits or reduce expenditures or adjust service levels to retain employees (while still meeting the mission objectives), it produces a climate of good will, confidence, and trust. Clearly, there are instances when fiscal pressures justify layoffs, but we approach such decisions with “fear and trembling.” We possess a higher calling as Christians to remove the judgmental log from our own eye before we can clearly identify the “surplus” population. The “fat” in management decisions is not removed in cosmetic plastic surgery removed by liposuction, but is a decision of profound importance that involves human being employees with souls, feelings and families. Let us all commit to cast down all vain imaginations and renew our minds to purge ourselves from worldviews and standards that place barriers to God-honoring employee treatment.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Servant Followership
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. 43 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. Mark 10: 42-44, NLT
As students studying for an MA in Government at Regent University, we are striving to develop and enhance our leadership skills. From a Christian worldview perspective, when we seek leadership skills first, we are placing the proverbial “cart before the horse.” Jesus set the standards for both leadership and followership by his complete obedience to the will of the Father. Jesus spent the first 30 years of his live obeying his parents, being an excellent carpenter, and serving the Lord in a humble fashion. Jesus was an effective leader because He practiced servanthood first! From conception to ascension, Jesus’ every word and action promoted the mission that the Father anointed Jesus to complete, the redemptive work of the cross.
Thus, we cannot learn to lead like Jesus until we learn to serve like Jesus. An excellent book on this subject is Jesus on Leadership by C. Gene Wilkes (1998, Tyndale Publishers). Christian servant leadership is birthed by servant followership in which employees develop the essential character traits (the fruits of the spirit) that enable leaders to use their gifts and skills in a humble, responsible, mature and unselfish manner. Servant followership entails such key attributes as enduring trials and tribulations patiently, learning from mistakes, teachability, obedience to authority, accepting responsibility for solving problems, exercising initiative, and helping coworkers and clients even when inconvenient or contrary to personal interests. Servant followers understand their strengths and weaknesses and select jobs based upon their gifting and passions thereby reducing stress on themselves and others.
Servant followership entails committing every aspect of our work to Godly excellence irrespective of the obstacles and situation (working for God, not man). Even when we work for unjust earthly masters, God is pleased when we endure suffering for righteous conduct. God is the only performance evaluator that matters. The Lord rewards those who pursue and practice Godly excellence and integrity at work with present and future spiritual and temporal blessings, and is the instrument for judgment and accountability for our earthly employers (vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord). These ideal standards of conduct entails a life long progressive sanctification of dying to the self that are never fully realized until we are face to face with the Lord. It is a high and lofty standard, in essence, another element of working out our salvation with fear and trembling daily. When we practice servant followership, we become that candle in the dark shining the light, hope and love of Christ into the dark recesses of our workplaces. I have listed below some of the key attributes of servant followership. Pray every day for God’s strength to serve with humility and obey the Gospel.
Twenty-five Key Attributes of Servant Followers
1. Obey the first ten commandants, to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Our adherence to these principles is the foundation for a personal relationship with Jesus and a necessary precondition for placing Jesus at the center of our lives. This entails the purposeful and enthusiastic adherence to Christian Spiritual disciplines (prayer, reading the scriptures, Christian fellowship) that enable us to develop and manifest the necessary character traits for workplace servanthood (love, humility, forgiveness, patience, perseverance, etc.)
2. The practice of 360-degree forgiveness (self, God, and others).
3. Serve just and unjust masters with excellence as modeled by David with Saul.
4. Asserting leadership when the situation warrants our intervention
5. The healthy pursuit of excellence (realistic standards of performance, accepting the inevitability of mistakes and embracing the value of trial and error in the learning process)
6. Practice initiative and creativity: Take responsibility for solving performance problems and exert the required effort (working beyond the job description and normal work requirements) when necessary.
7. Reliable and conscientious work performance in all situations
8. Honor your employer by avoiding a critical or cynical spirit by providing honest and constructive feedback in appropriate settings
9. Pray for your leaders, subordinates, peers, and customers
10. Practice gratitude for past, present and future blessings
11. Commit to the success of your supervisor and co-workers
12. Take joy in the success of others while being sorrowful over failures, even the “tough love” and “sandpaper” people that we dislike or who are at enmity with us.
13. Do not compare oneself to others. The goal is to learn from others, not to become someone else.
14. Humility: recognize our limits and be teachable, and seek out corrective feedback
15. Truth telling, provide honest feedback (voice) to protect the integrity of mission achievement, protect interests of other key stakeholders, and love your boss by providing input to avoid mistakes
16. Practice of personal transparency on weaknesses
17. Reject the temptation to externalize blame for problems and assume personal responsibility for creating and solving them
18. Be patient and faithful in trials and tribulations and communicate hope and optimism while avoiding complaining, grumbling and fault finding. Be willing to “pay your dues” and wait patiently for the Lord to promote and honor you.
19. Learn to live in the present to promote patience and perseverance
20. Unconditional altruism: help fellow employees in need (mentor and coach new employees, support and assist coworkers) even when inconvenienced or disadvantaged
21. Practice courtesy, tact and politeness to all
22. Practice active listening in which we listen with the heart as well as the mind. Listen more than we speak.
23. Supporting coworkers through encouragement and holding them accountable (tough love)
24. When in a position of bargaining strength relative to your employer, do not make excessive or unreasonable demands that take advantage of an employer’s vulnerable situation
25. Be uncompromisingly conscientious and honest in using organizational resources (money, time, equipment, supplies, etc.)
Robertson School of Government
So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. 43 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. Mark 10: 42-44, NLT
As students studying for an MA in Government at Regent University, we are striving to develop and enhance our leadership skills. From a Christian worldview perspective, when we seek leadership skills first, we are placing the proverbial “cart before the horse.” Jesus set the standards for both leadership and followership by his complete obedience to the will of the Father. Jesus spent the first 30 years of his live obeying his parents, being an excellent carpenter, and serving the Lord in a humble fashion. Jesus was an effective leader because He practiced servanthood first! From conception to ascension, Jesus’ every word and action promoted the mission that the Father anointed Jesus to complete, the redemptive work of the cross.
Thus, we cannot learn to lead like Jesus until we learn to serve like Jesus. An excellent book on this subject is Jesus on Leadership by C. Gene Wilkes (1998, Tyndale Publishers). Christian servant leadership is birthed by servant followership in which employees develop the essential character traits (the fruits of the spirit) that enable leaders to use their gifts and skills in a humble, responsible, mature and unselfish manner. Servant followership entails such key attributes as enduring trials and tribulations patiently, learning from mistakes, teachability, obedience to authority, accepting responsibility for solving problems, exercising initiative, and helping coworkers and clients even when inconvenient or contrary to personal interests. Servant followers understand their strengths and weaknesses and select jobs based upon their gifting and passions thereby reducing stress on themselves and others.
Servant followership entails committing every aspect of our work to Godly excellence irrespective of the obstacles and situation (working for God, not man). Even when we work for unjust earthly masters, God is pleased when we endure suffering for righteous conduct. God is the only performance evaluator that matters. The Lord rewards those who pursue and practice Godly excellence and integrity at work with present and future spiritual and temporal blessings, and is the instrument for judgment and accountability for our earthly employers (vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord). These ideal standards of conduct entails a life long progressive sanctification of dying to the self that are never fully realized until we are face to face with the Lord. It is a high and lofty standard, in essence, another element of working out our salvation with fear and trembling daily. When we practice servant followership, we become that candle in the dark shining the light, hope and love of Christ into the dark recesses of our workplaces. I have listed below some of the key attributes of servant followership. Pray every day for God’s strength to serve with humility and obey the Gospel.
Twenty-five Key Attributes of Servant Followers
1. Obey the first ten commandants, to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Our adherence to these principles is the foundation for a personal relationship with Jesus and a necessary precondition for placing Jesus at the center of our lives. This entails the purposeful and enthusiastic adherence to Christian Spiritual disciplines (prayer, reading the scriptures, Christian fellowship) that enable us to develop and manifest the necessary character traits for workplace servanthood (love, humility, forgiveness, patience, perseverance, etc.)
2. The practice of 360-degree forgiveness (self, God, and others).
3. Serve just and unjust masters with excellence as modeled by David with Saul.
4. Asserting leadership when the situation warrants our intervention
5. The healthy pursuit of excellence (realistic standards of performance, accepting the inevitability of mistakes and embracing the value of trial and error in the learning process)
6. Practice initiative and creativity: Take responsibility for solving performance problems and exert the required effort (working beyond the job description and normal work requirements) when necessary.
7. Reliable and conscientious work performance in all situations
8. Honor your employer by avoiding a critical or cynical spirit by providing honest and constructive feedback in appropriate settings
9. Pray for your leaders, subordinates, peers, and customers
10. Practice gratitude for past, present and future blessings
11. Commit to the success of your supervisor and co-workers
12. Take joy in the success of others while being sorrowful over failures, even the “tough love” and “sandpaper” people that we dislike or who are at enmity with us.
13. Do not compare oneself to others. The goal is to learn from others, not to become someone else.
14. Humility: recognize our limits and be teachable, and seek out corrective feedback
15. Truth telling, provide honest feedback (voice) to protect the integrity of mission achievement, protect interests of other key stakeholders, and love your boss by providing input to avoid mistakes
16. Practice of personal transparency on weaknesses
17. Reject the temptation to externalize blame for problems and assume personal responsibility for creating and solving them
18. Be patient and faithful in trials and tribulations and communicate hope and optimism while avoiding complaining, grumbling and fault finding. Be willing to “pay your dues” and wait patiently for the Lord to promote and honor you.
19. Learn to live in the present to promote patience and perseverance
20. Unconditional altruism: help fellow employees in need (mentor and coach new employees, support and assist coworkers) even when inconvenienced or disadvantaged
21. Practice courtesy, tact and politeness to all
22. Practice active listening in which we listen with the heart as well as the mind. Listen more than we speak.
23. Supporting coworkers through encouragement and holding them accountable (tough love)
24. When in a position of bargaining strength relative to your employer, do not make excessive or unreasonable demands that take advantage of an employer’s vulnerable situation
25. Be uncompromisingly conscientious and honest in using organizational resources (money, time, equipment, supplies, etc.)
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Unconditional Love
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4: 19-21 NIV
Do you possess an inborn need to receive love? Most of us would answer that rather basic question with a resounding “yes.” However, as with many issues in the Kingdom of God, the conventional answers fail to receive endorsement by careful review of scripture. An excellent book on the subject is by Edward T. Welch “When People Are Big and God is Small.” The thesis of the book is that when we need people more than we love them, it creates the idolatry of codependency and the fear of man. Modern psychology and many Christian psychologists embrace the “loving cup” view of human nature that states “wounded and broken” we become if God and others fail to fill our vessels with love, support, and encouragement. Is this image correct?
Welch makes a convincing argument otherwise. First, we must grasp our creation in God’s image. God loves purely and perfectly not because of His need to fulfill an unmet desire, but because “God is love” and love is His foundational and immutable attribute. God first loved us unconditionally because that is His nature (Seamands, 2004). The trinity embodies this wonderful but mysterious principle. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a perfect “love triangle,” they give and receive love in a completely self-sustaining and fulfilling relationship. Each member of the trinity grants unconditional love to the other, and in turn, receives unconditional love. This reflects the other great mystery of the universe as God is the “uncaused cause,” setting in motion all other forms of existence and being. As human beings created in the image of God, Adam was given Eve so he could be an image bearer of God and love Eve unreservedly, just as Adam was originally created by God for love and fellowship.
When Adam and Eve sinned, the foundational relationship element of unconditional love was corrupted and reduced to the self-serving and idolatrous love, which ultimately enslaves. We can never achieve Christ likeness by employing the humanistic psychology approach of placing our needs at the center. God calls us to imitate Him by loving others first without conditions. As created beings, we cannot manifest the perfect self-contained love manifested in the Trinity, but the Body of Christ, the church, is the God-given means to develop our ability to grant and receive love. We cannot practice unconditional love without Christ as Lord and the body of Christ to teach and model these behaviors. Our sin nature continually redirects our attention to meeting self-needs and desires through the many forms of counterfeit love. This is why the family is “ground zero” in terms of spiritual warfare. If our parents and families fail to model and practice Christ-like unconditional love, Satan instills spiritual, physical, and emotional wounds that lead us to medicate our pain with love counterfeits further accentuating the power of sin over our lives. We become needy, fearful, and develop a warped sense of self-esteem.
However, the solution the world offers is to convince us that the problem is not our sinfulness, but the fact that others are not meeting our needs or we are the victims of circumstances and outside forces. What is the solution? The first step is to admit our brokenness and our own inability and that of others to cure what ails us. We must take responsibility for the sin, forgive those who hurt us, and ask for forgiveness for our sin and the dysfunctional means that we use to cover our pain and shame. God will meet our legitimate needs (not all our desires), and He will give us the love and security so we can love Him and others without condition. This is clearly an ongoing, long-term process imperfectly completed in this life, but the more “we learn to need others less and love them more” as Welch states, we grow in freedom.
These lessons are important for the workplace as well. Just like Jesus, our calling is to work with excellence, serve others, and love them unconditionally. Even if others treat us unfairly, our self-esteem and identity does not depend upon the attitudes, actions, and support of others. They can no longer manipulate our reactions. We are hurt, but the arrows and stones do not break us. We receive deep comfort from Christ for the wounds, and are able to move forward. As servant leaders, we love and encourage others and hold them accountable. We hope that others will model the Golden Rule and return the love, accountability, and encouragement. When this occurs, the workplace is blessed. When others fail us, we reject anger and bitterness, pray for our brothers and sisters, practice forgiveness, and move forward. We then achieve an amazing level of freedom and love as we exhibit the image of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To God be the Glory!
Seamands, D. A. (2004). Healing for damaged emotions. Paris, Ontario: Cook Communications Ministries.
Welch, E. T. (1997). When people are big and God is small. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing.
Robertson School of Government
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4: 19-21 NIV
Do you possess an inborn need to receive love? Most of us would answer that rather basic question with a resounding “yes.” However, as with many issues in the Kingdom of God, the conventional answers fail to receive endorsement by careful review of scripture. An excellent book on the subject is by Edward T. Welch “When People Are Big and God is Small.” The thesis of the book is that when we need people more than we love them, it creates the idolatry of codependency and the fear of man. Modern psychology and many Christian psychologists embrace the “loving cup” view of human nature that states “wounded and broken” we become if God and others fail to fill our vessels with love, support, and encouragement. Is this image correct?
Welch makes a convincing argument otherwise. First, we must grasp our creation in God’s image. God loves purely and perfectly not because of His need to fulfill an unmet desire, but because “God is love” and love is His foundational and immutable attribute. God first loved us unconditionally because that is His nature (Seamands, 2004). The trinity embodies this wonderful but mysterious principle. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a perfect “love triangle,” they give and receive love in a completely self-sustaining and fulfilling relationship. Each member of the trinity grants unconditional love to the other, and in turn, receives unconditional love. This reflects the other great mystery of the universe as God is the “uncaused cause,” setting in motion all other forms of existence and being. As human beings created in the image of God, Adam was given Eve so he could be an image bearer of God and love Eve unreservedly, just as Adam was originally created by God for love and fellowship.
When Adam and Eve sinned, the foundational relationship element of unconditional love was corrupted and reduced to the self-serving and idolatrous love, which ultimately enslaves. We can never achieve Christ likeness by employing the humanistic psychology approach of placing our needs at the center. God calls us to imitate Him by loving others first without conditions. As created beings, we cannot manifest the perfect self-contained love manifested in the Trinity, but the Body of Christ, the church, is the God-given means to develop our ability to grant and receive love. We cannot practice unconditional love without Christ as Lord and the body of Christ to teach and model these behaviors. Our sin nature continually redirects our attention to meeting self-needs and desires through the many forms of counterfeit love. This is why the family is “ground zero” in terms of spiritual warfare. If our parents and families fail to model and practice Christ-like unconditional love, Satan instills spiritual, physical, and emotional wounds that lead us to medicate our pain with love counterfeits further accentuating the power of sin over our lives. We become needy, fearful, and develop a warped sense of self-esteem.
However, the solution the world offers is to convince us that the problem is not our sinfulness, but the fact that others are not meeting our needs or we are the victims of circumstances and outside forces. What is the solution? The first step is to admit our brokenness and our own inability and that of others to cure what ails us. We must take responsibility for the sin, forgive those who hurt us, and ask for forgiveness for our sin and the dysfunctional means that we use to cover our pain and shame. God will meet our legitimate needs (not all our desires), and He will give us the love and security so we can love Him and others without condition. This is clearly an ongoing, long-term process imperfectly completed in this life, but the more “we learn to need others less and love them more” as Welch states, we grow in freedom.
These lessons are important for the workplace as well. Just like Jesus, our calling is to work with excellence, serve others, and love them unconditionally. Even if others treat us unfairly, our self-esteem and identity does not depend upon the attitudes, actions, and support of others. They can no longer manipulate our reactions. We are hurt, but the arrows and stones do not break us. We receive deep comfort from Christ for the wounds, and are able to move forward. As servant leaders, we love and encourage others and hold them accountable. We hope that others will model the Golden Rule and return the love, accountability, and encouragement. When this occurs, the workplace is blessed. When others fail us, we reject anger and bitterness, pray for our brothers and sisters, practice forgiveness, and move forward. We then achieve an amazing level of freedom and love as we exhibit the image of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To God be the Glory!
Seamands, D. A. (2004). Healing for damaged emotions. Paris, Ontario: Cook Communications Ministries.
Welch, E. T. (1997). When people are big and God is small. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
The Mantle of Servant Leadership
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
Luke 12:47-49 (King James Version)
47And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. 48But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. 49I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
Christ commands us to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength and our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus demonstrated His love of the father by obeying him in all stages of his life, as a child, as an inquisitive youth, his early adulthood spent as a carpenter, and throughout his ministry from the testing in the wilderness, the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane, to his humiliation, separation and death on the cross. Because of his obedience, Jesus transformed defeat to eternal victory through the resurrection redeeming us from sin. Servant leadership is a high calling, as it requires dying to the self and promoting the interests of others over our own. If we love God, we will not only be hearers of the word, but doers as well. When we die to the self in the workplace, it produces a pleasant fruit that releases the presence and power of Christ to change lives. The MA program embraces servant leadership not as a utilitarian management tool that benefits the bottom line, but as an internalized value and character orientation that promotes golden rule love irrespective of the external consequences. We should issue a disclaimer regarding servant leadership. Knowledge of servant leadership principles absent their application leads to character growth stagnation. Knowledge of servant leadership principles and a superficial application generates hypocrisy ship wrecking the faith of others producing a bitter fruit of self-condemnation. To whom much is given, much is required. Let us all pledge as instructors and students to a relentless commitment to loving and leading others as Christ demonstrated, encouraging on a regular basis, teaching and counseling others, listening with open hearts and minds, investing our precious time in relationships, and providing accountability and loving discipline. To God be the glory!
Robertson School of Government
Luke 12:47-49 (King James Version)
47And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. 48But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. 49I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
Christ commands us to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength and our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus demonstrated His love of the father by obeying him in all stages of his life, as a child, as an inquisitive youth, his early adulthood spent as a carpenter, and throughout his ministry from the testing in the wilderness, the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane, to his humiliation, separation and death on the cross. Because of his obedience, Jesus transformed defeat to eternal victory through the resurrection redeeming us from sin. Servant leadership is a high calling, as it requires dying to the self and promoting the interests of others over our own. If we love God, we will not only be hearers of the word, but doers as well. When we die to the self in the workplace, it produces a pleasant fruit that releases the presence and power of Christ to change lives. The MA program embraces servant leadership not as a utilitarian management tool that benefits the bottom line, but as an internalized value and character orientation that promotes golden rule love irrespective of the external consequences. We should issue a disclaimer regarding servant leadership. Knowledge of servant leadership principles absent their application leads to character growth stagnation. Knowledge of servant leadership principles and a superficial application generates hypocrisy ship wrecking the faith of others producing a bitter fruit of self-condemnation. To whom much is given, much is required. Let us all pledge as instructors and students to a relentless commitment to loving and leading others as Christ demonstrated, encouraging on a regular basis, teaching and counseling others, listening with open hearts and minds, investing our precious time in relationships, and providing accountability and loving discipline. To God be the glory!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Facing the Giants
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
Deuteronomy 1:27-29 (New Living Translation) You complained in your tents and said, ‘The Lord must hate us. That’s why he has brought us here from Egypt—to hand us over to the Amorites to be slaughtered. Where can we go? Our brothers have demoralized us with their report. They tell us, “The people of the land are taller and more powerful than we are, and their towns are large, with walls rising high into the sky! We even saw giants there—the descendants of Anak!”’ “But I said to you, ‘Don’t be shocked or afraid of them!
Where are the giants in your life that impede the expansion of your physical, spiritual and emotional territory? I was greatly blessed by the film “Facing the Giants” about a losing football coach who used biblical principles to bring revival in himself thereby providing the spark for a Holy Ghost firestorm that ignited his family, the football program, the school, and an entire community. One of the “fear-busting” principles he employed was to redefine what “victory” entails. In order to attack the giants, the first step is to identify the enemy. The real adversary was not an absence of talent as God leverages whatever gifts and abilities we are given to achieve His will and goals, nor was it a low level of motivation as they all wanted desperately to win, the root cause was their belief that losing made them “losers” thereby agreeing with the “Gospel” of the secular worldview that accomplishments (the wins and losses of life) are the foundation of our identity.
This “vain imagination” belief created giants of fear that grew more powerful with each loss generating enslaving self-fulfilling prophecies of discouragement yoking the players and coaches with a slow growing cancer of negative self-image. The coach discovered the Kingdom principle that Godly victory is not achieved through a winning record, but the slow cultivation of Christ-like character as we endure and grow through trials and tribulations. He redefined the definition of team success by adopting the principle that we are stewards of our God-given gifts and abilities and that we honor and worship the Lord by giving our best efforts in pursuit of team goals regardless of the circumstances and the ultimate outcomes. The outcome of our efforts is God’s responsibility, not ours. We plant and reap, but only God gives the increase. “Winning” is realizing the collective potential of the team as each member dedicates himself to developing his God-given talents to support the communal efforts of the squad (the body of Christ).
Winning occurs when we exert every ounce of our energy in a God-honoring fashion playing by the letter and spirit of the rules of the game. As the coach stated, when we win we give God the glory, and when we lose we still praise Him. Atheists and agnostics ridicule the notion of prayer before football games, but they miss the essential Kingdom principle that in God’s economy He uses all circumstances to shape our character. Winning challenges us as we are tempted to worship our “greatness”, while losing tempts us to yield to despair and hopelessness (curse God and die) denying the power and providence of God to yield good fruit through all circumstances. Hence God concurrently uses winning and losing in a football the game to realize His unique purpose for each individual player and coach. God is the master efficiency expert who created this wonderfully complex and intricate universe, and He is well able to use winning and losing to reveal the hidden motives of the human heart and promote self-knowledge, learning and discovery. The coach discovered that great power occurs when we truly embrace Romans 8:28 that all things work out for the best for those who love God and are called according to His purposes. Let us all agree to “face the giants” in our lives recognizing that victory occurs by obeying and praising God in all circumstances. If we follow these principles, we can truly embrace the Apostle Paul’s’ joyous observation that we are more than conquerors through Christ who strengthens us.
Robertson School of Government
Deuteronomy 1:27-29 (New Living Translation) You complained in your tents and said, ‘The Lord must hate us. That’s why he has brought us here from Egypt—to hand us over to the Amorites to be slaughtered. Where can we go? Our brothers have demoralized us with their report. They tell us, “The people of the land are taller and more powerful than we are, and their towns are large, with walls rising high into the sky! We even saw giants there—the descendants of Anak!”’ “But I said to you, ‘Don’t be shocked or afraid of them!
Where are the giants in your life that impede the expansion of your physical, spiritual and emotional territory? I was greatly blessed by the film “Facing the Giants” about a losing football coach who used biblical principles to bring revival in himself thereby providing the spark for a Holy Ghost firestorm that ignited his family, the football program, the school, and an entire community. One of the “fear-busting” principles he employed was to redefine what “victory” entails. In order to attack the giants, the first step is to identify the enemy. The real adversary was not an absence of talent as God leverages whatever gifts and abilities we are given to achieve His will and goals, nor was it a low level of motivation as they all wanted desperately to win, the root cause was their belief that losing made them “losers” thereby agreeing with the “Gospel” of the secular worldview that accomplishments (the wins and losses of life) are the foundation of our identity.
This “vain imagination” belief created giants of fear that grew more powerful with each loss generating enslaving self-fulfilling prophecies of discouragement yoking the players and coaches with a slow growing cancer of negative self-image. The coach discovered the Kingdom principle that Godly victory is not achieved through a winning record, but the slow cultivation of Christ-like character as we endure and grow through trials and tribulations. He redefined the definition of team success by adopting the principle that we are stewards of our God-given gifts and abilities and that we honor and worship the Lord by giving our best efforts in pursuit of team goals regardless of the circumstances and the ultimate outcomes. The outcome of our efforts is God’s responsibility, not ours. We plant and reap, but only God gives the increase. “Winning” is realizing the collective potential of the team as each member dedicates himself to developing his God-given talents to support the communal efforts of the squad (the body of Christ).
Winning occurs when we exert every ounce of our energy in a God-honoring fashion playing by the letter and spirit of the rules of the game. As the coach stated, when we win we give God the glory, and when we lose we still praise Him. Atheists and agnostics ridicule the notion of prayer before football games, but they miss the essential Kingdom principle that in God’s economy He uses all circumstances to shape our character. Winning challenges us as we are tempted to worship our “greatness”, while losing tempts us to yield to despair and hopelessness (curse God and die) denying the power and providence of God to yield good fruit through all circumstances. Hence God concurrently uses winning and losing in a football the game to realize His unique purpose for each individual player and coach. God is the master efficiency expert who created this wonderfully complex and intricate universe, and He is well able to use winning and losing to reveal the hidden motives of the human heart and promote self-knowledge, learning and discovery. The coach discovered that great power occurs when we truly embrace Romans 8:28 that all things work out for the best for those who love God and are called according to His purposes. Let us all agree to “face the giants” in our lives recognizing that victory occurs by obeying and praising God in all circumstances. If we follow these principles, we can truly embrace the Apostle Paul’s’ joyous observation that we are more than conquerors through Christ who strengthens us.
Monday, December 19, 2011
A Great Blessing of Thanksgiving: God’s Divine Attributes
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
As we reflect on the blessings of Thanksgiving, I urge you to meditate and be thankful for God’s attributes. One of the greatest gifts of God is the comfort He provides as we trek through the “worldly sorrow” emotions that burden our souls. When we are lost in the wilderness of pain, sorrow, self-pity, depression, and fear, His healing rain provides sweet relief. When we seek the Lord with an earnest desire, we find a gentle voice that eases the pain with His tender touch. Below are eight principles of divine comfort that are water on the lips of a man parched in the desert.
Principle 1): Eternal Love: God did, does and will always love you and I unconditionally. If you doubt this, remember that Jesus sacrificed the most for us when we were at our worst! He first loved us while we were sinners mired in our unsaved state of condemnation.
Principle 2): Unconditional Forgiveness: What a joy to realize that we are blessed with 360 degree eternal forgiveness! Jesus forgives all my sins, past present and future. The blood of Jesus protects and cleanses us and quiets the voices of fear, guilt, condemnation, shame, and doubt emanating from our flesh and the demonic realm. Jesus is tearing down the walls and identifying all the sources of unforgiveness. Take comfort, as Jesus is our advocate, lawyer, and redeemer!
Principle 3): Amazing Grace: Grace is God’s love in action. It involves all elements of the trinity, and is most fully developed in the New Testament redemptive covenant of complete forgiveness of sins. Remember that grace covers every failure, sin and weakness. Grace is the foundation for abundant living. Ponder the formula that ongoing weakness + God’s grace = Abundant Life. Embracing grace is one of the most powerful forms of belief and faith. It is a sin of pride to reject God’s grace. We must humbly accept this great gift and apply it liberally to our wounds, sins, temptations and weaknesses. The Holy Spirit is the comforter, teacher counselor, and provider of grace. God’s grace is always with us and we must build our homes upon its rock solid foundation. Grace softens and purifies the motives of our heart freeing us from the bondage of legalism and a spirit of works. When we desire to earn a reward from God, it is very easy for Satan to transform our motives into a “works spirit” that becomes a cruel taskmaster given the need to perform and accomplish instead of simply being in relationship. Grace meets us where we are at, and we do not need to be “cleaned up” as the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) clearly illustrates when the father runs towards the distantly viewed son and then joyously hugs and embraces his pathetically downtrodden and sin-stained child.
Principle 4): God is Patient: God is never frustrated or angered in human emotional terms. He is patient whether I obey or not, act or not, agree or not, and this takes away the burden of legalistically having to please God. We don’t have to change all at once, only God can provide instantaneous transformation, and in most cases it is contrary to His will to “zap” us given that we need gradual transformation to build character, faith, patience and empathy. These attributes are the foundation of a ministry of healing that God creates with our tears and scars. The comfort we are given, we give to others. Don’t despise the day of small beginnings and remember that the Lord will not let us be tempted and tested beyond our ability to bear.
Principle 5): God is Responsible for the Increase: God, not our efforts or talent, is responsible for the fruit, the healing and the change, both within us and with others. This reduces the pressure to “perform” and reinforces the power of Godly excellence which entails embracing obedience, humility and character growth. This assurance enables us to love others and ourselves in the appropriate fashion, with the combination of support/encouragement and necessary “tough love” accountability. We must always ask for the Lord’s power and guidance to base our motives on agape love which helps guard our heart from guilt, condemnation and manipulation.
Principle 6): God Will not Test Beyond Our Ability to Endure: Romans 8:28 clearly states that all things work out for the best for those who love God. This means that in all circumstances, the Lord will not test or tempt beyond our ability to bear the burden. This provides powerful reassurance that irrespective of how large and powerful the Goliaths and strongholds that we face, God’s power to protect is always greater! Another key element is to reject any form of comparison with others regarding the size or nature of our problems. God does not use a comparative standard in terms of the objective size or strength of our enemies or judge us on a relative standard of strength and courage. He is equally pleased with the “timid and fearful” who learns to trust God and face their fears of a mouse as He is with the brave warrior who is facing lions. Never despise the day of small beginnings!
Principle 7): Godly discipline is always for our benefit. God uses trials to discipline us, and His discipline bears pleasant fruit when we humble ourselves and surrender our will. Every thought has the power of life and death, and Satan attempts to influence our thinking to plant seeds of doubt, unbelief and fear that impede God’s purpose. How do you hear the voice of Jesus? Even in those bible passages in which He voice anger and frustration, it was always done with a spirit of love as evidenced by His actions. He always forgave and moved on, He was patient with reoccurring failure, he never abandoned or rejected even when His beloved disciples fled, and He returned love and peace for failure and sin.
Principle 8): God’s strength is made perfect in my weakness: This is one of the most comforting but humbling lessons. Christians are victors and victorious, but this triumph is based upon a radically different definition of success and excellence than the secular world and culture utilizes. Victory and success in God’s eyes entails: 1) loving Him unconditionally, 2) obedience to His commands and will, 3) recognizing, confessing, repenting and renouncing our sins, 4) learning from our mistakes and failures, 5) learning to love, and 6) forgive and offer grace to others and ourselves. It is not an outcome based perspective. It is when we are weak and in a failed state that we most clearly recognize that our strength, victory and power comes from God. An attitude of humble strength acknowledges that all of our talents, gifts and abilities, all of our successes and accomplishments, our ability to focus, work hard and persist, all are gifts from God, hence we cannot boast. When we are successful, pride insidiously infects our ability to assign the appropriate locus of responsibility to God and redirects it to our character and “worthiness.” Failure is very effective at penetrating the defenses and placing us back on the correct path.
I pray that you will dedicate yourself being hearers and doers of the word, and that these principles will be a source of Godly blessing and encouragement.
Robertson School of Government
2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
As we reflect on the blessings of Thanksgiving, I urge you to meditate and be thankful for God’s attributes. One of the greatest gifts of God is the comfort He provides as we trek through the “worldly sorrow” emotions that burden our souls. When we are lost in the wilderness of pain, sorrow, self-pity, depression, and fear, His healing rain provides sweet relief. When we seek the Lord with an earnest desire, we find a gentle voice that eases the pain with His tender touch. Below are eight principles of divine comfort that are water on the lips of a man parched in the desert.
Principle 1): Eternal Love: God did, does and will always love you and I unconditionally. If you doubt this, remember that Jesus sacrificed the most for us when we were at our worst! He first loved us while we were sinners mired in our unsaved state of condemnation.
Principle 2): Unconditional Forgiveness: What a joy to realize that we are blessed with 360 degree eternal forgiveness! Jesus forgives all my sins, past present and future. The blood of Jesus protects and cleanses us and quiets the voices of fear, guilt, condemnation, shame, and doubt emanating from our flesh and the demonic realm. Jesus is tearing down the walls and identifying all the sources of unforgiveness. Take comfort, as Jesus is our advocate, lawyer, and redeemer!
Principle 3): Amazing Grace: Grace is God’s love in action. It involves all elements of the trinity, and is most fully developed in the New Testament redemptive covenant of complete forgiveness of sins. Remember that grace covers every failure, sin and weakness. Grace is the foundation for abundant living. Ponder the formula that ongoing weakness + God’s grace = Abundant Life. Embracing grace is one of the most powerful forms of belief and faith. It is a sin of pride to reject God’s grace. We must humbly accept this great gift and apply it liberally to our wounds, sins, temptations and weaknesses. The Holy Spirit is the comforter, teacher counselor, and provider of grace. God’s grace is always with us and we must build our homes upon its rock solid foundation. Grace softens and purifies the motives of our heart freeing us from the bondage of legalism and a spirit of works. When we desire to earn a reward from God, it is very easy for Satan to transform our motives into a “works spirit” that becomes a cruel taskmaster given the need to perform and accomplish instead of simply being in relationship. Grace meets us where we are at, and we do not need to be “cleaned up” as the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) clearly illustrates when the father runs towards the distantly viewed son and then joyously hugs and embraces his pathetically downtrodden and sin-stained child.
Principle 4): God is Patient: God is never frustrated or angered in human emotional terms. He is patient whether I obey or not, act or not, agree or not, and this takes away the burden of legalistically having to please God. We don’t have to change all at once, only God can provide instantaneous transformation, and in most cases it is contrary to His will to “zap” us given that we need gradual transformation to build character, faith, patience and empathy. These attributes are the foundation of a ministry of healing that God creates with our tears and scars. The comfort we are given, we give to others. Don’t despise the day of small beginnings and remember that the Lord will not let us be tempted and tested beyond our ability to bear.
Principle 5): God is Responsible for the Increase: God, not our efforts or talent, is responsible for the fruit, the healing and the change, both within us and with others. This reduces the pressure to “perform” and reinforces the power of Godly excellence which entails embracing obedience, humility and character growth. This assurance enables us to love others and ourselves in the appropriate fashion, with the combination of support/encouragement and necessary “tough love” accountability. We must always ask for the Lord’s power and guidance to base our motives on agape love which helps guard our heart from guilt, condemnation and manipulation.
Principle 6): God Will not Test Beyond Our Ability to Endure: Romans 8:28 clearly states that all things work out for the best for those who love God. This means that in all circumstances, the Lord will not test or tempt beyond our ability to bear the burden. This provides powerful reassurance that irrespective of how large and powerful the Goliaths and strongholds that we face, God’s power to protect is always greater! Another key element is to reject any form of comparison with others regarding the size or nature of our problems. God does not use a comparative standard in terms of the objective size or strength of our enemies or judge us on a relative standard of strength and courage. He is equally pleased with the “timid and fearful” who learns to trust God and face their fears of a mouse as He is with the brave warrior who is facing lions. Never despise the day of small beginnings!
Principle 7): Godly discipline is always for our benefit. God uses trials to discipline us, and His discipline bears pleasant fruit when we humble ourselves and surrender our will. Every thought has the power of life and death, and Satan attempts to influence our thinking to plant seeds of doubt, unbelief and fear that impede God’s purpose. How do you hear the voice of Jesus? Even in those bible passages in which He voice anger and frustration, it was always done with a spirit of love as evidenced by His actions. He always forgave and moved on, He was patient with reoccurring failure, he never abandoned or rejected even when His beloved disciples fled, and He returned love and peace for failure and sin.
Principle 8): God’s strength is made perfect in my weakness: This is one of the most comforting but humbling lessons. Christians are victors and victorious, but this triumph is based upon a radically different definition of success and excellence than the secular world and culture utilizes. Victory and success in God’s eyes entails: 1) loving Him unconditionally, 2) obedience to His commands and will, 3) recognizing, confessing, repenting and renouncing our sins, 4) learning from our mistakes and failures, 5) learning to love, and 6) forgive and offer grace to others and ourselves. It is not an outcome based perspective. It is when we are weak and in a failed state that we most clearly recognize that our strength, victory and power comes from God. An attitude of humble strength acknowledges that all of our talents, gifts and abilities, all of our successes and accomplishments, our ability to focus, work hard and persist, all are gifts from God, hence we cannot boast. When we are successful, pride insidiously infects our ability to assign the appropriate locus of responsibility to God and redirects it to our character and “worthiness.” Failure is very effective at penetrating the defenses and placing us back on the correct path.
I pray that you will dedicate yourself being hearers and doers of the word, and that these principles will be a source of Godly blessing and encouragement.
Monday, November 21, 2011
God-Honoring Boundaries
By Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
The battle over time is one of the great spiritual warfare struggles. Satan uses our addiction to activity and works to impede our relationship with God. Time can become an idol when our schedules become more important than obeying God. The underlying principle resides in one of the foundational commandments, though shall have no other Gods before me. God created human beings for an intimate personal relationship with God. He implanted eternity in our hearts. We are ceaselessly restless until we make the free-will choice to place God at the center of our universe. The reason is simple. Only God can complete us. To experience wholeness, we require purpose, meaning and transcendence of the self. Only God loves us unconditionally and forgives us unconditionally.
Human beings since the fall and the introduction of sin employ an almost infinite array of strategies and objects to experience meaning. All of these strategies become idols (activity, money, power, prestige, relationships) that temporarily satisfy but ultimately fail us. All of our idols become sources of fear and insecurity given their inability to provide humanity with the unconditional love that is essential for our security and growth. Why is this relevant? Even as Christians, we can lose sight of God. We spend so much time and effort working for God, we lose sight of the critical factor, to be in relationship with Him. Scripture likens our connection to God as being the branches of the vine, when we are cut off from the central vein, and we lose life-giving sustenance.
One of the things we teach in our public administration classes is the need to balance our lives between work, family and leisure. In reality, life is too complicated, there are too many variables, the system interconnections are impossibly complicated for rational calculation. When we attempt to balance on fully human terms, we budget time for discrete tasks making us more sensitive to disruptions impeding our ability to rest in and enjoy the present. The life of Christ demonstrated the importance of the well-ordered life (as John Ortberg stresses in the book the “The Life You’ve Always Wanted”), not the well balanced life. A well-ordered life places Jesus as the center, our most important daily objective is to maintain an ongoing relationship with God through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, bible reading, and most importantly, a conscious commitment to loving God with our entire being (heart, mind, and spirit) and our neighbors as ourselves.
Jesus set priorities, but they were the Father’s priorities. He also demonstrated the ability to improvise, to be sensitive to what we term the ministry of interruptions. The most important parts of our day are frequently unplanned and unanticipated, and we must make a conscious choice to act upon these opportunities. A rigid “checklist” approach to time management increases our resistance and stress to answering these calls. The other major element of the well-ordered life is that our lives are divided into seasons. There are times when our lives are unbalanced for God’s greater glory. Jesus and the apostles spent sleepless nights, suffered hunger and exposure to the elements, forsook material comforts, prayed all night, were persecuted and imprisoned, and exposed themselves to danger. They also recognized that there are times to rest and refresh. The Lord will in subtle ways communicate the absence of Godly order in our lives. God can run the universe without me as I am not its center! We must stop throwing ourselves off the “temple roof” and expecting the angels to save us, a reference to Luke 4:9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. 10For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; 11they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" 12Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Many Christians become prideful, thinking God will protect them no matter how foolish their actions. God will always ultimately protect and save us, but our actions do have consequences. I pray that every human being experiences the reality of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Imagine the joy, peace, excitement when you realize that not only is God real, but that He wants to be involved in every area of your life. This knowledge provides incredible comfort, power, energy, passion, and purpose, but God’s wisdom must govern our efforts.
This zeal is a great benefit, but can develop into a weapon if we lose perspective and it is not directed by the Holy Spirit. Energy and passion channeled and focused in the right direction becomes a laser in the hands of God, but dissipates without the lens of Christ. Busyness overwhelms Christians as we are unable to separate God’s will (the best) from the many good things that can distract us. Seek Godly priorities and cease from your own labors. Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you and be that lamp unto your feet.
Robertson School of Government
The battle over time is one of the great spiritual warfare struggles. Satan uses our addiction to activity and works to impede our relationship with God. Time can become an idol when our schedules become more important than obeying God. The underlying principle resides in one of the foundational commandments, though shall have no other Gods before me. God created human beings for an intimate personal relationship with God. He implanted eternity in our hearts. We are ceaselessly restless until we make the free-will choice to place God at the center of our universe. The reason is simple. Only God can complete us. To experience wholeness, we require purpose, meaning and transcendence of the self. Only God loves us unconditionally and forgives us unconditionally.
Human beings since the fall and the introduction of sin employ an almost infinite array of strategies and objects to experience meaning. All of these strategies become idols (activity, money, power, prestige, relationships) that temporarily satisfy but ultimately fail us. All of our idols become sources of fear and insecurity given their inability to provide humanity with the unconditional love that is essential for our security and growth. Why is this relevant? Even as Christians, we can lose sight of God. We spend so much time and effort working for God, we lose sight of the critical factor, to be in relationship with Him. Scripture likens our connection to God as being the branches of the vine, when we are cut off from the central vein, and we lose life-giving sustenance.
One of the things we teach in our public administration classes is the need to balance our lives between work, family and leisure. In reality, life is too complicated, there are too many variables, the system interconnections are impossibly complicated for rational calculation. When we attempt to balance on fully human terms, we budget time for discrete tasks making us more sensitive to disruptions impeding our ability to rest in and enjoy the present. The life of Christ demonstrated the importance of the well-ordered life (as John Ortberg stresses in the book the “The Life You’ve Always Wanted”), not the well balanced life. A well-ordered life places Jesus as the center, our most important daily objective is to maintain an ongoing relationship with God through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, bible reading, and most importantly, a conscious commitment to loving God with our entire being (heart, mind, and spirit) and our neighbors as ourselves.
Jesus set priorities, but they were the Father’s priorities. He also demonstrated the ability to improvise, to be sensitive to what we term the ministry of interruptions. The most important parts of our day are frequently unplanned and unanticipated, and we must make a conscious choice to act upon these opportunities. A rigid “checklist” approach to time management increases our resistance and stress to answering these calls. The other major element of the well-ordered life is that our lives are divided into seasons. There are times when our lives are unbalanced for God’s greater glory. Jesus and the apostles spent sleepless nights, suffered hunger and exposure to the elements, forsook material comforts, prayed all night, were persecuted and imprisoned, and exposed themselves to danger. They also recognized that there are times to rest and refresh. The Lord will in subtle ways communicate the absence of Godly order in our lives. God can run the universe without me as I am not its center! We must stop throwing ourselves off the “temple roof” and expecting the angels to save us, a reference to Luke 4:9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. 10For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; 11they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" 12Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Many Christians become prideful, thinking God will protect them no matter how foolish their actions. God will always ultimately protect and save us, but our actions do have consequences. I pray that every human being experiences the reality of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Imagine the joy, peace, excitement when you realize that not only is God real, but that He wants to be involved in every area of your life. This knowledge provides incredible comfort, power, energy, passion, and purpose, but God’s wisdom must govern our efforts.
This zeal is a great benefit, but can develop into a weapon if we lose perspective and it is not directed by the Holy Spirit. Energy and passion channeled and focused in the right direction becomes a laser in the hands of God, but dissipates without the lens of Christ. Busyness overwhelms Christians as we are unable to separate God’s will (the best) from the many good things that can distract us. Seek Godly priorities and cease from your own labors. Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you and be that lamp unto your feet.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Tempting Others to Sin
Dr. Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
Matthew 18:7
“What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting.”
One of the most humbling aspects of leadership is to recognize that as shepherds of the flock, we possess a great responsibility to not discourage our employees and tempt them to sin. Many managers are oblivious to the fundamental Christian world view understanding of leadership that assigns great spiritual accountability for being the source of temptation. How do managers tempt employees? The answer to that question requires more than a dissertation solely devoted to the subject, but I will endeavor to introduce several fundamental principles. First, we tempt our employees to sin when we fail to provide the necessary encouragement and recognition. In essence, we “steal” the intrinsic heart rewards that are essential for stimulating ongoing motivation and the promotion of hope in difficult circumstances. Most employees report a drought of job-related feedback and are disheartened by the lack of acknowledgment. When we fail to recognize good performance, we are using dishonest scales and stealing from employees! We are called to encourage and support others with the comfort that we receive.
Second, we tempt our employees when we fail to provide the necessary discipline to correct poor performance and improver behavior. God disciplines those whom He loves, and undisciplined employees like uncorrected children will operate in a spiritual vacuum testing the boundaries until they are broken in spirit and body.
Third, we tempt employees to anger and bitterness when we develop in-group and out-groups in the workplace in which employees are treated unequally not based upon character and performance, but upon the manager’s arbitrary likes and dislikes. God call us to be no respecter of persons and treat all according to character and faith.
Fourth, we tempt employees to higher levels of distrust and cynicism when there is a gap between policy and practice. The absence of consistency between words and deeds shipwrecks the faith of many employees. If we promote empowerment in policy, but in practice only support employee decisions that validate or rubber stamp a preordained management decision, we promote organizational hypocrisy.
As Christian servant leaders, we must continually test both our motives and actions to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. If any of these temptations are present, we must repent and address the root cause issues to regain employee trust. It becomes a long road back, because it takes much more time and effort to regain trust once it is lost. Being a “hearer and a doer” is the path less well traveled, but well worth the cost given the bounty of trust produced from righteous treatment!
Robertson School of Government
Matthew 18:7
“What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting.”
One of the most humbling aspects of leadership is to recognize that as shepherds of the flock, we possess a great responsibility to not discourage our employees and tempt them to sin. Many managers are oblivious to the fundamental Christian world view understanding of leadership that assigns great spiritual accountability for being the source of temptation. How do managers tempt employees? The answer to that question requires more than a dissertation solely devoted to the subject, but I will endeavor to introduce several fundamental principles. First, we tempt our employees to sin when we fail to provide the necessary encouragement and recognition. In essence, we “steal” the intrinsic heart rewards that are essential for stimulating ongoing motivation and the promotion of hope in difficult circumstances. Most employees report a drought of job-related feedback and are disheartened by the lack of acknowledgment. When we fail to recognize good performance, we are using dishonest scales and stealing from employees! We are called to encourage and support others with the comfort that we receive.
Second, we tempt our employees when we fail to provide the necessary discipline to correct poor performance and improver behavior. God disciplines those whom He loves, and undisciplined employees like uncorrected children will operate in a spiritual vacuum testing the boundaries until they are broken in spirit and body.
Third, we tempt employees to anger and bitterness when we develop in-group and out-groups in the workplace in which employees are treated unequally not based upon character and performance, but upon the manager’s arbitrary likes and dislikes. God call us to be no respecter of persons and treat all according to character and faith.
Fourth, we tempt employees to higher levels of distrust and cynicism when there is a gap between policy and practice. The absence of consistency between words and deeds shipwrecks the faith of many employees. If we promote empowerment in policy, but in practice only support employee decisions that validate or rubber stamp a preordained management decision, we promote organizational hypocrisy.
As Christian servant leaders, we must continually test both our motives and actions to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. If any of these temptations are present, we must repent and address the root cause issues to regain employee trust. It becomes a long road back, because it takes much more time and effort to regain trust once it is lost. Being a “hearer and a doer” is the path less well traveled, but well worth the cost given the bounty of trust produced from righteous treatment!
Monday, August 22, 2011
God's Tests
Dr. Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
Exodus 20:20: “Don’t be afraid,” Moses answered them, “for God has come in this way to test you, and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning!” NLT
As an educator and a life-long learner, I am very comfortable with the notion that our time on earth consists of a series of “tests.” We are simultaneously “cramming” and taking exams of one sort or another every day of our temporal existence. There are numerous biblical references to testing in the bible, and the “life is as a series of tests” metaphor instills a variety of emotions depending on our own personality, life experiences, and understanding of the nature and attributes of God. For those wracked by text anxiety and the fear of judgment or failure, this concept is frightening given the identity of the “teacher” and the predicted dire consequences. Conversely, for those who relish life’s final exams and take great pleasure from the adrenaline rush, the prideful bravado instills a sense of false confidence that produces a spiritual recklessness.
There is a Godly middle ground that I am beginning to grasp but having great difficulty putting into practice. The greatest danger is for us to use our own wisdom and reasoning and select the tests. It is analogous to having the students write the exam questions based upon imperfect knowledge, limited experience, and scope of understanding. Scripture states in Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” If I can accomplish this task such as complete my tithe, forgive someone once at work, read my bible everyday for 30 minutes, I am “okay” and passed the test. These types of tests can become a form of “sacrifice” that temporarily assuages our conscience, but does not address the root sin issues.
From a Godly perspective, tests are not about performance, but about obedience, trust and character development. I am not “okay” and set free for what I do or for how many self developed tests I pass with high grades. Liberty springs from humbly taking the daily tests that the Lord provides through ongoing life circumstances, those “dying to the self” moments that validates our willingness to obey the Lord. The tests that we create are “fixed” to feed our egos. They are means to self medicate and anesthetize the pain and avoid facing the true root cause of our problems.
I pray for the Lord’s strength and courage to starve and abandon my works based tests, and feed the love and fellowship based obedience exams while rejecting the self protective tests that our conscious recognizes as inadequate in solving problem. When we develop our own tests, we define success and failure and attempt to predict and control the consequences. All such attempts are vanity and usurp God’s power and wisdom. Satan manipulates our self tests, as man judges on appearance, but only God tests the secret innermost motives of our heart as Samuel learned when God selected David over his more “Kingly” brothers (1 Samuel 16:7).
We commit the same errors, both in assessing ourselves and others, we grade and judge the inner man in a superficial manner. When we write the exam, develop the answer key, and set the grading standards, this deflects us from God’s will and purpose as we confuse the best from good and make mountains out of molehills (and vice a versa). God’s test produces Godly wisdom and learning, our tests generate confusion. I can practice, but only God tests. God grades and evaluates using His standards which is always based on love and promoting our best interests. Truly we grow in faith when we test ourselves according to God’s principles. One of the most comforting aspects is that there is a test within the test. Even if we fail, if we embrace Godly sorrow, seek and apply His grace and forgiveness, and try again, we have passed a very important examination, that of learning to fail with grace as we “fall forward”. To God be the glory!
Robertson School of Government
Exodus 20:20: “Don’t be afraid,” Moses answered them, “for God has come in this way to test you, and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning!” NLT
As an educator and a life-long learner, I am very comfortable with the notion that our time on earth consists of a series of “tests.” We are simultaneously “cramming” and taking exams of one sort or another every day of our temporal existence. There are numerous biblical references to testing in the bible, and the “life is as a series of tests” metaphor instills a variety of emotions depending on our own personality, life experiences, and understanding of the nature and attributes of God. For those wracked by text anxiety and the fear of judgment or failure, this concept is frightening given the identity of the “teacher” and the predicted dire consequences. Conversely, for those who relish life’s final exams and take great pleasure from the adrenaline rush, the prideful bravado instills a sense of false confidence that produces a spiritual recklessness.
There is a Godly middle ground that I am beginning to grasp but having great difficulty putting into practice. The greatest danger is for us to use our own wisdom and reasoning and select the tests. It is analogous to having the students write the exam questions based upon imperfect knowledge, limited experience, and scope of understanding. Scripture states in Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” If I can accomplish this task such as complete my tithe, forgive someone once at work, read my bible everyday for 30 minutes, I am “okay” and passed the test. These types of tests can become a form of “sacrifice” that temporarily assuages our conscience, but does not address the root sin issues.
From a Godly perspective, tests are not about performance, but about obedience, trust and character development. I am not “okay” and set free for what I do or for how many self developed tests I pass with high grades. Liberty springs from humbly taking the daily tests that the Lord provides through ongoing life circumstances, those “dying to the self” moments that validates our willingness to obey the Lord. The tests that we create are “fixed” to feed our egos. They are means to self medicate and anesthetize the pain and avoid facing the true root cause of our problems.
I pray for the Lord’s strength and courage to starve and abandon my works based tests, and feed the love and fellowship based obedience exams while rejecting the self protective tests that our conscious recognizes as inadequate in solving problem. When we develop our own tests, we define success and failure and attempt to predict and control the consequences. All such attempts are vanity and usurp God’s power and wisdom. Satan manipulates our self tests, as man judges on appearance, but only God tests the secret innermost motives of our heart as Samuel learned when God selected David over his more “Kingly” brothers (1 Samuel 16:7).
We commit the same errors, both in assessing ourselves and others, we grade and judge the inner man in a superficial manner. When we write the exam, develop the answer key, and set the grading standards, this deflects us from God’s will and purpose as we confuse the best from good and make mountains out of molehills (and vice a versa). God’s test produces Godly wisdom and learning, our tests generate confusion. I can practice, but only God tests. God grades and evaluates using His standards which is always based on love and promoting our best interests. Truly we grow in faith when we test ourselves according to God’s principles. One of the most comforting aspects is that there is a test within the test. Even if we fail, if we embrace Godly sorrow, seek and apply His grace and forgiveness, and try again, we have passed a very important examination, that of learning to fail with grace as we “fall forward”. To God be the glory!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Answering the Call
Justin Murff
Admissions Recruiter, Robertson School of Government
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19
The beginning of the semester brings a sense of newness, excitement, and a healthy dose of trepidation for others. Beginning a graduate degree is challenging enough, but starting a graduate education at Regent University includes the preparation to answer the unique calling that God has on our lives. Stretching beyond the mere academic rigor of the normal grad school experience, Regent students are called to prepare for the fulfillment of their role in God’s plan for the nations through the integration of faith and learning. The Apostle Paul teaches in his Epistle to the Romans that:
"There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good." Romans 13:1-4
Many scholars would agree that this text refers to the governing authority as being God appointed. Oftentimes, people grumble about politicians and bureaucrats using the negative stereotypes that have become associated with those in leadership. But, one can often wonder if those leaders are just the second, third, or one hundredth choice in God’s economy. Many gripe and complain about the government and its leaders, but few rise to the occasion to make the bold declaration like Isaiah did when he cried out, “Here am I Lord, send me.” The Lord issues the calling; ultimately, it is our responsibility to answer the calling and step up and into the best plan that God has for our lives.
Answering the call to public service is not an easy task. It requires stewarding the awesome responsibility to govern and lead others. One key principle that must be learned is that the stewardship of leadership requires service above self. Answering the call to lead, govern, administrate, and serve our nations, our communities and those around us is not for the faint of heart. Alumni from RSG have served in positions from the White House to the City Hall and everywhere in between. When, we, as Christians serve others, love others, and diligently seek the Lord’s direction, it is no surprise that we find ourselves ministering in a unique arena that few are privileged to be called to. RSG students have the opportunity to walk the halls of government, intern in Congress, serve at numerous foundations, and glean knowledge from our professors every week who bring a wealth of personal experience that causes us to be acutely aware that as “God is doing a new thing” in our own lives.
As the semester wares on, take solace and comfort in the fact that it is the Lord who orders our steps, if we will only listen; for when we do, we can then begin to perceive the path that the Lord has for us. God may be calling you to be the next city council member, State Delegate, Governor, Congressman, Senator, or even President. Whatever you’re called to do, your journey begins here. Through diligent preparation, you will be used for His glory and that is the highest calling of all.
Admissions Recruiter, Robertson School of Government
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19
The beginning of the semester brings a sense of newness, excitement, and a healthy dose of trepidation for others. Beginning a graduate degree is challenging enough, but starting a graduate education at Regent University includes the preparation to answer the unique calling that God has on our lives. Stretching beyond the mere academic rigor of the normal grad school experience, Regent students are called to prepare for the fulfillment of their role in God’s plan for the nations through the integration of faith and learning. The Apostle Paul teaches in his Epistle to the Romans that:
"There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good." Romans 13:1-4
Many scholars would agree that this text refers to the governing authority as being God appointed. Oftentimes, people grumble about politicians and bureaucrats using the negative stereotypes that have become associated with those in leadership. But, one can often wonder if those leaders are just the second, third, or one hundredth choice in God’s economy. Many gripe and complain about the government and its leaders, but few rise to the occasion to make the bold declaration like Isaiah did when he cried out, “Here am I Lord, send me.” The Lord issues the calling; ultimately, it is our responsibility to answer the calling and step up and into the best plan that God has for our lives.
Answering the call to public service is not an easy task. It requires stewarding the awesome responsibility to govern and lead others. One key principle that must be learned is that the stewardship of leadership requires service above self. Answering the call to lead, govern, administrate, and serve our nations, our communities and those around us is not for the faint of heart. Alumni from RSG have served in positions from the White House to the City Hall and everywhere in between. When, we, as Christians serve others, love others, and diligently seek the Lord’s direction, it is no surprise that we find ourselves ministering in a unique arena that few are privileged to be called to. RSG students have the opportunity to walk the halls of government, intern in Congress, serve at numerous foundations, and glean knowledge from our professors every week who bring a wealth of personal experience that causes us to be acutely aware that as “God is doing a new thing” in our own lives.
As the semester wares on, take solace and comfort in the fact that it is the Lord who orders our steps, if we will only listen; for when we do, we can then begin to perceive the path that the Lord has for us. God may be calling you to be the next city council member, State Delegate, Governor, Congressman, Senator, or even President. Whatever you’re called to do, your journey begins here. Through diligent preparation, you will be used for His glory and that is the highest calling of all.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Toothless Platitudes Won’t Solve Debt Crisis
James A. Davids
Assistant Professor of Government & Law, Regent University
I like Sen. Tom Coburn. In 2007, after the electorate threw out his party’s majority in the Senate, Coburn said: “I think [American voters were] wise to want change. The Republicans didn't do what they said they were going to do. They deserve the wrath of the voters." Refreshing. Coburn was and is a fearless opponent of congressional earmarks, bucking his own party members when they sought to benefit their state at the expense of the nation (Coburn was the Senator who blew the whistle on Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere”). According to a 2007 GQ article, Senator Coburn wants the American public to know “how it works in Washington, how the machine keeps itself running, and the favors get traded, and the deals get struck, and the bridges to nowhere are going up every day. He wants you to know that the United States Congress simply cannot stop itself—that both parties are in on the fix, backing each other and looking the other way, and that in the spirit of bipartisan waste, they manage to blow $500 billion more than they collect in taxes every single year.” Ahh, the “good old days” when the federal deficit was only $500 billion a year!
Given his reputation as a fiscal hawk, I was not surprised when Sen. Coburn became a member of the Bowles-Simpson Debt Reduction Commission, nor was I surprised when Sen. Coburn continued this effort by becoming a member of the “Gang of Six.” Given the pap that constitutes the Gang of Six proposal endorsed by the President yesterday, I see now why Coburn walked out of the Gang of Six weeks ago.
The Christian Science Monitor today reported on the elements of the Gang of Six proposal. Some of these elements are a bill that cuts $500 billion in discretionary spending over 10 years (remember that in 2007 Congress overspent its revenue by the same amount in one year), a congressional pay freeze (unlike many employees today, Congressmen have had pay raises the last few years), the sale of “unused federal property” (don’t expect top dollar in this real estate market!), and “new discretionary spending caps through 2015.”
“Spending caps” sounds good, but Congress already tried this years ago and it failed. In 1985, because of rising deficits Congress passed, and President Reagan signed, legislation sponsored by Sens. Gramm, Rudman, and Hollings. This legislation, popularly known as “Gramm-Rudman,” provided for automatic spending cuts of “non-exempt funds” if the budget failed to reach established targets. Not surprisingly, in five years Congress failed to pass a budget that met the established targets, and because Congress had exempted a big portion of the budget, Gramm-Rudman required a 32% reduction in defense spending. This was unacceptable, and therefore Congress scrapped Gramm-Rudman and enacted the current system which caps spending and requires Congress to identify and secure new revenues for new spending (the “pay-as-you-go” requirement). We have all seen how well this has worked over the past five years.
The GQ article on Sen. Coburn makes the point that “the members of the United States Congress will spend your money just because they can. That they'll do it even when they can't.”
President Reagan when discussing a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union famously quipped: “Trust but verify.” He never made a similar comment about Congress, perhaps because he found Congress less trustworthy on budget matters.
The only way to save our public treasury and economic future for our children and grandchildren is to restrain our representatives. Just like the Founders restrained government from interfering with citizens’ religious convictions, free speech, freedom of assembly, warrantless intrusions into our homes, right to counsel during criminal proceedings and all the other elements of our Bill of Rights, we need a constitutional restraint from government overspending. We need the federal government to pay for its spending by raising revenue, suffering electoral consequences for either raising taxes or not spending enough money. Just like the states and our households, the federal government must balance its budget, and the only way to hold the government accountable is a constitutional amendment with a provision giving taxpayers the standing to sue if the federal government’s budget is not balanced.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Avoiding Discouragement
Dr. Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done (Matthew 26:42, KJV).
As we approach Good Friday and the upcoming joyous good news of the resurrection, it is critical to reflect on the passionate suffering of Jesus. In order for us to experience the resurrection power of Christ, we must walk through the dark valleys when God’s presence seems distant or nonexistent.
Robertson School of Government
He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done (Matthew 26:42, KJV).
As we approach Good Friday and the upcoming joyous good news of the resurrection, it is critical to reflect on the passionate suffering of Jesus. In order for us to experience the resurrection power of Christ, we must walk through the dark valleys when God’s presence seems distant or nonexistent.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The Leadership Prodigal
Dr. Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
“When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them. ‘You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them" (John 13:12-17).
Robertson School of Government
“When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them. ‘You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them" (John 13:12-17).
Friday, March 18, 2011
Who Shuts Down the Government According to the Constitution?
James Davids, J.D.
Robertson School of Government
Shutting down government, or at least stalling its progress, seems to be a rite of spring these days. Last year a Republican filibuster delayed passage of the health care reform bill in the U.S. Senate.
Robertson School of Government
Shutting down government, or at least stalling its progress, seems to be a rite of spring these days. Last year a Republican filibuster delayed passage of the health care reform bill in the U.S. Senate.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Tempting Others to Sin
Dr. Gary Roberts
Robertson School of Government
What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting (Matthew 18:7).
One of the most humbling aspects of leadership is to recognize that as shepherds of the flock, we possess a great responsibility to not discourage our employees and tempt them to sin. Many managers are oblivious to the fundamental Christian world view understanding of leadership that assigns great spiritual accountability for being the source of temptation.
Robertson School of Government
What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting (Matthew 18:7).
One of the most humbling aspects of leadership is to recognize that as shepherds of the flock, we possess a great responsibility to not discourage our employees and tempt them to sin. Many managers are oblivious to the fundamental Christian world view understanding of leadership that assigns great spiritual accountability for being the source of temptation.
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