Responsibility and Accountability

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama! This day is going to be a great one – I believe and declare this to be true!

 

Last week’s Happy Friday was about ownership and stewardship – who owns our time, talent, and treasure, and what our responsibilities are with those. While most of us like privileges, we are not so fond of responsibility and accountability. The way I explained it to my Tender Warriors when they were younger was: “Most want the privilege of being a man and the responsibility and accountability of a little boy.” Our world is full of people, and the resulting outcomes of people who live life this way.

 

This morning, I want to share excerpts from What God Does When Men Lead by Bill Peel again. This is the continuation of the excerpts I shared last week. They are in Chapter 2, Everyday Leaders.

 

2. The principle of responsibility.

 

“We are given authority and are held responsible as God’s stewards for what happens on earth, to the physical world and the people and creatures that dwell here.”

 

“Whether or not we like it, we are responsible for what God has given.”

 

“God owns everything; we’re responsible for how we treat it and what we do with it.”

 

“Owners have rights; stewards have responsibilities.”

 

“As His stewards, we are to manage His holdings well and according to His desires and purposes.”

 

“A lot of men tell me they’ve never considered that they are responsible before God as leaders for the way they deal with others. But they are, and when it comes to people, God is very clear. They belong to Him, not the leader, and they must be led according to His purposes.”

 

“As Peter reminds us, we are each responsible to use our gifts according to God’s will.”

 

“…one of our most important responsibilities is to empower the people under our authority to discover, develop, and use the abilities God has given them.”

 

3. The principle of accountability.

 

“As we’ve learned, when a leader is given responsibility, he is accountable to the one who gave it.”

 

“Each of us is a steward of everything we have been given, including our time, money, abilities, information, wisdom, relationships, and authority. And we will all give account to the rightful Owner as to how well we managed the things He has entrusted to us.”

 

“For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.” – Romans 14: 10 – 12

 

“When we stand before God at His judgment seat, He won’t be interested in how difficult our wives were to love, how uncooperative our children were to parent, how difficult our boss or employees were to deal with, how obstinate the people were at church, or how corrupt a culture we had to endure. We’ll give account for what we did with what He gave us.”

 

Great stuff! Challenging and inspiring! My goal this morning was simply to make sure we all know; it is up to each one of us as to what we will now do with this information.

 

Please feel free to contact me at any time if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful week, please cherish your precious family, please be kind, and stay well!

 

Kev

Lord or Teacher

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama!

 

This week’s Happy Friday is simply a rhetorical question. Our Pastor asked the question during his sermon last week, and I found it challenging and thought-provoking.

 

“Is Jesus the Lord of your life or just a really good teacher?”

 

A couple of things I will offer all of us as we think about, and ultimately answer this question, for ourselves.

 

Teacher (source: usdictionary.com)

1. Teacher (noun): A person who instructs or educates others, especially in a school or formal educational setting.

2. Teacher (noun): A guide or mentor who imparts knowledge, skills, or values in informal settings or through example.

3. Teacher (noun): An individual whose occupation involves delivering lessons, facilitating learning, and evaluating students' progress.

 

The term "teacher" embodies roles of mentorship, guidance, and knowledge-sharing, spanning formal education and informal instruction. It is a versatile term that captures both the professional responsibilities and the personal influence a teacher has on learners.

 

Lord (source: merriam-webster.com)

: one having power and authority over others:

: a ruler by hereditary right or preeminence to whom service and obedience are due

 

Lord or teacher?

 

I also want to share a few excerpts from the exception book, What God Does When Men Lead, by Bill Peel. The excerpts come from Chapter 2, Everyday Leaders, and in the sections titled The Nature of Steward Leadership and 1. The principle of ownership.

The Nature of Steward Leadership

“By definition a steward is accountable to his master for how resources are invested. So how does this apply to us today? Since God owns all things, He is the Master; He distributes gifts and resources at His discretion. We are stewards, accountable to Him for all that we do with all that we are given.”

 

1. The principle of ownership.

“A leader has privilege, responsibility, and authority because he has been given these by his master. A steward doesn’t own; he holds in trust and uses what he has been given for the one who owns it. Arrogance and pride don’t have any wiggle room in this equation.”

 

“An organization – be it a family, company, or church – is not created for the leader, nor is it created by the leader. Everything we have comes from God. The Bible is clear, He owns it all: “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1).”

 

“Nothing, not even our very lives, belongs to us in an ultimate sense. As much as we might like to define ourselves by the size of our home, the speed of our car, or our title at work, everything we are and have is God’s. As men whom God has called to be leaders, we must be constantly aware that our time, skills, and energy, and every resource, person, and opportunity comes from God. These are not ours to use as we wish, no matter how hard we may have worked and no matter what we have contributed. We are stewards, not owners.”

 

One final time: “Is Jesus the Lord of your life or just a really good teacher?” We all answer this question every day, not through our intentions or the words we speak, but through the lives that we live.

 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, be kind, and please stay well!

 

Kev

Shine

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama!

This week I want to share a brief reminder, word of encouragement, and inspiration.

Reminder
Just as we pour out of a glass what has been poured into it, what pours out of you and me is what has been poured into our hearts, minds, and spirits. We would not order a soft drink if we expect to drink water; why do we pour negative things into our hearts, minds, and spirits and expect to be positive in our thoughts, words, and actions? It doesn’t make much sense, does it?

I want to remind us all this morning that what we watch, listen to, and read really does affect us. If we don’t like the way we are thinking, speaking, or acting, we would be wise to assess what is being poured in. Such an easy concept to understand, can be very difficult to live.

What will the influences be in your life? The things we consistently listen to, watch, read, and do will determine the lives we live.

Matthew 12:34 (AMP)
34 You offspring of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil (wicked)? For out of the fullness (the overflow, the [a]superabundance) of the heart the mouth speaks.

Luke 6:45 (AMP)
45 The upright (honorable, intrinsically good) man out of the good treasure [stored] in his heart produces what is upright (honorable and intrinsically good), and the evil man out of the evil storehouse brings forth that which is depraved (wicked and intrinsically evil); for out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart his mouth speaks.

Encouragement
Writing the above, I know why the excerpts below from Pastor Joel Osteen’s message titled Feed Your Faith resonated so strongly with me. You can watch the full message, and I copied the excerpts from the transcript, on the Sermons.love website. You can find it all here: https://sermons.love/joel-osteen/17977-joel-osteen-feed-your-faith.html

What You’re Feeding Is Growing
I want to talk to you today about “Feed Your Faith.” You get to choose what grows in your life. What you’re feeding is getting stronger. If you’re feeding doubt, thinking about what you can’t do, and how the obstacles are too big, and how you’re at a disadvantage, because you’re feeding it, that doubt is getting bigger, just like you’re giving it vitamins, nutrients, helping it to grow.

If you’re feeding fear, “What if I get laid off? What if I come down with that illness,” or “I’m afraid for my children,” that fear is growing; you’re helping it to become a reality. Sometimes we’re feeding insecurity, “I’m not attractive, I don’t have a good personality, I’m not that talented.” We wonder why we don’t have much confidence, why we don’t feel valuable. It’s because we’re feeding the wrong things.

You Become What You Eat—in Your Mind
You’ve heard the saying, “You are what you eat.” It’s the same thing in your mind: if you feed fear, you’re going to live fearful. If you feed discouragement, “Nothing good’s in my future. I have so many problems,” you’re going to live discouraged. If you feed the past, “Look what I’ve been through, they hurt me, I wasn’t raised right,” if you keep dwelling on what didn’t work out, the mistakes you’ve made, even though God has beauty for the ashes, even though there are great things in your future, because you’re feeding the past, you won’t see it. You live bitter, in regrets, with no passion.

Pay attention to what you’re feeding. We all have doubt, fear, insecurity, guilt, but we also have faith, hope, confidence, value, victory. Don’t feed things you don’t want to grow. You have to starve your doubts, and feed your faith. Starve the discouragement and feed your hope. Starve the inferiority and feed your confidence. You’ll be amazed at what happens if you’ll quit giving life to the negative, and start feeding the positive.

Starve Fear, Build Faith
When fear comes, trying to get you to worry, “What about your children, are they safe in school? What about the crime, there’s so much violence, what are you going to do?” Don’t feed that fear, it’s not on your diet. Switch over into faith, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not fear. No weapon formed against me will prosper. A thousand may fall at my side, 10,000 at my right hand, but it will not come near me.”

You keep doing that, and fear is getting weaker and weaker, and your faith is getting stronger and stronger. You’re becoming what you eat, you’ll have a peace and a trust, knowing that God has you in the palm of His hand.

Or when thoughts whisper, “You’re not that valuable. You’re not attractive. Look at how beautiful your cousin is. Look at how talented that coworker is, what happened to you?” Just say, “No, thanks, that’s not on my eating plan. I have a very strict diet. I don’t feed insecurity, I don’t feed inferiority, I don’t feed shame and guilt, not up to par. I feed confidence, I feed value.

Father, you said I am fearfully and wonderfully made, you call me a masterpiece, one of a kind. You’ve crowned me with favor. You put royal blood flowing through my veins. I know I’m not ordinary, I’m a child of the Most High God. You go around thinking like that, and insecurity cannot stay. You’ll have a boldness, a confidence to put your shoulders back, to hold your head up high, knowing that you’re a son, a daughter of Almighty God.

“What you feed grows, what you starve dies.” – Gary Greeno

Galatians 6:7-8 (NIV)
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

Inspiration
This song always speaks to me when I hear it on the radio. Please read the lyrics below, and I also want to encourage you to listen to it. Regardless, please never forget “All the darkness in the world can't extinguish one light.” You and I are one, respectively. We have a light. I pray this, and every day we will let it shine!

One Light
Song by Nash Revival
Songwriter: Matthew Soilea

When the day turns to night
When the storm floods in
When you feel the pain and worry within

In the late late hours
When you can't go to sleep
When all the bad thoughts dig deep

Remember, just remember
All the darkness in the world can't extinguish one light
All the bad news swirling can't make us give up the fight
The darkness will retreat if we all raise our light
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine bright
All the darkness in the world can't extinguish one light

When life turns cold
When you shiver in the rain
Don't let that last ray of hope fade away

Remember, just remember
All the darkness in the world can't extinguish one light
All the bad news swirling can't make us give up the fight
The darkness will retreat if we all raise our light
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine bright
All the darkness in the world can't extinguish one light

Seven billion souls on the planet
Let's all light a candle
Build a bridge through the dark
With love in our hearts

Remember, just remember
All the darkness in the world can't extinguish one light
All the bad news swirling can't make us give up the fight
The darkness will retreat if we all raise our light
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine bright
All the darkness in the world can't extinguish one light
All the darkness in the world can't extinguish one light

One light
One light

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.” - St. Francis Of Assisi

Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, please be kind, and please stay well!

Kev