LIVING A LIFE OF CONVICTION

 

"For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction." - 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5a Everyone lives a life of conviction. Whatever we give our greatest time, our greatest energies, and our greatest resources to is a good indication of where our convictions lie. Some live a life of conviction about sports. Some live a life of conviction around pleasure. Still others live a life of conviction about very little that matters at all. Whenever God chooses to do a deep work in a life, a strong conviction is born of the Holy Spirit. Conversions in the early Church resulted in changed lives that held to a deep, life-transforming conviction regarding what they believed and how they lived out that belief. Paul explains that the gospel they received came not just in words, but also in power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. In order to impact the workplace for Jesus Christ, each of us must be reflecting a faith that is demonstrated through deeply held convictions. Are you living a life of deep conviction that spurs you on to reflect the power of Christ in your life and the lives of others? Paul was willing to suffer great persecution for his faith in a living God. God calls each of us to a life that is supernatural, not simply a good, moral life. The early Church understood the role the Holy Spirit played in demonstrating this power of the gospel. It was this deep work that resulted in living the gospel with great conviction. If you are not living the gospel with great conviction, ask the Holy Spirit to so fill your life today that the power of His Spirit is truly reflected in your life so that you may impact others in your workplace.

THINKING BIG

 

For nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:36-37). It was 4:00 a.m. in Cape Town, South Africa, in July 2000 when businessman Graham Power was awakened by a vision from God that came in three distinct parts. In the first part of the vision, God instructed Graham to rent the 45,000-seat Newlands rugby stadium in Cape Town for a day of repentance and prayer for that city. In the second part of the vision, he saw the prayer movement spreading to the rest of South Africa for a national day of prayer. In the final part of the vision, he saw the prayer effort spread to cover the rest of the continent. It was only thirty days earlier that a man named Gunnar Olson stood in front of a podium at the conclusion of a marketplace conference in Johannesburg, South Africa and proclaimed Isaiah 60 which said to "Arise and shine"  over the continent of Africa and that God was going to use Africa to bless the nations. Graham was obedient to the vision, and on March 21, 2001, a capacity crowd gathered in the Newlands rugby stadium for prayer and repentance. Soon after, a notorious gangster in the city was saved. News of the first gathering spread quickly, and in 2002, eight cities in South Africa hosted a day of prayer. Leading up to the event, young people from all over the country took part in a "walk of hope" from Bloemfontein to the eight stadiums where the prayer meetings were to be held. The events were broadcast on television. By June 2006, what began as Transformation Africa became the Global Day of Prayer with participation from 200 nations from seven continents around the world. And this prayer movement is still growing. It all started from the obedience of one businessman. What might God want to do through your life?  It begins with being obedient to the small things and exercising your faith to believe God can do it. Our part is obedience. His part is outcome.

RECEIVING ONLY WHAT GOD GIVES YOU

 A man can receive only what is given him from heaven (John 3:27).

John the Baptist was in the business of bringing sinners to the place of repentance by baptizing them and teaching them about the coming Messiah. Over time, he had developed quite a customer base of disciples. Yet when the promised Messiah showed up—the fulfillment of John’s business plan—true to form, his coworkers (or disciples) went to John to complain that the one he had testified about was stealing all of his customers. "Rabbi," they said, "that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan . . . well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him" (John 3:26). John’s response showed clearly he understood his purpose and role in life in the above verse.
John understood that we receive by understanding our purpose and what God desires us to receive in light of our purpose. We need not worry about what others receive, only if we are receiving what God wants us to receive. Many of us try to receive things God never intended us to receive or be someone God never intended us to be.
A story is told about F. B. Meyer, the great Bible teacher and pastor who lived a century ago. He was pastoring a church when he began to notice that attendance was dropping. This continued until he finally asked some members of his congregation one Sunday morning why they thought this was happening. A member suggested, "It is because of the new church down the road. The young preacher has everyone talking, and many are going to hear him speak." The young preacher’s name was Charles Spurgeon.
Meyer, rather than seeking to discourage this development, exhorted his entire congregation to join him and go participate in seeing this "move of God," as he described it to them. "If this be happening, then God must be at work."1 Meyer, like John the Baptist, understood the principle of receiving from God and was not threatened by the new competition in town. Instead, he joined it.
Do you model a Kingdom mindset? Do you rejoice when others succeed? Are you receiving only what God desires you to receive?

DISCERNING THE WORKS OF GOD

 

"Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who have been trying to intimidate me." - Nehemiah 6:14 Nehemiah set out to rebuild the wall at Jerusalem that had been destroyed. Nehemiah held a position in the Persian Empire that would be comparable to Chief of Staff in our government. Nehemiah wept over the destruction of the city wall and repented for the sins of his generation and the generations before him that had led to the fall of Jerusalem. Nehemiah responded to the news by seeking approval from his superior to take time off to rebuild the wall. Tobiah and Sanballat met Nehemiah's action with resistance, as did Noadiah the prophetess, and other prophets. These were the religious and political leaders of his day. They became distractions to his work and opposed him. Whenever God does a new work, it is often met with resistance by those in the established religious community, and sometimes among those from whom we would expect support. Jesus met the same resistance when He began His public ministry. This same phenomenon happens today. When God begins a new work that cannot be easily explained based upon prior experiences, many make the mistake of assuming it not to be of God. The very people who should embrace and encourage the work become the source of skepticism and opposition. God tells us that His ways are not our ways. He does things in ways beyond our limited understanding. Before you are tempted to criticize or oppose something that looks different from your past experience, ask God for wisdom and discernment. Examine why you might be tempted to oppose it. The Lord cannot be put in a box. He delights in doing things in ways that may not fit our former paradigms. Nehemiah had to hear God’s voice to build the wall of Jerusalem so he would not succumb to fear. You too need to hear God’s voice.

A REFINER'S FIRE

 

"For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap." - Malachi 3:2b The Lord has a specific manner of preparing His people for useful service. God desires to turn His children from rough, hard-edged stones into gems of gold and silver. "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years" (Malachi 3:3-4). The refiner's fire can only accomplish its purposes when the heat is turned up to extraordinary temperatures. It breaks down the metal in order for it to become moldable and shapeable. Only when the temperatures reach this level can the work be fully accomplished. So it is in our lives. Until the Lord completes His refining process, the offerings we make are not made in righteousness and cannot be acceptable. Thank God that Jesus is our righteousness and that there is no righteousness apart from Him. Still, the Lord continues to purge all that is not of His righteousness out of our lives. This comes through trials that bring each of us to the end of ourselves in order that He may only reflect that which is Himself. When God takes you through the refiner's fire, be encouraged because it is His overriding commitment to turn you from a rough, hard-edged stone to a precious metal. He will do this through certain events in your workplace, your relationships, and other circumstances in your life. Our job is to avoid trying to blow out the fire. God’s refining process can be difficult to understand. Joseph went through a difficult refining process. As I examined the life of Joseph and discovered he had a “Joseph Calling”.

The First Requirement of Ministry

 

"The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord." - Joel 1:9b The first requirement for being used by God in the life of others is to mourn on their behalf. We must identify with their pain and suffering. Each of us must be broken for others first. In order to be fully used by God in the workplace, we need to understand what breaks God's heart. When we understand what breaks God's heart, we are able to mourn on behalf of a grieving person, or a nation we are called to serve. What breaks God's heart? When we begin to answer this question, we begin the first step to becoming instruments of change for those things that are important to God. Perhaps it is an overemphasis in our own talent and abilities, or lack of complete trust in Jesus. Perhaps it is the lack of respect for human life that leads to the killing of innocent babies. Perhaps it is the deceit and pride that often rule the workplace of commerce. Or perhaps it is the strife and divisions among His own Body that grieve Him most. When we begin to mourn over our own sins in these areas, God begins to use us as instruments of righteousness to affect these things. It was only when God let me see my own sins in the workplace and how they broke His heart that I began to be an instrument for His purposes. Today, ask God to show you what things in your world are breaking His heart. Then see how He might want you to be the priest to affect for Him. The first step is identification with what breaks God's heart.

DISCIPLINING THE NATIONS

 A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous ( Prov 13:22 NKJV).

As a student in 1971, Berthold Becker was converted from being a socialist activist to a disciple of the Lord Jesus. Shortly after completing his university education, Berthold decided he wanted to understand what it meant to experience God in his professional career. So, he learned to walk with God at work in the automotive industry. Berthold testifies how God gave him many designs for cars that became their best-sellers. He was often referred to as the "prophet" among his non-Christian auto executives.
With his wife Barbara as his personal intercessor, Berthold left his career in the auto industry in 1986, to begin many entrepreneurial Kingdom initiatives. One was launched in the Ukraine through an initiative called GfS (Gesellschaft für Strukturentwicklung). Berthold became active in many training, consulting and joint venture situations, helping Ukrainian business start-ups. During his travels there, he noticed the lack of availability of good bread, and he decided to do something about it. He started small businesses using mobile bakeries that he bought from the Swiss Army. The German and Ukranian governments soon recognized that Berthold had been serving the nation through his business expertise and came alongside him to say, "You are doing it better than we can." The governments began funding his enterprises, while his group remained in control of the business. The Bible says "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession" (Ps 2:8).I believe one way that will happen is when Christians become the source of blessing to a city or nation.
These enterprises (which include technology transfer and training centers for bread, meat, and dairy products) have become a joint venture with a Ukrainian business group, operating successfully in the food industry.
Today, God is raising up a new breed of Christian workplace leader. God will use anyone to impact a nation because we are all called to disciple the nations. How might God want to use you in the days ahead? What idea might God give you to impact a nation?

ISN'T THIS JOSEPH'S SON?

 

"All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. 'Isn't this Joseph's son?' they asked" (Luke 4:22). Jesus was more qualified to be a carpenter than the Son of God in the view of religious leaders and the common people of his day. He was also becoming known as a rabbi who thought and did things "outside the box." He was an unusual mixture of the earthly common man who did daily work just like his other villagers in Nazareth. So, when the public ministry side of his life began to surface, the first observations were, "Isn't this Joseph, the carpenter's son?" This is not unlike what happens when God calls you or I into a more public ministry. "Isn't that John, the CPA, or Bill the restaurant manager, or Susie the bank executive?" The first question among our critics is, "Where did John, Bill, or Susie get religion?" The religious spirit in the workplace reveals itself in many ways. The religious spirit can best be defined as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. The religious spirit seeks to distort a genuine move of God through deception, control, and manipulation. It was the primary force against Jesus, designed to intimidate and turn His relationship with God into a set of rules and regulations. Satan does not want Jesus in the workplace because that is where the authority lies to change a workplace, city, or nation. God desires you to bring His presence with you into the workplace every day. Do not let the enemy of your soul shame you into alienating your faith from your work. Today, ask Jesus to go into the workplace with you. The two of you just might be the team to bring someone out of slavery and bondage.

THE DEPTH AND WIDTH OF YOUR CALLING

 

"If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer." (2 Corinthians 1:6 "God must love you a lot! He doesn't allow someone to go through the kinds of adversity you have experienced unless He has a special calling on your life." Those were the words said to me by two different mentors at two different times within a three-year period. Later I would learn another related truth from a respected man of God - a man who lives in another country, a man whom God uses throughout the globe. "The depth and width of your faith experiences are directly proportional to your calling." What were these men of God saying? They were describing a process of preparation that God takes each of His leaders through when He plans to use them in significant ways. A "faith experience" is an event or "spiritual marker" in your life about which you can say, "That is where I saw God personally moving in my life." It is an unmistakable event in which God showed Himself personally to you. It was the burning bush for Moses; the crossing of the Red Sea or the Jordan River for the nation of Israel; Jacob's encounter with the angel. It was the feeding of the 5,000 for the disciples. It was the time when you saw God face to face in your life. If God has plans of using you in the lives of many others, you can expect that He is going to allow certain faith experiences to come into your life in order to build a foundation that will be solid. That foundation is what you will be able to look back on to keep you faithful to Him in the times of testing. Each of us must have personal faith experiences in which we experience God personally so that we can move in faith to whatever He may call us. Do you need a personal faith experience right now in your life? Pray that God will reveal Himself to you. He delights in doing that.

LEARNING TO RECEIVE

 

"In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for he grants sleep to those he loves" (Ps 127:2). One of the paradigm shifts every believer must learn once they make Jesus lord of their lives is how to move from receiving by sweating and toiling to receiving by trusting and obeying. In the scripture, Egypt represented sweat and toil and bondage. The Promised Land represents a land of milk and honey received by trust and obedience. We learn in Joshua 24:13 that our obedience will allow us to receive things we would never receive out of sweat and toil. "So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant." Os Hillman shared, "I learned this principle when God began to transition me from owning and operating an advertising agency to a vocational marketplace ministry. Many times I could not see how provision to do my work would result because it was not based upon a contract-for-services model. I was once invited to speak to a small group of people on a Caribbean island. I knew it would require three days of my time, and I'd receive very little compensation. The Lord instructed me to go anyway. Just as I thought, I did not receive a commensurate income for the time invested for the three days. (This is often the way we think in business.) However, I left some books behind, and they began to be circulated to other islands. A few businessmen received the books, and they invited me to speak at a conference for 22 Caribbean islands later that year. One man was touched by my teaching. On January 2, I received a check for $5000 from this man. I pondered the sequence of events that led to receiving this provision. It was because of my obedience to the small things that God was able to "give me a land on which I did not toil." Be faithful to the small things, and God will always honor your obedience.

FORGIVENESS ENSURES FREEDOM

 

"See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." - Hebrews 12:15 In business and life, the opportunity to harbor bitterness for a wrong suffered is great. We are given plenty of opportunities to grow bitter from relationships that bring hurt and pain. The writer of the Hebrews passage above admonishes us not to miss the grace of God so that we won't take up bitterness as a response to life's pain. He cautions us against this because he knows that a bitter root grows and grows until it eventually defiles many others through a wake of bitterness. If bitterness is allowed to take root, we become imprisoned to it. God's grace will no longer have as great an effect in our lives. We become ineffective, insensitive, and spiritually dead. We can even become physically ill from it. God does not live in bitterness. He lives in grace. He has provided grace for every person to walk in. One day, I was challenged to deal with an individual who hurt me terribly. I was faced with a decision. Would I choose bitterness, or would I choose grace? Oh, how my natural tendency was to choose bitterness. But God provided the courage to choose grace. With that grace came freedom - a freedom to love and even accept the person who was the source of such pain. This is the real place where Christ's power is most revealed. We cannot live without His supernatural grace. Are you in need of grace today? It is there for the receiving. It will take courage to accept it and walk in it. This will be your step to freedom.