WISE, INTENTIONAL

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

TITUS EMAIL

Volume 2, Number 12 – December, 2008

Thank you for praying for WILD’s trip to Nepal. At the end of this email I share highlights and interesting situations that we faced. Marty and I greatly enjoyed our time there. I do want to wish each of you a blessed Christmas and may His joy fill our hearts. Mike

ZEALOUSNESS OF PAUL

Think of ways to describe Paul and you can come up with zealousness. As a young person pursing his faith, Paul was working to be the best Jew one could be (Acts 26:5). He was thoroughly trained in the laws of the Jewish fathers, having been trained under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). Being taught by Gamaliel, you were at the epitome of Jewish teaching.

Paul was very candid about his zeal for advancing Judiasm and his thirst to exterminate anything that got in the way of that agenda (Galatians 1:13-14).

His desire to persecute people like Stephen and eliminate the believers in Jesus gave him a reputation throughout the whole region he lived as one who would do whatever to destroy this religion about Jesus (Acts 22:4-5). The letters to put believers in prison and kill them were in his possession when Jesus got ahold of Paul’s life on the road to Damascus. No wonder Ananias was very sheepish about helping Paul out when he arrived in Damascus.

Even after his conversion, that zeal did not diminish. Within a few days of regaining his sight from the encounter with Jesus, Paul was preaching in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God. Paul grew more and more powerful, baffling the Jews with his proving Jesus was the Messiah. That zeal for the Gospel got Paul in trouble with the Jews to the point that they wanted to kill him, so one night he had to escape down the side of Damascus’ city walls and head to Arabia (Acts 9:22-25, Galatians 1:17-18). After several years, Paul did go to Jerusalem where people were still unsure about his motives which did not stop Paul’s zealousness from sharing the Gospel.

Reading from 2 Corinthians 11:16-33, his zeal was never reduced or quenched and his passion for his Savior and commission to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles only got deeper each day he lived his life. At the end of his life, Paul was able to confidently say that he had finished the race marked out for him, fighting the good fight for Jesus and kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:6-7). His words in that passage echo the way Jesus lived His life as Jesus knew His purpose of coming to seek and save those who were lost (Luke 19:10) and never allowed anything to distract Him from accomplishing that purpose.

In reading about Paul and Jesus, I have to ask myself how zealous am I, first, developing my relationship with Jesus, striving to know Him more deeply each day and secondly, pursuing the passion and the way I was created for God’s glory? Paul only knew how to live life one way and that was to passionately pursue what was driving his life, whether being the best Jew or the best follower of Jesus he could be. Understanding his role in the Body of Christ caused him to focus in on what was his mission and no matter the cost (even death) would curtain that. Actually the only thing that stopped Paul was death.

What impact do you want to leave in this world? One where you were successful, where you had a good reputation, made a lot of money or led a comfortable life? Or would you rather have significance, where you knew that you lived your life the way God made you, and the impact will be eternal? Perhaps we Christians should pray more fervently for significant lives than for comfortable lives.

Ask God to show you why you were created and for what role you are responsible for in the Body of Christ. Learn about your spiritual gift(s), your personality and abilities, ask yourself what you really want to live for and get excited about, what makes you happy and sad? Being zealous will begin to develop as a result of understanding how you are made.

YOUTH MINISTRY INSIGHT

BEING IN THE WRONG PLACE

Have you ever ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time and

as a result, got in some sort of trouble? You probably thought that

if you had just been somewhere else, nothing would have gone wrong.

Maybe David had some of those same thoughts after going through one of

the worst times in his life. 2 Samuel 11 starts off with the

statement that when in the spring of the year, kings went off to war.

David, being king of Israel was suppose to have been out on the battle

field with his troops waging war with some other nation because that

is what kings in the Spring were to do. Not David. He sent out his

military but he stayed home. Perhaps he was tired of war or because he was king, he had the power to keep himself home because he wanted to.

Whatever the reason, one night he could not sleep and went out on to

his roof. His palace was probably the tallest building in Jerusalem so

he could see all over the city. In the capital city of Kathmandu,

Nepal, you can go on to the roof of basically every building and see

the city from a different perspective and at the same time be able to

look down onto other people's roofs if you are on a taller building.

David was out strolling around on the roof and noticed a woman taking

a bath on her roof which was not unusual. This woman was very beautiful and David thought that he would like to get to know her better and as a result of inviting her to the palace, she got

pregnant. Bathsheba let David know this which resulted in David

getting her husband Uriah killed to cover up his sin. It was going

fine until God sent his prophet Nathan to let David know that he was

not going to get away with that sin. Bathsheba's baby died along with

three other of David's sons as a result of David's sin.

Now the "If onlys" could come flooding in. If only David had done what he was suppose to do by being on the battle field with his troops. If only he had not gone out onto the roof that night. If only Bathsheba had not been bathing at that time. If only David would not have stared at Bathsheba and invited her to the palace.

It is easy to get into the "if onlys" but the truth is David was not where he was suppose to be and secondly he used his God given power as king to commit a sin. Eventually he took responsibility as Nathan confronted him and repented as he was very remorseful and willing to do what God told him to do to make his relationship right with God again.

When we end up in situations and places we should not be, when we tell

parents we will be in one place and head to another, we are asking for

trouble. When we deliberately go against parents or any other

authority, we are opening up ourselves to Satan easily deceiving us.

Obviously even when we are in the right places and situations, we

still can fall to temptation but we put ourselves in vulnerable

situations when we are dishonest and not truthful. Work at being truthful and honest in all areas of your life.

ILLUSTRATION

They say one way people catch monkeys in the jungle is by getting a large, strong gourd and cutting a hole in the side of it just barely big enough for a monkey’s hand to fit in. Then they firmly attach the gourd to the limb of a tree so it can’t be moved. Then they place some of the monkey’s favorite nuts inside the gourd.

When the monkey discovers the gourd, he will slip his hand in and grab a handful of nuts. Then he will try to pull his hand out, but won’t be able to. He will keep trying and trying but he will never let go of the nuts. Finally when he is completely tired out, someone walks up, throws a net over him and carries him off. Freedom was available to the monkey if he would have only let go of the nuts.

For people if we would only let go of the temptation, we would be freed from the sin but we hold on because the sin is so inviting. Thus we become entrapped by the sin and get caught in its grasp.

QUOTES

“You’re a fool, a simpleton, if you know what weakens you but feed on it anyway.” Charles Swindoll

“Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful.” Benjamin Franklin

“A river becomes crooked by following the lines of least resistance. So does a man.” Author Unknown

“The devil has no happy old men” Author Unknown