Philippians 1:20: I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

 

So-What's for Work: Our goal should be to have selected our work because of how it fits into our relationship with God, not how it serves us or others.

So-What's for Home: Even our spouse or child can sometimes become our idol; we serve them best by working to be close to God. 

So-What's for Community:  Hell will be filled with people so busy doing good they never met God.

 

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Uncertainty

 

Hebrews 11:8: By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

 

So Whats for Work: When our priority is knowing God, He will lead us to the place He wants us to work; but when we make work our priority, we have no idea where God wants us.

So-Whats for Home: If our children see us looking for God, they'll look for Him, too. 

So-Whats for Community:  The more we know God, the more others will see Him in and through us.

 

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Understanding & applying Scripture

 

Psalm 97:2: Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

 

So-Whats for Work: If our job keeps us so busy we don't have time to read the Bible, we will never hear God. That means we'll be doing "what's right in our own eyes" instead of what God shows us is right; in other words, we'll be running our business or our work lives by human standards instead of Godly ones. 

So-Whats for Home: One of the most important things we'll ever do is helping our kids see and know God; if we fail to do this, we surrender them to seeing only the confusing clouds and darkness.

So-Whats for Community: The world is afraid of what they can't understand, and it's our job to help them see through the clouds and darkness by letting them see what we see when we look at God.

 

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Head games

 

John 13:37: Peter asked, "Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you."

 

So-Whats for Work: The thing done quickly is almost always the thing done wrong. This is as true in our work lives as it is in our spiritual lives.

So-Whats for Home: Unlike God, we parents have to earn the right to say "because I say so". While God's just nature immediately grants Him our trust, we must work to explain, as often as practicable and possible, why we're doing certain things in our children's lives.  When we teach them to trust us to have their best interests at heart, we teach them how to trust God, too.

So-Whats for Community: When we make our faith about public acts of holiness, we make it about earning salvation instead of receiving grace.

 

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Humble leadership

 

John 13:36: Simon Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later."

 

So-What's for Work: The humility that makes us open to Christ's leadership is an attractive trait to our bosses and coworkers. Also, as bosses and coworkers, how we behave after a coworker makes a mistake determines whether they suffer humiliation or learn humility. Great leaders teach humility, terrible leaders inflict humiliation.

So-What's for Home: Are our children undone by our reaction to their mistakes? How we behave after their mistakes determines whether they suffer humiliation or learn humility. Godly parents teach humility.

So-What's for Community: People benefit more from hearing what we learned from our mistakes than they do from our tales of triumph.

 

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Work as service to God

 

Genesis 12:8: From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.

 

So-Whats for Work: Don't think of work as time away from God; think of it as service offered to Him.

So-Whats for Home: Too often, home is where we let our spiritual guard down and treat people most ungodly; whereas Scripture teaches home is where we are to be most spiritually-in-tune.

So-Whats for Community: The degree to which we're able to integrate our faith into our life is the degree to which others will be interested in their view of God in us.

 

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Intimacy

 

John 14:9: Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?

 

So-Whats for Work: Those who are closely connected to God are best-equipped to handle the hardest tasks on the job.

So-Whats for Home: The best way to protect our children's spiritual heritage is to make sure we never say about our faith: "Do as I say, not as I do."

So-Whats for Community: The more cavalier we are about knowing God, the more inaccurate the picture of Him we show to those around us.

 

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Selfless service

 

Genesis 22:9: When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.

 

So-Whats for Work: All in or all out; we're either doing our work because we think it's useful to God's Kingdom, or we're doing it because our priority is ourselves.

So-Whats for Home: God doesn't want to be more or less important to us than our families; He wants us to bring our family into His family.

So-Whats for Community: We can't fix what's wrong in our culture unless and until we fix what's wrong in us; trying just makes us easy targets for the naysayers.

 

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Staying focused

 

Isaiah 45:22: " Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. (NKJV)

 

So-Whats for Work: As Christians in leadership positions in business, when we look on Jesus' face for comfort and strength, we carry that strength to our workers and coworkers.  We must constantly be aware they are looking to us for hope in tough times.

So-Whats for Home: Just as our children draw strength from our faces, so too must we draw strength from God. When we do, we teach our children to one day look past us directly to God themselves.

So-Whats for Community: In every crisis, the first cry is always to God. When the dust settles, the next cry is for those who know God. When we develop the discipline of looking to God for our strength, we're already equipped when a crisis hits.

 

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Spiritual maturity

 

II Corinthians 3:18:  And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

 

So-Whats for Work: When the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy about what a church leader should look like, he might also have said they were the qualities for business leaders and managers, too. To run a business or department the way God wants it run, you must know God, and to know God, you must know His Word.

So-Whats for Home: We cannot be the kind of spouses or parents or children God wants us to be unless we know Him.

So-Whats for Community: God changes the world, not Christians.  Only Christians with their eye set firmly on God have the wisdom, the will and the power to change culture the way God wants it changed. All other attempts leave God (and Christianity) looking harsh and unloving.

 

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Transformation

 

Acts 26:16: 'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you.

 

So-Whats for Work: Working Christians often resent being told they have to be sold out to Jesus because it seems embarrassing or somehow squeamish. When we think that way, it's clear we're spending too much time on Christianity and not enough on knowing Christ. Jesus wanted Paul to understand he could never be the best of anything unless his best was in service to the King. Same goes for us.

So-Whats for Home: Only rookies believe love is enough to be good parents or spouses. Family is tough, tough work, and it's easy to let the close-up view of the flaws of our loved ones get in the way of serving them.  Only the kind of change a "Damascus Road" knowledge of Jesus affords will give us the strength we need to be effective in the one place where everybody knows our faults, and we know their faults: The family.

So-Whats for Community: Social issues will always divide believers from non-believers; they'll also often divide believers.  Denominational and doctrinal issues will also drive rifts between followers of Jesus. ONLY the power of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will empower us with the humility and the wisdom to succeed where others always fail; caring for the culture God assigned us to tend.

 

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Waiting on God

 

Galatians 1:15: But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to…

 

So-Whats for Work: We must not let our careers or our businesses get so tangled in life's demands (credit, debt, achievement, expectation, etc.) that we're not able to react when God calls on us.

So-Whats for Home: One of the biggest mistakes we make as parents is not teaching our kids to consult God when considering their career and family decisions.

So-Whats for Community: Our culture careens out of control because they've stopped believing God is in control. The more we can teach them God controls our lives, the more they'll believe He controls the world, too.  Until we do, they're going to keep trying everything except God to fix it.

 

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Contentment

 

Matthew 6:30: If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

 

So-Whats for Work: Our jobs are the most important form of worship we offer God; and for the most part, God intends for us to enjoy what we do, so long as we remember we're doing it as His stewards, and not in a race to collect the most toys.

So-Whats for Home: We must never let ourselves be heard saying "I wish my kids were more like…" or "I wish my spouse was more like…"  Those are the seeds of discontent that lead to bitterness and heartbreak.  Besides, our kids and our spouse are a reflection of the quality of our service to them; God-honoring attention expressed in selfless acts and unconditional love.

So-Whats for Community: While Jesus teaches "simple, simple", we cannot muddy His message by shouting "more, more".  We honor God when the world sees us using what God gives us wisely, and applying any bounty to the needs of others.

 

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Trust

 

Matthew 6:25: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

 

So-Whats for Work: Jesus would never suggest we not plan our careers or our work days, but He certainly reminds us to stop planning them without Him.  If you're a leader or manager, there's another benefit to this focus on Jesus: It will help you project the calm your workers need to see in you when times are tough.

So-Whats for Home: Try as we might, our children know when we're worried. This unexplained anxiety often seems bigger to them because it's an unknown, and it has a disproportionate effect on them.  We must find our way to a focus on Jesus if for no other reason than to avoid inflicting this often-unnoticed stress on them.

So-Whats for Community: After the September 11 terrorist attacks, church attendance shot up; then shot back down again by February of 2002. Why? Because Christians were no more comforted than non-Christians.  We must teach reliance on God by being reliant on Him. 

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Management

 

Acts 26:14: We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'

 

So-Whats for Work: Workers focused on knowing God will be more productive, more creative, more disciplined, more effective and more profitable.  Christians ignoring God, or trying to impress Him with checklist-faith (don't drink, don't smoke, don't swear, etc.) will often be less effective than unbelievers because they're attention and loyalties are divided.

So-Whats for Home:  One of the biggest mistakes I made early in my kids' lives was having my quiet times when they weren't around.  There's a fine line between show-off faith and example-faith, but we need to be sure we're modeling for our children the art of knowing God: Prayer, Bible reading, Quiet time.

So-Whats for Community: There's a lot of talk these days about the world hating Christians but loving Jesus.  I think that's mostly a smokescreen, but to the extent it is true, it's the Christians whose focus is on something other than knowing God better who create this problem-and let's be clear: That's all of us at one time or another in our walk. The world doesn't love Jesus; they don't know Him, and they certainly don't understand His words or they'd be acting on them.  No, the world needs to meet people who do know Jesus, and who are in constant touch with Him. 

 

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Hearing God

 

Acts 26:15: "Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?'  'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,'"the Lord replied.

 

So-Whats for Work: Especially in American culture, where success and competition can often drown out service and sacrifice as themes in our lives, we must cultivate the kind of walk with God that assures we're hearing Him when He says "no, do it this way."  The plus side to that is this: Doing things God's way often requires us to be more creative, to think even further outside the box, than anyone else.  This can make us leaders in the very culture we think has the advantage over us.

So-Whats for Home:  Who taught you how to know how to hear God?  Are you teaching that to your kids?

So-Whats for Community:  There is an incredible aura that permeates a believer who walks closely with God.  While that aura can sometimes make people angry and defensive, it is at the same time an undeniably attractive trait during the storms of life, and it draws people to us, and therefore to God.

 

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Hearing God II

 

I Samuel 3:15: Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the LORD. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision…

 

So-Whats for Work: We're either getting our direction from God, or we're acting on bad advice.  Only the truly arrogant among us believe God doesn't understand their work situations better than they do, so the problem isn't confidence in God, contrary to public perceptions these days.  Most Christians really do believe the Bible is relevant to their work; they just don't believe they can interpret it.  Good news? We don't have to; God will do it for us if we're listening.

So-Whats for Home:  One of the key reasons Scripture uses father-son terminology is to help us see love and how to apply it in our own families.  Basking in the unconditional love of the Father will better enable us to pass that unconditional love on to our spouses and children…and even to extended family members.

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Redemption

 

Romans 1:1:  Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God---

 

So-Whats for Work: If work is our identity, work becomes our god; if God is our identity, then work becomes our worship and our service. 

So-Whats for Home:  A family committed to Christ is the most powerful organization in the world.