actions on Business

A businessman well known for his ruthlessness once announced to writer Mark Twain, “Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mount Sinai and read the 10 Commandments alo...

Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Imagine, if you will, that you work for a company whose president found it necessary to travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad. So he says to you and the other trusted e...

Preaching Commentary Calling People often give me weird looks when I talk about being “called” by God. A pastor can be “called” to devote their working time to shepherding a church. A parent can be...

Calling People often give me weird looks when I talk about being “called” by God. A pastor can be “called” to devote their working time to shepherding a church. A parent can be “called” to invest in ...

Jesus, Not Nero, is Supreme To understand any written document one must understand the purpose for which it was written.  Sometimes this is stated overtly, as in the Preamble to The Constitution; som...

Preaching Commentary Jesus, Not Nero, is Supreme To understand any written document one must understand the purpose for which it was written.  Sometimes this is stated overtly, as in the Preamble t...

Ageless Wisdom If you are reading this as a pastor, teacher or preacher, I want you to jot down how old you are here _________.  If you wrote a number less than 30 know this letter and this passage...

AIM Commentary Ageless Wisdom If you are reading this as a pastor, teacher or preacher, I want you to jot down how old you are here _________.  If you wrote a number less than 30 know this letter...

The best way out is always through.

How you treat a person in the brief moment when you pass together through a revolving door tells the world what you believe about them.

Lord, help us to be a people known for the ways in which we live out our faith by loving and serving all people, even those who, in the world’s eyes, have little to offer us. By treating them with dig...

What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you s...

A 2014 study by Wendy Wood found that approximately 40% of people’s daily activities are performed out of habit. According to Wood, “an important characteristic of a habit is that it’s automatic…We fi...

Never mistake motion for action.

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.

There is a time to go and do; there is a time to listen and reflect. Knowing which is a matter of spiritual discernment. If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us, the Samaritan or Mary, his...

You will be better advised to watch what we do instead of what we say.

Genius is in the idea. Impact, however, comes from action.

Gracious God, in our desire to achieve success and recognition, we have disregarded honesty and integrity in our speech and actions. Forgive us for our shortcuts, white lies, and dishonesty. Help us b...

Many churches today remind me of a laboring crew trying to gather in a harvest while they sit in the tool shed. They go to the tool shed every Sunday and they study bigger and better methods of agricu...

The fact that our works are done in the service of God is not enough, by itself, to prevent us from losing our interior life if we let them devour all our time and all our strength. Work is good and n...

If we focus on our actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self.

In their excellent book, Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the foundation of life as being spiritual in nature. This means we are constantly be “form...

Gracious God, in our desire to achieve success and recognition, we have disregarded honesty and integrity in our speech and actions. Forgive us for our shortcuts, white lies, and dishonesty. Help us b...

Our modern dogma is that of Batman: “It’s not who you are underneath. It’s what you do that defines you.

Preaching Commentary The Fast-Paced Gospel “Immediacy” defines the Gospel of Mark’s rendition of Jesus’ ministry. Its fast pace reads like a comic strip of heroic proportions. Before one miraculous...

What you do speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say.

The Fast-Paced Gospel “Immediacy” defines the Gospel of Mark’s rendition of Jesus’ ministry. Its fast pace reads like a comic strip of heroic proportions. Before one miraculous event is over another ...

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by d...