Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found;

       surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach him (Psalm 32:6).

 

There is often a tendency in Christians not to really seek the Lord until we get into a crisis situation. Then we seek Him earnestly. We see this same pattern with Israel in the Old Testament. This is a primary reason why many stay in a seemingly perpetual state of crisis.

       Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He instructs sinners in the way.

       He leads the humble in justice, and He teaches the humble His way (Psalm 25:8-9).

 

It takes humility to know God's ways. The Lord teaches the humble His ways because one must be willing to learn in order to be taught, and as we covered previously, one definition of humility could be teachableness.

Hebrews 10:35 states, "Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward." In every sphere of life, confidence can be a primary factor that makes the difference between victory or defeat. Successful sports teams will quickly tell what a significant part confidence played in their victories. Successful generals will often point to the confidence they had in their troops as a reason for military victory. Victorious troops will usually point to the confidence they had in their generals.

The basic purpose of every Christian is to become like the Lord, and to do the works that He did. We do this by loving Him and our neighbors. Everything that we are called to do will fit in one of those categories: loving God or people. We may distinguish the path God has called us to walk by determining the path that compels us to walk in love. 

 

If we truly love the Lord we will love what He loves and hate what He hates.

Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge properly. In Proverbs 24:3-4 we are told, "By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; And by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches." It is true that sermons filled with knowledge will tend to draw people. The gift of a word of knowledge will also draw crowds. This is good, but our purpose in the Lord is not just to draw crowds, but also to see people built together into the house of the Lord. To do this we need wisdom.

Robin McMillan once told me that he could "smell a breakthrough." I thought that was a funny way to put it, but I had to admit that I could too. It was as if there was a special energy in the air, and you could actually smell a coming release in the Spirit.

If we are going to be successful in a major endeavor we must learn one of the most powerful skills that anyone can have—team building. One of the Lord's highest priorities when He walked the earth was to build His team. He gathered a core of future leaders who had to be joined to Him, and to one another. That is still one of His highest priorities in building His church, and therefore must be ours.

 

There are few truly great teams that can be built quickly. Certainly the Lord was the best at this than who ever was or will be.

A recent study made by Richard Leider and David Shapiro found that the number one fear that people have is to live a meaningless life. Finding one's purpose and fulfilling it is the deepest yearning of the human heart, even more compelling than fame or fortune.

 

Those who have had the most clearly defined purposes have been the leaders of the world. As Laurie Beth Jones stated in her book, The Path: "People with a clearly defined mission have always led those who do nothave one.

A couple of years ago I was complaining in my heart about the obstacles that we had encountered in several areas of our ministry that were slowing down our progress. As I was sitting in my chair thinking about what I could do to get these things moving faster, the phone rang.