Leadership

I just finished reading the memoirs of Major Dick Winters, a book I received for my Birthday. Dick Winters is the legendary leader of Easy Company, immortalised in the Band Of Brothers HBO series.

His book finishes with 10 points on leadership, here it is, and it deserves some thought.


Leadership at the Point of the Bayonet


1. Strive to be a leader of character, competence, and courage.
2. Lead from the front. Say, “Follow me!” and then lead the way.
3. Stay in top physical shape--physical stamina is the root of mental toughness.
4. Develop your team. If you know your people, are fair in setting realistic goals and expectations, and lead by example, you will develop teamwork.
5. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their job. You can’t do a good job if you don’t have a chance to use your imagination and creativity.
6. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles. Don’t wait until you get to the top of the ridge and then make up your mind.
7. Remain humble. Don’t worry about who receives the credit. Never let power or authority go to your head.
8. Take a moment of self-reflection. Look at yourself in the mirror every night and ask yourself if you did your best.
9. True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. They key to a successful leader is to earn respect--not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character.
10. Hang Tough!--Never, ever, give up.

Working for God

I was recently very inspired and challenged again as to how much we do things in 'the flesh' as opposed to 'the Spirit' after reading this in Tozer's book 'The Set Of The Sail' in the chapter 'Substitutes for Discipleship':

 Another substitute for discipleship that I would mention (though these do not exhaust the list) is zealous religious activity.
Working for Christ has today been accepted as the ultimate test of godliness among all but a few evangelical Christians. Christ has become a project to be promoted or a cause to be served instead of a Lord to be obeyed. Thousands of mistaken persons seek to do for Christ whatever their fancy suggests should be done, and in whatever way they think best. The what and the how of Christian service can only originate in the sovereign will of our Lord, but the busy beavers among us ignore this fact and think up their own schemes. The result is an army of men who run without being sent and speak without being commanded.
To avoid the snare of unauthorized substitution I recommend a careful and prayerful study of the Lordship of Christ and the discipleship of the believer.

Happy Anniversary

So, Nicky and I recently celebrated our 19th Wedding Anniversary.
I say celebrated, but really that's completely misleading.
The Tuesday of our Anniversary I had been suffering from a sore throat.
I decided to go to the Doctor's and get some pills and just return to work, but when the Doctor saw me he diagnosed Quinsy.
I'd never heard of it, and apparently it's not that common, being an old type of illness. It's so uncommon, that he immediately got on the phone to another Doctor to come and have a look, as they'd never seen it before. the other Doctor simply said "Oooh, lovely".
A funny story, but Praise God I got the Doctor who actually knew what it was! Not one of the Doctors who would have given me a wrong diagnosis.

Anyway, I spent our Anniversary in hospital hooked up to IVF liquids and antibiotics after they'd put a huge needle down my throat to try and scratch the swelling.
Not pleasant.
I couldn't talk or eat for the best part of 24 hours.
I really noticed how much I missed speaking in tongues. It was a couple of days later after being discharged that I had the strength to talk a bit and I started speaking in tongues again. I was very aware of these power words going through my throat, like reverse medicine, coming out instead of going in.

I've been speaking in tongues a lot more since. About 15 mins at a time. I seem to have had a heightening of my understanding of just how powerful this gift of the Spirit is.

The Omni's!

The kids are going back to school. For my daughter it's a new school. High school. And it can be very daunting.
We spent some time the night before her first day playing a game of encouragement. We basically took it in turns to say encouraging things to each other.
I got a bit carried away, and started talking about God's 'Omni' characteristics.
It's so amazing, I thought I'd share these very pieces of encouragement.
These do not of course fully explain these characteristics, they are just small facets of them.

Omnipotence (from Latin: Omni Potens: "all power") is unlimited power.

God is all powerful. Yep, easy one, got it. But what does that mean? If you are in need and pray, God doesn't just get His eye dropper out and measure out a tiny part of His power to help your need. No, God aims ALL His power at your situation. His power is perfect and complete. It never runs out, never needs to replenished, He never needs a rest for it to build up again. When He helps, He helps completely, and He hasn't then emptied Himself of power, He still has all power to help anyone else.



Omniscience  is the capacity to know everything infinitely

God knows everything. Again, easy. got it. Next. It means God knows everything there is possibly to know about everything in existence. He will never be surprised by something He didn't know. We will never learn something He doesn't know. We just learn things that he allows to be revealed to us. I guess that's what science is. Our learning of his revelations on creation. He knows everything about you, every thought, motive, word spoken. He sees all the secret things.



Omnipresence is the property of being present everywhere.

This one could freak you out. To explain this one to the kids I drew a line on some paper. Marked the beginning of the line as birth, and the end as death. I then marked lots of different events along this line, such as: first time to walk, first word, starting nursery, first day at school, first day at college, first job, getting married, having kids, being a grandpa/granny, being called home to be with Him.
Then I asked the kids, where Jesus was on this timeline? They pointed to various events, but I drew a circle outside of the timeline and said He's there. He's outside of time. Because He's outside of time, He can see all events at once, and can be in all places at once (at every time).
So, right now, he's there at your birth. Right now, He's there when you walk. Right now, He's there at your first day of school, ready to help you, preparing things for you. Right now, he's there at your first day of work. Right now, he's there at your bedside calling you 'come home'.
Absolutely beautiful.

It's the Devil!

I've wanted to work this out for a while.
I get a bit fed up with people when they say things like:
The Devil stopped me.
It's the Devil that has done this.
The Devil is making trouble for me!

Wheras I agree 100% there is a Devil, and he is our adversary, I think a lot of 'stuff' that happens in our lives has absolutely nothing to do with spiritual warfare.

So, I wanted to see just how much time the Devil can give to each person. Because he isn't Omnipresent like God, he can't be everywhere at once. So his time is limited.

There are 6.721 Billion people on the planet. There are 24 hours in a day.
Divide one by the other, and allowing for the speed of light you have exactly .00001285522988 of a second to have his undivided attention.

Seems a bit more unlikely now doesn't it.

Death Strikes Twice

Psalm 68
20 Our God is a God of salvation,
and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

So, Monday 9th I was cycling along, just out of work, making my way to the Taff Trail, a path for cyclists and pedestrians that runs along the River Taff.
It's my usual route and a good time for me to speak in tongues and worship.
This Monday afternoon I was praising God, thanking Him for delivering me, because I had just been missed by a Jeep, which had cut me up on the corner before getting to the Trail. It missed be by a foot, but even closer was the trailer it was pulling, which missed me by about an inch.
I thought It was my time, but Praise God, I lived.

I got on to the trail, praising and then noticed for some reason my coat had come undone at the bottom and was flairing out like a cloak. I did think of just leaving it, but as it looked ridiculous I stopped and re-zipped it.

My next encounter was with a chap standing in the middle of the path urinating.
Some days cycling you see it all.

Then I came to a part of the trail that runs into an underpass. just before I came to it a motorbike roared out of the tunnel. it was going very fast with a teenager driving. He didn't move out of my way, so I had to swerve off the path to not get hit. he was of course riding illegally on the Trail.

I thanked God again that I had not met the bike in the tunnel, as there was no room and I would have just been killed by a bike going at that speed.
And then I thought.
The amount of time it took me to stop my bike and re-zip my coat earlier was the amount of time I missed being in the tunnel when the bike was there.

Truly Our God is a God of salvation,
and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

We See Your Glory

This album was given away on CD at the latest ministries Without Borders Bible Week 2010.
It's also available as a free MP3 download.
It has some superb songs on it and words that you'll be glad you have knocking around in your head.

Download HERE