The Forgotten Side of Success

Face it; we live in a success-saturated society. Right next to the books applauding our selfishness are dozens of bestsellers telling us how we can be more successful. Dozens of books and magazines every year, along with scores of DVDs and hundreds of seminars, offer new ideas and new motivation techniques that have the promise of prosperity. Success is big business. No wonder thinking like servants is so hard.

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Suffering for Doing What Is Right

As you serve people in ministry, you will give, forgive, forget, release your own will, obey God to the maximum, and wash dirty feet with an attitude of gentleness and humility. And after all those beautiful things, you will get ripped off occasionally. Knowing all this ahead of time will help “improve your serve,” believe me.

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A Realistic Appraisal of Serving Others

There isn’t a person reading these words who hasn’t had the tables turned. All of us have had the unhappy and unfortunate experience of doing what is right, yet we suffered for it. And we have also done what is wrong on a few occasions without being punished.

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Three Realms of True Success

Yesterday, we looked at the apostle Peter’s three crucial realms related to true success: authority, attitude, and anxiety. Let’s translate those realms into practical principles. You could think of them in steps, one building upon another.

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Does God Care about Our Suffering?

Agonizing in prayer over a difficult leader who was causing conflict in my church, I asked God to remove him and to protect my family and me. As senior pastor, I became the target for a few disgruntled people that this man had secretly poisoned against me. Eventually they demanded my resignation, threatening to disrupt […]

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Of Prophets and Angels

Has it ever crossed your mind that Isaiah—often called the “Prince of the Prophets”—would have wanted to trade places with you? Think about that for a moment. Isaiah lived in Jerusalem and had ready access to the kings of his day: some great, like Hezekiah, some not so great, like his predecessor, Ahaz. Isaiah had […]

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Truth with Tenderness

There’s a song by Paul Simon with a line that is worth noting. Now I don’t consider “Rhymin’ Simon” to be one of the great theologians of our time, but in this instance at least he stumbled into a trustworthy saying: you don’t have to lie to me, just give me some tenderness beneath your […]

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Peering Into the Crucible

During a visit to speak at a church, I held up my battered wedding ring to illustrate a point about hardship and trials. You see my poor marriage band has seen a lot of trouble. It once was lost (but now it’s found). It’s been broken, patched, patched again, and broken again. With each round […]

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