New Opportunities

I had recently received an interesting invitation. The Executive Director of a denomination in Australia asked if I would come to Australia and speak to his denomination for an afternoon on spiritual leadership. He said his pastors and church leaders desperately needed to understand what God’s standard and expectations of leaders was. My thought was, “That’s an awfully long ways to go to preach one sermon!” (It also makes you feel a lot of pressure to do a good job. Those aren’t the sermons you want to be “duds!”) But it also reminded me again that today’s churches are desperate to understand what scripture says a spiritual leader should be and do. I believe Blackaby Ministries International has a unique message that pastors, business people and churches are eager to hear. BMI is being inundated with requests internationally to teach people about spiritual leadership. I certainly appreciate your prayers as we seek the Lord’s leading on which international invitations we should accept. In 2007 we will be in South Africa, Brazil, England, India, Australia, Columbia and we have been invited to numerous other countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Philippines, Haiti and many others we are currently praying over. This will be an exciting year as we seek to help people around the world know how to be the spiritual leaders God intends for them to be. Please pray for us!

Reading

I have been reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It is a fascinating study of how Lincoln defeated three other men for the Republican nomination for president who were all better known and more experienced than he was. Lincoln then turned around and brought his rivals into his cabinet and won their loyalty and admiration. In his first encounter with Edward Stanton, Stanton disdainfully called Lincoln a “long armed ape.” Yet Lincoln would later invite Stanton to serve as the head of the War Department during the critical Civil War years. Lincoln demonstrated a statesmanship that is largely lacking today. It would seem that the world we live in today requires more than ordinary leadership as well. I am praying that the Lord will use BMI to help people rise to a higher level of leadership in the roles and settings God has placed them.

Scripture

Recently I was reading Matthew 17:14-21. In it nine of Jesus’ disciples had failed to heal a demon possessed boy. Jesus’ response to His powerless disciples was one of the harshest rebukes ever to come out of His mouth, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” Jesus regularly condemned faithless, powerless disciples.

Later when the chagrined disciples asked their Lord why they could not cast out the demon Jesus responded: “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” I used to misunderstand this verse. I used to think Jesus was saying, “If you had even a small amount of faith the size of a tiny mustard seed, you could move mountains.” But I don’t think that is what He is saying here. He was not saying it was good to have a little faith. He wasn’t talking about the quantity of your faith but the quality of it. He said if you have faith “as a mustard seed.” He doesn’t encourage them to have faith the size of a mustard seed.

What is a mustard seed like? It is outrageous! It is one of the tiniest seeds there is, yet it has the audacity to believe it can become a large tree. Sure enough, it does become a large tree. There are other seeds that are larger than a mustard seed. There are all kinds of factors that weigh against a mustard seed becoming a tree. But it believes it can, so it does. My question for you as you enter a new year is this: How outrageous is your faith in God? Do you believe God will do amazing things through you and your church this year? Do you believe God will use your life and church to impact the world? Do you believe God will do things through your life that can only be explained by God’s miraculous intervention? The evidence of your faith will be obvious. If you have faith, as a mustard seed, the mountains around you will be changing their address! The year 2007 will bear witness to the quality of your faith. May it be an awesome year!

Posted by Richard Blackaby at 9:43 am