Tag Archives: 1 Corinthians 12

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5 Lies Too Many Christians Believe

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Every once in a while, I like to stop and take a look around at the world we live in and the assumptions we make every day. I like to think about ideas that we have heard for years and those we just accept as truth. It is especially good to compare these very ideas to Scripture to test their validity. Today, I want to discuss five of these “lies” that I think too many Christians believe.

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Do You Believe These Lies?

Be warned: you may believe some of these! In fact, you may be tempted to stop reading once you see one that you believe is absolutely true, one that you are very comfortable with believing. I encourage you not to stop reading, but instead to take a look at the Scripture I reference and pray about it.

I will tell you that I have done this over the years and it is life-changing. Once you stop accepting what you have been taught all of your life and begin comparing it to God’s Word, you will likely see that you have been operating on a shaky foundation in some areas. You will begin to seek more of God’s truth and how to apply it to every area of your life.

Let’s jump in!

Lie #1. God doesn’t care about my work.

    This is a very common lie that trips up many people in their Christian walk. If we begin to believe this lie, then we can basically do anything we want on the job and it should not impact our relationship with God. This idea is an escape from accountability on the job. Before you decide whether it is true or not, take a look at the following from Colossians 3:23-24…

    Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Lie #2. Getting fed at church on Sunday morning is enough.

    This is another common belief, but it is very far from the truth. Folks, we need more of God than we can possibly get from a couple of hours a week. We need to be reading His Word and praying for His guidance. We need accountability from other believers. We need community and relationships within the family of faith.

    While some of this happens on Sunday, it is simply not possible to get all of it accomplished in such a short time. We need a daily quiet time when we are alone with God. We need to participate in some sort of community group. For a great model of this behavior, take a look at Acts 2:42-47.

Lie #3. My customers will be offended if I…

    I have addressed this one in an earlier post, but it bears repeating. Too many Christian business owners think that the media today is the best indicator of how their customers would react if they were open about their faith. Read this post, with data from a research study by the Barna Group to back it up.

Lie #4. Faith and work are to be kept separate.

    I do not have to look far to find Scripture to refute this lie. In addition to Colossians 3:23-24, you can certainly see from Matthew 22:37-40 that God is not just interested in part of our lives. He will not settle for a portion – He wants it ALL.

    This does not mean we all have to be paid staff members in the church (addressed next). Instead, it means we are to surrender our entire life to God, job and/or business included. There is no half-way here.

Lie #5. Christian ministry is someone else’s responsibility.

    For many years, Christians, and some pastors included, think that you are only a Christian minister if you are on staff at a church. As a result, most Christians leave the job of ministering to those staff members of their church. This simply is not how God designed it.

    When defining ministry as “the service or functions of a minister of religion,” we are all included! While we may not draw our compensation from a church, we are still responsible for carrying out the service and functions of our faith.

    Paul called us Christ’s ambassadors in 2 Corinthians 5:20. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about how every member of the body of faith is to play a role and every role is important. Let’s start acting like we believe this!

Other Lies?

Well, there they are! I am sure you could come up with others if you started thinking about it. I actually encourage you to do just that. Take a quiet time one morning and ask God to reveal to you some similar “lies” that you believe. Ask Him to show you assumptions you make on a daily basis.

Then take the next step and begin removing these assumptions from your life. Ask Him to show you what you should be doing differently now that you are seeing more clearly. If you will do this exercise, I think you will be shocked at what He shows you.

Do you believe any of these lies?

Which lie will be the toughest for you to overcome?

What other lies came to mind?

Original date of post – September 30, 2012

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Pursue The Gifts You Have, Not The One’s You Want

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The following post is based on a lesson on using your gifts from Dave Anderson’s book How to Run Your Business by THE BOOK.

David And Goliath

Do you remember reading about David and Goliath? Do you remember how Saul tried to make David wear armor that would not fit him? I laugh when I try to picture David as a youth trying to walk around in Saul’s armor, potentially bumping into tent posts and stepping into the campfires scattered around. It may not have been as close to a scene out of the Carol Burnett show as I have it pictured, but I imagine there had to be some humor in it.

Finally, David threw off Saul’s armor and wore his own shepherd’s clothes. He left Saul’s weapons in the tent and chose to use the sling and the stones he already knew how to use. These fit him. While he had never fought in a war with other soldiers, he had certainly seen his battles protecting the flocks from predators. Instead of using someone else’s armor and weaponry in this new battle, he went with what was familiar to him.

What Can We Learn?

Apparently, he made the right choice. So what can we as leaders learn from this episode? How do we apply it to what we do on a daily basis?

The first place I think to look is back in the Bible. Let’s consider Romans 12:6-8. In this passage, Paul is telling the Romans that different people receive different gifts from God.

When we receive specific gifts, we should use those gifts according to our faith. If one is given the gift of teaching, then they are to teach. Another may be given the gift of encouragement; they should encourage. You have probably read this and understand it.

I believe this is directly related to the story about David and the armor. You see, Saul was trying to get David to wear armor that was not his. It was not fit for him. It was not comfortable to him. It simply would have been a burden to David. It would have hampered his effectiveness against Goliath.

Gifts From God

The same is true about gifts from God. If God has given me the gift of encouragement, but not the gift of leadership, should I try to lead? Just because I want to lead does not mean that is what I should do. In fact, if God has not gifted me in that area, I will only cause problems if I try to do it anyway. If I am not gifted to teach, but I insist on doing so, what kind of results will I get? I may like the idea of teaching, but if God has not gifted me for it, that is not where I will be most effective.

Look at 1 Corinthians 12 and see more discussion on this. In this passage, Paul takes it further and uses the human body and its parts to illustrate his point. Each part has its job to do. Each job is just as important to the health of the body as the next. All deserve honor. None of the parts should aspire to be another part. Instead, each part should embrace the role they have been given and do the best they can at being that part.

Lessons For Leaders

As leaders, we must do the same.

    1. Discover your gifting
    David quickly found that Saul’s armor would not work. You need to determine your gifting. There are tools to accomplish this, but you can also ask those who know you best. Pray for God to reveal it to you.
    2. Embrace that gifting
    David did not hesitate to reject Saul’s armor and revert back to his own tools. Once you know your gifts, embrace them! Know that the Creator of the universe chose you specially for those gifts! They are worthy of honor!
    3. Learn how to best apply that gifting
    David spent years learning accuracy with his sling and stones. Do not expect overnight results in your gifts. Developing these gifts take time. Through prayer, application, and learning from defeats (as well as successes), you will grow in these gifts.
    4. Go to battle!
    David went boldly into battle with his tools. Do not be afraid to fight the battles with your gifts. Do not forget you represent God and He has your back!

Now, go out there and use your own armor!

What are your gifts?

Are you embracing them and growing in your application of them?

What battles are you fighting?

Original date of post – November 9, 2011

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Strategic Use Of Incentives To Motivate

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The following post is courtesy of Bill Higgins. You have probably read a couple of his posts here before. This post is the second of a three-part series about leadership and motivation. There is more information about Bill at the end of this post.

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Leadership First!

Of the two factors vital to motivating employees, Part 1 on motivating through leadership that values them is by far the most important. Regardless of what other extrinsic motivation incentives may be in place, if the leadership isn’t one that values and empowers workers, employees won’t give all they are capable of giving.

Incentives Also!

By the same token, tangible incentives are important. Salary is one incentive, and as Christ Himself indicates, “The laborer is worthy of his hire (or wage).” While important, salary isn’t the only incentive.

Salary, to be an incentive, needs to be adequate to start with, but then have room for including incentive pay on top of that. Unfortunately, many organizations are boxed in with organizational pay scales, steps, or levels of some kind where the employee tops out and cannot increase their base pay without a promotion or moving into management. The challenge to that is that some people excel where they are as technical subject-matter-experts and to promote them into management would be to invoke the Peter Principle.

Wise managers devise a way to create a two-tier pay scale. One tier is for those technically oriented folks to be able to stay where they can do the most good and continue to receive pay increases, while the other is an equivalent management tier which promotes those that can be effective with management responsibility. This was becoming popular a few years ago, and some organizations need to resurrect it to fit their system.

Not One Size Fits All

Beyond salary however, incentive programs are not a one size fits all kind of thing. It’s much more fluid. What one person considers an incentive another won’t see any value in. A Tully’s coffee gift card to one is a great incentive, while to another it’s meaningless. Company branded apparel to one will be something they proudly wear and cherish, while another could not care less without this implying they are any less dedicated to either the company or the job.

So what’s the answer? How do you decide how to incent workers who give of themselves and earn this extra motivational boost? Some answers can be found in the biblical text.

Check Scripture

Spiritual Gifts insights: The three passages found in 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Peter 4, and Romans 12 deal with the concept of spiritual gifts. Each passage stresses that the Lord gives different gifts to different individuals. As a result of this, particular ministries that excite one person with one gift won’t excite a person with a different gift to the same degree. What is true of ministries is also true of incentives.

In the original language the concept of spiritual gifts does not have the same connotations as it does in English. The term gift (charismata) has more of the concept of motivation, as well as source of joy or delight. It is God’s infusion of a particular drive and passion in a particular direction. The basic idea of charisma, a person having a dynamic personality and attraction, is true but with a much more technical orientation.

Incentives According To Gifting

This explanation is in part why you will find some people in your church really concerned about missions, others about finances, and others about serving the sick and elderly.

Incentives based on giftedness for example would provide the person with something that fits their drive or passion. The person concerned about missions would love a trip to a mission field. The person concerned with finances would love to have a gift given in their name to a favorite charity or ministry. While the person concerned with serving the sick or elderly would love to have numerous people volunteer to go with them to visit those that are fit that description.

What is true in the church is true in the workplace. Tap into what drives a person and you will find what incents them as well.

Individual Makeup

Another popular passage that addresses raising children applies here as well. Proverbs 22:6 literally says, “Train up a child according to the way he is made,” implying different children are made differently.

For parents to apply this verse, they must observe, listen to, and study each child to see how each is made. What is true of parents in the home is also true of managers/employers in the workplace. They must pay attention to each employee to see what is important to each.

They must listen to, observe, and study what is important to each individual employee. This will enable the manager to use each person most effectively, but also to tailor incentives to them personally.

Workplace Incentive Examples

Here are some examples where both the giftedness and makeup come together in the workplace:

  • The person who contributes more than others verbally in the form of questions or comments in team meetings may have need for verbal recognition. Write and read their awards in team meetings.
  • The person who tackles writing projects, or finds 800 needed revisions in a written project where others average 350, may have a strong need for written recognition. Write up the reward in a document they can save, and read and present it to them in a meeting.
  • The person who reads all the memos, manuals, job aids, and extra material sent along by subject-matter-experts may have a need to see their achievements documented for the team. Have different team members contribute to their recognition by identifying what they have done well.
  • The person that likes to discuss the latest gadget they purchased for their home may really appreciate being given the chance to use the latest technology as it applies to their job.
  • The person who spends what others might call an inordinate amount of time making documents, emails, reports, training materials, etc. look aesthetically pleasing to the eye would really appreciate an artistically designed certificate they can hang in their cube or home.
  • The person who would much rather meet face-to-face than virtually whenever possible might appreciate time with the manager or leader in a lunch or private meeting type of setting.

If you spend time considering what is important to each individual in your work group, you can probably identify these same types of things. Once you have done that, it’s simply a matter of matching a corresponding incentive to fit each individual in particular. Takes time. Takes effort. But is worth so much more than generic incentive programs.

Tangible incentives

In addition to these individualized incentives, don’t discount tangible incentives. Such things as time off, mouse pads, books, gift certificates (e.g., coffee, movie tickets, bus passes), business trips, participation in invitation-only corporate events will appeal to different folks. Letting people choose takes the guess work out of trying to personalize this type of incentive.

Contests to drive production, sales, service and more can also have tremendous impact, especially when done as teams and for desirable awards. Done as teams and with the opportunity for all to achieve some award can be very motivating.

To be most effective these should not pit one team against another, but the program should have set goals that each team is striving for and more than one team can win if they meet the goal.

Right Behavior

Ken Blanchard at one time promoted an incentive program for customer service reps that was a little different and called something like, “Caught You Doing Something Right.” This program gave award presentation capability to every member of the team.

It was based on defined criteria and the entire team kept their eyes open to watch for those that were achieving the types of behaviors designated for incentivizing. When that happened, when someone saw them, they presented them with the “CYDSR” award; a button to signify they were noticed, and any other incentives the organization wanted to link to the program.

This form of incentivizing positive, right behavior, instead of watching for people not complying with rules, regulations, and desired behaviors, can be very empowering and motivating, and create a more positive atmosphere and team atmosphere.

Bottom Line

The bottom line, incentives take on a different form and meaning to different people. You can’t incent everyone the same and expect the incentives to have the desired impact. Beyond the generic incentives of salary raises and performance bonuses, incentive programs must be tailored to the individual.

The final part of this series will examine how Christ incented the men closest to Him as He walked with them and enlisted them to follow Him and to promote His kingdom.

About the Author:
BILL HIGGINS is currently the Managing Director of MindWare Incorporated, an independent training and career coaching consulting firm. He previously served on the pastoral staff of churches in the U.S. and Canada, and worked in a managerial capacity for industry leading organizations.

Bill is a graduate of Biola University and Talbot Theological Seminary and his book; Your Road to Damascus: 6 Biblical Secrets for an Effective Job Search is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and MindWare Publishing websites.