- This is part of a series on the theme of servant leadership. -

One of professional sports’ most legendary coaches, Pat Riley has motivated, taught and inspired his way up the NBA managerial ranks. He exemplifies what it means to be a leader, and athletes and businessmen alike could all learn something from this accomplished basketball mind. The driving force behind the Los Angeles Lakers’ memorable “Showtime” era, Riley took Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the rest of the high-flying team to four NBA titles in nine years. He is the second winningest coach in NBA history and the fastest manager in any of the four major professional sports to reach 1,000 wins. In his book, The Winner Within, the outstanding NBA coach, wrote about the “danger of me.” He said,

The most difficult thing for individuals to do when they’re part of the team is to sacrifice. It’s so easy to become selfish in a team environment. To play for me. It’s very vulnerable to drop your guard and say, “This is who I am and I’m gonna open up and give of myself to you.” But that’s exactly what you’ve got to do. Willingness to sacrifice is the great paradox. You must give up something in the immediate present – comfort, ease, recognition, quick rewards – to attract something even better in the future.[1]

What Riley says is true on the basketball court is also true in life. Serving others can be tough; expending your energies and resources in the interest of others can be exhausting. Yet the most effective leaders are servants.

• The most difficult thing for individuals to do wen they’re part of the team is to sacrifice.

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series on the theme of purpose and passion. -

Relationships are the currency of heaven.  Being rightly related to God and rightly related to others – this is true righteousness.  God, who loved us first, makes it possible for us to love him.  Loving him makes it possible for us to love others and dwell in a community of believers, united in our love for Christ and one another.

What is your purpose for being on this planet?  If you have not developed a purpose statement for your life, ask God to guide you in the process of creating one that fits with your passion and gifts.  A biblical purpose is an unchanging reason for being.  Your purpose statement must include something of the transcendent.  Don’t settle for a purpose that only includes excellence in the temporal arena.  This is something that will animate you whether you’re young or old, single or married, have children or not.  This is not something that ends in retirement or changes according to circumstances or season of life.  Put this purpose in a transcendent context by adding a spiritual dimension to why you’re doing what you’re doing.  Then you can be sure you’re embracing the things that are worth embracing.

• What is your purpose for being on this planet?

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series on the theme of purpose and passion. -

While Scripture provides us only glimpses of God’s ultimate purposes in creating the cosmos, the Word does reveal God’s universal purpose for believers.  In short, this purpose is to know Christ and to make him known.  God does not want anyone to perish, but desires that everyone come to repentance and enter into a relationship with him through the new birth in Christ (2 Peter 3:9).  Once a person is born again as a child of God, God wants that person to grow in Christ and be “conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29).  Thus, God’s purpose for each of us is edification (spiritual growth) and evangelism (spiritual reproduction).

God also has a unique purpose for each of us, and this relates to our distinctive temperaments, abilities, experiences, spiritual gifts, education and spheres of influence.  Why do you get out of bed in the morning?  What is your life purpose?  Few people can articulate a clear purpose statement for their lives.  It is ironic that people tend to put more effort into planning a two-week vacation than they do in thinking about the destiny of their earthly journey.  In Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth we find more of an eternal perspective on this temporal journey:

Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

This passage provides the context for God’s unique purposes for our lives, and reminds us to develop an eternal perspective so that we will have a passion to give our lives in exchange for the things that God tells us will endure.

• Few people can articulate a clear purpose statement for their lives.

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series on the theme of purpose and passion. -

A biblical purpose does not eliminate all other concerns.  Bills must still be paid; food and shelter do not miraculously fall from the sky.  It is even legitimate for us to desire success in business and career aspirations.  However, Benjamin Hunnicutt, an authority on the history of work at the University of Iowa, notes that work has become our new religion, where we worship and give our time and energy.  As our commitment to family, community and faith shrink, we begin to look to our careers to provide us with meaning, identity and esteem.[1] We must be ever watchful to keep our calling (something we do for God) from becoming a career (something which threatens to become god).

Compared with knowing Christ, my activities from 8 to 5 Monday through Friday don’t matter very much.  In the end, what will matter is whether or not we know him, regardless of what else is on our resume or in our portfolio.  When we stand before God and hear him ask the question, “Why should I let you into heaven?” what will we say?  I was a vice president in my company?  I did well in the market?  I was on the board of the country club?  I was active in my church?  None of these answers are satisfactory.  Only one will suffice: Jesus forgave my sins and gave me his righteousness.

The greatest achievements of this world are fine.  There is nothing inherently wrong with them, but in the eternal scheme of things, Paul says, they are rubbish.  Compared with the value of knowing Christ, they are trash.  Actually the Greek word is skubala.  It’s a hard word to translate, and it’s a word that makes a lot of church people uncomfortable.  The King James Version renders it “dung,” but even that is a mild form of what Paul is saying.  Paul is using bumper-sticker language: Skubala happens!

• In the eternal scheme of things, the greatest achievements of this world are rubbish.

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series on the theme of purpose and passion. -

The apostle Paul accomplished an astounding amount in two decades of ministry.  What made him tick?  What drove him to carry out the work that he did?  We find the secret in Philippians 3:7-9:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

This passage explodes with Paul’s passion for his calling.  Effective leaders, like Paul, are those who have figured out what they stand for.  They have identified their purpose and pursue it with a passion.

Before his dramatic conversion (Acts 9), Paul followed a different purpose in life.  As a Pharisees, Paul had attained the highest levels of status.  In this instance he could have boasted about his religious training, heritage and practice.  He had been, in every sense, a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” and his credentials would have impressed the most devoted Jew.  He was a passionate man, but he was passionate about the wrong things.  After his encounter with the risen Lord, Paul considered all he had attained through religious effort to be garbage when compared with the value of knowing Christ.  Paul was more than happy to throw away all he had attained in order to know Christ.

Paul preached that in Christ he and all believers possess all the righteousness of God.  We can have peace with the one who created us, the one for whom we were made.  Because of the infinite worth of knowing Christ, Paul devoted his life to knowing the Savior.  That was his purpose and his passion.  And that purpose and that passion shaped all he did and influenced all he led.

• Effective leaders, like Paul, are those who have figured out what they stand for.

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series of highlights from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers -

• The Death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very Mind of God. Never allow the thought that Jesus Christ stands with us against God out of pity and compassion; that He became a curse for us out of sympathy with us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by the Divine decree. 326

• God’s purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all. 246

• The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right–being. Jesus Christ came to put into any man who would let Him a new heredity which would exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. The great marvel of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that He alters heredity. He does not alter human nature; He alters its mainspring. 206

• You only reach your own identity when you are merged with another person. When love, or the Spirit of God strikes a man, he is transformed, he no longer insists upon his separate individuality. 347

• Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself—a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. 272

• Paul was devoted to a Person not to a cause. 24

• The reality of God’s presence is not dependent on any place, but only dependent upon the determination to set the Lord always before us. Our problems come when we refuse to bank on the reality of His presence. 202

• All I do ought to be founded on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. 28

• Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. 205

• Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me. 204

• Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God. Other religions deal with sins; the Bible alone deals with sin. God made His own Son to be sin that He might make the sinner a saint. All through the Bible it is revealed that our Lord bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy. 281

• If a man attracts by his personality, his appeal is along that line; if he is identified with his Lord’s personality, then the appeal is along the line of what Jesus Christ can do. 314

• Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself; individuality debases human nature for itself. 346

• The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. Self-realization leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones Jesus Christ in his work. 193

• The proof that we have the vision of God is that we are reaching out for more than we have grasped. Our reach must exceed our grasp. 123

• To be so much in contact with God that you never need to ask Him to show you His will, is to be nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you are rightly related to God, it is a life of freedom and liberty and delight, you are God’s will, and all your common-sense decisions are His will for you unless He checks. Think of the last thing you prayed about—were you devoted to your desire or to God? 80

• Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me.

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series on the theme of purpose and passion. -

“Just turn right after the railroad tracks.  You can’t miss it.”  Locals have a quaint way of giving directions to lost motorists.  They make a lot of assumptions.  “Go past the Johnson’s old farm to where the grocery store used to be.”  They forget about the fork in the road or the new traffic signal.  “You can’t miss it,” they insist.  But the problem is that while they may not be able to miss it, we often do.  And, after traveling 15 or 20 miles out of our way, we have to turn around, go back to that last intersection and ask for directions again.

Sometimes we move through life thinking we can’t miss it.  The next turn will be so obvious.  There can’t be any doubt which way to go at the next junction.  But how many times have we discovered, to our chagrin, that we’re completely lost and should have taken the other fork 20 miles back?

• Sometimes we move through life thinking we can’t miss it.  The next turn will be so obvious.

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series on the theme of accountability. -

As the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges, Chuck Colson learned the need for accountability the hard way.  Now, as the founder and chairman of the board of Prison Fellowship ministries, he meets regularly with a small group of men.  At their meetings, they ask each other the following seven questions:

1. Have you been with a woman anywhere this past week that might be seen as compromising?
2. Have any of your financial dealings lacked integrity?
3. Have you exposed yourself to any sexually explicit material?
4. Have you spent adequate time in Bible study and prayer?
5. Have you given priority time to your family?
6. Have you fulfilled the mandates of your calling?
7. Have you just lied to me?[1]

Colson says, “We must take care to nurture those forms of social interaction that increase rather than decrease our sense of accountability to one another.”[2] He knows what he’s talking about.

Peter was certainly known as a leader in the church, but within this group of “shepherds” he was not a boss.  He describes himself as a “fellow elder,” placing himself among his peers.  These leaders were given a pattern to follow as to how they were to relate and function, and they were called to model this pattern to others.  The manner in which they were to exercise their leadership was not something they were to decide on their own.  They knew that God would ultimately hold them accountable for how well they fulfilled their leadership responsibilities.

No leader is ultimately free from responsibility.  And no leader is immune to getting off course.  All people are accountable to God, and all people need a group of peers who can help them stay on course until Christ returns.

[2] Charles Colson, “Cyber Smearing: Revenge on the Net,” BreakPoint Commentary #91021, October 21, 1999 (www.pbc.org/cybercolson.html).

• No leader is ultimately free from responsibility.  And no leader is immune to getting off course.

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series on the theme of accountability. -

Two men were fishing in a stream when they noticed that a nearby bridge was falling apart.  Every time a vehicle would drive across it, another piece would fall and the entire bridge would shake dangerously.  Finally, after a large truck passed over, the bridge completely fell apart in the middle.  The two fishermen knew that if a car came around the bend, the driver would never know that the middle of the bridge was gone; the whole thing could come crashing down, damaging the vehicle and injuring the driver.

One of the men looked at his friend and said, “We’ve got to do something.  What would be the ‘Christian’ thing to do?”

His friend thought for a moment and replied, “Build a hospital?”

It does seem that many in Christendom would rather build a hospital than put up a warning sign.  We tend to deal with things after the fact instead of taking preventive action.  We often allow a person to come to a very bad state before we get involved.  Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the absence of protective accountability alliances among leaders.

God told the prophet Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jeremiah 17:9).  Our ability to embed ourselves within the impenetrable shell of rationalization, projection and denial is nothing short of amazing.  Neil Plantinga writes:

We deny, suppress, or minimize what we know to be true.  We assert, adorn, and elevate what we know to be false.  We prettify ugly realities and sell ourselves the prettified versions.  Thus a liar might transform “I tell a lot of lies to shore up my pride” to “Occasionally, I finesse the truth in order to spare other people’s feelings.”[1]

An entire field of social psychology – the study of “cognitive dissonance” – is based on our limitless ability to rationalize what we do and say.  That being the case, we all need people who will help us protect ourselves from ourselves and the desires of our own hearts.

Effective leaders use the same standards for themselves that they apply to others.  They hold themselves accountable just like everyone else on the team. Maintaining such accountability involves seeking 360-degree honesty.  Skilled leaders consistently receive feedback from those who work above them, beside them and for them.  David Watson says, “Anything that is subject to human limitation or error requires the collegial presence of another person to ensure responsibility.  It is a fact of life.”[2] A failure to provide a structure for such accountability will lead to a crisis of character and leadership.

[2] David Watson, Covenant Discipleship (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1996), p. 17.

• Accountability will  help us protect ourselves from ourselves and the desires of our own hearts.

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa

- This is part of a series on the theme of encouragement -

Paul’s life in general, and his farewell address to the Ephesian elders in particular, give us some good insight into the mechanics of encouragement. Paul was a great encourager, not simply because he received such expert encouragement himself from Barnabas, but because he diligently worked at it. After he planted a church, he was conscientious about visiting whenever possible, writing letters and sending others to minister in his absence. He always assured people of his accessibility, even though he may physically have been many miles away or even locked up in a prison cell. Paul’s meeting with the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 includes some guidance for the godly leader who wants to uplift others.

First, Paul was able to lend support because his listeners respected his example.

From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said to them: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.”

Acts 20:17-21

If he had been unable to speak these words with a clear conscience, the meeting would have been over. He had made an investment of time and had demonstrated by his example that he was a man of integrity. His example was a source of encouragement for these men of God.

• Do you seek to speak the truth in love?

Follow: http://twitter.com/kennethboa
Connect on Facebook: Kenneth Boa