Day 61: 1 Thessalonians 2:5-6

“For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.”



Motivations is a very important thing. God doesn’t only judge us for our actions, but for our motivations as well. Unfortunately for us this means that we can do good things for the wrong reasons, thus sinning, and also have good things we try to do go completely bad. Kind of a bummer.


Here’s three motivations that you don’t want to get caught with as you spend your time as Christian leaders: flattery, greed, or glory. These are three killer motivations. Notice they have nothing to do with bringing glory to God, but rather to yourself. Notice they don’t benefit the Kindgom of God, either. They benefit the kingdom of you.


This world is full of salesmen. If you’ve ever been on the wrong end of a sales pitch, you know what it’s like, and usually, you can tell what the salesman’s motivation is. Usually they want to sell you something so they get paid. It’s their job. Sometimes they are trying to sell you an idea, and they tell you how smart you’ll be or good looking you’ll be if you will only use their product or adopt their idea. Commercials are good at this. Other times, they are selling themselves. They want you to know how good they are.


Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m not beating up salespeople; I’m just saying a Christian leader doesn’t employ the motivations of greed, glory, or flattery when we tell others about Jesus Christ, or lead in our businesses or ministries.


Our motivations must be pure, love for God, which leads us to share the gospel because God wants us to, and love of others, which will lead us to take care of others and do things for them, not us.


A Christian leader has to live of course, and we’re all prideful enough that sooner or later we’ll attempt to bring glory to ourselves, but remember: God knows what we need, and He will not leave us to ourselves. If we obey and honor God, He’ll take care of the rest. We don’t need to help Him out. He’s got it covered.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Beware of motivations other than love of God and love of others. They give way to greed, flattery, and glory.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Matthew 6:31-33


Prayer: Master, keep my motivations pure. Help me to remember that You will take care of me, and that You are enough for me. Keep me from greed, glory, and flattery. In Christ’s name, amen.

Day 54: 1 John 3:14

“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.”



I write a lot about love. I’m not mushy, sentimental, romantic, or soft. But I do believe that love is the key to everything.


John is big on love. In fact, the whole of 1 John is based around love. One of the things that John uses love to do is to test out our salvation.


How many of you have stayed up at night wondering if you were really saved? How many of you have ever wondered where you would go if you died? Be honest, of course you have.


John is looking to encourage the people that he was writing to, just as I want to encourage you today. John says that if we have truly passed from death to life, then we love the brothers. As in, those people in the church pews next to you. It’s easy to get all altruistic about people halfway around the world that you’ve never met, but how about the person you know all about, and I mean all about?


That’s pretty cold, but think about it. We are called to love everybody. Loving the person we don’t like, or know everything about is much harder and is a real test of the love of God that resides within us.


A Christian leader has to love supremely, and it has to start with their brothers and sisters in Christ. If you can’t love them, than you can’t love anybody correctly.


More importantly, if you don’t love your brothers and sisters, the chances are that your salvation is in question. If you find yourself in a place today where you don’t love other believers, then it’s time to do a real inventory. Ask God to show you why you don’t love them, and ask for forgiveness and a new heart; God will give it to you.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Love for our brothers and sisters in Christ is the mark of a true believer. If we don’t have this love, we need to ask God for forgiveness and a new heart.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: John 13:34-35


Prayer: Father, give me a love for your people. I am the same as them, redeemed by Your mercy and Your grace. Show me where I do not love Your people, and give me the love I need to do so. In Christ’s name I pray, amen.

Day 48: 1 John 4:10-11

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”



Have you ever received something you didn’t deserve? How did it make you feel? It always makes me feel bad. I know I don’t deserve it, but I get it anyway. It’s just not right. It makes me want to go out and give it to someone else. Maybe they deserve it more than me.


How do you feel about Jesus’ gift to you? We didn’t love God, but He loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die for us. That is undeserved. It makes me feel bad. It also makes me feel free.


Because of God’s amazing love, I am free to love others in the same way. I’m commanded to love others in the same way.


Loving those that we don’t think deserve it can be very hard. It can almost be impossible. But with God, the impossible becomes possible. It’s possible because God did the same thing for us. Actually, He did so much more for us.


So why can’t we do the same thing for others?


When we love others as Jesus loved us, we give them just a shadow of the love of Jesus. We’re being image-bearers for our Lord and Savior.


Make it a point to show love to everyone, no matter what the circumstances. No matter how unlovely they are to you, Jesus died for them, too. They deserve to see real love in action, and it might help to point them to Jesus.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: A Christian loves others no matter who they are or what they’ve done. Christ did the same for us, and we show His love when we do this.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Hosea 1


Prayer: Father, help me to love out of the depths of Your love. I pray that you help me to see people as You see them, and that I can love them as You love them. In Christ’s name, amen.

Day 46: Philippians 1:9-11

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”



We don’t think much about the word “love,” probably because we use it in so many ways. You love cheeseburgers, you love this movie, you love (fill in the blank). We’ve kind of lost the meaning of love in all the usage of it. At the very least, we have perverted it’s meaning and lost the real power behind the term.


Look closely at this passage from Philippians and see the power behind God’s love: through love, when coupled with knowledge and discernment, you can see what is excellent, and bear fruit for the kingdom of God. Now that’s a powerful love.


So what does one have to do with the other? What does love have to do with approving what is excellent? Our answer is best illustrated by the opposite of love: selfishness.


When we are selfish, we approve of the things that benefit us. We don’t bear fruit for the Kingdom of God when we are concerned with ourselves, nor can we be pure and blameless when we are thinking only of ourselves.


Love, the kind of love that we learn from Christ’s love for us, is so powerful that it overcomes our selfishness. True love puts self last, and thinks of everyone else first. With that attitude, it’s easy to see what’s right, instead of easy; beneficial to others, rather than beneficial to us; and what advances God’s kingdom, rather than our kingdom.


Love has this power, and it’s a tremendous power. It’s a world-changing power. It’s a power that only comes from God.


By this power we can see what is best, and take the right path that God has laid in front of us.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: A Christian leader loves supremely. They love God and others in such a way that self is lost, and they can see what God approves and the path they should take.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Acts 26


Prayer: Father, consume me with Your love. Rid me of myself, and replace me with You. Amen.

Day 29: 2 Timothy 1:6-7

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”


Fear often controls our life. Even as Christians, we are often afraid to do what God has given us to do. This is for many reasons: we’re afraid of what people will say about us; we’re afraid of what people will do to us; we’re afraid of failure; sometimes we’re even afraid of where God will take us if we obey Him. Fear can be a paralyzing feeling; so paralyzing, in fact, that we don’t obey God.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s okay to be afraid. But it’s not okay to let that fear control you. The definition of courage is doing what needs to be done even when you’re scared to death.

It is obvious that Timothy was dealing with fear as Paul wrote him in 2 Timothy. To Timothy, it must have seemed that the world was crashing: Paul was in prison, about to be executed; Timothy, wanting to be with his mentor, no doubt, was in Ephesus, trying to guide the churches in one of the largest and most pagan cities in the empire. Fear was natural, but it was obviously starting to take too strong a hold on young Timothy.

Paul gently reminds Timothy of something very important. Christ drives out fear. With Christ there is no fear, because you can’t lose. Like Paul said in Philippians, if you live, you get the continued blessing of service. If you die, you go to heaven to be with Christ. Win-Win.

Timothy had lost sight of this, just like many of us have today. Paul tells Timothy that the time he was spending in fear and worry would be better served honing the gifting that Paul had himself initiated in Timothy. Timothy had obviously lost his fire. When we become afraid, we pay more attention to the fear than to God, and He can’t use us. Our flame begins to die, until we are paralyzed from our fear and barely shining. Paul reminds Timothy, as I am reminding you, to trust in Christ and whip that gift into a roaring bonfire that the whole world can see.

Paul finally reminds Timothy that fear isn’t from God, it’s from Satan. God gives us power, love, and self-control. Fear brings the opposite of these: uselessness, selfishness, or self-preservation, and reaction rather than self-control. In other words, when we’re afraid, we have no power (because of our lack of faith), no love (because you’re trying to preserve yourself, and not others), and finally, no self-control (you do stupid things when fear is controlling your life). Those aren’t the marks of a Christ-Centered life. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s not okay to let that fear take control you. Trust in God. Don’t let the flame go out.

CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: it’s okay to be afraid, but we can’t let fear control us. When we let fear control us we lose our power, love, and control.

Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Matthew 10:28

Prayer: Father, keep fear far from me. Help me to have such faith in you that I don’t let fear control my life. Help me to deal with my fear in a godly way, and to seek out others to help me deal with it. In Christ’s name I pray, Amen.

Day 28: 1 Timothy 1:5

“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”



As a leader, you will probably do a lot of teaching, mentoring, and give a lot of advice. If you’re a particularly effective leader, you’ll do this a lot. Many times, a leader will approach the advice they give, the teaching they do, and the mentoring they do without any kind of a plan or reason. Pressed for time or backed into a corner by a desperate co-worker, they shoot from the hip and may end up doing more damage than had been inflicted before.


Why is this? Because when you don’t have a plan or even a goal your advice or teaching is usually what the other person wants to hear. Because of our selfishness, because of our time constraints, and because of our lack of forethought, we will automatically tune our responses to what the other person wants to hear, both to please them and to get them out of our way.


Paul takes a different tack, and he’s teaching Timothy this method. That makes it important to us. Paul was Timothy’s mentor. In fact, Paul was a father figure to Timothy. He taught Timothy about the Bible and how to be a biblical leader. That means that if Paul was teaching this to Timothy, it has particular importance for leaders today.


Paul says that everything that we do should be for the sake of love. Here again is that unconditional love that Jesus modeled for us in His life and death, and that we are supposed to show to others. He goes further and shows the motivation that this love comes from:


1. A pure heart


2. A good conscience


3. A sincere faith


You’ll note that these are all things that God gives us at our conversion. You might also note that love comes from each of these things.


Paul is telling us that everything that we do must be in love. That means that we give up our selfish motivations and really teach, act, give advice, and mentor with an eye of truly helping the other person. We can accomplish these things because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. It still takes some forethought, though. It takes being prepared to answer questions and really helping people. It means setting aside some of your day to deal with pop up issues so you don’t blow them off to save the time.






CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Everything we do must come from love. All advice, teaching, and leading we do must be for the good of the other person, rather than our edification.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Hebrews 12:1-3


Prayer: Father, help me to speak in love, and to truly help those in need, in whatever circumstance they or I are in. Help me to love people so much that everything I do is for their benefit, rather than mine. Thank you, Father, In Christ’s Name I pray, amen.

Day 25: 1 John 3:16

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”



Love is a very elusive thing in today’s world. It means too many things. I can love a cheeseburger, and I can love my parents. I can love my wife. All three of those things are different kinds of love (I hope).


The love that John is talking about here is unconditional love. The greek word is agape. Unconditional love is shown in Jesus’ life and of course, in his death on the cross to absorb the wraith of God that was meant for us.


John says that because Jesus did that, we can know what real love is. Our life before Jesus is marked with conditional love. We love the things we do based on what we get back from them. In Jesus’ case, He got nothing back by dying for us. Actually he got spit on and mocked. Not exactly what you’d expect, right?


Jesus showed unconditional love by laying His life down for us. That can mean the cross and other aspects. Remember that Jesus left heaven to become human to show us the way and then die for us. It took Jesus three years to disciple his crew and three days to die and rise again. His whole life was laid down for us.


John also says that knowing real love frees us to love others correctly, or like Jesus. Because Jesus died on the cross, because He shows us real love, we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren. Put quickly, we give up our lives for others.


This is the core of leadership, and it’s not what the world expects from it’s leaders. We lay down our lives for those that follow us. That’s the beautiful thing. We serve those we lead (and those we don’t lead) by giving up everything for them.


I use to think that laying down my life meant dying for somebody else. That seemed simple enough. I only had to do it once, and what were the chances I’d ever really have the opportunity to step into a bullet for someone or something like that?


Unfortunately, laying down your life is harder than that. You lay down your life every minute of every day. It’s a continual choice; and that’s what makes it hard. We don’t have to make that choice once; we have to do it with every breath. Christians lay down their lives for their brothers and sisters. Leaders lay down their lives for everyone.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Christ shows us what true love is by laying down His life so that we may lay down our lives for everyone around us.


Here’s a set of Verses to meditate on today: John 15:12-14


Prayer: Father, help me to lay down my life for those around me today. Remind me of your love, that I may mimic it to those I lead. In Christ’s name I pray, amen.

Day 14: 1 John 2:9-11

“The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”



How can you hate someone and be a Christian? Well, you can’t. Not according to John, anyway. I’m sure you all know some people who claim to have faith but hate other people. John says their faith isn’t pure, that the love of the Father is not in them. That’s because the love of God through Jesus Christ compels us to love those around us, in fact, everyone in the world. This love isn’t the same kind of love we’re used to, but a supernatural love. It’s the same kind of love that compelled Jesus to die on the cross in our place (John 3:16).


Love is a funny thing. We love our favorite soda. We love our cars. We love ourselves. We love a lot of things. When we say we love something what we’re really saying is that we are attached to something that brings us pleasure. When we love people like God loves people, we are putting ourselves aside and seeing to their needs.


Without love for other people, we will not serve them in a way that is pleasing to God. We may serve them, but it will usually be with a selfish motive. Godly love comes from the love of God and enables us to serve without thought for ourselves or the glory our service brings us. True love allows people to be served and God to be glorified.


John is also very clear that our actions will match our words. If we say we our Christians but hate people, we might be able to fool some people part of the time, but we won’t be fooling everybody all of the time. And we certainly aren’t fooling God.


John even says that if we hate people, we are blinded by the darkness that we walk in; which should spark a very important question in us: “Do I hate people?” Well? Consider it carefully, because if you do, John says that you and God aren’t right. That’s pretty serious.


Our role as Christian leader should be marked out by our extreme love for one another and others. This love compels us to serve and care for others without regard for our own lives or livelihoods. Without this love, we should take a hard look at who we really are and who we really serve.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Love for the people around us is the mark of a Christian and especially the mark of a Christian leader.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: John 3:16, John 15:12-13


Prayer: Father, show me where my love is lacking. Help me to see any hate that I am holding onto. Please channel your love through me and help me to serve with no regard for myself. Please let others to see Your love in mine. In Christ’s name, amen.

Day 8: Proverbs 10:12

“Hatred stirs up conflicts, but love covers all offenses.”



All, right, it’s survey time. Let’s say there’s this person at school that you don’t like. I mean, really don’t like. They stole your boyfriend, made fun of your prom outfit, and you’re pretty sure they are trying to steal your friends. How probable is it that you are going to forgive this person? Likely? I don’t think so. In fact, I bet there’s gonna be some total drama.


Now, let’s say you’ve got a really good friend, someone you love dearly, and they do something terrible to you. What about now? Are you going to forgive them? Probably. It might take a little time, but your love for that person will triumph. That’s what this verse is talking about. Love triumphs over everything.


Now, before you think I’m some sort of hopeless romantic that watches chick flicks, let me give you God’s definition of love: putting the person you love ahead of yourself. Jesus talked about this a lot. He was all about putting other people first. Like when He died on the cross to save you from your sin. That’s putting other people first. That’s love.


If you are looking to put other people’s interests ahead of your own, the likelihood of conflicts goes way down. On the other hand, if you’re looking to please yourself, prepare for some major drama. True love covers all offenses. True love covered your offenses when Jesus died and rose again. You are no longer in conflict with God. It’s up to us to put that same principle into effect in our own lives.


As you lead other people, sooner or later there are going to be some people you have a hard time getting along with. In fact, there will be some people who want to take you down, who will say terrible things about you behind your back (and to your face), and people who will do everything in their power to make sure your life is a miserable soap opera (is this sounding like anyone you know yet?).


You want to know your secret weapon against such people? Love. It’s really hard to dislike someone, or to have a fight erupt when you truly love someone. Jesus said that we could tell his followers by their love for one another. How’s your love?


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Being leader means dealing with people, and sometimes dealing with people can be hard. When you love the people you lead, it makes your life and their life much easier. Conflicts arise when you get upset. It’s hard to get upset when you love someone.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on Today: John 15:9-17


Prayer: Lord, help me to love as You love me. Help me to love my neighbor as myself. When I have problems with other people, help me to see them as You see them. Help me to stay away from conflict and to lead in a loving, godly manner. In Christ’s name I pray, amen.