Approbation (Galatians 1:10)

Good morning all,

The word of the day is "approbation." It's always good to look back at the Scriptures to make sure that we are in line with the way that Jesus would want us to live. The Galatian church dealt with most of the problems that each of our churches deal with today, and it is funny to see that problems always seem to bring themselves to those who serve God. Paul knew that the people of this church needed to understand why he was doing the things that he did.

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

~Gal 1:10

My question is: from where do you seek approval, or approbation? As Christians I think that we know the standard answer is that we should be seeking approval from God. However, it seems that much of the time we make decisions based on what we think is best for our lives. Sometimes we even listen the people who have counsel for us, much of the time we think they have our best interests at heart. And, sometimes they do. But we must remember that we answer to a higher calling. My prayer is that you take time today to ask God to give you a heart that seeks his approval, and his only.

Praying for you,

mo

Fortuitous Leadership

I remember years ago when I decided to go into leadership. I just graduated from high school and decided attend APU for the next season of my life. I was pretty excited, but my parents thought that I sold myself short because of all of the other opportunities that I had. I did not know exactly why I was doing what I was doing, but I knew that ministry was going to be a big part of my life from this point forward. And, even though APU was the only school without a pool facility (which is bad if you want to be on the college swim team), somehow I needed to be there. I knew that leadership was an important piece of the puzzle, and I ended up working with the church that I just left as a highschooler. At that point, Kevin Cobb was a huge influence in my life and I knew that he needed to continue to be so. I knew little about formal mentorship, but for some reason I understood it.

Kevin did not expect me to do very much in terms of actually starting leadership. Lucky for me I had him to watch day in and day out. However, I did feel that I needed to do more. So, I took it upon myself to find John Maxwell. Now, understand that at this point I did not really know John Maxwell was, nor did anybody else. It's easy to look back today and say that I was following the biggest leadership guru of all time, but at that point he was not that guru. He was just a guy that put out some leadership books and the leadership trend had not caught on yet. It was probably a little bit unintended the way that I fell into leadership and training. I started reading his 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and instantly fell in love with it. Over the next several years I realized that the decision to make leadership an important part of my growth, concerning reading and listening to audio recordings.  I still do my best to live by those prinicples today.