What Employees Want

A Public Agenda Foundation study, coauthored by Daniel Yankelovich, came up with these top ten qualities that today’s workers want in a job: 1) Work with people who treat me with respect. 2) Interesting work . . .

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Do What You Can

Centuries ago a little boy found himself in the midst of a vast crowd of people—larger than any group he’d ever seen. He had come out of curiosity, having heard that a man named Jesus was nearby.

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To Serve and to Give

God’s true servant is like the Lord Jesus, who came not “to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). To serve and to give. Pride wants strokes—lots of them. It loves to get the credit.

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A Servant, Not a Celebrity

Exactly what does our heavenly Father want to develop within us? Well, rather than getting neck-deep in tricky theological waters, I believe the simple answer is found in Christ’s own words.

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The Sting of the Thorn, Part Two

We’ve been talking about Jesus’s parable in Mark 4:1–20 about the farmer who sows seeds in four different types of soil. As I mentioned in Part One, I’m bothered by the third group because thorns come in and destroy the healthy growth of the Christian. It is interesting that the thorns were already present at the time the seed entered, and that the thorns were never completely out of the picture even though the seeds began to take root (Mark 4:7).

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The Sting of the Thorn, Part One

Give the Reverend Dullard Drydust enough time and he will manage to confuse most sections of the Bible. Because we preachers are notorious for getting hung up on Greek tenses and purpose clauses and theological trivia, we often shy away from those passages that appear nontechnical and plain. Like the parables, to be specific. Like Mark 4, to be exact.

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Being Real, Part One

Dave Cowens, one-time star basketball center for the Boston Celtics, disappeared. Without warning, he walked off the practice court, showered, dressed, and drove away. Alone. He kept driving to . . . somewhere. His only explanation was the familiar comment, “I need to get my head together.” He added that it could take as little as two weeks or as much as ten years.

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Fighting the Fast Fade

As you waved goodbye to your friends at church last Sunday, what mental darts were left stuck in the target of your thinking? Can you remember those pointed challenges from the man who stood before you with Bible in hand? How many hours have passed since you sat there, opening your ears and heart to counsel from God’s always-relevant Book? A few dozen maybe? Ah, it’s starting to fade, isn’t it?

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For a Heart of Service

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) It’s a pretty awesome thing, Lord, to be in Your service. It’s a lot easier to begin and run a company, even a big corporation, than it is to serve the body of Christ. As humans, we see the outward appearance, but You look at the heart.

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Greatness

I’m sure it comes as no surprise to most of us that we act out precisely what we take in. In other words, we become what we think. Long before that familiar line found its way into Psychology 101 and hyped-up sales meetings, the Bible included it in one of its ancient scrolls. It just said it in a little different way: “For as he thinks within himself, so he is” (Prov. 23:7).

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