What do you have to say for yourself? For the last few weeks, weâve spent these moments on Monday eavesdropping on the Apostle Paulâs intimate communiquĂ©s to people for whom he cared deeply. His letters always addressed crucial issues regarding their faith: both foundational truths and the practical implication. The Christian believers in Colossae – …
Category Archives: Weekly Post
I know what you’re thinking…
Itâs time for some brainwashing. Weâve all got some crud on our keyboards; the crap in our craniums has accumulated over the unrelenting months of Covid and Campaigning. Iâll confess on behalf of both of us â you, and me â and call it straight: our minds have been sucked into septic swirls that have …
The fight doesn’t end tomorrow…
Gear Up! For football players, thatâs the summons into the locker room, to don pads and helmets. For firemen, itâs the 911 call to get into protective gear, ready to run into the flames. For a SWAT team, bullet-proof vests and shields come out of the truck and into the array. The opposition is at …
What’s Your “Bottom Line?”
Whatâs the Bottom Line? One on-line dictionary – devoted to the idioms of American English – defines âBottom Line:â the most important aspect of something. All apostles/prophets/evangelists/pastors/teachers (Ephesians 4:11) have important messages for people whose spiritual development are in-process. Their sermons might be given without an archival capture, but in this era, many are recorded …
Don’t be an innocent target…
Itâs the toughest request youâll ever receive. A dear friend and collaborator of mine passed from gory to Glory on Saturday. Gordie had been on our ministryâs Board of Directors for decades; he was a trusted partner and had earned widespread respect from all who knew and worked with him. When Covidâs craziness wanes, the …
Your job, after the election
Politics is – along with religion – a taboo subject in social settings. Despite that timeless ground rule, you canât find a dinner table in October â20 where the conversation hasnât turned to the election – or, protests, or societal issues that are woven into presidential platforms – with passion. Thereâs a man whose wisdom …
What do you have worth dying for?
When was the last time you dealt with your mortality? Every person â from the most marginalized homeless person camped on a sidewalk in a modern, declining urban neighborhood to the POTUS who is whisked from the White House Lawn to the VIP Suite at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center â will likely find …
You were made for more
Iâm not completely insensitive; I know that this is a busy week – with the end of Q3 happening on Wednesday, and the start of Q4 signaling the last chance to make something out of a calendar year that started with a bang and has run for months as a bust – but this wonât …
Will your last words be famous?
Steve Jobs: âOh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.â A direct quote from the famous Founder of Apple, but that wasnât his marketing pitch for a new product launch at the annual MacWorld gathering. Steveâs last words; his wife was there to hear them. Reflections from some of historyâs famous notables as they breathe their last: …
The road back is the road less traveled…
I left college before graduating. Cheri and I were in the countdown to our marriage date, and her father invited me to come into his 25-year business and apprentice under his leadership. I was going to school to snag a career, so the decision wasnât difficult for me. I traded books for a briefcase… For …
How to guarantee you’ll be forgotten…
Say it ainât so, Joe⊠It was 100 years ago this month â September 28, 1920 â that a Grand Jury was tasked with hearing testimony in what came to be known as the Black Sox Scandal. In brief: the 1919 World Series matched the Cincinnati Reds with the Chicago White Sox. The allegations emerged …
Follow the money…
When will things return to ânormal?â The question is fraught with confusion: what â exactly â do we mean by ânormal?â Pre-CV-19? Pre-election conflicts? Pre-Russia probe? Pre-Trump? Pre-internet? When were things ânormal?â Itâs time to figure out how to fulfill your lifeâs essential mission, no matter the conditions surrounding us. What does it take to …
The marathon course goes through a minefield…
Finishing Well. Bob Buford wrote that book in 2004; he, himself, finished well in 2018. I have my copy of that book in front of me, right now. Hereâs Bobâs inscription to me, on the inside flyleaf: âTo Bob Shank â A true comrade-in-arms in this ministry. God has joined you and I together in …
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This should scare the hell out of us…
Whose advice will you take? For those whose career life happens in the marketplace, the points on the scoreboard have the â$â symbol. âBottom lineâ becomes the bottom line; if money makes you the âwinner,â the leaderboard is maintained by Forbes. Every year, their Forbes 400 list updates the current prize winners… Right now, the …
Will you fumble on the one-yard line (in the game with Estate Planning)?
Mid-summer; vacations â such as they are in a no-fly zone, with CV-19 isolation â calling for lighter issues and an escape from the macabre realities swirling in the incessant headlines. Start the week with some light reading, Bob. âEstate Planning?â What was I thinking? The markets have rebounded; savings rates have climbed. People are …
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It starts with faith; does it end there?
Weâve always called this weekly blog the Point of View. An alternate name could have been The Politically Incorrect Journal. Itâs never been my desire to be in-step with the culture; Iâve always preferred to be in alignment with God, and the truth He has disclosed in the Scriptures. A three-week series on Estate Planning? …
Are you acting like a grown-up?
Itâs tragic to hear about the passing of someone you love; hereâs the pronouncement that amplifies the loss: âHe/she died intestate.â You might be not be able to beat death â at least, the kind of death whose cause is not needless risk or undisciplined behavior â but you have absolute control over being intestate. …
What’s your next, big move?
We were supposed to be in Colorado last week⊠Iâm giving this season an acrostic; itâs SOLO: Summer of Lost Opportunities. Two years ago, we calendared a commitment to be in Colorado Springs last week â with the team of The Jesus Film â helping to recruit another wave of resource partners to help their …
The Message from Maximum Security
Itâs been four months, and thereâs no end in sight. Whatâs the plan? If your Myers Briggs profile starts with âIâ (introvert), the last 16 weeks might have felt like an unexpected energizing vacation. Released from unnecessary interaction with people, you could be free to read or binge to your heartâs content. Congratulations on your …
Is America on its death bed?
The patient is symptomatic; are they terminal, or can they recover? Sounds like another Covid-19 story, doesnât it? Far from it, this is far more serious. Viruses come and go; pandemics are recurrent, and are part of life in a fallen world. This short treatise does not concern a malady that is treated in hospitals, …
Am I a racist? This is the question that everyone is asking
Am I a racist? Are you? Writing this weekly message – blog? article? newsletter? – every Monday is stretching. For 30 years, I’ve sought to challenge you and my other friends (nearly 5000) to address the hot-off-the-press issues of the moment looking through the lens of Scripture. It’s 4:35a as I write today’s edition⊠Jabez …
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What’s in Your Pocket?
So, how have you managed to navigate through the last three months? Your answer to that question may not receive the same kind of broad exposure that the Wall Street Journal gave to Deepak Chopra over the weekend. In the post-religion era, heâs the most accomplished guru of the spirituality movement that offers mystical creativity …
Old or new; is it really Normal?
Is this the “new normal?” Everyone seems to be using that term â the “new normal” â as if it has some empirical certainty. In a cultural laboratory somewhere, some highly educated people in white lab coats are probing the current societal situation â which seems to be manifesting a values virus with no antidote …
From Long Shot to Hot Shot
They didnât have a prayer (or shot). Thatâs an idiom that says it all. Usually pronounced about someone whose demise is now history, the onlookers agree that the person in question never had a chance. His/her outcome was pre-ordained, in the now-expert view of all assembled. In retrospect, the Monday morning quarterbacks all agree: they …
Are you under attack?
âJabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, âI gave birth to him in pain.â Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, âOh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free …
Who’s going to get the credit?
âJabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, âI gave birth to him in pain.â Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, âOh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free …
How can you earn your next promotion?
Weâll spend two more Mondays talking about Jabez; as promised, we were going to use some of our stay-at-home time to gain some insights from the life of a man whom God chose to elevate above the mean-average impact level of his own generation, and the generations before and after him. Two verses tell his …
If you don’t start well, it won’t end well
For a few Mondays in a row, weâre taking a few minutes to ratchet-back a few millennia to be reminded of the story of a man whose life is recounted in just 63 words (in the New International Version) in the book of 1 Chronicles: âJabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had …
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Whose opinion really matters?
If you’ve embarked on a structured reading program, intent on reading through the Bible in a calendar year – using the straight-line approach from Genesis to Revelation – the last few days would have been a real challenge for you – Chronicles. Last Thursday – April 30 – you would have landed on 1 Chronicles. …
What if mom said you were a loser?
For over 30 years, Iâve been writing this weekly message. My audience – from the beginning – was Christian leaders; most with careers in the marketplace, but over time, thatâs broadened to include leaders from across the spectrum of careers in our culture: marketplace, ministry, military… the works. Known first as the Fax of Encouragement …