There's something that happens when you feast with God
by not feasting on food.
Something about your willingness to give up
what your body basically needs, which is food,
in order to make God your priority
that seems, all through scripture and history,
to be one of the key tools that gets God's attention.
Just the other day, I was meeting with a leader
in Colorado Springs, and he's a pastor
of a very large, growing church in the city.
He was sharing with me just the ups and downs of his church.
And he had been through a lot.
I mean, there's no doubt about it,
that through COVID and other things
that had happened in his church,
he's seen it rise and fall a few times.
And I felt so much compassion for him
because it just felt like that in his life
he was trying to find what was the DNA of his church.
And I totally understand that.
But I wanna talk about today
partnering with God in our leadership.
I think that's a big part
of what I'm calling organic leadership.
And when you partner with God,
God shows us the way to go.
He guides us in what we should be involved in,
where we should be, what we should be doing.
I know for me and for my wife, Liz,
we have spent a lot of time
in fasting and prayer through the years.
We've actually never made a major change
in any area of our life without fasting and prayer.
And so it's been just pretty glorious, actually.
I mean, we've gone now for 30 years of ministry together,
actually 38 years.
And rarely have we made big mistakes
in decisions we've made in leadership areas
because we really made sure
that we had heard from God
and that we were partnering with God
in what that next thing was.
So we first met and got married in Japan.
And so we had ministry on the college campuses in Tokyo,
and after that, God moved us to Okinawa.
After that, God moved us to Southern California.
I went to graduate school,
then I got involved in the Vineyard Movement.
I became the director of the Vineyard Bible Institute,
and I worked for John Wimber as his assistant.
And then God called us to Colorado Springs
to plant a church, and we've planted two churches here.
And so it's been a really, really adventurous 38 years.
And I would say that partnering with the Holy Spirit
is the key to everything.
Being able to hear His voice and see what He's doing.
And that's not just in Christian vocational work.
So we have two LLCs, and we have two houses that we rent,
and we have an Airbnb.
And those decisions in purchasing those houses
and paying off those houses
were also very clearly led by the Holy Spirit
in partnership with Him.
And so let me read Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24.
I think it explains why partnering with the Holy Spirit
is so important in any form of leadership.
"'Thus saith the Lord,
"'let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
"'let not the mighty man glory in his might,
"'nor let the rich man glory in his riches,
"'but let him who glories glory in this,
"'that he understands and knows me,
"'that I am the Lord exercising loving kindness,
"'judgment, and righteousness upon the earth,
"'for I delight in these things, saith the Lord.'"
So remember in the past episodes,
I've talked about corporate inorganic leadership.
And you see what drives typical cultural
or inorganic corporate leadership.
So let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
let not the mighty man glory in his might,
nor let the rich man glory in his riches.
So I see three forms of leadership
that most people are more in partnership than with God.
The first is wisdom that influences others.
And so God is saying here to and through Jeremiah,
don't trust in your personal wisdom.
Number two, power by gaining advantage over the competition.
So this is using might and power
to press in on your leadership.
And then number three, wealth,
which is the accumulation and control over resources.
Let not the rich man glory.
in his riches. Rather, organic leadership, partnering with the Spirit, is knowing and
understanding God. It says here, But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands
and knows me.
Men and women, I just want to encourage you, whatever you're doing, that you be growing
in your knowledge of God. You be growing in wisdom with God. That means spending time
in his word. That means hanging out with godly people. Listen, if you're hanging out with
ungodly people, you're going to start making ungodly decisions. If you're hanging out with
carnal people, you're going to become carnal. Your associations determine your destiny.
And if you're around people that gossip, you're going to become a gossip. If you're hanging
out with people who have very weak, unplanned lives, you'll become weak and unplanned in
your lives. And you think you're going to pull them up, but usually they pull you down.
And so to walk in the partnership of the Holy Spirit, hang out with and be around other
leaders who are partnering with the Holy Spirit. That's what I've always tried to do. And I
have a fire pit in the back of our house, and it's always got leaders around it. Some
of these men and women are the top leaders in the city of Colorado Springs. In almost
every area of leadership within Colorado Springs, some key Christian leader has probably been
at my fire pit talking about leadership, talking about the kingdom of God, talking about how
to be a better leader. And so they've rubbed off on me, and their impact on me has been
huge. Jeremiah says it this way, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says
the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you
will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I'll listen to you. And you will seek me and
find me when you search for me with all of your heart. So organic leadership is about
seeking the life of God in your life. It's God as the giver and the provider, sustainer,
power and peace that makes the organic leader who he is. And so it's learning to seek after
God with all of your heart. So how do we partner with God in organic leadership? Let me give
you three thoughts on how we partner with God. Number one, partnering with the Holy
Spirit is organic leadership, seeking God with our whole heart. This involves prayer
and fasting. So every major decision that Liz and I have made has been built around
prayer and fasting. This church was built around prayer and fasting. The church before
that that I planted that grew into the thousands was also through prayer and fasting. Before
that with our finances, we fasted and prayed. About moves to new locations, we fasted and
we prayed. Taking new positions or new opportunities in leadership, I fasted and prayed or Liz
fasted and prayed. So the power of seeking God with all of your heart. Now you may say,
well, I'm not really into the fasting part. Well, I want to challenge you. There's something
that happens when you feast with God by not feasting on food. Something about your willingness
to give up what your body basically needs, which is food, in order to make God your priority
that seems all through scripture and history to be one of the key tools that gets God's
attention. So I want to challenge you if you've never fasted, if you're coming up on a decision,
you're coming up or you're faced with an obstacle, or maybe you're even looking at
something to happen where you need a miracle. I want to challenge you with fasting and prayer.
That's seeking God with your whole heart. Number two, partnering with the Holy Spirit
in organic leadership is finding God's plans and purposes and flowing in them, exercising
his plans in the arena God has given you. So what I mean by that is rather than you
asking God to bless your plans, you seek God to find out what his plans are, and then
you partner with him in carrying out his plans. And so it's the easiest way for most of us
as leaders to go is to get a vision, get a plan, and then ask God to bless it. What's
a harder way to go, but has a more lasting impact, is instead of trying to find out God's
will based on your plans, why not find God's will based on seeking God and then listening
to what God says so you can hear what he says?
what he's up to, God's up to something.
I mean, Jesus said,
I can only do what I see the father doing.
So the father is always doing stuff.
Jesus said, I can't do anything but what I see him doing.
So God's doing a work in your life.
God is doing a work around you, but are you recognizing it?
Are you seeing what he's doing?
Because if you discover where the road is,
where the direction is, where the wind is of the spirit,
and then you set your sails according to that wind,
man, it's gonna go so much easier for you.
So I challenge you to seek God for his plans
and then follow those rather than seeking God for your plans
and then asking him to bless them.
Number three, partnering with the Holy Spirit
and organic leadership is built
from the life-giving power of God.
In other words, God's gonna call you
into things in your life
that you do not have the capacity to do.
He does that all the time.
There are responsibilities right now
in your life that are hard.
And I would say many times hard is from God
and easy is from the devil.
And what I mean by that is that most of the time,
God's ways are not the easiest way
because there's always obstacles to accomplish those.
And so what a lot of people do is they start running.
They book it out when things get hard.
They book, they take off, they go to the next easy thing
and they live their life from easy to easier,
to easier, to easier,
and they never accomplish their destiny
because a lot of times your destiny, men and women,
is wrapped up in hard stuff, doing hard stuff,
being able to push through that and not quit.
That's where the treasure is.
And even in allegory and in fairy tales,
you know the stories of the dragon.
There's the dragon in the cave
and what's always behind the dragon?
There's always a virgin or a treasure.
The gold's behind the dragon.
And so you come in the typical fairytale story
and the warrior comes, he pulls out his sword
and he slays the dragon to win the heart of the virgin
or to get the golden treasure that's behind
and back deep in the cave of the dragon.
That's a picture, allegory,
of what the spiritual life is often about,
that there's a dragon, there's a devil,
and he opposes you every step of the way.
But the more you build up your spiritual sinew and muscle,
it's not as hard anymore
because you just expect it to be hard.
And when you expect it to be hard, it's hard,
then you're like, okay, whatever, that's exactly what I,
I must be right where God wants me to be
because it's difficult.
Challenge you to partner with the Holy Spirit,
push through hard, listen to God, follow God,
don't run when things get hard
because when you run from the hard things,
usually you end up making your life actually harder
because you're not in the center of God's will.
Bam!