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What To Do First to Make a Profit

The PF Women Team at our Annual Team Retreat  ~ 2018 Today on Seth Godin's blog, he said: It's tempting to decide to make a profit first, then invest in training, people, facilities, promotion, customer service and most of all, doing important work. In general, though, it goes the other way. Yes, it does. If you are waiting to make a profit before you do these things, in my experience you're  not going to make a profit. So many organizations, ministries and churches are struggling with financial issues. I know your pain. As anyone who follows our story knows, our ministry was in a ton of debt four years ago when I came on as director.  Since that time, we've gotten out of debt and turned a profit every year.  God has done amazing things through out team, for which we give Him the glory! I find that what Seth is saying here is absolutely true, with one disclaimer. For Christian leaders, spiritual disciplines must always be first. Before we started inve

Are you confused about your life direction?


I'm speaking about this tonight at Celebration in our fusion service and thought I'd share a few thoughts here on my blog.

God is not the author of confusion.  This means if you are in a depressed state of mind or confused, what you are feeling is not from the Lord. I Corinthians 14:33 tells us that God is not a God of disorder, but of peace…”  

Many people are confused because they wrestle with the idea of being "called."  Understand there are callings on all of our lives in a sense.  And, one of the first things people often don’t realize is that there is a difference between our spiritual gifts, a call, and a burden.

When we get these mixed up we can begin to suffer confusion.

Every believer has spiritual gifts.  And every believer is a minister though not necessarily a vocational one.

Many people have  been enlightened as to their spiritual gifts and then they think, “Wow...oh my...this is amazing.  God is using me!!  It must be His will that I now do this exclusively and/or get paid to do this!!”   

I know of a guy who frequently served as an altar worker at his church and when he anointed people with oil and laid hands on them they were often instantly healed.  His response to that was that it was time for he and his wife to quit work,  pull their kids out of school, start homeschooling them, buy an RV and travel around the country doing healing services.

That was a huge mistake for that family.
 
Why do people feel as through when a gift is discovered they suddenly must go off somewhere else to utilize it?

Understand that if it was true that spiritual gifts determined our vocational direction, then all of us would be quitting our jobs.  Nobody would be left in the marketplace. Because spiritual gifts are meant to flow through every one of us.   

Everyone possesses spiritual gifts and some people are blessed to have more than one or even many. One you discover your gifts, guard against thinking you are automatically supposed to abandon everything in order to use them. You might be called to do that, but many who are not supposed to do that do it, and then fall flat and get disillusioned and blame their pastor or their church or even God for their lack of hearing Him clearly.

The best thing we can do in ascertaining God’s will is live a life close to Him daily and follow His plan for today and the rest has a way of unfolding.

Could it be possible that God is empowering you for your environment and you are where you are for such a time as this?

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