I recently heard a story about a valuable bracelet that a man had given his wife. She was grateful for the gift and appreciated its beauty and the thought behind it. Unfortunately, she left the bracelet on a table before going to bed.

The next morning, the man was making coffee in the kitchen and heard their dog chewing on something. You guessed it, the dog was chewing on the bracelet that he had given his wife the previous evening.

The dog was unable to appreciate the bracelet as anything other than a chew toy. He did not understand its real value.

We as church leaders must be careful that we don’t emulate that dog.

We are charged with the care and spiritual feeding of the people that are members or attend our churches. We have to remind ourselves that every one of those people caries the imago dei, the image of God. Therefore each person carries an extreme value because of that image.

If we fail to properly value the individual people in our charge we are failing in our mission thus demonstrating a gap between how God views those people and how we do.

The danger is that we can view them as a means to an end rather than the whole purpose of why Jesus founded the church in the first place.

One of the ways we demonstrate the value of those in our care is to nurture them and help them become all that they were created by God to be. We are called to train them and equip them for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12).

Are we working to develop a culture where their gifts can be used in the church? Are we watching over them to assist them in development of those gifts as they minister in the body?

I have been in churches that were so large, that I was not missed when I started attending a different church. I have been in churches where I was not encouraged to develop and use my gifts to build the body. In those situations, In those churches, I did not operate under the assumption that I was valued by the leadership.

As leaders, we should be asking the reasons why people leave our churches. Are they leaving because they don’t feel valued? Are they leaving because they think that no-one cares if they stay or go? Are they leaving because they have not been given an opportunity to use their gifts?

The author of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy that lay before him (Hebrews 12:2). That joy is to be in fellowship with every believer in our churches.

The functional question is whether we value the people as Jesus values them.

In Chapter 10 of his Gospel, Luke records the story of Jesus sending out seventy-two missionaries out to the towns in advance of Jesus visiting them. They were to heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near.

The missionaries experienced success and expressed their excitement about it. Luke tells us,

The seventy-two, returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

Luke 10:17 (CSB)

The response of Jesus encourages me.

Jesus basically says to the missionaries, “Yes, you have been given some power and by it have seen some success, but don’t be so focused on that. What is really worth celebrating is that your names are written in heaven.” (my paraphrase of Luke 10:18-20).

This encourages me because we won’t always experience success. At times we will experience loss and frustration.

The American church is so focused on measurable results. We track baptisms, attendance and giving so that we can have a sense of whether we are making progress. There is nothing wrong with quantifying these things, but we can end up confusing them with our ultimate goal.

Some are called to minister in churches that don’t experience rapid growth in any of these metrics. If measurable success is the reason for our joy, some of us will struggle to be joyful.

Some times we pray for healing that doesn’t come. We invest in people who walk away from the faith. We walk in obedience and things don’t work out the way we think they should.

Jesus tells the missionaries to look beyond success or failure to that which can never be taken away from us. Our salvation is the only fail-proof source of joy.

I write this because I have recently gone trough a period of great frustration. I was frustrated because I was focused on measuring my success in ministry. God, in his wisdom, placed me in an environment where my gifts and abilities were not appreciated and my opinion was not valued. My response was to try harder which only led to increased frustration for myself and the people around me.

I am learning that success in any endeavor cannot be the gauge by which I assess myself. My value does not come from what I do or how successfully I do it. My value comes from the one who gave his life so that I might be in relationship with him.

The author of Hebrews tells us:

Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1b-2 (CSB)

You and I make up the “joy that lay before him.” Jesus had you and I in mind when he went to the cross.

What else do we need to feel valued?

I Recently came across a blog post from Frank Viola which listed these six affirmations that he reads every morning. I found them helpful and thought I would share them with you.

1. Let go of how life ought to be and find joy somewhere in whatever your life currently is.
2. Ruthlessly eliminate all expectations of how your day should be.
3. Receive everything that happens today as passing through God’s sovereign hands before it gets to you.
4. All things that take place today – including the irritations and disappointments — will work together for your good. Romans 8:28 is still in the Bible.
5. You can’t control what others do, but you can control what you do and how you react.
6. Shift the responsibility on God to change the things you cannot. It’s His worry, not yours. 1 Peter 5:7 is still in the Bible.

Do you like them? If you would care to add to the list, please use the comment box below.

My previous post highlighted the command given to us by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:4 to rejoice. But there are times when we find this difficult to do. Why is it difficult and how do we counteract the difficulty?

R. C. Sproul, in his book Can I have Joy in my Life?, rightly points out that the great enemy of joy is anxiety. In support of this statement, he points out that two verses after the command to be joyful Paul writes about anxiety:

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 (CSB)

There are two tools Paul gives is for counteracting anxiety in our lives.

The first tool is thanksgiving. It dawns on me that it is difficult to be thankful and anxious at the same time. Being anxious stems from a lack of confidence that things will work out properly. For the Christian, we claim that God has everything under control, but our worry is an indication that we don’t really believe this, or at least, we don’t believe it enough to be fully trusting.

It seems to me that if I am working at finding things for which I can be thankful, it will go a long way toward displacing my doubts about how things will work out.

The second tool is petition. Jesus taught us to ask for our daily bread (Matthew 6:11) so we should have no scruples against being honest with God about our concerns and our needs.

The problem is that I let God know about my concerns and my needs while continuing to worry about whether or not they will be met. This again belies my claim to complete faith in God. I have very imperfect faith which is not strong enough to overcome my anxiety.

It boils down to a choice. I can choose to believe that when I give the problem to God, he will address it. I can choose to be thankful for the blessings I have received and remain in thanksgiving even when I have no evidence that my current concern has been addressed.

I know that I cannot muster up more faith, but I can choose to act on the faith that I already possess. The choice is mine (and yours).