When I was a young boy, an old Ford factory shift worker came to my grade school looking for boys who wanted to learn to play tennis. The idea jumped in me so I pursued it—despite having a bad case of pigeon-toed feet and starting the game with the racket in the wrong hand!

The coach made an instant determination that I wouldn’t make it. He devised a tournament to eliminate some of the boys he thought were hopeless and wouldn’t make the grade. I was scheduled to play the best player. I was facing immediate termination and it was assumed I would quietly disappear into the night.

However, the day before the tournament began, the star player was hit in the head by a baseball and knocked unconscious. He couldn’t play, and I ended up winning the tournament, which turned the thinking of everyone upside down! Where they had seen no promise of success, they were now forced to acknowledge more than a promise!

Well, that first tournament victory was followed by over 100 more! Those days prepared me for the challenges of today. Follow your dream! Don’t let your pigeon-toed feet or lack of knowledge hinder your opportunity for victory!

Your were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom (Galatians 5:7-8 NLT).

King David was not even considered by his own father or family to be thought of as a prospect for anything other than a shepherd. Yet the prophet Samuel singled him out as the one with the destiny to be King of Israel.

What did he do when he received this great announcement and anointing? He went back to shepherding. The difference was, the idea was now birthed in his heart and he began to dream of himself as a king!

But it was neither the prophet nor the dream that made David a king. It was the victory gained through the challenge of Goliath that put him on the path to kingship. Confronting this giant was a decision he had to make alone, but something within him rose up and moved him to face Israel’s enemy. Where others saw a young boy tending sheep in the present, the Lord saw a mighty man leading Israel to greatness in the future.

Search your heart, seize the moment and be bold because of the Greater One living within you!

The sweet life is simple when you’re sincere. It’s wonderful to be doing something today that I started doing 30 years ago, enjoying it more today than ever before. It’s a wonder to wake up every morning feeling like there is important work to be done on the earth, knowing every bit of your energy will be needed. You get cleaned up and ready to go for Big Kingdom Business every day.

God has done a marvelous thing for human beings! He has attached His eternal value to everything we do. We are not measured by others opinions of what we do…only by our attitude in a desire to please Him and serve others as we do it.

The top industrialist can carry this attitude as well as the most humble street cleaner. The most popular TV preacher can do it as well as the quiet country pastor who no one may know. When connected to deity, Jesus said even the giving of a glass of water is not unnoticed. That energizes me to think that everything counts. Jesus is not looking at what you have… but what you do with what you have.

Today as you start off with your first cup of coffee, don’t start complaining about what you don’t have. Don’t put off life until a future time when you look more blessed. Enjoy the moment! Make the most of it with a sincere joy in your heart that you have another day on earth to do good, knowing that it counts for eternity!

London businessman Lindsay Clegg told the story of a warehouse property he was selling. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn trash around the interior. As he showed a prospective buyer the property, Clegg made it clear that he planned to replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.

“Forget about the repairs,” the buyer said. “When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building, I want the site.”

Compared with the renovation God has in mind for us, our efforts to improve our own lives are as trivial as sweeping a warehouse slated for the wrecking ball. When we recognize that we are purchased by the blood of Christ, the old life is over (2 Cor. 5:17).

He makes all things new! All He needs is the site and the permission to build!

You might feel that something disqualifies you from leadership because of age, education or experience, but there is hope. Jesus was the best example to even simple fishermen, giving them ability to lead nations of people. What made Him the leader of a third of the current world population and all of creation? The secret lies in a simple statement that is often overlooked.

“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from and where I am going’” (John 8:14).

The secret of your leadership lies in 3 simple facts. The same facts that made Jesus admired also inspired great feats of courage in his followers.

First, Jesus knew who He was. He had a sense of His oneness with the Father. He said, “I know where I come from.” He knew His identity and was comfortable with it. He knew His origin in God and rested in that relationship.

Second, Jesus knew His purpose. He said: “I know where I am going.” He was not a guy floating around with a question mark on his mind. He spoke with a purpose. He had a depth to His words that would stir the soul and stimulate courage of heart to follow Him to the ends of the earth. In every delay or diversion He was aware of His time and His purpose.

The third secret of His leadership is His willingness to pay the price for it. He said in his weakest moment: “nevertheless thy will be done, not mine.”

Don’t consider the cost to your purpose to be too much. It is nothing compared to the satisfaction of reaching the end of your quest or at least knowing you tried to reach it. Even the great apostle Paul wrote of his plans for Spain, yet there is no scriptural record of him ever reaching it.

Jesus was not sad when He said His last words, “It is finished.” He was completed. And His leadership continues to be an inspiration to us all.

Inspired living is not an option. Negative thinking is as natural to living on earth as the effects of gravity. So if a human is not aware of the pull downward, they could wake up one morning in a state of paralysis from all the negative thoughts that bombard the spiritual and natural airwaves.

In my car, the GPS was picking up street signs while my radio was picking up satellite programs, and my phone was receiving a signal from an overseas conversation. All this was happening at the same time in the same car! The air is impregnated with signals that we can now capture with our state-of-the-art electronic devices. Likewise, we also pick up feelings, ideas, and insights from the spiritual realm we live in that are both good and bad.

We must choose to live an inspired life just like a plane is required to start its engine before it can move to break free of and overcome the law of gravity. When we put on Christ and walk in the Spirit, we are living an inspired life.

Staying inspired is also our choice, because the people of the world are tired and hurting. Hurting people will naturally take something out of you. We are here to give to them, but we ourselves must be up to lift them up.

It is your choice whether you live an inspired life or are dragged and held down by negative thinking. Listen to your vocabulary…is it up or down?

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” Luke 4:18-19.

Jesus found Himself in the scripture and read from it to the people in the synagogue, afterward declaring, “This day this is fulfilled in your ears.” This day. What did He announce? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me…”

I have a question for you. Have you found the place where it is written of you, and have you announced to your home, your community, your city, your family, your workplace and all that you put your hands to that the Spirit of the Lord is upon you to deliver good news?

Take the word “preach” out, and instead insert speak, communicate, bake an apple pie, do an act of kindness…but do it and let them know why you’re doing it. We don’t need to hide it!

Have you found where it is written of you? I have!

I first met Jesus in Sunday school in the basement of a Baptist Church when I was about 5 years old. I remember coloring and the teacher was telling us the story of Jesus. As I sat there coloring, all of a sudden I understood that Jesus was real, and that He loved me.

But as life went on and I approached college, I allowed rebellion to enter into my heart. I had been a star athlete, a great student…some people would call it a charmed life. Things always seemed to go right for me. Foolishly, at the age of 17 I told God that I was busy and not to bother me, I had things to accomplish.

Why? I knew there was a great destiny in my heart and I didn’t see it in “religion.” Religion kept telling me that God might hit me if I get into trouble and mess up, and then who knows what might happen? I figured I probably couldn’t please God or serve Him enough anyway, so I told Him, “Lord, I’m busy, I’ve got plans. I know I’ll be ready to settle down when I’m 35 and retire as a multi-millionaire after travelling the world…by that time I’ll have my family, and I know everything I’m supposed to do and how I’m supposed to live. But until then I’m busy. I have things to do.”

Well, a very, very short time later I started college and found myself living with one roommate that was on drugs, and another that was manic depressive and suicidal.  Our dorm room was painted bright yellow with a rainbow, and AC/DC was playing all the time. There was no peace!

Then, one day I was playing basketball and laid down in practice and couldn’t get up again. I couldn’t walk! I went into months and months of rehab, my grades fell—still no peace in my world anywhere.

I went home for summer break, and on one particular day I recall walking into my bedroom. There was a shelf at the end of my bed, and on it was a bible that my dad had picked up from a hotel. On the front of this bible was a sunrise, and that day it seemed to leap off the shelf at me. I walked over and picked it up, and it fell open to John chapter 1, “In the beginning was God…” I stretched out on the bed and began to read.

Suddenly an intensely bright light filled the room, and once again I encountered Jesus. I was instantly healed and my mind came into complete clarity. I jumped up off that bed and declared, I will serve the living God forever!

In 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 Paul tells us that we have been called Christ’s ambassadors. What does that do for me? I don’t know if you travel, but I travel a lot and when you cross that national border there’s always a line that says, “Ambassadors.” They get to go through the front line at customs and security, they’re always treated special, and they move through first.

So when I hear him calling me “Ambassador,” I put my shoulders back and stand a little taller! You see, I don’t have to cower and bow my head and look down because I’m a Christian and everybody seems to be against Christians…no! I lift my head high, I put my shoulders back and walk with a spring in my step because I know in Whom I have believed.

And even more, I know the One Who has believed in me. The Apostle John says in 1 John 4:19 that it’s not that we first loved Him, but that He first loved us! Hallelujah!

Folks in the West are not accustomed to waiting. At a stop light I leaned over for 2 seconds and the person behind me laid his horn on me so hard I thought someone must be about to run into me. But no, it was just him letting me know that I didn’t jump fast enough on the green light.

Wait has become a four-letter-word in a society where convenience is king. But the word wait is often found in scripture with meanings of pause, rest or “attaching oneself to.” When we wait on the Lord we attach ourselves to Him and His plans.

The prophet Isaiah tells us:
“He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don’t get tired,
they walk and don’t lag behind”  Isaiah 40:29-31 (Message).

Let’s be like the eagles. We hang in there with our wings spread until a new wind blows and we rise up on that wind to soar above the current location to a new view and new place in life!