---

Gen 24:26 And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the Lord.     Worship can be done thru prayer.


Ex 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:      Worship is to given only to God.

1 Sam 1:3 And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there.     Worship can be done by following God's word.


1 Sam 15:30 Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God.  Sin canstand in the way of our worship.


2 Sam 15:32 And it came to pass, that when David was come to the top of the mount, where he worshipped God, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat rent, and earth upon his head  worship can be done outside church.


 2 Chr29:28 And all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded: and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. Worship can be thru praise and music.


Dan 3:15 Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Worship may include a sacrifice from us.


Matt 2:11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh. Worship can be done by giving what we have to the Lord.





The Lord never forces worship so neither should His followers.

 

---

god is made up by man but God is true and real.

---

I am alos new to God's chat room this is my first post. Trusting and following after Him is the greatest thing one can do.

---

I had a conversation tonight with one of our members regarding the amount of people in the chatroom and was thankful that the site was not based wholly on the chatroom..and have always taken pride in the forums and prayers that come about on this site as well as the videos and encouraging postings.. But....here it comes..the big but I have to say that overall I am a bit disappointed when I was looking at the postings that several people had made some of them had been viewed in the hundreds to have one or two comments...I hope that we keep in mind that when we are blessed with someone that feels they need prayer or comfort that we reach out to them...if we can take the time to read it...what is a few seconds more?  AND yes I know we are all busy..and I am as guilty as the rest...just was thinking it might be something that we need to be more aware of...God Bless you all

---

Sunday 5/12/13 Mother’s Day Minister Sandra’s  Sermon = Leaving a Legacy  Deut. 6:1-3, Deut. 5:16

Many obituaries given at funerals lack a lot of details about the legacy of the person who has passed away.  The legacy that a person leaves is very important. God spoke in Deuteronomy about how his people were to treat the family. 
The treatment of the family is important. 

A legacy is the reputation that is passed onto you from your family.  It is important that the parents teach the children to respect, honor and obey God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom but the end of it is Love. We need to live God’s Word!

It is crucial that families teach their children the Word of God. Deut. 6:6-8  Love the Lord with all your heart, with all  your mind and with all your soul. Teach your children to love the Lord.  Also, their parents should live the word of God in front of their children. Parents need to be a living example of God before their children. With so much evil and falsehood in this world, the parents may be the only example of God’s truth in the child’s life.

Amen

---

hello hebuddy and welcome!

feel free to poke around and ASK.

we have quite a few that drift in and out, and chat (mostly evenings).

stick around!  I think it's going to pick up soon.

---

Sunday 5/5/13 Pastor Michael sermon Increase-Supersized Blessings,  I Chron 4:9-10

Supersize was started by McDonalds for larger french fries and drinks. It became a permanent feature in the restaurant. Supersize means we don’t want the regular normal size. You are saying the normal size won’t do it for me today.  Supersize is a way of thinking. We want more than the normal size of things in our life. In the text the children of Israel were taken into slavery and left a supersize land of milk and honey. Now that they have come back, their land can barely meet their needs. They needed to praise God anyway because when the praises go up, the blessings will come down. Praises are inhabited by God. God inhabits the praises of his people. We can thank God for bringing us thru the circumstances in our life. Praise will change stuff in our life! Praise the Lord!

In the text Jabez, whose name means pain, calls on the Lord. Although his name meant pain, he refused to be defined by his painful name or his pain.  Jabez praised the Lord anyhow!  He prayed to God because he knew the power of God. Prayer is our weapon that the devil cannot fight against. Big Prayer, Big Power- little prayer, little power.  Our secret weapon is prayer!  If in everything we seek God’s face in prayer, God will send us his peace and blessings.  You have not because you ask not! Seek and ye shall find!  When we get into difficult times, take the time to pray! Stop complaining and pray!  Jabez prayed, Pain prayed to God. He had no choice but to pray for help. And….And…God answered his prayer!  Jabez prayed with expectation of an answer.  God answered his pray real quick because………..

1)    Jabez Had an Extraordinary LIfe:      Jabez was more honorable than his brothers.  He was committed to being honorable.  He didn’t take shortcuts or hook ups in life or the easy way to get stuff.  There is a process that God wants us to go through so we appreciate the blessing and the place that God will put us.  Jabez had the courage to take the opportunity that God could give him.   Just because you came out of the “hood” doesn’t mean you have to think like the “hood”. It is not about where you been but where you are going!  Don’t let others define who you are! God is bigger than any issue you came in here with! Give your burdens to the Lord! The devil is a liar so make a change in your life no matter what people say!

2)   Jabez Asked for an Enlarged/Supersized Life vs 10:         Jabez asked God to enlarge his borders, his territory. Supersized increase is what Jabez asked for. He knew only God could enlarge his borders.  Jabez refused to identify himself by what others said. He asked God to enlarge his regular size to Supersize! Let God enlarge your life! Believe that God can take you beyond what’s blocking you and take you to your destiny. God says I can have it and I CAN have it!  What God had for me is for me!  THIS IS OUR TIME FOR OUR BREAK OUT!! 

God answered Jabez’s prayer because he had prayed and got permission to step into his new destiny! Break out of the box!  Jabez refused to let his pain define him. He asked God for an enlargement and he believed God could do it and God did it.  Now there is a city name Jabez because Jabez asked God for more than what folks said he should have! We must think bigger, see everything as an opportunity to break out of where you are at! Break out and ask God to enlarge your territory! God wants more for us than we ever imagined in our life!

AMEN   






   

---

God bless you

---

I have no idea why we can never get on chat at the same time, LOL.  We used to chat frequently in the evenings, but I have an afternoon job now (and a day job) so i'm not as frequent.  I hope to see everyone more this summer. 

Please feel free to lurk in chat and invite friends to chat whenever you want!    Sometimes I think the others who want to chat just don't KNOW someone else is feeling the same way.   Also, our chat is moderated, and any problems will be addressed, so feel free to contact lineman or another moderator if you feel you need to.

Welcome new friends!

---

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lut0TT62ej0
	Small | Large

---

Boys should be able to describe what a godly man looks like, having watched one from the time they were a little boy.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for most.  For many boys, a godly man is something like Superman or Big Foot.  It is not something that can be grasped.

A couple of weeks ago I brought my two boys with me to a home and garden center.  As I was checking out, the old man behind the counter stopped me in my tracks with what he said.  My boys were off to the side, gently playing with the wind chimes.  They, too, didn’t know how to respond to the old man’s comment
“What are you two girls up to today?”

I don’t think he meant anything bad by it.  It’s not like they were in trouble or something.  Rather, he was probably just a good-ole country boy looking to ruffle some feathers in my sons.  My boys sheepish smiled, and even softly replied, “We’re not girls.”  Unfortunately, my reply was equally as soft.  ”Oh, boys, he’s just being crazy saying you are girls.”

It wasn’t until I was driving away did I begin kicking myself.  I realized I missed an opportunity to speak into my sons.  They needed me to.  They were watching how I would handle that situation. That day my boys needed a strong father.
I have seen so many weak boys get married, begin working, and even start reproducing with their new brides.  They wouldn’t tell you they are weak – probably because they don’t know they are.

For years I have quoted a verse that jumped out at me the first time I read it:

Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments! His offspring will be mighty in the land;” Psalms 122:1,2a

As a father, I pray that my boys will grow up to be strong, godly men.  In the meantime, there are certain things I hold to in an effort to help lead them that way.

1. Show them the power in weakness.  We’ve been led to think that broken, emotional, and dependent men are all signs of a lesser male.  This is a lie.  I want all my kids to hear from me about my imperfection.  I want them to hear how grateful I am for the grace of God.  That grace will bring me to tears at times.  It does because it is overwhelming.  It is freeing.  As opposed to teaching them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, I want them to learn what it’s like to approach a powerful, mighty, gracious God who welcomes dependent, broken, faith-filled people.

2. Help them realize their strength.  I consider it “papa bear” time.  I’ve been wrestling with my kids since they were babies.  They’re getting to that age where their punches actually hurt.  With each of their best wrestling moves or carefully placed punches, I let them know I see an improvement in their strength.  This is something I never want them to question.  They have what it takes.

3. Model for them how to love and honor their wife.  When my kids were little, they would cry if we told them we were going on a date.  Now it is such a regular event that they barely notice.  We’ve explained many times that mommy and daddy love each other, so we want to go spend time together – just the two of us.  They see me get excited about a gift idea, and they help me surprise my wife in unexpected ways.  I hope that someday I will be able to help them surprise their wives as well.

4. Teach them to fight fairly.  My wife and I get under each other’s skin at times.  We conflict.  We bicker.  We snip at each other.  I can be grumpy, or too curt.  My kids get front row seats to all this.  I don’t want them to wonder if they have a bad marriage someday because they are arguing with their spouse.  I want them to see that conflict is a good thing.  It brings growth, freedom and friendship if done well.

5. Provide an apprenticeship.  I love it when my boys work around the house with me.  So many teachable moments open up as we are building a bike rack (like last weekend) or splitting firewood in the backyard.  I want my boys to understand the power of power tools, as well as the intricacies of doing electrical work.  Each time I work, I invite them in.  Sure I could get it done faster without them, but there is something about slowing down and accepting their help that is satisfying.

6. Teach them the Story.  As they grow up, I want to continue to unfold the story of God to them.  It’s not just about memorizing Scripture.  It is about them coming to understand God as Father.  They need someone who can hear their tough questions about God, and dig through the Scriptures to help uncover the answer.  And when those times come when we don’t fully understand the answer, I want to explain to them exactly what faith is, and how it is something to not be afraid of.

By the way, after a few weeks of stewing on how I handled that old guy at the home and garden center, I brought my boys back.  I brought them in to dare him to say something like he did before.  I felt like John Wayne, calling out a man to a duel.

Sure enough, he was there, right behind the same counter he was before.  I walked straight up to him and looked him square in the eyes.  Unfortunately, he didn’t go running his mouth that day.  BUT, if he had, I was prepared to tell him this:

“Oh, these aren’t girls.  They are future men.  And each day it is my responsibility to teach them how to get there.”

What are some other ways men can be strong fathers in the lives of their kids?

AUTHOR: Kevin East is the Executive Director of Family Matters and Executive Director of Ministries for Pine Cove, one of the premier Christian camps in the country. He and his wife Stephanie have five children, two of which they most recently adopted.

---

The Battle for Men's Souls

John 10:10, Matthew 28:18-20
 
The "men problem" has become a crisis that is virtually out of control. The collateral damage among families is staggering. Men under 40 are especially vulnerable to an alien worldview that is gutting the institutions of marriage and family. Our government agencies, social sector organizations, and businesses are overrun trying to cope with the downstream damage of an increasingly fatherless, angry, and dysfunctional generation. Behind virtually every human tragedy you will find the failure of a man.       

I love the church, but we have a "men problem" because we have a "church problem." The mission of the church, of course, is to make disciples. However, the vast majority of churches have almost no plan to disciple their men. (My apologies if your church is the exception). As a result, churches have not been able to cope with the changing climate among men. Can you think of ANYONE other than the church who can save our men and their families?

Join us for a challenging look into the battle for men's souls.
http://www.maninthemirror.org/archives/viewvideo/2949/special-messages-from-2013/the-battle-for-mens-souls

---

by Jon Bloom
 
Some years back a good friend shared with me seven Scripture texts that he and his wife prayed for their two daughters from the time they were infants. The girls are now grown. And it’s beautiful to see how God has (and still is) answering the faithful, specific prayers of faith-filled parents in the lives of these young, godly women.

I have frequently used these prayers when praying for my children too. And I commend them to you (see below).

But, of course, prayers are not magic spells. It’s not a matter of just saying the right things and our children will be blessed with success.

Some parents earnestly pray and their children become a gifted leaders or scholars or musicians or athletes. Others earnestly pray and their children develop a serious disability or disease or wander through a prodigal wilderness or just struggle more than others socially or academically or athletically. And the truth is, God is answering all these parents’ prayers, but for very different purposes.

That’s why Scriptures like John 9:1–3 are in the Bible. We must not too quickly assess God’s purposes because they can be opposite of our perceptions. God measures success differently than we do, which is why he often answers our prayers in ways we don’t expect.

So pray for your children. Jesus promises us that if we ask, seek, and knock the Father will give us good in return (Luke 11:9-13), even if the good isn't apparent for 40 years. And because Jesus regularly asked those who came to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51), we know that he wants us to be specific with our requests.

So, here are seven helpful, specific things to pray for your children:

1. That Jesus will call them and no one will hinder them from coming.
Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away. (Matthew 19:13–15)

2. That they will respond in faith to Jesus’s faithful, persistent call.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

3. That they will experience sanctification through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit and will increasingly desire to fulfill the greatest commandments.
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

4. That they will not be unequally yoked in intimate relationships, especially marriage.
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

5. That their thoughts will be pure.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4: 8 )

6. That their hearts will be stirred to give generously to the Lord’s work.
All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord. (Exodus 35:29)

7. That when the time is right, they will GO!

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

---

The Soul of Steve Jobs

Soon after the death of Apple's co-founder, Steve Jobs, I read Walter Isaacson's newly released biography, Steve Jobs. Once started, I found it difficult to stop reading (on my iPad) about this complicated man, and I regretted reaching the last page.

Whether one liked or disliked Steve Jobs, he is certainly one of the most talked-about leaders of our time. In his 56-year life, he founded and ultimately led a business organization to a commanding position in the world of technology. He assembled and led teams that produced some of the most admired technological products of our time: Mac Books, iPods, iPhones, iPads. Whole industries came into being because of him.

But Steve Jobs also had many critics. "He mistreated people." "He was ruthless in his business dealings." "He was vindictive." "He lacked compassion." And that's just the light stuff.

As I read about Steve Jobs, I dared to imagine a conversation with him in his office at Apple. A fantasy, of course, but a trigger for some sober thought.”

We all know that Steve Jobs was not a professing Christian. While he respected Jesus, he walked away from Christianity at an early age—at least in its organized and doctrinal form.

So why write about him in a Christian journal? Answer: because his life yields valuable lessons, positive and negative, on the subject of leadership. It also highlights areas that Christian leaders can enlist to touch the souls of people like him.

Early Influences

The Steve Jobs biography reminded me of how many leaders are shaped by events in their earliest years (even days) of life.

Jobs, for example, was born to an unmarried couple who chose to give him up for adoption. The good news? The newborn child came to the home of a working class couple, Paul and Clara Jobs of San Francisco, who lavished great love and care on him.

Paul Jobs, Steve's adoptive father, was a Coast Guard veteran, a man of exceptional mechanical and carpentry skill. When Steve was old enough, father and son began to tinker with cars, build furniture, and repair things about the house. "I wasn't into fixing cars," Steve Jobs said years later, "but I was eager to hang out with my dad."

In their time together, the father planted a powerful work ethic in his son. All work, Steve Jobs learned, was to be marked with excellence. When father and son painted a fence together, for example, the boy learned that the unexposed side was to be treated with the same thoroughness as the visible side.

"(My father) loved doing things right," Jobs reflected. "He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn't see." Decades later this principle learned in boyhood would shape the development of Apple devices. Jobs always insisted that the inner parts of anything bearing the Apple name be as perfectly designed and built as the outer parts, even though a customer would never see them.
(Note: you never see a screw or latch that permits you to open up and tinker with an iPod or an iPad. Jobs didn't want you or me "screwing up" his stuff. A control freak? You betcha.)

But then there's the perceived rejection of his biological parents. That's the bad-news side of the story. What's it like to know that your mother put you into the arms of someone else and walked away? This appears to have haunted Jobs all his life and may partially explain his shortfalls in many human relationships.

When Jobs began school, his parents and teachers soon discovered that he was a "problem child." It showed in his rebelliousness, in his boredom with the curriculum, in his unwillingness to fit into ordinary classroom regimens. He resisted learning in the traditional cookie-cutter ways.

It's startling to realize that Steve Jobs might have ended up a social discard—a delinquent—had it not been for an observant teacher who suspected that she had an exceptional child in her classroom. Under her guidance Jobs quickly accelerated in his learning experiences. "I just wanted to learn and to please her," Jobs said, looking back on her efforts.

Unfortunately the same did not happen in his church experience. When Jobs was 13, he asked his pastor a simple (yet not so simple) question.

Isaacson writes: "In July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday school and confronted the church's pastor, 'If I raise my finger, will God know which one I'm going to raise even before I do it?'

"The pastor answers, 'Yes, God knows everything.”

Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, 'Well, does God know about this and what's going to happen to those children?'

"'Steve, I know you don't understand, but yes, God knows about that.'"

The pastor's answer badly underestimated the young teen's intellect and left him unsatisfied. According to Isaacson, Jobs walked away from the church that day and never returned.

For the pastor, that brief exchange was likely incidental and forgettable. Yet it was a turning point that would point Steve Jobs toward eastern philosophy.

The story generates a prayer in me: "Lord, make me aware of the implications of any (any!) word I say to people during the course of the day. Who can know when a spoken word directs someone toward the right path … or the wrong one?"

So you have these primary sources of formation in this boy's life: a birth mother, a loving father, a caring teacher, and an imperceptive pastor. Discuss!

Partnership

If one is into technology (and I confess an attraction), Isaacson's record of Steve Jobs college and twenty-something years becomes intriguing. During that time Jobs came alive to the world of electronics, drugs, literature, and a host of other experiences. But among the most important events of that period was his introduction to Stephen Wozniak, who would become his partner in the founding of Apple.

While other boys played ball, Jobs and Wozniak built their first computer in the garage of the Jobs's home. Theirs was a powerful synergy of skills: Wozniak's grasp of the inner workings of a computer and Jobs's instinct for its design and utility.

The birth of Apple Computer came in the years that followed, and the two men attracted a host of brilliant youngish people to join them in developing the company.

I'm most interested in the contrasts between the two men. Wozniak was shy, embarrassed by public recognition, obsessive about facts and truthfulness. Jobs, on the other hand, was brash, ambitious, and controlling.

Isaacson writes: "Wozniak would be the gentle wizard coming up with a neat invention that he would have been happy to just give away, and Jobs would figure out how to make it user-friendly, put it together in a package, market it, and make a few bucks."

The Wozniak-Jobs partnership will be the subject of more than one dissertation or book in years to come. It could make for a rich conversation today: how do partnerships begin, and how are they nurtured? And what's the nature of a relationship with God?

Crash

Years later Steve Jobs hit a kind of bottom. To simplify a very complex story: Jobs was a man with limited people skills. In his haste to fulfill his visions, he could be intimidating, obnoxious, intolerant, impatient, profane, and offensive.

As often happens, the people at Apple mostly adjusted to Steve Jobs's way because, in spite of his volatile personality, he caused highly talented and motivated people to achieve things beyond their own wildest expectations. If one was tough enough to accept the abuse involved in working for and with Steve Jobs, the success in terms of wealth, fame, and professional satisfaction was enormous.

But one day the board of Apple reached a point of intolerable frustration with Jobs. At the age of 30, Steve Jobs found himself out of a job. He once again experienced the echoes of rejection, abandonment—but this time at the age of 30. The man who'd often abandoned others was himself abandoned.

Those had to be moments of massive humiliation and self-searching. Was anything to be learned? While Jobs may have been able to identify his failures in executive leadership, I doubt if he ever looked inside himself to seek the root of the many faults and flaws that often made working with him an intolerable experience.

"The one question I'd truly love Steve to answer is 'Why are you sometimes so mean?'" one colleague told Isaacson. When Isaacson posed the question to Jobs, he said, "This is who I am, and you can't expect me to be someone I'm not." That was it. Case closed.

When Steve founded a second company (NeXT), the products it introduced to the market, while innovative, were not entirely profitable. Jobs's place in business might have been scuttled. He was just inches from spending the rest of his life as a nobody. But this period of failure in Steve Jobs's life counted for something. "The best thing ever to happen to Steve is when we fired him, told him to get lost," an Apple board member said.

Isaacson comments: "The theory, shared by many, is that the tough love made him wiser and more mature. But it's not that simple. At the company he founded after being ousted from Apple, Jobs was able to indulge all of his instincts, both good and bad. He was unbounded. The result was a series of spectacular products that were dazzling market flops. This was the true learning experience."

Sometime later the board of Apple, also facing great stress, invited Jobs back into the company. It's a convoluted, rather strange story, but the reinstatement turned out to be a new day for him and for Apple.

When appropriate, I like to ask leaders if there was ever a time when they felt truly broken, stripped of self-confidence, and finally willing to seriously listen to someone other than themselves? Often, they nod their heads. Yes, there was such a time, most say. And yes, they finally learned to listen.

One thinks of Joseph's days as a slave, Moses's years in the desert, Peter's hours weeping in a dark valley. Defining moments, those.

Did Steve Jobs have such a defining moment? Was he ever truly humbled? The jury, Isaacson might say, is hung on that one.

Truth

Those who worked around Steve Jobs spoke, and sometimes joked, about his reality distortion field, a term borrowed from the Star Trek TV series. Isaacson quotes long-term Jobs co-worker, Andy Hertzfeld, "(Jobs's) reality distortion field was a confounding mélange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand" (italics mine).

In a few words, Hertzfeld was saying that Steve Jobs often tried to talk things into existence. Plainly put: Jobs could lie, make unkeepable promises, and reframe facts. He knew few limits in trying to get people to see things his way. He not only convinced others but also himself. You could say that the man often drank his own Kool-Aid.

"At the root of the reality distortion was Jobs's belief that the rules didn't apply to him," Isaacson writes. "Rebelliousness and willfulness were ingrained in his character. He had the sense that he was special, a chosen one, an enlightened one."

In the Steve Jobs world, the casualty rate in such a Darwinian atmosphere was great. But—and here is the conundrum—the work usually got done, the objectives were achieved, the products shipped. More often than not, people delivered the impossible that Jobs demanded. Call it a task-driven leadership. But it wasn't a place where people with values ascended. Only the toughest survived.

It's not difficult to see this pattern in a larger-than-life man like Steve Jobs and to harshly criticize it. What is more challenging is seeing that this same tendency lies latent in the hearts of most leaders—Christians included. A great goal, a strong passion, a consuming need: they are the stuff of self-justification when a leader comes to believe that something must be achieved for the noblest of reasons. It is the temptation of the preacher who, in seeking to persuade, enhances or diminishes the truth to make his point. It is the temptation of any organizational leader when additional money must be raised to keep the cause afloat.

How do we accomplish the task but do so with integrity? File that away for a future staff retreat. Or thoughtful conversation.

Useful and Beautiful

When I obtained my first iPad, it came in a box that reminded me of rich European chocolates. The iPad inside was wrapped in a clear film. When I lifted the iPad from the box, my first instinct was to hold it reverently in my hands as I might a piece of art. Everything about it—its appearance, its feel, its solidity—evoked a kind of awe.

When its screen lit up and I acquainted myself with the many things the iPad could do, I was dazzled—just as Steve Jobs had willed it to be.

My reaction to my iPad was first imagined in the Apple labs where Jobs and his people spent thousands of hours building something that was not only easy to use but marvelous to look at. It was art and technology brought together in one elegant package.

Apple products are known for their simplicity in both design and utility. Perhaps this was inspired by Jobs's attraction to Japanese Zen Buddhism. In this frame of reference, simplicity, wholeness, integrity, freedom from numbing complexity all reflect a sense of calmness.

For Steve Jobs great products were to be technologically exceptional, and they were to be equally beautiful. When I got my iPad, I found that I wanted to tell everyone about it. No one had to train me, motivate me, or threaten me with guilt. It was natural to rave about something that worked and was beautiful at the same time.

Like the gospel of Jesus.

I've worried over these words because I fear that some will conclude that I am betraying my own loyalty to Jesus when I acknowledge that something good can arise from an alternative philosophical orientation. But to pretend not to notice that Jobs may have found some of his inspiration from another source is to be dishonest.

I would rather ask if a genuine Christianity should not have provided a similar inspiration. Was not Jesus the epitome of simplicity, of beauty, of wholeness? Was not the intended result of his gospel in the life of the believer meant to be (forgive this ludicrous comparison) as impressive as an iPad 2?

(Note to those who choke on being compared to an iPad. Paul compared the flourishing Christian to a pot made of gold or silver. Alive today, he might have also resorted to using an iPad.)

Dying

When Steve Jobs discovered that he had cancer, typically he tried to manage his own healing process. There were some bad decisions that frustrated his doctors. But there were also good choices that apparently advanced the process of seeking a cure for cancer. But in the end, he lost this last battle and died.

"I am about fifty-fifty on believing in God," he told Isaacson not long before he died. "For most of my life, I've felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye …. I'd like to think that something survives after you die. It's strange to think that you accumulate all this experience, and maybe a little wisdom, and it just goes away. So I really want to believe that something survives, that maybe your

consciousness endures. But on the other hand, perhaps it's like an on-off switch. Click! And you're gone. Maybe that's why I never like to put on-off switches on Apple devices."

Once in a commencement address at Stanford, Jobs told graduates that death may be life's greatest gift in that a true respect for death might force one to give his/her best in every waking day.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life," he said. "Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."

As I read this biography of Jobs, I wanted to see how a man dealt with his own brokenness and defects. I wanted to see what the good and the bad looked like in organizational leadership. I wanted to learn what's possible when someone—whatever the reason—reaches for their notion of the best. Isaacson helped me to do that.

Author: Gordon MacDonald is chancellor of Denver Seminary Denver and editor-at-large for Leadership Journal. He is author of numerous books, including Going Deep: Becoming A Person of Influence

http://realdealmanhood.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-soul-of-steve-jobs.html

---

https://www.maninthemirror.org/stores/2/flypagetpl/shopproduct_details/16

---

Leading in the Footsteps of Jesus
January 14, 2013
Special message by David Delk, President, Man in the Mirror

Every man has a leadership influence on someone. And every man is affected by the leadership of others. So today, just starting a new year, all of us are feeling the impact of the leadership crisis that we see in America.
 
Too many dads have abandoned their kids, even if they are still at home. Too many husbands have chosen the safe and easy road over the path of loving sacrifice and service. Too many businessmen, politicians, and celebrities are looking for short-term advantage over long-term impact.
 
Jeremiah 23 shows that God has woven the design of leadership into the very fabric of society. The passage shows that God judged the people for the sins of their leaders. Representation is built into human reality. We were represented by Adam and Eve when they sinned and so reap the consequence. If we put our faith in Jesus, we are represented by Him in His death and resurrection and so receive the benefits.
 
In an analogous way, the people we lead are affected by our leadership. God has given us a great opportunity for positive impact--but the key lies in being a leader who knows how to follow. We don't lead in our own strength, but out of the humility that comes from submitting to Jesus.
 
Who will you impact today with your leadership? And will they experience the grace and love of Jesus Christ?