19 January 2024 Mark 3:13-19
Highly successful people tend to follow pretty strict routines.
They tend to go to bed at around the same time, and get up at around the same time every day. They get enough sleep.
They eat a good breakfast. They understand the connection between fuel and performance. They know that protein in the morning makes them smarter all day.
They take care of the people around them. They understand that they can be taken down by a few people working together. So they form teams, starting with their own families, they support other families, encouraging and equipping them so that they too can be successful.
They know what they are trying to do, and focus exclusively on that. They defend themselves when they have to, seek the opportunity in danger, and recognize that change doesn’t have to be catastrophe.
And that is why Jesus appointed twelve, who would have a very specific agenda, a pretty strict routine:
Be with Him
2. Proclaim the message
3. Cast out demons
Successful believers and Churches organize themselves around the things the Bible has identified that build up intimacy with Jesus: Prayer, Study, Worship, Sacraments. These means of grace are ways that the divine life is rooted in our lives, and makes our lives more divine. They create lives and communities in which it is hard to tell where God ends and the community/believer begins.
Successful believers and Churches are disciplined in doing at least one act of public witness every day. They feed the hungry, heal the sick, clothe the naked, teach the ignorant, visit the anxious and lonely, love the Truth with everything they have, and never, ever forget to mention why they are doing it. They are the people and Churches that can’t even be described, let alone understood, without mentioning Jesus.
Successful believers and Churches understand that we have enemies. Our enemies are powerful, and serious, and smart, and they are coming for us. They have said so. They are not hiding the ball. For that reason, successful believers and Churches draw thick, dark, bright, clear lines around the spiritual forces of evil, and do not hesitate to identify them as such. They understand that evil tries not to be seen, and so their lives are filled with the light that exposes it. They do not collaborate and they do not appease. They are always ready with a defense when anyone asks them to account for the hope they proclaim, the hope that is in them, the hope that is them because they are in Christ.
Be with Him
2. Proclaim the message
3. Cast out demons
Highly successful people, and Churches, tend to follow pretty strict routines.
All the greatest renewals of the Church have happened because of this. The next one will happen because of this, too.
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