Category: The Dave Rave

One of the constant fears people face is the fear of losing their job and with it their income and status. As you get older, your fear of being replaced at work and home with a younger, cheaper model can haunt you daily. The only way to confront this fear is to make sure that you get better as you get older.

If you want to be in demand over time, you must continue to grow in character, competence, and calling. Here are my top fifteen ways to obsolete-proof your life:

1. Become a knowledgeable expert at something lots of people need and want to know.

2. Take care of yourself. If you look old and puffy, you’ll feel old and out of touch. Workout, maintain a healthy weight, and dress cool for you!

3. Pass on what you know to others freely, without regard to what you get out of the relationship. Love people just because you can!

4. Ask for help and include people in your life. Let people know you need them and welcome them into your space. Do not allow yourself to become invisible or aloof.

5. Forgive past hurts and slights quickly. Bitterness will make being around you too painful and draining; therefore you won’t be missed when you’re fired.

6. Stay current and up to date on the developing trends in your area of interest. Read widely as well as focused on your area of expertise.

7. Develop a network of friends and associates and keep it in good repair. Don’t wait until you need a favor to reach out to people.

8. Make plans that require you to stretch, grow, and take risks. Write them down and date them.

9. Set goals beyond goals. They will keep you focused and hungry.

10. Keep your motivation centered around your life mission and make sure your life mission is grounded in helping people, meeting needs, honoring God.

11. Stop selling stuff and start meeting real needs. Never be guilty of needing people to buy what you’re selling. If what you do does not meet a real need and add value to people, then you’re in a dying industry—get out sooner than later.

12. Think long-term investment. Avoid emotional decision-making and remember that there is no short cut to any place worth going. Act like today is the last day of your life, but think like you’ll live at least to one hundred.

13. Dump debt early, so that you won’t be a slave to the kind of work that wears you out and down. Be free to work for fun not the funds.

14. Stop thinking retirement and start talking about the future and the new dreams that you are actively pursuing.

15. Maintain an attitude of wonder at all times. Never become a cynic, critic, or armchair expert. Keep your words and actions positive and hopeful.

Each one of us spend a good portion of our lives at work. And oftentimes the difference between a great work environment and a bad one is not the mission or the product, but the people. One of the ways you can bring out the best in people is to appreciate them. Here are ten ways that you can bring out the winners at work by showing appreciation.

1. Accept their uniqueness. Understand that everyone you work with has a story, has a background. They are gifted in different ways. Their personalities are neither good nor bad. They are just what they are. Understand their uniqueness. Accept them and realize that they all have strengths.

2. Praise them for their strengths. Praising people is like pouring gasoline on a fire. It makes them want to do better. You don’t build people up by tearing them down.

3. Pray for their weaknesses. By that I mean, if you want them to change, ask God to do the changing. God is God even at work and He can bring about the change needed in a person.

4. Respect them by listening. Too often at work we get into the mode of telling or commanding, or presenting our ideas after the fact. Listen to people before you make decisions. You’ll be amazed at what they have to say.

5. Expect the best. Let people know that you have high expectations and that they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t the kind of people that could meet them.

6. Champion their cause. Each person has a set of goals, responsibilities, tasks and achievements to accomplish. Be their biggest champion in their particular cause. They are part of the mission.

7. Insist on integrity. Never, never, never for convenience sake allow anyone around you to cut corners. Don’t allow lying, dishonesty, or deception. Be a “yes” person. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

8. Ask for their advice. Long before you set company goals, mission and purpose statements, ask people to give input. You’ll be amazed at what perspective they may have from the other side of the table.

9. Talk face-to-face. Email is a great thing, but it’s a limited thing. You can cause more trouble in one email than you can solve in seven meetings. So if you have something hard to say, do it face-to-face. If you have something good to say, say it by email. But never let one replace the other.

10. Encourage people always. Encourage them by asking them often about their home-life. Encourage them when they are having difficulty. Encourage them when their sales figures aren’t where they ought to be. Encourage them when they are tired and need rest. Encouragement is always in season.

These are ten ways that you can bring out the winners at work, because unless you’re all winning at work, no one is going to win.

I’ve been a pastor all my adult life. As a matter of fact, I started when I was 18 years old. I’ve been a pastor through college, seminary, and graduate school. I’ve been doing it for so long that I need to sit down and just list the reasons why I still have great passion for it and love doing it. Here are my reasons why I love being a pastor:

1. I love knowing what I was created to do; to be a speaker for God, and love people.

2. I love seeing what happens when you give people hope. I love how they flourish and respond.

3. It is a great honor when someone calls you their pastor, which means they trust you to give them spiritual encouragement, leadership and advice. I take that very seriously.

4. I love being a pastor because it forces me to take God’s words seriously; not just as a casual reader, but a lifelong student.

5. I love being a pastor because it causes me to pray: to pray outside myself, to pray for those who are a part of my growing network, and those around the world.

6. I love being a pastor because it gives me a bigger view than just my little thing. It helps me understand that I am a part of a worldwide movement, a missionary movement that takes the hope of the gospel and Jesus Christ to all the world.

7. I love being a pastor because it identifies me as a follower of Jesus Christ with a lifelong commitment to teach, lead, inspire, and move, in the lives of people.

8. I love being a pastor because it allows me to be a builder of people, not just a builder of buildings.

9. I love being a pastor because I know fulfilling that calling is a rare gift and God has given it to me.

10. I love being a pastor because even those who treat me with disrespect are people God loves and I need to love too. This is a discipline. It doesn’t come easy.

11. I love being a pastor because it allows me to invest my life in something that I know will outlive it: the church of Jesus Christ and the cause of the gospel.

12. I love being a pastor because it helps me see past the current events and the day’s headlines to realize God is at work.

13. I love being a pastor because it gives me opportunities to carry on conversations with people in everyday normal places.

14. I love being a pastor because it allows me to use my gifts and abilities in the best way I possibly can.

15. I love being a pastor because it’s a God-ordained office, one that the world desperately needs. We need good ones, loving ones, ones who are sold-out to the gospel of Jesus Christ, ones who are committed to love people, and I love being a part of that group.

These are just some of the reasons I love being a pastor. Let me hear from you. Why do you love it?

This past weekend was the induction ceremony of six men to the Football Hall of Fame. One was of local interest, Bruce Matthews, who played for the Oilers and then for the Titans. All six men come from different eras, with different accomplishments and achievements – all amazing. These were elite athletes and high-quality men. Here are the ten things I noticed as I listened to each and every speech:

1. They all possess great humility. Here are people who are high achievers, have been all their lives, and yet they hold their accomplishments with great humility.
2. They all display great gratitude. They had long lists of people they had to thank for all that they had been able to achieve. The attitude of gratitude always prevails in those who succeed.
3. All six have long-term marriages. They acknowledged, there were difficult times, but they’d stayed the course and had been married to the same person over a lifetime. Marriage stability is a key element in high-achievers.
4. They all acknowledged long-term friendships. They all maintained friendships going back to high school and college days. They were able to make friendships understanding that they couldn’t achieve alone.
5. They all are team players. They understand that football is a team sport and like anything else, no one succeeds on their own. They couldn’t have come to the Hall of Fame without those other teammates who supported them.
6. They all have an elevated view of fatherhood. They had their children and grandchildren there and talked directly to them. They take very seriously the responsibility of being a father, recognizing that anyone can be a biological dad, but it takes a real man to be a father.
7. They all displayed a high level commitment to excellence. They played on winning teams, won Super Bowls. They displayed excellence in everything they did, their dress, demeanor, the demeanor of their families all exuded an excellence in quality.
8. They all displayed a great respect for tradition. They understand that there are football traditions, college traditions, sporting traditions. They seem to understand there is a big difference between tradition and traditionalism. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living men while tradition is the living faith of dead men.
9. They all displayed a great sense of loyalty. They are loyal to the people who had supported them. They defended people. They stood up for people. They gave thanks to the little men who seem to be obscure but only find their praise in others.
10. They all have an outstanding faith in God. They were not ashamed to acknowledge it, to pray, and to openly thank God.

These are qualities in great achievers. Look at yourself and around you. Do you have them? Do you bring them out in other people?

Everywhere I go I run into tired people. People are tired of trying; trying to make life work, trying to enjoy a dead-end job, or trying to jump-start a marriage when the love has long gone away.

Trying harder is so ingrained in our culture, that we’ve developed myths around it. Here are my Top Ten Try-Harder Treadmill Myths:

1. If it won’t fit; get a bigger hammer. This myth basically says that you can just live life by brute force, overpowering everyone and everything that stands in your way.

2. God helps those who help themselves. I’ve met people who actually believe that this is a quote from Scripture. As a matter of fact, Jesus taught the exact opposite, that God has come to help us who are helpless and powerless. We can’t help ourselves.

3. Only the strong survive. The truth of the matter is, in life, the strong and weak alike, ultimately succumb and are overpowered by the forces of life. Like a wave, you can be overcome and overtaken in a moment.

4. The early bird catches the worm. This mythology grows out of the scarcity mentality that there is only so much and you need to get in the front of the line to get, have, and hoard from all those who are trying to get.

5. Early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy, & wise. This comes from Ben Franklin and is contained in Poor Richard’s Almanac. And whenever I hear it I am tempted to say, “early to bed, early to rise makes a person tired.”

6. He is a self-made man. What a lie from beginning to end. No one is self-made. All of us stand on the shoulders of others. We are all living at the generosity of those God has brought into our lives. And ultimately we are all dependent on every good and perfect gift that comes down from God, according to the half-brother of Jesus, James.

7. If you can believe it, you can achieve it. This myth has enough truth in it to be dangerous. You can believe a lot of things that you can’t achieve. Just because you believe it doesn’t make it happen. I’m not sure you can do much if you don’t believe, but you have to be very careful what you put your belief in. We live in a time where belief is not our problem. We believe in everything and end up believing in nothing.

8. If you can dream it you can do it. There are a lot of great dreams that need doing, a lot of wrongs that need righting, a lot of help for the helpless, and a lot of justice that needs to be served. But I can’t do it all just because I can dream it all.

9. If you’re not first you’re last. This comes from that great theologian, Ricky Bobby from the movie, “Taladega Nights,” with the idea that we insist on being first in everything. The truth of the matter is, first doesn’t really matter to anyone. Just ask yourself who came in first in all of the Super Bowls of the nineties. I bet you don’t know.

10. If it is to be, it is up to me. Here is the bottom line. If you’re on the try-harder treadmill, get off. God has put you on this earth for a purpose. He has a calling on your life. And living under that calling is what Jesus said is the same as getting under the light burden of the easy yoke of God. All of us want to work harder and try our best. Trying is not our problem, but trying to the exclusion of understanding that we need God. Trying harder at work won’t fix everything. Trying harder at home won’t fix everything. But committing your way to God, trusting Him, believing He will act, and joining Him where he is acting is the secret.

Have a great week!

Dave

This coming weekend will be the highest attended weekend of the year. Why is Easter the event that rocked the world? It’s from this historical fact (that Jesus Christ was crucified and got up from the dead) that we’ve gained much of our understanding of what God is like.

Easter reminds us that God’s intentionality for His created world will not be thwarted or defeated by anyone or anything; not even death.

As we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, contemplate the ten reasons why Easter, even today, 2000 years after the fact, still rocks the world and brings people flooding into churches all over this country and every continent on earth to worship the person Jesus.

1. Easter proves God will not abandon us. No matter how bad the world gets, no matter how far humanity slips into sin and self-destruction, God will never abandon us. He has a plan and that plan is to redeem us, not throw us away.

2. Easter proves that God is a promise keeper. To understand the nature of the Bible you must understand the nature of covenants. God is a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God. The Resurrection of Jesus was the culmination of both the old and new covenants, providing their fulfillment and the Resurrected Messiah. God makes His promises and He always keeps them.

3. Easter proves that Jesus alone is the One Who fulfills prophecy. The prophecy of a suffering Savior, Who would be beaten, Who would submit to death, and raise from the dead is only fulfilled in the person of Jesus. That’s why we haven’t been able to get over Him and we never will.

4. Easter proves, once and for all, that sin is defeated. Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life and died a vicarious death. His Resurrection ratified all those important events for one purpose; that the bonds and bondage of sin would be broken.

5. Easter proves that God’s purpose will prevail. Easter was not an event that simply happened in history. It is a culmination of history. It is what history flowed toward and what it flows from. We’re living on this side of the cross and God is fulfilling His purposes, even as we go about our daily lives. Though you may think your life is chaotic and that culture is in a crisis, the world is on God’s timetable.

6. Easter proves that justice is a foundational principle, not only of this life but the next. Justice is why Jesus hung on the cross and was crucified. He paid our sin debt and His resurrection proved the acceptance from God of what He paid.

7. Easter proves that the mercy of God is always available and that the forgiveness of God is real and radical. We often toss these words around glibly, but remember, they’re wondrous, majestic, the awesome nature of God revealed in His mercy and grace.

8. Easter shows, once and for all that our greatest enemy is defeated. Death is a one-time appointment. Because of the Resurrection of Jesus, we too will live in eternity with Him. We will be reunited with all the believers from all generations and live in the glory of His love.

9. Easter defines love as sacrifice. In our culture, love is easily dismissed as an emotional idea to be tossed aside when the going gets tough. In God’s economy, love is sacrifice. It is His love that brought Him to earth to live among us, to die and be resurrected so He could earn the right to love us, so that His justice and holiness would be satisfied in the expression of His love.

10. Easter assures me I need never doubt that there are better days ahead. God is the God of new beginnings.

I was listening to an old interview conducted by Ed Bradley of “60 Minutes.” He was talking to Willie Nelson about the past and how he would do things differently. One of the things that Willie said time and age had taught him was that we’re not in control of our lives. Circumstances, events, and especially people are outside the realm of our control. And when we try to focus on what we can’t control and neglect what we can, our lives drift into chaos.

I got to thinking about that so I want to advocate letting go; letting go of the past, letting go of pain. Here are some conditions under which letting go will help you move forward.

1. If you’re holding onto something that doesn’t belong to you; it’s not your dream or your calling, or something you know in your heart God intended for your life, then you need to let it go.

2. If you’re holding on to past disappointments and pains, people who have done you wrong, let it go.

3. If someone can’t treat you right, love you back, know your worth, and elevate your life, let them go.

4. If someone abuses you with their language; degrades, demeans, and detracts from you with their actions, it’s time to let them go.

5. If someone has angered you, thereby taken over your head-space, you need to let them go.

6. If you’re holding onto some evil thoughts of revenge, or plot for getting even, let it go.

7. If you’re involved in the wrong relationship that you know doesn’t honor you, or God, or anyone else, let it go.

8. If you’re heading down the path of an addiction, and even though it may be harmless now, you know the early warning signs, let it go.

9. If you’re holding onto a job that no longer challenges you, inspires you, meets your needs, or helps you develop your talents, let it go.

10. If you have a bad attitude, let it go.

11. If you feel the roots of bitterness taking hold in your life, dig it up right now and let it go.

12. If you keep judging others in order to make yourself feel better, let it go.

13. If you find your conversation going to gossip and cutting down those around you, let it go.

14. If you’re stuck in the past and God is trying to take you to a new level, though you resist the change, let it go.

15. If you’re struggling with healing a broken or bruised relationship, let it go.

16. If you’re trying to help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves and you keep hitting your head against a brick wall, let it go.

1<strong>7. If you’re feeling depressed and stressed over the future, let it go.

18. If there’s a particular situation that you’re so used to handling yourself and you can hear in your heart during the quiet times God saying, “let it go, take your hands off.” Then you need to let it go.

19. Let the past be the past. Forget the former things. God is doing a new thing. So let the past go.

20. If you’re living with thoughts of what might have been, let it go.

21. If you’re worried about the future, about growing old or becoming obsolete, let it go.

22. If you’re afraid of being abandoned by God, let it go.

23. If you keep confessing the same old sins over and over again, though God has forgiven you and you keep rehearsing it, let it go.

24. If you doubt yourself, that you’re gifted, called, and worthy, let it go.

Letting go is the bravest thing and maybe the best thing you’ll ever do for yourself. Because oftentimes, it’s not until we let it go that God is able to bring in the new thing. Remember, at the end of a really good thing is a better thing waiting to be born, if you’ll just let it go.

Too many of us are so preoccupied with the end of our lives we fail to realize that our lives haven’t ended yet. I discovered a long time ago that my job was not to warn people that they are going to die, but to remind people that they are not dead yet. But you need reasons to get up every day and filled with joy and passion and a sense of purpose focused on the big issues. Because if you don’t, every day comes anyway and you just get dragged through life doing a bunch of stuff that everyone else wants you to do, working at a job you hate doing stuff that any monkey can do and you feel like your life is worthless.

Here are some questions that you’ll want to ask yourself today that give you reasons why you’re still alive, why you’re here, why God has a purpose that He wants to work out in your life. And maybe this Dave Rave today is your wake-up call.

1. Today, what new discovery are you going to make? What lesson are you going to learn, something that you didn’t know? Maybe a matter of history, maybe a matter of culture, maybe something you know better about how to do your work. Are you a learner or just a person who recycles old ideas and opinions?

2. Today, what wrongs are you willing to right? Instead of just listening to the sad stories what wrong are you willing to dedicate your life to making right? It may be domestic violence. It may involve children, marriages. It may be a concern over fathers staying at home and raising their children. There are a lot of things wrong with this world that need some renegades to make them right.

3. Today, what hurts will you heal? Every single day you can be absolutely certain about everyone you meet – they are hurting somewhere. Everyone is in pain somewhere. The problem is we disguise it so easily it’s hard to recognize. There are hurts to be healed. We can heal them with our words, with our time, with so many tools at our disposal if we are only aware.

4. Today, what loads will you lift? Who do you know that needs a load lifted? Maybe they are close to quitting and your ability to take one thing off the load they are carrying might make the difference.

5. Today, what dreams will you pursue to the summit of a glorious victory? Have you lived so long that you’ve lost all your dreams? If you’re not careful, people will steal your dreams and all you’re left with is your dreads.

6. Today, what adversities will you overcome? Are you the kind of person who is moaning and complaining about how life has been? Or do you recognize that just life itself is a great gift? We all have adversities. The difference is, how do you prevail? How do you push back in those adversities? What choices do you make?

7. Today, what defeats are you willing to risk on the quest of doing something truly great? Life is risk. Every moment of every day you’re at risk. There is no true security outside of your relationship with God. So what are you risking today that you have to show up and be your absolute best to cover the gap?

8. Today, who will you rescue? Instead of just seeing people as faces and walking on, you need to see them as people many of whom need a leg up or rescue, that need a friend, a mentor, or coach; someone to come into their lives and remind them that they are not alone, that they are valuable and needed.

9. Today, who will you oppose? We’re so interested in being politically correct and not ruffling any feathers, we’ve been so programmed that all anger is bad and we ought to just learn how to get along that we fail to realize that even Jesus had righteous anger, beautiful anger when things were wrong. He knew whom to oppose. Who are the people or causes that you are opposing with all of your heart, mind, and soul in order to pursue the right and the good?

10. Today, will you be renegade real, or just a religious robot? Let’s be honest. Most people check their religion at the door on Sunday morning. We don’t want to be labeled as fanatics. The truth of the matter is, religion isn’t worth having if you don’t mean by that a relationship with Jesus Christ that works out into the real world, affects the way we live, the way we occupy our space.

Every single day that I get up, I know that I have something to do, that I have an assignment. I am not a religious robot. I don’t live on the basis of fate. I don’t think that my destiny is predetermined. I get to choose. I am responsible. I can choose joy, I can choose peace, I can choose to accept the promises of God and be a renegade for God in this lonely world. How about you?

If you don’t know it by now, I’m a guy who’s not into religion; in part, because I was born with the heart of a renegade, not with the heart of a robot. As I share this renegade idea with more and more people, I find that there are more and more renegades out there. But you can’t always identify a renegade by what they wear, how they speak, or what they do for a living.

Being a renegade is a heart thing. Being a renegade for God is a whole new way of seeing myself in the world. There is a new movement that I am a part of called, The Gathering. This week I am beginning a series entitled, “Loving God Without Becoming an Arrogant, Self-Righteous, Know-It-All.” that’s at the heart of the book, A Renegade’s Guide to God.

How do you love God without becoming an arrogant, self-righteous, know-it-all? How do you love God without becoming tamed, weak, and without an idea of your own? As I talk with people and discuss this idea, there are patterns that seem to develop. If you wonder whether or not you’re a renegade, and in my case a renegade for God, here are the 10 Signs You Might be a Renegade. Take your own test.

1. You might be a renegade if you don’t like being told what to do and how to think

2. You might be a renegade if you don’t like being told what you can’t do, what you can’t achieve or accomplish because you don’t have the education or the money, the connections or the right privileges.

3. You might be a renegade if you don’t like being treated like a robot, who’s supposed to check your brain at the door and listen to sermons and live your life on the basis of religious rules that don’t seem to make any sense.

4. You might be a renegade if you don’t like being lumped in with a bunch of religious people who say things that don’t agree with how you feel. Just because you are a follower of Jesus Christ doesn’t mean that you believe exactly the same way other people do on religious radio or TV.

5. You might be a renegade if you don’t like being labeled, or limited by the color of your skin, your family of origin, or other surface issues that have nothing to do with the quality of your character or the content of your heart.

6. You might be a renegade if you feel deep down inside you were born for a special purpose, that you do indeed have a destiny.

7. You might be a renegade if you want to live free from the bondage of the past, the fears of the present, and the dreads of the future.

8. You might be a renegade if you want to have fun in life. That may sound like something that’s not important, but I have found that it’s key. If there is no fun at all, you’re doing something terribly wrong, and renegades know it.

9. You might be a renegade if you want to live a fulfilling life, not an easy life, but a life that is worth the effort; that you can live, love, and leave a legacy; that it matters that you’ve been here.

10. You might be a renegade if you dare to believe that God loves you as you are, not as you ought to be. He has a plan for your life and is more than willing to do greater things for you than you ever dared imagine.

These are just some of the signs. I’ll talk about more of them as we go through the next several weeks at The Gathering.

If you take following Jesus Christ seriously, you’re going to be forced to exert the courage to live life upside-down. Jesus was counter-cultural. He was a renegade. He had a different view of life. He said that the way up is down, the way to get is to give, and the way to be great is to serve. To be able to truly influence people at home, at work, in your career, wherever you are, you become a servant.

We’re told in the Scriptures to serve the Lord with gladness. Jesus said that whoever wants to be great must be a servant. In God’s way of life, anyone who wants to become a leader must become a servant. That’s true at work, for the people who work with or the people who work for you. A servant’s heart is what truly wins the day. When you serve, life becomes exactly what God intended because that’s what He’s made you and me to do. We know that, but sometimes we need to remember the reasons why we serve. This applies at home, at work, any environment, any team — football, basketball, baseball, soccer — any environment where you work with people, these reasons will work. Use them to inspire yourself, but use them to inspire your team as well. Here they are, Seven Reasons. To help you remember, we’ll use the word, REASONS as a memory device.

1. Serving RE-CENTERS my life. In other words, it brings me back to what’s important. I tend to drift. I tend to think that life is all about me. But the day you become convinced that life is not about you is the day you’ll be happy. The day you live outside yourself, focused on a hurt that you can heal, a wrong that you can right, or a dream that you can support is the day you’ll lose the obsession of your own petty worries and begin to live a larger life. It always re-centers your life.

2. I serve because it ENCOURAGES others. When people see you serving, when people see you going the extra mile, picking up trash, straightening up, staying late, getting to work on time, defending a co-worker, it encourages others to do the same. Oftentimes all we need is someone bold enough to step up and do the right thing, and it gives us the courage to do the same.

3. I serve because it’s A CURE for loneliness. The more you get outside yourself and get involved in missions and tasks worth doing, the more friends you’ll have, the more people will be attracted to you and the less lonely you’ll feel at the end of the day.

4. Serving SHARPENS my skills. God tells us that all of us have special abilities, but it’s only when we use them helping others that they really develop and take us to the next level. Some of you are stuck at the same level in your company simply because you’re waiting for someone to serve you. You’re becoming passive, stuck in self-doubt. Truth of the matter is, your skills sharpen as you use them in the act of service of other people. Then other people notice and that leads to number 5.

5. Serving OPENS up new possibilities. You see, the more you’re serving, the more you’re around other people. The more you’re helping other people, the more people begin to see you in action and recognize what your potential is. When they have a need, or promotion, or a new job, or a new idea, they automatically think of you because you’re the go-getter. You’re the “yes, can-do” person. You’re the one that’s serving. You’re the one that’s bowing. You’re the one who’s willing to lead by example. New opportunities and possibilities do not come to people who are passive, who whine, gripe, and moan about the way things are. They come to the ones who bow their knee to serve. Remember, we remember those who serve us.

6. Serving NEVER goes unrewarded. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have one master donor. You serve before an audience of one. You recognize that if you work for the Lord, or work like the Lord, you can expect that your reward will come from the Lord. The Scriptures promise us that there is nothing that we ever do as an act of honor to another person that God doesn’t recognize and reward.

7. Serving shows I’m SERIOUS. At the end of the day, talk is cheap. It’s when you begin to serve people that they really understand that you’re a serious person, that you are a high-capacity leader. You can take more responsibility. You’re a thinker, you’re intelligent, and you’re smart enough to realize that living life upside-down is the way to really get ahead at the end of the day. You’ll be happy and a winner, and everyone else around you will be better for it.

As Mother Teresa said, “The fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, and the fruit of service is peace.”

In the Scriptures we read this basic principle, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” Each one of us faces the challenge to start from mere belief, to faith. Belief can be passive but faith is always active. The Scriptures define faith as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. We were created to live by faith, to enjoy life by faith, to excel by faith. Each and every day we get up and face a decision. Will this day be dominated by fear or will it be motivated by faith? That being true, here are six facts about the kind of faith that works in the real world.

1. Believing is seeing. You’ve heard like I have the old saying, I’ll believe it when I see it. But faith is the exact opposite. It’s trusting that what we truly hope for is waiting for us at the end even though we can’t see it. It’s in the ideas of dreaming. Isn’t it fitting that we’re just celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.? What do we remember when we think about him? A man who had a dream. Faith reaps dreams and visions and hopes in the heart and the mind and then sees them through to completion. It’s much like a blueprint of a building. Who would think of building any large structure without a blueprint? Faith has the ability to create in our mind a blueprint of what God wants to create through us in reality.

2. Willing is winning. God never promises that whenever we race we won’t fail and stumble many times. God doesn’t judge us by the score, the number of medals, or how much we have at the end. He judges the willingness of the heart. Faith is what makes you willing. Some people see something and say, “I’d like to do that.” Others look at it and say, “I ought to do that.” Others look at the same thing and say, “Someone should do that.” Someone with a willing heart, motivated by faith says, “I must do it and I will.”

3. Little is much. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.” What a beautiful sight. No farmer in the world would take one single seed of corn and plant it for the return of one more or even two. He plants one seed for the return of multiple seeds. You and I can see how many seeds are in an apple, but only God can see how many apples are in one seed. With God, little is much.

4. Getting is giving. Again when you get this into your head, the best way to get what really matters in life is to give. The Scriptures teach that if you want friends, you must be friendly. If you want to have joy, you must give joy. If you want to have peace and happiness, you must promote peace and happiness. If you want hatred, then be hateful and you’ll attract it. If you want forgiveness, be forgiving and you’ll attract it. Give what you want and it will come back to you many times over. This is the law of faith and it cannot be broken.

5. Small is large. The Scriptures tell us not to despise the day of small beginnings. It also tells us that at times our visions are small but we are to nurse them and wait for the proper time and they’ll grow. Remember, only man judges things by weight, volume, and distance run. God judges the small things done with great love. As a matter of fact that’s what Mother Teresa said, “There are no great things, only small things done with great love.”

6. Now is then. This principle of faith basically says what you have to do now what you want to have then. The life you are living today is a result of the seeds you have sown in the past. So if you want a different future, you begin now to start planning that future. You plant today. You get up today. You move today. You do the next right thing today. You do today’s work today. Live in this moment. Plant the seeds. Volunteer. Do more than is expected. Get to work early. Stay a little later than everyone else. Do more than you’re paid for today and tomorrow you’ll be paid for more than you’re doing. Now is the time to start to prepare for what’s up ahead.

I am going to challenge you this week to enjoy the walk of faith. And remember, we walk by faith, not by sight.

This week I’m going to dedicate The Dave Rave to my appearance on The Today Show this week. I’m in New York right now taping the session that will be aired Tuesday morning, November 14th. I’ve been invited to be a part of a panel to debate the role of religion and faith in America.

Meredith Vieira will be leading the discussion. There will be four of us on the panel, one of which is Sam Harris, whose controversial book; Letter To A Christian Nation is causing quite a stir. Harris believes that not only is religion not necessary, it’s actually dangerous and poses a great threat to the future of this country.

He says, for example, and I quote, “Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next 50 years. According to most popular interpretation of biblical prophecy, Jesus will return only after things have gone horribly awry here on earth. It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that if the city of New York were suddenly replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud as it would suggest to them that the best thing that is ever going to happen was about to happen – the return of Christ. It should be blindingly obvious that beliefs of this sort would do little to help us create a durable future for ourselves socially, economically, environmentally or geo-politically. Imagine the consequence if any significant component of the United States government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency.”

What anyone who takes their faith seriously, having read that paragraph knows is that Mr. Harris has a most definite agenda. The first that seems apparent to me by this kind of rhetoric is to sell a book. And that’s how you do it. Take an outrageous position and use it to scream at those on the other side.

And oftentimes those of us whom people think of as religious – and actually I’ve been spending my whole life trying to be non-religious – we often make the mistake of shouting back, not because we want to defend the faith. Too often it’s because we feel very insecure in the faith that we have.

There are so many holes in Mr. Harris’ paragraph it would take a volume to respond to them. Let me respond to two. He says that 44% of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next 50 years.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe that. I don’t know when Jesus is returning. I do believe that He is returning. It is obvious to me and it seems every other thinking person that this world is not going to continue to go on indefinitely as it is. Something’s going to wear out, break or blow up eventually down the road – 50 years, 500 years, 5,000 years – who knows? The future is in God’s hands. I don’t pretend to understand, to know or even to be involved in the cause of the end of the world. As a matter of fact, as a follower of Jesus I’m motivated to extend life as long as possible. I’m to celebrate life. That’s part of why I’m here – to love, to live, to help, to do everything I can to make this life better than it is.

The other thing I want to respond to Mr. Harris is when he says the fact that nearly half the American population believes this, that is, that Jesus is going to return purely on the basis of religious dogma should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency. I understand his definition of religious dogma. I would call it religious opinion. Everyone has one. There are a thousand different opinions on how the world is going to end. There are over 20,000 different denominations.

I agree with Mr. Harris that religion can be an exceedingly dangerous thing. We live in a brave new world where we’re no longer able to assume that all things religious are at least basically good. Sometimes they can be very evil.

Here’s my argument. Christianity is not a religion. Jesus did not come to make us more religious. He didn’t come to make us more moral. He came to change our lives, to give us a new life and a new heart, to put love at the core of our motivation – love for God and love for people, a love for life, a love for the things that are good and honorable, a love for your enemy, a love for those who disagree with you, a love for those who can despitefully use you, a love for those who betray you, a love for those who would come up and hit you on the cheek to turn the other side not because you like getting hit in the face and not because you’re weak, but because you believe that God would be pleased.

This is going to be an exciting journey for me. Pray that I am fit for the task.

They sent me eight questions that we’re going to deal with. I think they’re good ones for you to struggle with in your home, with friends at work, in your small group or at Starbucks or wherever people gather to talk. Check it out and see how many of the eight we deal with. Here they are:

1. What role do you think religion should play in this country?

2. There are those that would say religion is a vital part of our society and should be encouraged that faith will only make society better as a whole.

3. Then there are others who would say religion in society confuses issues like abortion, stem cells, gay marriage and turns what would be commonsense decisions into something more – that if you take religion out of those discussions the country would likely deal with greater issues affecting the world like genocide and poverty.

4. Then there are legal battles about prayer in school and public displays of the Ten Commandments. What do you think about these things?

5. Do you think there should be a separation of church and state and do you think there is one in this country?

6. Do you think America was founded as a Christian nation?

7. Would you be surprised to learn that “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950s and only as a response to McCarthyism? Is this a country that does reflect the religious state in different times?

8. What other things would you be interested in discussing with others who believe that faith is an important part of society and should be encouraged?

This should be an interesting time and as I pray and prepare for this moment I’m going to have to say, “Be careful what you pray for. You just might get it. God might put you on the hot seat where you’re forced to give a reason for the hope that lies within you.”

Check it out and I’ll give you some reports and perspectives in the next Dave Rave.

Have you ever noticed that we say an awful lot of things that we don’t mean? We think it’s harmless but after a while you begin to talk yourself into acting out the things you say but you really don’t mean. You say them because you’re tired, upset, or angry. What you say is really important because it exposes the content of your heart. Here are ten things I hear people say all the time that I know they really don’t mean. And since we don’t mean them, we need to drop them from our vocabulary.

1. I don’t care. The truth of it is, we usually say this when we are hurt, upset, tired, or frustrated. We really do care but we don’t know how to respond. Saying it often enough leads people to believe that we really don’t care.

2. It doesn’t bother me. Usually the opposite is true. It does bother us. That is why we are saying it. We’re hurt and have feelings in need of expression.

3. I can’t take this anymore. This creates a false dilemma in our thinking and ultimately in our lives. We can take a lot more than we think we can. If we talk ourselves into giving up and quitting on our dreams, our jobs, our families, our marriages too soon, we’ll always be starting and stopping and never completing and knowing the joy of victory.

4. I wish I were dead. More and more when I hear people say this I perk up. People used to say this and not mean it, but these days you have to take people very seriously because suicide is growing among every age group. Be careful what you say about your physical well-being.

5. I’ll never be able to trust again. The truth of the matter is, you will be able to trust again if you allow yourself. But if you close yourself off and try to avoid the hurt of betrayal or letdown or disappointment, you’ll never trust again. But your life is going to be determined in direct proportion to your ability to trust other people. You can’t go it alone.

6. This will never change. It will change. We often think that trouble, problems, or adversity reverse or close doors forever when the truth of the matter is the situation is changing. We’re coming out of trouble as often as we’re going in. Things will change. If you’ll believe they’ll change, they can change positively by becoming proactive.

7. I hate you. We often mean the exact opposite. “I love you and I need you to respond to me because I feel there is a distance between us and the only way I can get you to pay attention is to raise the stakes by saying something hateful, hard, mean, or harsh.” Remember, words do matter. Sticks and stones will only break your bones, but words will break your heart.

8. I’ll never get over this. The truth is, we do get over it. We move on. All of life is about turning corners and making transitions. Relationships grow. Sometimes they grow apart and other times they grow old. You will get over it if you open your heart to the healing God offers.

9. I can’t go on. A person who says this is looking too far into the future. What they are really saying is they can’t go on this way forever. The good news is you don’t have to. All you have to do is get up each single day, put one foot in front of the other and do the next right thing.

10. It’s over. It’s never over. Hope never dies. As Studs Terkel said in his latest book, “Hope Dies Last.” It only dies when we let go of it. Hope is the best thing. It is a God thing. It is a gift from God to believe that the future can always be better than the present or the past. It is not over if you don’t want it to be over; not your marriage, not your career, not your dream.

These are just a few of the things I hear people saying I know they don’t mean. Instead of saying things that express hurt, pain, disappointment, or despair, start programming your mind with positive things, positive words, positive people, Scriptures. “Anything is possible to him that believes.” These are the words of Jesus. What we believe is what we say and what we say is what we believe. They work hand-in-hand, together.