You impact three people, who impact three people, who impact...
Last night and today John Maxwell, who is a teaching pastor at my church, Christ Fellowship, spoke on the topic of generosity. But before you assume generosity means he’s gunning for your wallet, you need to redefine your definition of the word. John’s sermon dealt with living a generous life, and it was one of the best I have heard from him. Here are just a few of my takeaways.
We can bless only because we are so blessed.
Pay It Forward Principles:
- Recognizes that others have helped us.
- Requests that we help others.
- Means getting beyond yourself.
- Is action-oriented.
“The greatest gap in the entire world is the gap between knowing and doing.” - Is intentional.
- Multiplies when passed on to others.
- Is graded by effort, not results.
- Changes the world, one person at a time.
“God isn’t expecting you to do amazing things…He is expecting you to do something.”
Questions to ask ourselves:
- What have I been given: look backward
- What do I have: look inward
- What can I do: look forward
All very well and good, but before we can go out and make that difference, we have to know what we have to give. We have to know what we are gifted at, what our passion is, and what our opportunity is.
God won’t hold us accountable for gifts we don’t have.
Stat with what you have, not with what you don’t have.
Opportunity is always where you are, not where you were.
Great opportunities to help people seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.
John concluded his portion of the sermon with a reminder that success is determined by your daily agenda, what you do every day. He applied his “Rule of 5″: do 5 things to move your project along every day, and sooner or later you will accomplish your goal. For instance, in writing a book, every day John reads, he files, he thinks, he asks questions and he writes. Every day.
But wait there’s more!
After John was done, he called his dad, Melvin, to the platform. Now it became abundantly clear where John Maxwell got his vision, drive, passion and love for life. Even though Melvin’s wife (and John’s mom) passed away only a few weeks ago, Melvin is still attacking life with gusto. He has started a “chaplains” program for RV parks. He started this ministry when he was 79. He is now 88. At this time he has 40 or more parks in which his volunteers minister. Wow. He’s still impacting his world. One thing he said that inspired me was that as he was listening to John’s sermon, he was confirmed in the rightness of continuing each day to do one thing for the kingdom. This man of 88 is still sitting and learning from his son and others. By this time, John was choking up and there were a few tears in most of our eyes. How inspiring to see someone still so vibrantly dedicated to the work, even with the load of grief that he has been under. To close the service he prayed a prayer of dedication over the people of the church. There is a power of prayer from a righteous man, and I felt it last night. John Maxwell is ok (!!), but his dad really rocked our world!
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Great post! Nice sermon recap. I really enjoyed John’s dad as well. He demonstrated the same kind of zeal that the holiness preachers of days past preached.
I really thought his “Rule of 5″ was good. It really impacted me….experienceshift.blogspot.com
What campus do you attend? I am in Stuart.