"Jesus ain't got nothing to do with it"

As my name was called, I walked up from the back of the room, stepped forward and accepted my Sales Manager of The Year Award, the presenter asked me to say a few words, as everyone sat down, I quickly cleared my throat and said " As I look back to the tremendous year that we had in 1999, I can't help but thank the 40 sales reps that made this year happen, their hard work and dedication was truly a difference maker! I also want to thank my supervisor team that put up with all of the long hours and stressful days ensuring that we hit our sales goals, but most of all I would like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who has poured out his favor and blessing and without him none of this would be possible"

Before I could utter another word, a clearly intoxicated man sitting in the front row, looked at me, laughed, stood up and said: "Man, Jesus ain't got nothing to do with you winning this award, you just got lucky and had a good year!" and proceeded to laugh hysterically at his own comment.

Being pretty quick on my feet and being called out in front of several hundred  people I calmly and confidently said..."I guess you all now know, who this year's runner-up is, glad he's not taking it personally." The 500 people in attendance roared and the guy was totally destroyed. Thank you Lord for a great come back, LOL.

Can I tell you that the day you become a Christian and invite Jesus into your life as your lord and savior everything has to do with him! The non-christian world cannot understand that, without the Holy Spirit present in their lives they are literally incapable of understanding why everything should be about Jesus.

As a Christian, I have a biblical worldview which means that I view everything through the lens of what scripture has to say... How I treat people, How I live, How I give, How I raise my Children, My life's purpose and destiny, everything.

As a Christian, God has a unique and special call on each one of our lives. He has a plan, purpose and destiny that he created uniquely for each one of us before we even existed. God does not make mistakes, he did not make a mistake in creating you and he did not make a mistake in placing you in the environment where you currently find yourself!

Your environment is your ministry, God has placed you where he needs you, your family, coworkers, friends, relatives and acquaintances are members of your church and God has called you to minister to them on a regular basis. 

When your ministry with those individuals is finished God will move you or them on to different pastures. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1 "For everything there is a season and time for every matter under Heaven". This includes People coming in and out of our lives.

Our goal as Christans should be to leave people better than when we found them, to shower them with the love and compassion of Jesus Christ and to be a living, breathing example of that love in this world. 

How do we do that? 

Here are 3 tips to help get you started...

1. You have to be living a victorious life in Christ, if you are not, all of your focus will be on yourself and you will be incapable of ministering to your flock.All of your time will be spent on your problems and issues, you will have nothing left for anyone else. How do you live a victorious life? Its actually easy, You make God #1 in your life and build a daily relationship with him through spending time in the Bible,  Prayer, Thanksgiving(Having an attitude of gratitude is vital-be thankful for what you have) and Worship. God should be the first and last person you speak with every day. When you spend quality time daily with God your whole life will change for the better. When you live a victorious life, people will take notice and will gravitate toward you.
2. You have to be bold. It's not easy to speak with non-Christians about Jesus. It was not easy to Get up in front of those 500 people and proclaim the goodness of Jesus Christ. Let your life be your witness and testimonial, if your doing it right, people will come to you and want to emulate what you have. That will open the door for you to share the reason for your hope, the reason why your faith doesn't waiver, why you are generous. God will see to that. Here is a tip... even the most hardcore non christian people out there will allow you to pray for them during a difficult time, the next time one of your flock says... my daughter is sick, I am struggling in sales, I need to find a new job, the radiator in my car went out and I don't have the money for it, offer to pray with them for a solution and if you feel led by Lord-help them meet their need!
3. Be generous with your time, energy and money. God's people aren't penny pinchers when it comes to helping those in need. God gives us abundance for the sole purpose of being able to bless others. If someone in your flock has a need, nothing says the "Love of Jesus" more than a check or your time to help meet the needs of others. Generosity opens doors and gets the attention of God. Let me share with you a story that perfectly illustrates my point...

For as long as I could remember, I have always wanted a luxury car, I actually used to prayer that one day God would bless me enough to be able to buy a really nice car. At the same time for the last 20 years I had a company car with fuel, insurance and maintenance paid for. I thanked God daily for that company car and over time I stopped praying for a luxury car because I thought desiring a luxury car when God provided a free car was ungodly. 

Last year, I happen to be talking with a guy I work with and he was telling me about his 17 year old son who just received his driver's license and his birthday was coming up and he really believed his dad was going to buy him a car. Problem was his mother had been in and out of the hospital ran up numerous medical bills, plus they have 5 children and they could not afford to buy him a car and they were struggling so-there would be no car for the boy. His dad was broken up about it and was feeling like a failure that he could not buy his own son a car. I offered to pray for him and we asked God for a solution to this situation. 

 A week later I was at my desk reviewing our fleet inventory and we had this vehicle (a Dodge Charger) that was going up for disposal. It was a General Manager vehicle that had reached its corporate of 120,000 mile life span, still ran good but policy was clear, it had to be disposed of. This usally involves putting it out to bid for local dealers. The dad also saw this list and called me and asked if he could bid on the car and buy it for his son. A perk that we offer to our associates. I said "sure, can you afford it and he laughed and said "no". Later that night, I couldn't sleep and kept thinking about this dad and his son, being the father of 3 children I totally understood where he was coming from-he wanted in the worst way to be a hero to his son and buy that car for his birthday. I couldn't let it go so I prayed and asked the lord if we should buy that car for this dad, 10 minutes later my wife woke up, and told me to buy that car, so the next day I bought them the car, the dad hid it until the birthday party and his son "wigged out"he was so excited. He couldn't thank us enough- I was very clear that it was God who blessed him not us.

In true God fashion, this not the end of the story, about 3 months later I received a promotion at work and as part of that promotion, I was able to buy a BMW 7 Series luxury car that is paid for from my monthly car allowance. 

We cannot out give God, when we blessed that dad and bought him that car God responded to our faith and blessed us. Much more important than me being able to drive a luxury car was the witness and testimony to that dad about the love of Jesus Christ. 

One day, we will all stand before God and will have to give account of what we did while we lived on earth. We are called the be the "Salt and light" of this world.

 Friends, there are people littered throughout your life today, that need your witness, they need your generosity, they need your encouragement, they need to see the Jesus that you love and serve. Please make it a priority to share that love with someone today, that is what our lord asks of us!

"Hey dummy, why did you take your helmet off?"

Freshman year of college, day four of two-a-day practices second day of full pads and contact. I was getting the best of our All-Conference nose tackle, who was one of the Quad Captains on our football team. The thing was that he knew it and so did the coaches, his job was to get triple teamed to allow the Sam and Will linebackers to roam freely and attack the ball. I was dominating him alone so our two guards were able to peel off and get to the second level and interrupt the linebackers. A big No- No if you are a defensive player.

I should have seen it coming but I head no idea. After a particularly successful 10 yard run right up the middle and after picking himself up off the ground yet again, our beloved nose tackle and captain took it upon himself to shove me in the back while I was walking back to the offensive huddle.

This was college football, it might as well have been prison, the rules are the same- you are new and fighting for your life and respect. So I walked back to the huddle and the coach looks at me and says, "What are you doing?", "Why didn't you hit him?". Shortly after practice he pulled me into the office   and explained to me that standing up for yourself and going right back at the older players was the only way to get respect. He told me next time it happens, I needed to respond.

The next time didn't take too long, it was the next day. First play of practice- 52 Center Trap; I destroyed him, he shoved me in the back again and walked back to his huddle. This time without thinking I took off running full speed, I literally left my feet and hit that man harder than anything I had ever hit in my life! His head snapped back and he dropped, as a matter of fact, he really dropped! He had to be helped off of the field and he was out for the next several plays.

I knew what was coming next, the coaches knew what was coming next, he knew what was coming next. IT WAS ON!!! As Captain and one of the leaders of our team, this insubordination from a freshman could not go unanswered. The fight was coming...

He trotted back onto the field, we didn't even call a play in the huddle coach walks over and says to me  "hey man, with your wrestling background, you need to get this to the ground, his reach is twice yours" He was 6' 4', I was 5'9". Okay, I got it. Ground = winning the fight, I could do that!

 As soon as we broke the huddle I could see him tightening his gloves and buckling the 4th snap on his helmet. As soon as I got into my stance he jumped off-sides and shoved me to the ground and followed it up with a few four letter adjectives he used to describe me. He then motions for me to get it.

Never one to back down from a fight, I willingly got up, I was ready to nail this dude, so I threw my helmet off to get ready, then it happened...

A minute or two later I was awakened by our trainer giving me that horrible smelling stuff to wake me up. I had a horrible headache and blood was gushing out of my nose and mouth. For a minute, while laying there I had no idea what happened, so I asked the trainer and he said you got headbutted!

What? headbutted? Really? After a few more minutes I was helped up, my nose was stuffed with cotton, and I saw the coach walking over to me. I remember feeling angry that this guy "wussed out of fighting me like a man"  now this guy, team captain or not he was going to get his, no coach on any team would put up with something like that. Or so I thought.

Coach walks up and he says... "Hey dummy, why did you take off your helmet?" looks at me, looks at trainer and asks "is it broken?" trainer says "nope" and says "get back to practice, no more fighting".

WOW. That was it! As soon as he saw me throw off my helmet he "leaped" into action from what I had been told. To this day, I have no recollection off the headbutt itself. Although, to date I have had two nose surgeries, LOL.

Twenty plus years later as reflect back on that incident, I realize that I lost my chance of winning that fight the moment I threw off my helmet and gave my opponent a sizable advantage over me, which he took full advantage of. That wasn't on him, it was on me.

We as Christians give our enemy a sizable advantage over us when we focus on our problems and not on God's faithfulness. I cannot begin to tell you how much of my coaching time is taken up by business leaders talking about their problems and how they are struggling. Lets face it when we hit tough times it is a natural tendency to focus on the problem and the desire to want to share it with others.

The problem with that is that it only compounds our problems, the problem with problems is not the problem itself but the length of time we suffer through that problem- that is what weakens us. Most of us are strong enough to endure for a short time but any longer than that we become stretched and despair begins to set in and we take to blaming God or others for our current situation.

The question becomes, as Christians how do we handle problems and situations that arise? How do we keep our faith in the midst of the marital problems, financial stress, low cash flow, and heath scares?

The answer lies within this scripture...

"We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony" (Rev 12:11). We must realize that the battle was won that day on Calvary through the innocent shed blood of our Savior. If we have the victory through the blood, how do we get it to manifest in our situations? First we need to realize that these problems and situations are allowed by God into our lives. We know that God will never give us more than we can handle otherwise he would be a liar..."There is no temptation, test or trial taken you but such is common to man, but God is faithful, he will not suffer you to be tested, tempted or tried beyond what you can endure but will with every temptation, test or trail make a way of escape " (1 Cor 10:13) These events are allowed to come into to our lives because they will draw us closer to God, in order to see victory we have to come to the end of our own strength so we find the beginning of Gods. We must take our focus off of our problems and place that focus or attention on the solution which is Jesus Christ. Easier said then done, right?

Our enemy would love nothing more than to have Christians holed up having a 24/7 pity party and sharing with the entire world all of their problems, why? Its very simple, if you lose your testimony, you lose your witness!


What I mean, is the single biggest reason you are still alive is because your ministry (the call of God on your life-whatever he has called you to do and be) is not finished, you still have work to do. If you spend your time focusing on your problems you have nothing left in the tank for other people.

That is important because as a Christian our lives are designed to be used as living and breathing testimonials of living victoriously through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If all we are doing is confessing our "issues" and living from one problem to another how does God get the glory from that?

Simply put, he doesn't. What God gets glory in is our faith and how we respond and draw closer to him in the middle of those storms of life. How I personally do that is to thank God for his goodness and to focus on the past answers to prayer that I have received.

How I do that is I go back and read my Answer Book. The Answer Book is something that my family and I have been doing for years. Every time we receive and answer to prayer we write the whole situation down in our Answer Book and date it. We do this to celebrate the goodness and faithfulness of God, to instruct our children in prayer and keep a record of our answers to prayer in order to use the next time those pesky storms of life flare up again.

I cannot tell you how freeing and life giving it is to go back and read our struggles from 2010 and see how God showed up and answered our prayer, it is literally a shot of faith in the arm that brings instant encouragement! Once I read the Answer Book, I just begin to thank God for his faithfulness and I always walk away lifted up because I realize that whatever problem or situation is the flavor of this month, God has brought me through worse than this. I just need to stay in Faith, confess the victory and wait patiently for the lord and  go about encouraging and blessing others in his name.

Your answer to prayer will come, I promise. Focus on God and his faithfulness, thank him in advance for your answer, if you do not already have your own Answer Book, start your own, you will not be sorry.

Once you begin to focus on God instead of your problems, your eyes will be opened and you will begin to be sensitive to the needs of others around you and you can get back to the reason you are still here... To bless and minister to those people around you who need to have the love of Jesus and the Joy of the lord that you experience daily.

This is truly where the Maturation process in our relationship with Jesus is formed, can we in the midst of our own struggles, issues and problems still allow the Holy Spirit to use us to bless other people? The young or immature Christian cannot get beyond their own issues to see the needs of others around them. They shut down, lose their fruit, stop tithing, going to church, reading their Bible and before you know it, they are living in sin and fall further away from the lord. This is one of the biggest reasons why Christianity has fallen on hard times in the world today. Too many Christians focused on themselves and caught up in the cares and worries of the world(otherwise known as the Laodicean Church spoken of in the book of Revelation 3:14).

God always shows up for his people! Creating your own Answer Book will ensure you never forget that in the future, It will help you increase your faith and witness in tough times, something all of us can use.

This guy again, really???

I have learned over the years that God has a pretty funny sense of humor. Here is how the story goes...

Back in 2012 when I was a General Manager, I hired a new sales manager based on a recommendation from someone that I really trusted at the time. It started out well enough but then after a few weeks this new sales manager began to rub me the wrong way, he was arrogant, obnoxious and a know-it-all. You know the type.

Well, it wasn't too long before Mr. Congeniality got himself in trouble with HR for putting his foot in his mouth. Before I know it we had a series of HR investigations ongoing and it was causing a major disruption to the rest of my workforce.

So I pulled the sales manager in and basically tell him to stop the insanity or else he was going the way of the DODO bird. In the midst of that conversation we began discussing his personal life and the fact that he was a born again Christian.

I begin praying for this guy and soon decide to take him under my wing to help him, so I schedule a series of one on one meetings for us to just talk about anything and everything, I really wanted to help him get some stability in his life. He had a bright future, was pretty good in sales and enjoyed teaching people.

During our first session together I begin to speak with him about God and personal relationships and the next thing I know I was being cut off and told..."You know I used to preach, my father was a preacher I know the bible from beginning to end, you don't have to tell me about Jesus".

"ummm, okay", so I tried another 3-4 times to get him to speak with me, trying to build rapport and coach him up, every single time I was met with being cut off, some rambling of "I know how to manage people, I can sell with the best of them" and misrepresentation of scripture to justify his lifestyle.

So, I stop trying and write the guy off as not coachable and eventually I initiated a transfer to another location-to let someone else deal with him. LOL. Or so I thought...

Five months later we made a strategic decision to close the location I was working in so I transferred to another location. My first day in my new location, in my office walks this same guy! Yep, he's back! Lucky me!

So, I sit him down, somehow hoping the last several months have seen a change in his personality. No such luck, the only thing that happened was he finally got a divorce and now he was "back in the game-watch out single ladies" was his direct quote. I again try to help him by talking with him about Jesus and how He expects us to live and how we treat other people. This goes the same way as last time only this time something else happens...

He begins to try and start coaching me-giving me advice on leadership, Christian principles and winning and just about everything else he can think of. LOL. He had found a small measure of success in his new location and it went right to his head and now wanted to give me (his boss) business advice. LOL.

I quit trying and begin to avoid him as much as possible as this guy is now driving me crazy!I even saw him out once on a weekend and hid behind a rack of shoes to avoid him. I know- not very mature or Christ like-my wife gave me the business over that one. Six months later, I get promoted to Region Manager and transfer to a new location. The first thing I did after thanking the Lord for the promotion was to utter a sigh of relief that I was getting away from this guy, finally!

Two months later, I am sitting in my office and in walks this same guy with a giant box. He walks right up to me, slams his box on my desk, knocks off my Ohio State Buckeyes football helmet pen holder and says..." Guess who?" I just got promoted to sales manager here and I'm in the office right across the hall!

Are you serious??? I couldn't believe it-I was angry-no way this guy again!!! I couldn't get way from him.

After I calmed myself and began to pray, The answer came... As a christian and business leader, God calls me to be the Salt and Light of this world. I don't get to choose who I minister to- God does! The people who God puts in your life are those he would have you minister to- regardless if you like them or not. This guy keeps popping up and 4 years later I still share the office next to him, because God wants me to minister to him. When that ministry is finished, God will send us in different directions.

As Christian business leaders we can get preoccupied and distracted with so many things, that we fail to slow down and realize that People mean more to God than anything. After all He sent his son to die on the cross for people. The people in your life right now, family, friends, business associates, customers, vendors, etc. are placed in your life at this moment for a specific reason. Whether you want to punch them in the face or not. Whether they are rude or not, it doesn't matter. The people we want to most avoid are the people that God wants us to minister to the most-you see God knows just how to stretch us.

God uses the foolish in this life to confound the wise. This is so like God- he loves and has a special place in his heart for the people the rest of the world throw away, the people we deem obnoxious, the uncool people or the ones who don't measure up to our level of success or sophistication.You know who these people are-God personally sees to it that you have a few of them in your life right now! Trust Me.

God wants to use you to draw them closer to him. Once I received this revelation and repented, and I figured out why this guy was still hanging around it freed me up, I began to see him in a different light, I no longer see him as obnoxious but I see him as a guy who needs to see the love of Jesus through me. It vastly improved our relationship. He hasn't changed a bit-last week he gave a motivational book and told me to read it. I am a National Sales Director and he is a Sales Manager, LOL, but I have changed in the way that I now see him and view our relationship.

Who has God placed in your life to minister to? How can you better display the love Jesus to that person? For all of the Christians who live and thrive in the business world, our ministry is to these people who surround us everyday while we are conducting business to show them how to live a victorious life in Christ and model for them daily how a Christian should live. Once they see that what you have is genuine, they will want it too! Guaranteed!

People will come and go into our lives but our goal as Followers of our Lord Jesus Christ should be to leave each and every one of them better than when we found them, while we have them. It is our opportunity to impact this world for Jesus, the whole reason that we as Christians still live and breathe.

Whose life this next week, will you commit to bringing closer to our lord through your ministry? And who will you leave better than when you found them?