Blog

By Bill Lawrence

President of Leader Formation International

Greetings.

My name is John, and I was once the youngest of the Apostles whom Jesus chose to be with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem for nearly three years, but now I’m the oldest of His men, just over ninety, the only one left after the cross. However, I am still able to communicate His truth and make Him known and write about Him. I have already written three short letters, now known to you as I, II, and III John, and I am also writing the Gospel of John, though it’s different from the other three Gospels, as you know. They were biograhies, all very accurate and uncommonly well done, but mine is focused on a set of signs and I want you to know that I remember very well and that I taught about in Jerusalem, Roman Asia, and now in Ephesus. I have just written them and now I am focused on our last night together when we were in the Upper Room as we gathered in Jerusalem and I am communicating about the cross, the resurrection, and our Lord’s commission.

Step back now as a reader and think of John the Apostle who became an elder in Ephesus. He remem- bered back to the Upper Room and what happened that fatal night sixty years before he wrote these wrods when Jesus spoke to them from His heart to His men, even the betrayer. Jesus had great passion for them as He worked through the struggle and tension of the opening words recorded for us in chapter thirteen when He dressed himself as a slave and strove to reach the betrayer only He had to give him up. Once He was forced to release him to his evil task, Jesus sought to reach the hearts of His men. Yet first He had to go to His own heart and give His passion to His men as He taught them to the depth of their beings. He starts with RADICAL Love as He washes His men’s feet and reaches out to them.

I wonder if John struggled as he wrote about that  painful night sixty years after Jesus, his best friend on earth, was very different than He had ever been. The host never took off his outer garments and put a towel around himself and got on his knees and washed his guests’ feet, yet this is exactly what Jesus did. Peter said what all of them surely felt, but only impetuous Peter had the impulse to say it. Lord, do you wash my feet , . .?

John had to struggle as he wrote his Gospel so long after his youth. His Gospel was different from the other three with seven signs and then an intense word in what we know as the Upper Room Discourse followed by Jesus’s prayer for a different way for Him to pay for sin. No, not the cross. No horrible suffering and pain. Surely there is another way to pay for sin!

The Apostle was thinking back to his youth when he was wrestling with tension, stress, and distress all at once. He would not have understood what he faced with his Friend as he was so intimate with him at the Passover meal the third time that they were together. He could not grasp what His Friend meant when He took off his outer garments and wrapped Himself with a towel and washed his feet. This was Jesus the promised Messiah who would overthrow the Roman Empire and rule the world, and he, John, along with the other twelve, would rule in Rome’s place. He remembered the stress that came upon him and he feels it once again even though he understood it sixty years later.

Think of what it must have been like to discover that a traitor was in your midst, that a man whom all of you trusted totally and you gave all of your funds to him and made him the treasurer of your move-ment, a man who shared your vision and your values and for whom you had high regard

I now ask you a question. Have you faced such a situation in your life?

It is impossible to think that you faced a situation like the cross, although some live in places where the government turned on you because you are a Christian. Some of you are in places where being a Christian has cost you more than anyone can possibly imagine.

Attack. Shame. Persecution. Hatred. Rejection. Even death.

We know that this is what the early believers faced starting with Jesus Himself and going to the first apostles and moving to early believers, known and unknown, and continuing to our very time. It has never ceased.

But there have been other struggles.

Rejection. Divorce. Mockery. Deception. Dishonesty. Cheating. Bribery

How does this impact you? Do you have memories from the past caused by someone you loved and trusted who turned in you and let you down? What do you do with such a person now? Do you dwell on those memories and allow them to be the center of your life?

Is there someone in your life who has had a profound role and has distorted your life? Has there been a Judas in your life who took advantage of you and took truths that matter to you and turned them against you so you had to pay a great price just to hang on to your life? That does happen to many when there is no just reason for it.

Or can it be that you have entered into uncertain leadership, and you’re not sure what you are going to actually accomplish? You’re like John, on the edge of loss more than gain and you don’t understand what God is allowing to happen to you? You do your best, but everything is uncertain and you’re not sure what you should do? Why isn’t life clearer? That can happen. Paul did trust the Lord, but surely he wanted to strengthen churches in Spain rather than be beheaded in Rome, yet he trusted Jesus.

John, like the early church’s leaders, had to deal with much uncertainty as they had to face overcoming attack and resistance as they made Jesus known. They took their risks, established their churches, built their elders, wrote their Gospels and epistles, and, eventually, The Revelation,  equip their elders, proclaimed their message, expanded their numbers, and while they were constantly resisted, they grew.

What about you? Are you seeing God work through you? Can you join John, even at ninety, and see the Lord of the cross and the grave work through the darkness of what looks like defeat. Can it actually be the resurrection of triumph? So it is that I finish with this question.

Is the darkness of defeat actually your resurrection of triumph through the resurrected Lord Jesus?

Think about it.

By Bill Lawrence - President Leader Formation International

John 13:1-30

How do you respond when you face unexpected, overwhelming, unwanted situations, and you don’t have any one you can share it with?

You truly don’t desire it even though you have known about it for some time. You could tell the people around you about it since you are their leader and they follow you gladly. You recruited them, and they have left life as they knew to come after you and follow you faithfully, going wherever you have led them and done wherever you wanted them to do. Yet they could never understand what you must go through even if you told them. You will try one more time to find out if you must do it from those who share the situation with you. Even though you know the answer—after all, the three of you—your two other peers and you—have talked it through, and you know fully that what you must do is the only way you can accomplish what you want the profound changes you want to make. Still, it is so overwhelm-ing that you must ask one more time if there is some other way to accomplish your deepest desire.

You really are driven to achieve your aim. You do want it. All of your longings matter and your greatest demands depend on your action.

But it’s so costly. And it brings so much pain to you in every way.

However, before you can ask about avoiding it one more time, there is much you have to say to your team. They will share your struggle in a very deep way. All will be at the core of their lives, the very essence of how they live, where they live, even if they live. How can they possibly do this? Only if they are radically, totally committed. There is much you must teach them to prepare them and make them ready to stand with you and be for you. This night—this utterly unexpected night—is the night that will make the difference in their lives.

We turn now to a man who tells us about someone who faced this exact situation. His name was John and he raises a question with us. Can you be like the ancient man, John, the disciple, apostle, and follower of Jesus, once the youngest of the twelve, but now, as he writes about that night he is the oldest, just past ninety, an elder in Ephesus, who decided to write a fourth Gospel, one that is different from the other three.

They were all a form of biography for different but definite readers. Matthew for Jews in Jerusalem and Galilee, Mark probably for Gentiles in Rome who were being persecuted, and Luke, the medical doctor and scientist of his day, a researcher who wrote for both Jews and Gentiles to convince them that Jesus is Lord, YAHWEH Himself, in the flesh.

For John that was not enough. There were seven signs that the believers in Ephesus and Asia and the church scattered throughout the Roman Empire needed to know about. Beyond the seven signs there was a more complete record of the Utter Room and the arrest and the illegal trial and conviction and resurrection and His final commission that believers needed, so John chose to write about all of this.

Thus we come upon John as he described Jesus on His last night and we can grasp His heart as He acts on His knowledge. He was acting in light of His knowledge. His awareness of what He faced takes Him right into His heart and His deep love for His men, even the traitor. How amazing! He even loved His traitor, Judas! There was also His awareness that everything was in His hands—the nails that would be there for you and me—that caused Him to reveal His deepest humility: as a slave He washed their feet.

It was after He washed their feet that John revealed to us the point of what Jesus was making when He said, a slave is not greater than his master . . . We are slaves and Jesus the Slave tells us He is I AM and we receive Him as our Lord Slave Master.

Now, finally He identifies the one who did everything to reach and redeem all before the cross, the one who had appeared to be His but whose true master is now evident. The evil one was his true master. That is why Jesus said, What you do, do quickly!

So now I go back to where I started

Whatever it is, the question demands an answer. How do you respond?

Can you put off getting the answer for a block of time as Jesus did when He dealt with a very emotional time when He sent His betrayer on his way to do his evil while He teaches the faithful eleven the Upper Room Discourse? Instead of getting the answer He seeks, He waits until He is in Gethsemane, and instead He teaches them and tells us how to live while we carry out His commission.

One of the most amazing truths Jesus declares is that He is I AM, the great YAHWEH, the ultimate creator of all that is. He who said Let there be light has become Light in us. How can that be? Yet in John 13 He emphasizes it as He wants us to be aware that He acts through us and accomplishes His purposes through us. Nothing could be greater!

In those times when we face overwhelming struggles and have questions without answers we have Jesus, the Lord who faced the very same situations and knows how we must live until we can get an answer. Even when we face a traitor He is with us and knows how to trust the One who is with us.

The Upper Room Discourse is our Lord’s way of life as we accomplish His commission and prepare time for eternity when we live as YAHWEH intended Man to live when He created us in Genesis 1-2. We are on our way as we obey our Lord’s word and live as He wants us to live. You see

We are alive in time as we prepare for eternity.

By Bill Lawrence - President of Leader Formation International

There are times when I find myself in Heart Break Corner, the very deepest part of my being.

All leaders must find themselves here because we cannot be ourselves without forming our identities through the struggles and pain that comes through this hurt.

I don’t want to be there, but I cannot avoid or escape it. I am there because that’s where I have experienced the most painful moments in my life: the loss of someone who is more than precious to me. It is the loss of a dad or mom as or a leader who formed me and made me who I am and helped form my identity. In those moments I sense a loss I cannot deny or escape.

I’m sure you have had this same experience. We cannot avoid loss. I did not know about that corner early in my life because I did not have mother or father until I was five years old and I did not know what they mean in life. I was past seventy when I began to explore their value to me. Perhaps you have had a similar experience. If you haven’t, start now and do not be afraid to explore yourself because the Lord will guide you through it. For me that was when I started to understand that I live parts of my life in Heart Break Corner and that this was vital to help me understand myself and those I serve as a leader. Don’t be afraid of Heart Break Corner.

Heart break is never far away, either for us who have lost a most precious loved one or for those who have lived a life of unfairness and injustice. Sin is real and many forms of sin bring pain for every one of us. Unless we face it, we live a make-belief life of denial, a make-belief life that causes us to lead our followers over the cliffs of false success from which there is no recovery.

Heart Break Corner is a special place deep within us where grief goes and settles in and is always present. We know it’s there. We sense it, feel it, we grasp it, and are overwhelmed by it, even when we don’t sense it. It’s just there. Always.

Gradually it becomes still and eventually silent within us, although it takes time to be an innate part of us. It’s there just the same, even when it’s silent, and we sense it, even as we go to sleep at night or when we are stirred by it in our sleep in the middle of the night or just as we are waking up at dawn  or in the super market while we are shopping or when we are driving on the freeway or walking on a dirt road in the country or suddenly while we are watching TV. It just shows up whether we want it to or not. We suddenly find ourselves in Heart Break Corner. Heart break is a core part of us. We have to settle it, though, because we can’t live and work and relate to others and be normal and lead our family unless we can get over grief, so we work our way through it and strive to move forward.

Along our way, though, we have a natural question we ask the Lord. Why? It certainly is my question at times in my life. Why is it that a talented brother or sister is suddenly taken from us? Why are we so short on funds while the evil have so much? Why is there so much wickedness around us? Why is it we see someone who was good and think, “He was so good. Effective, caring, so much a man or woman. So much a shepherd. Engaged in the lives of so many. We don’t get it! Why did he have to go? And so soon.” This is a thought we often have. Rarely do we get a full answer, at least not for a longer time than we want. The amazing reality is that while we struggle, we also bear fruit we would not bear without our struggle. So the Lord uses the painful seasons of our lives to make His differences through us, but we can’t know this at first. We have to trust our Lord through it. That’s what the cross and the grave and the resurrection is all about; that’s what our growth is all about; that’s what it takes to be a leader. That’s what following Jesus is all about.

There is something I want to accomplish to be a Jesus kind of leader. I want to form leaders who pursue Christ’s purpose in the lives I wish to influence because no one could do more. I want them to be men and women of prayer, of the Word, of love, of influence, difference makers in every way, the kind of leader I want to be in the Lord, and the kind of leaders I want to reproduce. No one could do more and no one could ever want to be less. So, this is my passion, my drive, and what I want to say about the leaders I influence through radical and desperate dependence on the Lord.

But we, you and I, will only do this by living regularly in Heart Break Corner as our lives demand and should because that is where we find the Lord Himself grieving us, comforting us, strengthening us, enabling us to be He is leaders, honoring us even as we call on Him.

So we weep as Jesus wept at the loss of human life or the painfulness of earthly reality, yet we also rejoice as Jesus rejoiced, because He saw Lazarus come forth from the dead in the promise of eternal life.  Thus, it is that we weep over the loss of earthly life but we rejoice at the promise of eternal life. For this reason, we rejoice in Heart Break Corner even as we weep, because it not only speaks of earthly death but also of eternal life. And that is what I think of when I remember the promise of Jesus and eternal life. I encourage you to see life in this same way because there will be joy for all who trust in Him when you see Jesus. Then we will all be together in His eternal joy before His throne and on His golden streets. 

by Bill Lawrence, President of  Leader Formation International

Have you ever thought of what it takes to become God’s kind of leader? I mean a truly great leader, a leader with an intense relationship with God, a leader who trusts God when it makes no sense to trust anyone let along God, except that He keeps His word when you can’t see how He’s doing it. Let’s say you become a leader like Abram who became Abraham when trusting God made no sense at all. He’s often like that, you know. He makes no sense. His promise is strange at best. Abraham, who was Abram originally, gave up every position, every achievement, every opportunity, every future, he didn’t even know where he was going, and he didn’t have anything when he got to Canaan in obedience to YAHWEH. Why go from everything to nothing? That’s what it looked like when he when he went from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan. God promised that He would have a nation, but all he had was a cave where he buried Sarah and himself in their deaths. It was centuries before the nation came into being, and then only after slavery and battles and desert and tribes and utter trust—and long after he died. Only then did YAHWEH keep His word.

Consider a few of the men who became God’s greatest leaders and look at the struggles the Lord took each of them through. Men like Moses and Samuel and David and Jeremiah and Peter and Paul. And women too. Ruth or Deborah or Mary or Elizabeth or Lydia. Then consider the questions that will help you understand how you can go through the same struggle that a man like Joseph went through to learn how to become a great leader. My hope is that you can form growing leaders to become the kind of men and women who become more effective for Jesus.

To become one of God’s greatest leaders Abraham had to turn from any opportunity to have a great position in Ur and Babylon and emigrate to a little-known territory known as Canaan where he settled in a place near Bethel. He owned no land of his own until Sarah, his wife died, and he finally obtained a cave, where he buried her and where he also was buried. Hardly a great achievement, and that was all obedience to God brought him. There was only loss for him—no profit. If you were looking at Abram’s Wall Street chart, his profit line was red, yet God sees him as one of the greatest profits He ever had. It appears that it was costly to become God’s kind of leader. After all, following YAHWEH moved him from having everything to having nothing. Maybe God doesn’t know now to make great deals. Or maybe what we think of as a great deal isn’t as great to Him as it is to us. And what looks like a loss to us is actually a profit for YAHWEH.

It cost Abram what position and power he might have had or hoped to gain in his home country. It meant that he lost what his heritage promised him from his family and possible influence offered to him and his wife.  He lost all possessions, all recognition, everything that was theirs. They had nothing but the word that a strange God they chose to trust promised to give them. Their trust was radical and total, and they acted on it and followed His direction no matter what they faced.

Consider this question. How do you respond as you decide to be His kind of leader? How much could you raise and consider? Think of this and then think about what you face as you form others to become the leaders God is calling you to influence.

While the text doesn’t tell us what Abram felt when God directed him to leave a place of prosperity and move to an unknown territory. Abram had no knowledge of where he was going, yet he obeyed God anyway. Perhaps he had already lost everything in Ur. How would you feel in such a situation? Would you do what he did? Why? Could you obey the way Abram did?

Are you facing such a situation now?

If you are, what does this mean for your family and your followers? How do you plan to answer the questions you know they must have had? What questions have you answered for yourself?  What biblical passages have helped you at this time?

Notice that his name was Abram, not Abraham. What does that tell you about him? Consider yourself at this time in your life. Have you made the same progress as Abram? What steps must you take to be an Abraham rather than an Abram?

Consider your family. Would they go with you if God called on you to make the same kind of decisions Abram made? What would your wife say to you if you told her God had directed you to do what Abram did? And how would your children make that kind of decision? How must you change to become that kind of man? Do you want to be that kind of man? What if you don’t want to be that kind of man but God does?

These are primarily the implications for your family. What about the implications for your followers and those you influence as you seek them to grow as leaders? What steps must you take for them to become the kind of leaders God wants them to be? How much of a price are you willing to pay to form them into the kind of leaders the Lord wants them to be? What about the people around you? How many of them are willing to become the kind of followers and leaders it demands for there to be God’s kind of movement through all of you? What steps must you take? What kind of prayer do you need? How much sacrifice must you make? How much influence have you earned to make the difference God wants to accomplish through you?

In the past 4,000 years, Abraham has been God’s everything through his nothing. All he ever had from the hand of God was a small cave, a grave for him and Sarah, yet he has influenced millions of people for thousands of years. A leader.

God’s leader—His everything through your nothing!

by Bill Lawrence - President of Leader Formation International

O, LORD, our Lord,
How majestic is your name in all the earth
Psalm 8:1
  

There is much that we know about God—all the Old Testament writers, the Gospels, the epistles, the Revelation of Jesus—tell us about God, yet there is so much that we do not know in our relationship with the LORD God because many of us don’t know Him personally in the same way David did. Many of us do not know YAHWEH intimately as David knew Him as a shepherd when he walked through the meadows and along the streams and in the canyons and over the hills near Bethlehem, or as he lay on the plains during the dark nights and through the brilliant dawns or in the beautiful sunsets. In those moments he heard the howling of the wolves, the roaring of the lions and the growling of the bears. Still, consider what it is like when we sense His presence with us as He reaches out to us and wants us to know Him in the deepest way possible. Oh, how great that is!

What was it like for shepherds as they listened to the baas of sheep and the cries of the just-born lambs and the calls of the ewes as they gave birth to their barely alive little ones? How wonderful it must have been at the marvel of Yahweh, the eternal YAHWEH, who gave new life to all who responded to Him. And to know that He is my shepherd, that He cares for me with all my flaws and all my needs and all my struggles and all my lacks. Still He cares for me. I matter to Him. Despite the useless stress, the arrogant pride, and the waste of self-promotion, Jesus is committed to me and has redeemed me and will deliver me from my emptiness to His eternal purpose for His glory. What could be more amazing? 

It is no wonder that David wrote his awesome words so long ago that are still great beyond our imagination.
 

O, LORD, our Lord,
How majestic is your name in all the earth,

Stop this very moment, no matter what you face, no matter what you fear or hope or celebrate, whether you have joy or struggle or sadness or shame or rejection, no matter what it is, stop and think of the fact that YAHWEH, the One who formed you and made you who you are and designed you to be His leader has a plan and a purpose for you. And it is not small or unimportant or unessential. Not at all. It is in fact eternal. The tasks He has assigned for you will bear eternal fruit in His time. It may be a decision by your board or a discussion by those who disagree with you or a debate by some who want to advance you. These are very critical considerations, but Yahweh is involved, and His name is at stake and you are involved.

Yet there is more at stake, more reason to focus on Him and His greatness, more than your fears or your success, is essential to Him. There is integrity, truth, holiness, the salvation of men and women, for the well-being of children, this and more is always at stake for Him. Nothing of your success matters as much to Him as who He is and what He is working to accomplish as Lord. First He is YAHWEH, the great I AM. But He is also Adonai, the Lord, the creator of all that is in Genesis 1, the All-Powerful One who will demonstrate that through you. Isn’t that amazing?! That the All-Powerful One will demonstrate His power through your weakness. How can this be? Yet He does, even as He did through David, the boy becoming a lad, a harper becoming a warrior, the warrior becoming His ruler the King.
 
Bow down before Him. Honor Him. Exalt Him. Humble yourself before Him. Lift Him up. Praise Him. Worship Him. He can reveal His greatness through you if you will worship and trust Him. 

Stop thinking about the issues you face. Stop thinking about those who are against you. Those who oppose you and resist you. Those who work to replace you or have plans to limit you or hinder you. Didn’t Jesus realize that you must take up the cross? Don’t you know that everyone who wants to be a Jesus kind of leader must take up the cross daily, must enter the grave daily, must rise from the grave daily? We never escape from the reality that the resurrection is not a one-time event in our lives but a daily struggle. Sin has a very deep root in our hearts, a daily depth of understanding and awareness that we must face to be God’s kind of leaders. We do lead to accomplish amazing achievements for the LORD who is Lord, that is, He is YAHWEH who is Adonai. To be aware of this, live out this awareness, demonstrate this struggle, strive to be desperately dependent on Him, express His power through your weakness and accomplish His purpose daily for His glory.

YAHWEH is Adonai
I AM is our Lord!
 
What could we greater?
 
Worship Him daily, Trust Him daily, Depend on Him daily
 
He will reveal Himself daily