Marc Estes

 

Most people live their entire lives without ever discovering who they really are and what they were created to be. In this post I want to help you to understand how God has created you and give you seven key assessment tests that you can take on your own. These are found on my Resources page under the heading, “Free Self Assessment Tests.” 

God has given you certain gifts, talents, and abilities. He has placed deep within your heart certain passions for people, issues, and areas of ministry. He has allowed experiences in life to shape your character, perspective, and worldview. He has also given you the opportunity to grow and mature in Christ, in hopes that you might maximize the time you have been given for kingdom purposes. All of these components combined are the byproduct of how God made you.

We will discuss seven major components briefly below. They are; passions, talents and abilities, personal makeup, spiritual gifts, life-shaping experiences, spiritual maturity and availability. These individual components are different in every individual. Understanding these seven components and incorporating them into everyday life are critical to living successful lives of purpose. These components come from three different sources: God, life’s experiences, and our own personal choices and disciplines.

God-Shaping Factors

There are four main components to how God made you that come directly from Him and are woven into the fabric of your being:

1. Passions
2. Talents and abilities
3. Personal makeup
4. Spiritual gifts

Life-Shaping Experiences

God also allows trials, tribulations, and tragedies to come our way as a means to help build character. The Bible is filled with great men and women who faced unbelievable life-shaping experiences that are recorded in the Bible for generations to come. For some, life-shaping experiences allowed them to adjust something that was amiss in their life, or even to remove sinful habits.

Life-shaping experiences are often allowed by God (however, they are not always initiated by Him) to prepare and shape us for our purpose. “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Pet. 4:12–13, TNIV).

Personal Choices and Disciplines

The level of our hunger and pursuit for spiritual things will determine the level of spiritual health, growth, and maturity. That’s why the writer of Hebrews admonished those who were not living up to their full potential in Christ with these words: “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!” (Heb. 5:12, TNIV).

In addition, our willingness to be used by God will ultimately determine the outcome of our lives. We can have all the God-given potential and gifting needed but still fail as a result of not being available. Psalm 39:4–5 should be our mindset toward being available for Him: “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath” (TNIV).

You are a child of God, created in His image, with certain characteristics that are yours alone. God knows your frame; He sees every part of your makeup and believes in your ability to measure up to the big plans He has for you. Regardless of your past—whether you were a Korean War orphan or the son of an aeronautical engineer—or even your present circumstance, you have a purpose to fulfill, and your uniqueness makes you the only one qualified to do so. You playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking back so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. You were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; unfathomably, it is in everyone.

You can read more in detail by ordering my book, What Now.

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There are three shocking realities that have moved into a place of acceptance in our society today. Each of these have a profound affect on the culture in which we live, and many of us don’t fully understand the ramifications of such atrocities:

• We can have Morality without Religion
• Whatever is Legal is Moral 
• Morality Cannot Be Legislated

Gene Edward Veith states in His book, ‘Post Modern Times’, “While people have always committed sins, they at least acknowledged these were sins. A century ago a person may have committed adultery flagrantly and in defiance of God and man, but he would have admitted that what he was doing was a sin. What we have today is not only immoral behavior, but a loss of moral criteria… We face not only a moral collapse but a collapse of meaning…”

 In the book, ‘Rebirth of America’ is a paralyzing statement is made. It reads as follows, “Forgetting to acknowledge ‘the Power that mad and preserved us a nation,’ her citizens began to congratulate themselves on their own achievements, to celebrate man, while relegating God to the back seat… Wallowing in materialism self-centeredness and pride, many Americans decided that they really did not need God after all. Some began to taper with God’s absolute standards, and to tolerate what they would never have allowed before, in their own lives or in society around them. That which God says is never right could be sometimes right, depending on the situation… America once legislated against those things that God said to be wrong. But gradually we began to tolerate, then accept, then condone openly, and even promote, that which was once unthinkable. The perversion and degradation that once made us blush are now flaunted before the eyes of a nation that was conceived in the fear of God. It happened little by little, right before our eyes, not because someone forced it on us, but seemingly because we did not care. We just didn’t care…”

So we change the titles that God labeled as sin to something more appealing:        

• Sin as rebellion towards God  to Personal Preference or Choice
• Drunkenness to Adult Entertainment or at best a Social Disease
• Perversion to Adult Movies
• Sodomy to Alternate Lifestyle
• Immorality to a New Morality

 

We can debate the terms and definitions all we want but we can’t argue or deny their effect.

• Crime now costs taxpayer $2 Billion a year
• Serious crime is committed every 3 seconds
• Someone is robbed every 83 seconds
• Someone is murdered every 27 minutes
• Suicide is the second largest killer of teenagers.
• One of every three children under age of Eighteen have been, or will be, sexually molested.
• 100,000 handguns are taken to schools every day.

 

What is the Answer?

We must once again be open to analyze how we define our morals and values and be willing to lovingly adjust those that seem to be the reason we have gotten so far off track! Change in a nation starts with change in you. We can’t change a nation until we first change ourselves. We must once again recognize sin for what it is and call it for what it actually is and not be embarrassed to make the personal changes that are necessary as well as stand for righteousness in a land that has lost its focus.

Is there any scientific way of determining the Bible’s Reliability? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” There is a mathematical law in science that can help us find out. It is called “The law of Compound Probabilities.” It is one of the most profound proofs of the Bible’s divine accuracy and inspiration. It is defined as:

“The Law of Compound Probabilities I a mathematical law which is used to calculate the probability of a specific set of conditions, requirements, or qualifications being fulfilled… it’s a way of figuring the odds.” It is commonly used in the market place to determine financial projections, in weather forecasting, in figuring insurance tables, professional athletics, and in political campaigning. ¹

Peter W. Stoner, the Chairman of the Mathematics and Astronomy Department at Pasadena City College and Chairman of the Science Division of Westmont College from 1953-57 applied the Law of Compound Probabilities to the area of prophetic fulfillment. He did so to determine the odds of a certain prescribed number of biblical prophecies relating to Christ being fulfilled.  Data compiled over a ten-year period was then gathered, with the following staggering results: ¹

Odds of Fulfillment of Eight Prophecies in Perfect Detail and Order: Equals 10¹⁷   

This is a ten with seventeen zeros following. It is compared to state of Texas being filled with Silver Dollars two feet deep. Mark one with a red mark, blind fold someone, and give them one chance to find marked silver dollar on first try. This is odds of 10^17.

Odds of Fulfillment of Sixteen Prophecies in Perfect Detail and Order: Equals 10⁴⁵

He calculated that odds to be compared to the following scenario. The sun is 93 million miles from earth; however, if you had this many silver dollars, you could build a stellar ball so enormous that is would extend 30 times farther out than the sun. Again, mark one, get in your stellar space shuttle, blindfolded, and just choose one, and this would be the chances of fulfilling sixteen prophecies.

Odds of Fulfillment of Forty-Eight Prophecies in Perfect Detail and Order: Equals 10¹⁵⁷

The computers began to overload and burn out at this point and freeze up. This number is so astronomical and beyond human comprehension that there is no name for it! Let use the smallest thing known to man, a electron, which is only 2.5 X 10¹⁵ quintillionth of an inch long. If you devoted yourself to counting just a single file of electrons one-inch long, you would have to count 250 per minute, day and night, for 19 million years! In a cubic inch you would then multiply that cubed! 19 million years times 19 million years times 19 million years.  It has been said that there are more electrons in a grain of sand than all the leaves on all the trees in the world.

However if you had 1 X 10¹⁵⁷ electrons to work with, you could make a cosmic all of electrons so large it would be as big as our known universe. In fact, you would have so many electrons that if there was some way to mass produce these balls, you could make them at a rate of 500 a minute, day and night, for 6 billion years, 10¹⁰ times over!  NOW…. Mark one of these electrons and blindfold yourself and try to find it on your first try, and these are the odds of fulfilling forty-eight prophecies in exact order. 

JESUS FULFILLED 332 AND THEY ARE RECORDED IN EXACT PERFECT ORDER AND DETAIL IN THE BIBLE!!!! ¹

I say all of that to bring us to the reality, that the Bible has some validity. 

I am excited to add a new dimension to my blogging experience by offering some free resources that I believe will help you in developing yourself as a leader and those around you. It has always been a passion of mine to strengthen young leaders. Although I will be the first to admit that I don’t have it all figured out myself, I still would like to share what I have with those who might find the information useful.

I just added a new page to my blog, “RESOURCES.”  I have posted about ten different resources for you to use. There are some leadership notes, and Evangelism Handbook and a few charts that I have mentioned in previous blogs that have been frequently requested.

I would really like to see if these tools are helpful for you. Would you PLEASE review them and give me some feedback. I would really appreciate it.

Pastor Marc

The Redwood Trees are the largest living things on earth and tallest trees in the world. Some are over 300 feet tall and more than 2500 years old. You would think these trees would have a root system that reaches hundreds of feet down in the earth, but that is not the case. Redwoods have a very shallow root system. The roots, however, are intertwined. They are tied up with each other; interlocked. They support and sustain each other. Hold each other up during storms, and depend on each other in order to survive.

This is a beautiful picture of what the church was intended to be. So  many treat church as a weekend experience only, and wonder why their lives are still filled with loneliness and lack of fulfillment. God had a perfect plan in mind, and that plan was to build a community that was the central component to a believer’s life.  Randy Frazee, in his book, “The Connecting Church” says, “The experience of authentic community is one of the purposes God intends to be fulfilled by the church. God intended the church not to be one bolt on the wheel of activity in our lives, but the very hub at the center of one’s life.”

The very thing that people are looking for today is the very thing that Authentic Community in the local church offers. There are four key components that are presented in the Book of Acts, that define God’s plan for you. These will only be found in the truest sense, in the context of doing life together in the context of the local church. These are:

1. Meaningful Relationships.
2. Genuine Care
3. Authentic Growth
4. Lasting Purpose.

I will be speaking on this subject during all CBC services on the weekend of February 20-21. If you can’t make it out, check out the message on our website, www.citybiblechurch.org or let me know and I would love to send you a set of my notes FREE OF CHARGE. Just send me an email at marc@citybiblechurch.org and I will get them into your hands

 

One of the greatest needs and challenges of the modern day church is that activation of people into their God-given purpose. The needs are immense but the laborers are few. For many church has become a place where they, “Come to get,” not “Come to give.”  This trend is one that  must be reversed if we are to become all that God has destined us to become.

I Found this  in a church bulletin. It was entitled, A Eulogy for Someone Else: “Our church is deeply saddened by the passing of an irreplaceable member, Someone Else. For all of these years he did far more than any other church member. Whenever leadership was mentioned, Someone Else was looked to for inspiration and achievement. Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, everybody always turned to Someone Else. It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the largest contributors to the church. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed that Someone Else would make up the difference. Although we are grieved by the loss of Someone Else, his death comes as no big surprise. He was far too overworked and continually stretched too thinly. In fact, we may have contributed to his death by expecting too much out of Someone Else. He left a wonderful example to follow, but it appears there is nobody willing to fill the shoes of Someone Else. I shudder to think what will now happen to our church since we can no longer depend on Someone Else.”

With the decrease of finances  coupled with the increase of needs, along with the desire to grow, maybe we should be considering how we might launch the Lay Ministry Revolution.  After all, it is the New Testament pattern. Scripture shows  us that the development of church leaders and ministry was not dependent on whether there was enough staff dollars available to hire the next position. The challenge will be whether you are able to raise up a generation that is ready and prepared for the colossal, yet exciting task at hand.

• Let me encourage you to take some time and consider the following:
• Think through how you might structure your area of ministry.
• Identify the positions that you are believing to be fulfilled.
• Develop a ministry description for each area.
• Begin praying and ask God to put people in your path to fill this important roles…
• THEN go take your city for Christ!

Creating and casting vision are the easiest components to developing vision. Implementation of vision is often overlooked and if attempted, usually Here are some important vision caring principles that cannot be overlooked by the leader… (see more below)

 

A.    Vision must stretch the leader, before it stretches the people.

1. If you can’t embrace, your leaders never will. It is not what you confess, but what you possess that moves a team into their God-given destiny.                                  
2. God’s vision will always exceed your vision, gifts, talents and abilities. If you can logically get your mind around it with ease, it probably isn’t God.

 

B.    Vision is built through people

1. People are the purpose for the vision and not a vehicle to the vision.  The reason we exist is people.
2. Every person matters to God therefore they matter to us.

 

C.    Vision requires investing your time in the right group of people.

1. One of the greatest challenges of a pastoral leader is the compassion we feel to those that are hurting. We tend to gravitate to those that need us most.  I understand that Jesus left the 99 to go after the one, but when it came to accumulative  time spent, he spent more time with twelve men than all humanity combined!
2. We must strategically devote the majority of our time on those that will build the vision.
3. Pareto’s 80/20 Principle-  Focus of priorities =productivity

•  
  •         -20% of our time produces 80% of the results
  •         -20% of the people take 80% of our time.
  •         -20% of our sermon content produce 80% of the impact
  •         -20% of the people give 80% of the money
  •         -20% of the people at a picnic eat 80% of the food.

 

D.    Vision moves only as fast as people are willing to embrace it.

1. We must learn to identify where leaders are at in the process and be willing to take the time to coach them through the process until they own the vision. Remember people are your most precious commodity.  If no one is following, you are not leading, just on a walk.
2. There are various stages of vision receptivity. A person’s receptivity can be affected by a variety of factors; personality, maturity, gifting, communication, level of position, and how it affects them personally.
3. Levels of receptivity:

•  
  • Communication – Vision is communicated.
  •  Interpretation – People interpret, their perception.
  • Assessment – They analyze vision and its affect.
  • Response – Can be negative, positive or neutral.
  • Revelation – They get it. They get on or off board.
  • Embrace – Those that stay get excited.
  • Ownership- Once it is owned, you are successful.

 

E.    Vision will inevitably produce change

1. People love vision, but don’t like the affects of it.  Vision will always confront complacency and familiarity.              
2. Expect change, encourage change, welcome change.
3. Change is healthy, necessary. Get used to it, it is God’s way of keeping us focused on Him and His purposes.

 

F.    Vision requires faith

1. Every vision from God is beyond our natural ability to reach it. We must create a culture of faith and expectation. The greatest killer to vision is doubt and disbelief.
2. Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
3. George Muller, “Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible… Faith begins where mans power ends.”
4. The level of faith in the leadership determines the level of vision fulfillment. We must create a culture of bigness and expectation.
5. David Schwartz says, “Where success in vision is concerned, people are not mearsured in inches, pounds, college degrees or family pedigree; they are measured in by the size of their thinking. How big we think determines the size of our accomplishments!”

 

G.    Vision is spelled H.A.R.D.W.O.R.K

1. Most people want to accomplish great things, but are simply unwilling to pay the price to accomplish them.  We want $1000 results on $1 of effort.  
2. “You reap what you sow. if you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly…” Law of divine retribution.
3. Most people who have accomplished great things did it through dedication and hardwork first, and talent second. 
4.  Nehemiah. 4:6, “and the entire wall was joined up to have its height, for the people had a mind to work.”
5. Vision will take more of your time, more energy, more sacrifice. But why are we here

 

H.    Vision stretches people beyond their level of comfort

1. Lets just recognize that vision is getting people to do what they don’t want to do so they can become what they are supposed to become.
2. What size tank (church vision) do you create for your leaders?  It is perfectly alright to stretch people. God actually did this frequently. From Genesis to Revelation, God’s people were stretched.

 

I.     Vision will require the increased giving of precious resources

1. Vision is spelled, M.O.N.E.Y.”
2. In every account in the Bible where God was ready to do something significant, he put it on the hearts of the people to sacrificially give of their precious resources to accomplish the goal.
3. Don’t apologize for asking for resources. If it is God’s vision, He will put it on their hearts to give.
4. You can’t build something supernaturally that doesn’t cost you something naturally. That is God’s economy.  Forces people to align life with His.

Looking for a healthy edge? You may find it in the Church. According to American Health, “Godlessness may be harmful to your health.” This claim was based on a recent study from Purdue University which involved 1,473 Americans similar in age, income, and education. Kenneth Ferraro, an associate professor of sociology, compared those who regularly participate in religious activities with those who don’t. He found that those who don’t regularly participate in religious activities were twice as likely to report health problems. Ferraro said, “We found that religion was almost as great an influence on health as age and social class.”

I am often asked, “With all that is on your plate, how do you manage your time?” That my friend is the million dollar question for all leaders. Time is critical part of our success. You can buy it, you don’t earn it, you get back what you have lost. We all have the same amount of it. Time is something we all will be held accountable for.  What we do with what we have been given will determine our success.

 Forbes magazine researched the subject of success and failure and found that the number one factor for success or failure was time management. What is true in the business community can also be true among Christians and their spiritual maturity. Christian stewardship requires the effective management of one’s time. It is only when we truly understand that we have a limited time on earth that we’ll live each day to the fullest. 

Life is complex. Ministry can be more complex. There are consistent demands on our lives that come from every angle. We must learn to be strategic, proactive and efficient with our time management.  Ever feel like Joshua? Ask God to stop the sun to get a little extra done?  If that is you, here are some practical thoughts that will either  encourage you or challenge you. These are some tips I have learned along the way:

        A.    Establish an Annual plan

                1.    Choose an annual time for goal setting and reflection

                2.    Review previous year’s goals.

                3.    Establish new goals for personal areas and ministry areas

                4.    Transfer all items into your prayer list and project list

        B.    Prioritize Annual Priorities

                1.    Set important family dates, events and vacation

                 2.  Set all Church even dates and meetings

                3.    Set meetings with departments and leaders

                4.    Set preparation time for all meetings

                5.    Enter all meetings and events into calendar for the entire year.

                6.    Contact all leaders with dates.

        C.    Develop a Weekly Plan

                1.    Set time every week for planning out week

                2.    Review existing meetings and insure enough time for planning

                3.    Review task list and move any priorities into time slots.

                4.    Review project list and move any projects into schedule.

        D.    Develop Daily Habits

                1.    Start every day with reviewing and planning your day.

                2.    Consolidate emails and phone calls into am and pm slot.

                3.    Avoid time robbers.

                4.    Use task list and leader list to catalogue thoughts.

                5.    Transfer any projects not done into future time slots.

                6.    Don’t revert back to old habits.

I heard a great story regarding the value the Word of God can play in our lives. It is worth the read!

A young man from a wealthy family was about to graduate from high school. The custom of this affluent neighborhood was the bestowal of a car once the student graduated from high school. The boy fully expected the norm would hold true for him as well. He had spent months talking about cars and looking at them with his father. Just a week before graduation this father and son found what appeared to be the perfect car. The young man was certain he would see the car in his driveway. Yet, when he opened his father’s graduation present it was a Bible. He was so mad that he threw down the Bible and stormed out of the house. He never reconciled with his father and remained estranged until the father died.

As the son went through his father’s belongings, he came across the Bible his father had given him years ago. He brushed off the dust and opened it. To his surprise and horror he found a cashier’s check between the pages of Scripture. It was dated the day of his graduation for the exact amount of the car he and his dad had chosen together. God’s greatest gifts are still found in the pages of Scripture, but we sometimes allow greed to destroy relationships and divert our attention elsewhere.