Author: admin

Leaders tend to want to leave their mark. One way they attempt this is by building something impressive. You might enlarge the organization you lead. Perhaps you double the staff size, or floor space, or assets or sales. There is something within leaders that makes them want to leave a place better and greater than how they found it. But there is a trap inherent in this.

While good leaders do make things better, that cannot become their source of satisfaction and fulfillment in life. No building or organization, regardless of how great, lasts forever. Everything comes to an end. People move on. What you poured your heart and soul into will one day be led by another.

One of the problems was that the writer of Ecclesiastes believed the great works were his. He had done them and he rightly received the credit. Such labor is truly unsatisfactory. Others will eventually accomplish more. Successors may even undo what we accomplished.

The key is to invest yourself in God’s great work. That lasts forever! Bringing glory to God through our labor is immensely satisfying. To point our lives and labor toward God and to acknowledge His greatness allows us to fulfill our life’s purpose. It is inherently hollow to spend our lives trying to accomplish something great for ourselves. Live your life by doing great things for God!

Laughter is one of the most frivolous, non-productive, and at times silly things we do. Yet it often sets great leaders apart from mediocre ones. That is because as non-productive as it may seem, laughter is essential to our emotional and spiritual and even professional health.

Laughter is to our soul what vitamins are to our body. Going without either for very long leads to a breakdown. Laughter reveals we are maintaining a healthy view of life. It means we have not lost hope that God can still work in our situation. It also indicates we are not taking ourselves, or our problems too seriously. Typically we laugh with others, and that ensures we are not becoming isolated in our misery or troubles. Laughter that goes right to our soul is refreshing. It lifts our spirit and energizes our soul.

It is a fallacy to assume that truly “spiritual” people are always somber. It is likewise wrong to think that if you laugh, you must not be taking your work seriously enough. Some of the greatest leaders in history were people who loved to laugh. An absence of laughter in your life may indicate you have developed a badly skewed view of life and your problems. When you truly understand that Jesus Christ never leaves you or forsakes you, how can you not laugh wholeheartedly each day of your life?

Many people have falsely concluded that the purpose of life is to have as much fun as possible. Such individuals fervently spend their time and money on it pursuit. The media bombards us with advertisements alerting us to ever increasing methods of enhancing our pleasure. There seems no end to the ways people can entertain themselves.

Yet this driving force of the pursuit of happiness has exerted dire consequences. People are abandoning their marriages, and their families, in their quest for pleasure. Such a mindset encourages a rabid self-centeredness that justifies any amount of pain inflicted upon others in an effort to increase our own happiness. This attitude justifies any behavior, no matter how outlandish or foolish, if it makes us happy.

The writer of Ecclesiastes soon realized that living a life pursuing pleasure is vanity. It leads to nothing but regret. Looking back over a life invested in the pursuit of pleasure is a hollow and unsatisfying experience. It is living life at its most shallow level. It is selfishness at the extreme. Such living makes no solid contribution to humanity. The death of such people leaves no one with regret or loss. Though the pursuit of pleasure can appear infinitely appealing, it inevitably leads to loss and disappointment. The wise person soon recognizes this truth.

The saying, “ignorance is bliss” has solid justification. For those who know little, there is little to upset them. If you are unaware of your life’s possibilities, you will not feel discouraged when you fall short of them. If you do not know the promises of God, you will not be dissatisfied when you fail to experience them. If you are unaware of the heights people are capable of achieving, you will not struggle being mediocre.

However, wisdom and knowledge change us. They make us aware of what could be. They also enable us to see the harsh truth of our reality. When Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, it was because He knew the truth of what its citizens were missing and the reality of the sure judgment that was coming. Those living in ignorance of those facts blithely continued on with their lives, blissfully unaware of their dire circumstances. But Jesus knew.

It can be a burden to have wisdom and knowledge. To whom much has been given, much is expected. Once you know what God intends, it is difficult to be satisfied with anything less. Are you carrying the burden of wisdom? Don’t grow discouraged. The weight of ignorance is ultimately greater still.

Have you ever attempted to help someone make positive changes in their life, only to have your efforts be in vain? Have you watched people with character flaws who struggled with them their entire life? Have you ever tried to change one of your unhealthy habits, only to find it far more difficult that you had imagined?

The writer of Ecclesiastes was writing about his search for meaning and truth. He had observed people and came to some harsh conclusions. Perhaps his most biting conclusion was that: people don’t change. If you are crooked, you cannot be made straight. If you struggle with integrity, you will always be vulnerable to being unreliable. If you have a hot temper, you will always have anger issues.

Anyone who has ever worked with people knows what this cynicism is based on! People can seem to change for a while, but inevitably they return to their previous, sinful behavior. Yet Ecclesiastes was also written long before the coming of Christ. He was unaware of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The concept of Christ living out His life in us was foreign to him (Gal. 2:20). It is true, that on our own, it is extremely difficult to change. Our human condition is enslaved to who we are. Praise God Christ intervened into our human condition and offers each person hope for positive change in their life!

Despite the grandiose claims of marketers, it would seem that there is truly nothing genuinely new under the sun. Of course, there are new apps to download on our cell phones, or new models of cars being loudly advertised in magazines. Yet when it comes to people and how we relate to others, it would appear that the same kind of thing happens repeatedly.

One of the reasons that the study of history is so important is because it reveals the way people have related to one another over time. Tragically, it seems, we have not learned from our previous mistakes! Humanity continues to make the same mistakes year after year.

Part of our problem is that we continue to be easily seduced by claims that appeal to our temporal lusts and desires. People keep promising us worldly happiness and we continue to succumb to its carnal appeal. We continue to place our hope in people and we are repeatedly disappointed. Regardless of how many times people fail and disappoint us, we continue to learn nothing from the past.

Wise people learn from the past. They are not gullible to the same worldly appeals. They watch the folly of people and they take note. The wise are rarely taken by surprise.

Our world is largely driven by profit. We constantly measure our gain for having invested ourselves in various labor. If there is little profit, then our activity was wasted.

We invest a great amount of our time in labor. If we spend eight hours a day at work, week after week, year after year until we retire at 65, then thousands of hours will be spent in the pursuit of a paycheck. Parents spend countless hours raising their children. It is mind numbing to calculate the number of hours we put in to such mundane tasks as waiting in line, or putting fuel in our vehicle, or watching commercials. Our time is valuable, yet we waste many hours of it every week.

The writer of Ecclesiastes stopped and took time to reflect on life. Some of his conclusions troubled him! He realized that much of what he was investing himself in possessed no long-term value. Buildings he constructed would eventually be torn down. The companies he started would one day be sold or liquidated. Relationships he cultivated might come to an end. His career, though brilliant, would inevitably culminate in retirement. His health, carefully nurtured, would ultimately decline. Every solitary thing he was investing his life in would eventually deteriorate and come to an end. Except one. God’s activity would last for eternity. The earth, with all of God’s work, would outlast its inhabitants.

Perspective is crucial to a healthy, productive life. Unfortunately some people don’t take a long, hard look at their life until it is almost over. They mindlessly keep plugging away at the same temporal pursuits, even though they inevitably lead to disappointment.

It is crucial that we examine our lives now and make sure that what we are spending it on, matters, and will last.

There are moments in life when it seems inevitable that we become a cynic. People let us down. The investment we made comes to not. Our hopes are not realized. Our dreams fail to materialize. On certain days we can feel as if everything into which we invest results only in disappointment.

The truth is that life is temporal and fleeting. Though advertisers zealously attempt to make us feel that by acquiring the right car or house or vacation we will experience a joy-filled, meaningful life, we are inevitably disappointed. Despite being encouraged to climb as high as we can on the corporate ladder, we eventually discover that our worldly success is not deeply satisfying and eventually, we must retire.

Sadly, millions of people find life to be nothing more than a vapor. Despite all of their efforts, nothing they do seems to last, or matter.

The reality is that God and His work are the only things that last, or truly matter. When we align ourselves with Him, we invest ourselves in an eternal kingdom. When we place our faith in God, we know that what He began, He will complete. God’s purposes will be accomplished!

Have you been disappointed lately? Have you grown cynical? What is it you have been investing your life in to?

Jeroboam arose as a consequence of Solomon’s sin. The king had turned his heart away from God. His love of women had stolen his loyalty to God. As a result, God raised up enemies to plague the prodigal monarch. Jeroboam had been the chief overseer of the king’s labor for the tribe of Joseph. The northern tribes had felt exploited by the king’s extensive construction projects. Under Solomon’s son Rehoboam, they would ultimately rebel and the nation of Israel would be torn asunder.

Solomon’s response to God’s discipline was to attempt to kill his enemies! God had sent this discipline, but rather than yielding to it and repenting of his sin, Solomon attempted to eliminate God’s tool of punishment. Of course this was futile. What God intends cannot be stopped. The divine consequences for our sin are unavoidable. Better to humbly accept God’s word and face our consequences, than to fight back and resist God’s redemptive activity in our lives.

If God has brought you through a difficult season of life, let Him explain to you what His purposes are. If it is a consequence of your sinful leadership, then accept God’s word on the matter and immediately repent and make adjustments in your life and leadership. God’s judgment will not go away, regardless of how vehemently you resist it.

God’s discipline upon wayward children can increase in its frequency and severity. If raising up one adversary is not enough to lead us to repentance of our sin,then God may well add a second or third opponent. God has an unlimited number of means to discipline us and to draw us back to Himself.

Each enemy of Solomon was unique and offered singular challenges. They were also scattered throughout the region so that it was difficult to take them all on at once. Some were in the north, others to the south. Solomon’s enemies also avoided direct confrontation with him, so they nibbled away at the edges of his empire. As a result, Solomon had to remain ever vigilant to how he might be attacked or usurped. This lack of peace was not the blissful living God had intended for the monarch. Yet God refused to leave Solomon in peace after the king chose to forsake his God.

If we are not careful, we can miss what God is saying to us through our times of opposition. We may feel that we are merely going through a difficult season of challenges. But the truth may be that God is increasing the severity of His discipline upon us until our hearts return to Him.