People who ask, “How much do I have to give?” don’t get it.

J.D. Greear:

I am often asked how much Christians should give. Some who ask this are looking for wisdom, but many are looking for an out. They want to know how much is enough to get God off their backs, to fulfill their duty. And that attitude is miles away from the gospel. 

Gospel giving is about love, not law. It’s not about percentages, but about a person. Zacchaeus throws out some numbers, but not because Jesus gives him the benchmark first. He does it out of sheer joy, as a love offering to God. 

A lot of people who ask, “How much do I have to give?” labor under the delusion that God needs their money. In their minds, God is like the government, endlessly low on funds and constantly seeking more funding. But God doesn’t need our cash. 

That’s why 2 Corinthians 9:7 says that God loves a cheerful giver. If God had needs, he wouldn’t care why you gave; he would only care that you gave. I’ve never gotten a letter from the IRS saying, “Yes, you paid the legal amount, but we sense that it wasn’t joyful giving. We’re concerned about your motives.” No, the IRS needs money, so that’s their bottom line. 

But (thankfully) God isn’t like the IRS. God loves cheerful giving because gospel giving is primarily about worship and joy, not meeting needs. I have heard it said that God measures our generosity not by the size of our gifts, but by the size of our sacrifice, because sacrifice expresses the affections of our heart to God. 

And if we find ourselves growing stingy and fearful once again, the answer is not to try harder. The answer is to look back at the cross, where God was lavishly generous with us. Because those people who truly experience the gospel become like the gospel—overflowing with grace.

Read the rest.


Books by J.D. Greear:

• Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
• Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
• Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim

Miraculous Healing – Q&A

Good stuff here from J.D. Greear.



Books by J.D. Greear:

• Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
• Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
• Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim

The Catalytic Leader

Helpful leadership article here from J.D. Greear.  He writes:

What leaders should strive for is the Catalytic Leader. This person gives away opportunity, but still retains responsibility. This can be dangerous. Empowering people to pursue opportunities sometimes means that you have to take the heat when things blows up. And the Catalytic Leader never gets things done as quickly as the Micromanager or the Genius With 1,000 Helpers. But “getting things done quickly” is not our target. 

Catalytic Leaders understand the “80% Quality Rule” – if someone can do it 80% as well as I can, then I let them do it. 80% is just an estimate, but it illustrates the principle: there is value in empowering someone else, even if I can do the job better. These sorts of leaders know that this is a tradeoff, but it is a tradeoff they are willing to make because it creates a leadership culture. 

Farther to the right of the Catalytic Leader is Mr. Hands-Off. Mr. Hands-Off often looks a lot like the Catalytic Leader, but has actually backed out of the leadership picture altogether. This is an absentee leader who doesn’t actually care enough to engage, influence, or guide others. More often than not, Mr. Hands-Off is simply lazy. 

At our church, we strive to be a leadership team of Catalytic Leaders. There is no executive level of people doing all of the strategy served by a cadre of minions who simply execute. We would much rather steer stallions than dictate to servants. But the question is always, How do we become Catalytic Leaders? Here are five ways (a non-comprehensive list): 

1. Ruthlessly foster a servant attitude in your heart.  You have to see yourself as the one who washes feet. I am reminded of the situation in Acts 6, when the apostles had to appoint people to care for feeding the widows and orphans. What is often overlooked is that prior to Acts 6 the apostles were doing this service themselves. No one should see himself as beyond the role of servant. 

2. Give away praise as fast as possible. Be the biggest cheerleader for people on your staff. Don’t worry about your own praise. Being stingy with compliments won’t earn you more praise; being generous with it will. 

3. Perfect the art of salesmanship. Commanders don’t have to sell vision; leaders do. This is why every year I read a book on selling. The overlap between sales and influence is larger than most people think. 

4. Bring others into the discussions . . . early. You may find this surprising, but other people will have insight that you don’t. Sometimes you know they are repositories of wisdom; other times they surprise you. Give them the chance to surprise you with what they bring to the table. 

5. Be patient. Being a Catalytic Leader means sacrificing efficiency and speed, and most leaders find it uncomfortably slow. But empowering is worth it, because people are worth it.

Read the rest.

Books by J.D. Greear:

• Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
• Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
• Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim

We cannot manipulate God, but we can trust him, and that is far better.

J.D. Greear: 

It frustrates me to no end when I hear people talk about miracles in the Bible and then say something like, “So if you want your miracle, just . . .” That sort of thinking may be enticing, but it is miles away from the gospel. Those who know the gospel know that God cannot be reduced to a formula, as if he were a high-powered vending machine. We cannot manipulate God, but we can trust him, and that is far better. 

Just look at the rich woman in 2 Kings 4:8–37. After God miraculously blesses her with a son, the son suddenly dies. But the ensuing miracle is less than flattering for Elisha, God’s appointed prophet. He tries in a few different ways to raise the child from the dead, to no avail. He eventually succeeds, but not because he figured out the right pattern. He simply knew to approach a God that he knew to be merciful. 

Religion is always teaching us to approach God based on formulas: “If you do this, God will do this.” It is mechanical and guaranteed. I’ve followed God’s rules, so he owes me a happy marriage (or a healthy family, or a prospering business, etc.). But that sort of “faith” is faith in a formula, not a person. Gospel faith is faith in a person—an almighty, all-knowing, infinitely caring person. When you trust a person, that can never be reduced to a mechanical formula. 

It would be terrible if God operated on formulas anyway. How many times have you asked God for something that you later realized was absolutely foolish? If any of you are like me, there are probably dozens of girls that you desperately pleaded with God to make fall in love with you. We’re sinners, which means that a lot of what we ask for is garbage. What we need is not a genie in a bottle, but a loving father who sometimes overrules us.

A “no” answer to prayer is not necessarily “no answer to prayer.” Sometimes God answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what he knows. But the woman in 2 Kings 4 also shows us that trusting in God doesn’t mean we stop pursuing him for grace.

Read the rest.


Books by J.D. Greear:

• Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
• Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
• Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim

How To Navigate Conflict Well

Pastor J.D. Greear:

In Ephesians 4:29, Paul mentions two kinds of speech: that which builds up and that which pulls down. This verse and the surrounding passage show us ten ways that we can handle conflict well—10 ways to fight like a Christian. 

1. Examine your heart.This is a huge first step in any conflict. Even if you’ve been wronged, what does your emotional response say about your heart? Is it possible that malice, wrath, or bitterness have snuck in? These things are like alarm systems for your heart, pointing to idolatry, which is often a much bigger issue than whatever your spouse (or brother or friend or boss) has done to you. 

2.     Overlook whatever you can.Part of speaking to others with grace is discerning what needs confronting and what should be overlooked. That’s a lot of what Paul means by that little phrase, “as fits the occasion.” On certain occasions (not all!), confronting little infractions only serves to heighten tensions. There are times you need to speak up and confront; and there are times to just let it go. There’s a real art to knowing the difference. 

3.     Be practical in how you fight.Again, think about what “fits the occasion.” My wife and I have learned the hard way that there are certain times, places, and moods that are just bad for arguments. So we never fight, for instance, if we’re both exhausted. We table the argument and come back to it within 24 hours, after we’ve had time to rest. Now, there’s always a temptation to just table a critical discussion endlessly, so you need to be sure to keep your word. If you say, “Let’s talk about this in the morning,” then put it on your calendar and actually bring it back up. 

4.     Be quick to listen and slow to speak.As our Pastor of Counseling Brad Hambrick says, the vast majority of communication problems are notexpression problems, but listening problems. You’re plenty skilled at making your point known; but the “communication breakdown” is the result of your stopped up ear. Listening well is one way of applying the biblical truth of considering others’ interests more important than your own (cf. Phil 2:3–4) 

5.     Seek their sanctification, not your vindication.Once you let go of the idea that you have to win every argument and vindicate yourself, you can finally focus on what helps the other person and the relationship. That means backing off, even when you think you are in the right. 

6.  Believe in God’s overriding purposes in your relationships.Knowing that God has a purpose for your relationships introduces an element of hope, even to the most broken of those relationships. This will not automatically make a difficult relationship easier, but it does add perspective: God knew you would be in that relationship, and he intends to do something beautiful with your conflict. 

7. Speak grace-saturated words.When grace saturates your speech, it changes both the content and the tone of what you say. Instead of assuming the positives and noticing the negatives, you begin to assume the negatives and intentionally point out the positives. You avoid being sarcastic and condescending, because that kind of talk—even if it’s technically “true”—only serves to ostracize and tear down. 

8. Don’t give up until there is no longer a chance of reconciliation.This is specifically applicable to married relationships, though the principle is broader than that. I see so many couples going through the pain of divorce, and even though I believe there are legitimate reasons for divorce, I wish that more people would just give the power of grace a chance before giving up on that relationship. 

9. Truly forgive.Forgiveness is a choice to put an offense away from our minds, but it’s not conditional on another person’s repentance. Many people think, “I’d forgive so-and-so if they would just ask for it.” But don’t confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. Reconciliation takes two people; forgiveness only takes one. For your own sake, do not wait on another person’s repentance before you forgive. The only alternative to forgiveness is bitterness. 

10. Do all things out of reverence for Christ.The only way to follow any of this is for the cross to grow large in your life, to be so overwhelmed by Christ’s sacrifice for you that it reorients how you view every offense against you. If you try to resolve conflict as an act of service to your spouse, you will always lose motivation. You have to do it for Jesus. 

Books by J.D. Greear:

• Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
• Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
• Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim

Culturally Commentary on How To Change

J.D. Greear:

I ran across a New York Times article this week by David Brooks entitled “How People Change.” This is a fascinating little op-ed piece that reflects what gospel-centered people already know—you cannot change a person by telling them to ‘be better.’

Brooks talks about a now infamous email that British father Nick Crews sent to his adult children, berating them for their poor life choices. The email, which was recently released to the public by one of Crews’ daughters, has been colloquially termed the “Crews Missile.” The term fits, as the tone of the email is downright scathing. “If it wasn’t for [my grandchildren],” Crews writes, “I would not be too concerned as each of you consciously, and with eyes wide open, crashed from one cock-up to the next. . . . I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed.”

As Brooks comments, the email has been received by many with delight. “Many parents are apparently delighted that someone finally had the gumption to give at least one set of overprivileged slackers a well-deserved kick in the pants.” The problem, though, is that people don’t change by being told that they don’t measure up. Tirades like this might be emotionally satisfying, but they aren’t effective.

As Brooks writes, “People don’t behave badly because they lack information about their shortcomings. They behave badly because they’ve fallen into patterns of destructive behavior from which they’re unable to escape.” Or to use theological language, we don’t keep on sinning because we don’t know what’s right. We keep on sinning because we love sin.

Not surprisingly, Brooks doesn’t end his article with a gospel proclamation. At least not completely. But he does close by reminding his readers that the most effective way to engender change is not by “bludgeoning bad behavior” but by “changing the underlying context.” In many ways, this is what the gospel does. The gospel is not a message to “go and do,” but a message that salvation has already been done. The underlying context has been changed. We are changed not by being told what we need to do for God, but by hearing the news about what He has done for us.

Read the rest.

Pastor J.D. fleshes some of this out in his new book that you can get on Kindle right now for $2.99.

More recommendations would be here and here.