Proverbs 23
When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee:
2 And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.
3 Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.
4 Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom.
5 Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
6 Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats:
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
8 The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.
9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.
10 Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
11 For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.
12 Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.
13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
15 My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.
16 Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.
17 Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.
18 For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.
19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.
20 Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:
21 For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
22 Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.
23 Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
24 The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.
25 Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.
26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.
27 For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
28 She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.
29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
CHAPTER 2
Falling Short of Freedom's Promise
No one is more dangerous than a mountain man with a valley mentality.
When I traveled to Egypt, I was amazed at how short the flight was from Israel to Egypt. It seemed as if we had no sooner lifted off in our plane than we were landing, and I actually thought we had touched down in some intermediary place. But after we landed in Cairo and I realized that I had been looking down at the Sinai Desert and Israel both at the same time, I thought, Wait a minute-forty years?! It took Israel forty years to get from here to there?!
During a tour of the hot desert area where the ancient Israelites wandered in the pursuit of freedom, we learned that it would have taken only thirty five days to walk into Israel. The Israelites were only a month away from servitude to statehood. I was amazed at how little had changed along the Nile since the pharaohs ruled supremely throughout the ancient world. Bricks are still made of straw and mud, just as they were when scaffolds surrounded the mighty Sphinx.
Throughout our journey I continued to reflect on how short the distance was that this historic band of Semitic refugees actually had to walk. In this light, the magnitude of the fledgling nation's rebellion takes on a new perspective. Let's review the story.
The twelve tribes of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob began as free men and women, enjoying the great wealth and prosperity that freedom can bring. They relocated to Egypt to escape a worldwide famine. In Egypt, they fell under the direction of Jacob's youngest son, Joseph, who had risen to the office of prime minister in Pharaoh's court. When Joseph and Pharaoh died, Pharaoh's successor, Ramses I, made slaves of the mushrooming mass of foreigners. Exodus 1:9-11 tells us:
"Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country." So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
The Book of Exodus also introduces the famous Hebrew deliverer Moses. Drawn from the waters of the Nile in the papyrus basket by Pharaoh's daughter, Moses was raised in the trappings of royalty. We learn little about Moses' life until the time when he committed a murder and fled into Midian, where he prepared for leadership as a shepherd for forty years.
Moses experienced an astounding encounter with Yah at Mt. Sinai's burning bush, and Israel's long-awaited deliverer was called forth from obscurity. The time was right, and Yah embarked on the Bible's historic account of relocating these former slaves, under the leadership of Moses, into their famous Promised Land of Canaan-a month-long journey by foot. Nevertheless, it took them forty years to walk the distance.
A Long Walk To Nowhere
The Israelites took a long walk to nowhere. The Bible also says that when Yah delivered these people, He took them on a longer route, bypassing the Philistine country to keep them from changing their minds.
When Pharaoh let the people go, Yah did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For Yah said, "If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt."
-EXODUS 13:17, EMPHASIS ADDED
See what the sovereign Creator of the universe was actually concerned about here. "If these people face war," Yah was literally saying, "they will change their minds and want to return to Egypt. Their slave mentality could reject My promise. So we must avoid the encounter." Now this is truly astounding. After all the amazing miracles and supernatural manifestations Yah worked to deliver these people, He understood their earthly thinking could still thwart His redemptive plan.
These people had been slaves in Egypt for 430 years. The Caribbean nation had been under British rule for 250 years. So they know what it is like to live under the thumb of a foreign power. Many countrymen continue to suffer today from some of the leftover ways of thinking that held us as captives.
Israel was protected by the oppressor when they lived in oppression. My nation understands this. Israel was not a warring people. Neither is mine. The majority of ancestors in the Bahamas were taken as slaves from West Africa to farm British land in the Caribbean. Israel's people were conditioned to be servants, and so were we. We were marched out to the sugar cane fields until British slavery was abolished in 1827. Then we were treated as second-class citizens until our national independence from colonialism was officially ratified in 1973. Remember, moving to another city, country or continent may change your circumstances, but it doesn't change you.
The Hebrews had been servants and forced laborers under the thumb of the Egyptians for so long that servitude evolved as their national heritage. Their lives were strictly controlled, and their days were spent making bricks to build Egypt's fine houses and famous pyramids. They also constructed Egypt's aqueducts for irrigation, and they farmed wheat and corn in the desert. But none of it was their own. They were told what to do, when to do it and where to do it every day of their lives for more than four hundred years. When Yah's redemptive clock struck the hour of their deliverance, the Hebrews couldn't handle it, and a one-month walk to freedom turned into a forty- year sojourn to nowhere.
AS A MAN THINKS IN His HEART, So Is HE
You are made of the sum total of the choices and decisions you make every day. Once the Hebrews were free from their Egyptian oppressors, Yah made Israel's decisions and worked mighty miracles for them during their exodus in order to fulfill His sovereign will. But the will of Israel was another thing. The Israelites were used to others doing their thinking for them, and when times got tough, like a broken record they bitterly complained-"We want to go back to Egypt! We want to go home! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost-also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic" (Num. 11:5).
Wandering In The Desert Of Underachievement
It took Yah forty years to reeducate Moses in the shepherd fields of Midian before he was prepared to take up his divine appointment as Israel's deliverer. Moses would soon learn the hard way that the most difficult job in the world is the reeducation and reconstruction of other potential deliverers. King Solomon tells us in Proverbs 23:7, "As [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he" (NKJv). And the Hebrews thought they were slaves. It didn't matter what they had seen or experienced as Yah's supernatural smart bombs annihilated the Egyptians into unconditional surrender, because in their minds, these Hebrews were mindless slaves. They were so oppressed in their thinking that they couldn't believe Yah's Word-even when they saw it manifested. The same is true for so many struggling individuals who are wandering in the desert of underachievement in our competitive world of today.
I've encountered so many struggling people who could move up the rungs of life's ladder if not for this deadly underachiever disease. I have recognized this affliction in my studies of modern Russia's wilderness wanderings since they escaped their enslavement to Communism. While the hammer and sickle waved above their imposing iron curtain,the Politburo dictated when, where, how and why the citizens fulfilled their obligatory duties to the collective state. In return, the Soviet "citizens" were rationed basic housing and living needs. But today, years after their Communist deliverance, many are screaming to go back to "Egypt." Why? Nothing has been done to alter the nation's mindset. The Russian pharaohs have evolved in their ideological mindsets, and innovative thinking among the controlled citizenry is in tragic, short supply. Maybe they will break out of their doldrums yet. Seventy years of slavery is only a fifth of the time period ancient Israel spent as mindless puppets of the state. But for now they are wandering, much as the Hebrews did. So is much of the world's population who have experienced some form of prolonged oppression. This principle is true of spiritual oppression as well.
Stop and think about it-have you ever observed a coworker or business associate and said something like this? "You know, that man has been working in the same position for the last ten years. He's been given the same tools as I have, and he's still a functionary clerk in the durable goods warehouse." But the real question is, Has anyone been saying the same thing about you?
Information Doesn’t Bring Transformation
The reason Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith are still the way they are at the bottom of the corporate ladder is because information doesn't bring transformation; only conversion does. It's not what you are that holds you back; it's what you think you are not. So if you think you are not the caliber of person who can discipline your mind to obtain new knowledge, change where change is needed and excel to the top, you won't look at the bid sheets that are posted on corporate's bulletin board. But if you believe in yourself and are willing to take some risks, you can move up life's fickle ladder and keep a steady, improving ascent.
Now, let's look at this through the eyes of the Hebrew believer. Hebrews live and work in the real world. We don't live in a bubble. Take a look at your life. Has your work experience been glorifying Yah?
How successful has your journey been? Is a willingness to change the only distance that separates you from a thirty five- day walk and forty years in the wilderness in your current life experience? Are you living in Yah's promised land of success and well-being today? Or are you wandering in the wilderness of mediocrity, with no vision for success?
How many times have you agreed in principle with something you heard or read, knowing it would improve your personal circumstances, but simply didn't do it? How many times have you said to yourself, "Yes, that's true. Yah is powerful, and He wants me out of Egypt ... I know Yah has a better finance system than all of my credit-card debt ... I know TV has become an idol in my life ... I know this weight is getting out of hand ... I know morning prayer and study need to get going...," but you didn't follow through?You may agree with the success principles of Yah recorded in the Bible, but until you share His supreme mind in the matter, His absolute conviction about them, no Bible truth or achievement plan will ever change your life.
The toughest part for Moses during that forty-year stretch of Promised Land highway must have been the reality of knowing that the only thing hampering Israel's forward progress was the attitude in their minds. What you see and what you hear are small things compared to what you think. It is the power of the mind that can move a young man or woman who was hired as a purchasing clerk into upper management by his or her fifth year of employment. It is also why another clerk may still be punching an hourly time clock in the same clerk's position ten years down the road. One is marking time and just trying to get by. The other is looking toward the next step through excellence and achievement. One believes and conceives; the other only hears.
The thinking process of the human mind changes only when the operator conceives and believes the input that flows into the eyes and ears. Conception must take place before there is any real change. Married couples realize that although the sexual act may occur many times, pregnancy will not occur until the woman conceives. And as any mother will tell you, when conception takes place, a change occurs. The woman's entire physiological makeup changes. Her hormones change. Her attitude changes. Her moods change. So does the way she views the future.
The same is true for employees who sit under the teachings and directions of senior executives. When the achievement truths their leaders are wanting to impart are conceived in the employee's heart, change occurs. That employee will excel in life, move up the corporate ladder and bring honor to his profession-once he conceives the truths of success.
It is also true for the one who sits under the inerrant Word of Yah and finally conceives in his heart the truth of what he is hearing. A change will happen. The conceiving believer will go out and bring honor to Yah through his or her life. But the believer or employee who continually hears without conceiving will continue to sit with the same wilderness attitudes and problems he hadbefore new opportunities presented themselves. Why? Because that is what that individual willed.
The Human Will: The Most Powerful Force On Earth
The human will is the most powerful force on earth. In the wilderness Israel proved that the Creator will not violate the human will or overpower the mind. You've proved this in your life, too. If you are living in a free society, today you are doing exactly what you want to do. Yah can empower our minds, but we must empower our wills.
The Hebrew life is a daily decision. Sometimes we think, Wouldn't it be wonderful if every morning Yahusha came into my bedroom, grabbed me by my collar and dragged me around all day to follow Him? Lord Yahusha, manage my time, and make sure I stay in balance on my business appointments in relation to my spiritual appointments. Wouldn't it be nice, 0 Yah, if You, in an instant, would show me the wisdom of Your ways? Life would move on so smoothly, and I wouldn't have to take the time to read Your Word and pray every day.
But life isn't like that. In fact, Yahusha' thematic statement in Scripture was, "Whosoever will, let him come." The promised land is always before us, but we must come.
Bearing all of this in mind, I think I have discovered one place in the Bible where Yah seems to have failed. Now, I realize this is a very controversial statement because we have all been taught that Yah, in His supreme omnipotence, cannot fail. But when you look at that little bit of ground that mankind's Creator wanted to move His people across to possess their Promised Land, I think you would have to agree. Yah was unable to succeed expeditiously in the great exodus from Egypt. Why? Because He couldn't change the adult Hebrews' minds.
It was easier to deliver Israel from the power of Pharaoh than from the power of their own thinking. It was no problem to unleash Yah's mighty plagues and eventually drown Pharaoh's army. The problems began when the people made up their minds that neither Yah nor Moses had their best interests at heart.
This is particularly amazing to me because I have seen Yah perform some extraordinary miracles along the path of my life. Yet, I've never seen an ocean parted and never been allowed to walk through the piled-high waters.Neither have I seen supernatural clothing that doesn't wear out, supernatural fire by night to warm my campsite, a moving pillar of cloud by day to cool me from the desert heat. All of these visual wonders surrounding the Hebrewexodus were evident, but their presence didn't change the welfare state of mind held by these former Hebrew slaves.
And if the miraculous power of heaven couldn't change these former slaves' minds, neither will Yah's miracles change your thinking patterns. You may be awed at His demonstration and be moved in your trust and faith. But the only one who can change your mind is you. And Yah is looking for many minds to change in His ministry today so we can get out of the wilderness and fulfill His purpose in the promised land.
Born To Manage
When you look at the Bible through the eyes of Yah's purpose, you will see He is a Yah of "business." Because of my business training, I recognize this principle in the pages of Scripture for every eye to see. Yes, Yah is a Yah of purpose, potential, giving, principle, love and authority. But He is also a Yah of management. This means that if you're going to deal with Yah, you will have to start thinking management. If you're going to do business with Yah, you must reorganize your thinking and concepts. Why? Because everything Yah does is related to His management spirit. Leadership management was the reason for man's creation and the key to his fulfillment.
The first man was created to manage the planet. Adam was entrusted with earth's resources and instructed to manage and "fill" the earth. So let's get started thinking like Yah by first of all defining what management is.
Management is the efficient and effective use of another's resources with the intent to give an account of your use of the resources to the one who entrusted those resources to you. The Bible calls this stewardship. If you stop to think about management this way, you will discover that you've been in business since you've known the Lord.
Everyone has had some resources entrusted to them. These resources can include children, abilities, creativity, finances, assets, your home and your yard, just to name a few. Therefore, everyone is a manager of something.
Now, speaking from a higher spiritual perspective, stewardship or management is the use of Yah's divinely endowed resources for the effective accomplishment ofHis earthly goals. The accountability in this model (as it was with Adam in the beginning) is man to Yah. If the believer is ever going to move out of the oppressive mindset of slavery, this accountability model will have to be grasped.
Managing To Be Free
As we will learn in the pages that follow, living in Egypt was easy for the Israelites, because there they were the managed. The hard part came when Yah called them to manage, because most weren't up to the task. Freedom of choice and a free environment in which that choice can be exercised is the original purpose of Yah for every human being. So my number one responsibility to Yah is management-and so is yours. He gave that assignment to everyone, not just to your boss.
True freedom must be personally managed. But not everyone accepts this divinely endowed managerial responsibility. The people who learn to identify and manage their resources will always employ those who do not. It is the people who decide to take a chunk of the earth and manage it who become the earth's employers-both in and outside of the ministry world.
Think about the person for whom you work. There was a point in your employer's life when either he or she decided to stop being the managed, and a decision was made to start managing instead. It might have been a sewing machine, a print shop or a food store. Once your employer's business grew beyond his or her own ability and resources to manage, that person needed others to help them. So you were brought on board.
Now think about yourself. Where do you think you would be today if you had accepted Yah's personal stewardship calling twenty years ago and had managed His resources well? Would you be doing what you are doing today? Think about it.
One of Yah's greatest promises of kingdom living, found in Matthew 5:5, invites the meek to inherit the earth. Yahusha wants His people to be so management efficient that their abilities and influence will be extended everywhere in the earth. Yah still wants His people to serve as earth's managers. Adam's charge of dominion hasn't changed. Yahusha wants His ministry to be the earth's employers, not its employees. And we can be, once we learn to follow His management model of fruitful living.
Let's get started in responsible living by learning six unchangeable elements of management ability. They will work for you at home or on the job.
The Elements Of Management
1. The authority
The freedom that waits on the other side of the wilderness must be prepared for and managed skillfully. The first element to be understood before arriving there is one's position under authority. Anyone in management must clearly understand who their boss is. And that person must know his or her own perimeters in the authority structure. What can or can't you do with the resources your overseeing authority has entrusted to you? What can or can't you do when engaging the business process?
2. The purpose of the authority
You must not only understand who has entrusted you with his resources, but also why his resources were entrusted to you. What was in your Creator's, or your employer's,mind when you were given those resources? When you understand this, then purpose will become the key to your judgment. It will rule your decision-making process.
If your boss entrusted you with a million dollars and directed you to earn a 20 percent return on it during the next year, you would know his purpose in releasing the funds to your care. He not only gave you the resources, but he also gave you the purpose for entrusting you with the resources. That information can guide and direct your judgment in making business investments. Knowing the purpose of the authority placed in you is essential for success.
3. The resources to be managed
In the process of becoming an effective manager, you must also master your understanding of the resources or commodities for which you've been given authority. Nothing in the world is worse than someone who doesn't understand what he possesses. A man who sells his house, only to learn after it was sold that it sat upon a five-hundred-barrels-a-day oil well, didn't take the time to understand his resources.
It's the same with people. If you don't understand the value of your own talents and resources, people will try to buy you out cheaply. They will make you stay late and pay you bottom dollar. Your creativity will be taken advantage of as they keep you completely out of the company's profit margin. It works from the top down, too. If you are an honest department head, but you don't understand the skills of those working under you, you won't use them to their fullest potential. You must understand both your own potential and the potential of those under your authority.
4. The value of the resources
The fourth element of effective management is understanding the true value of every resource available to you. You can only manage effectively if you understand the full value of the resources you have. Yahusha, the ultimate manager in history, understood the full value and use of birds and flowers, a value that few could understand. He said:
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.... See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
-MATTHEW 6:26, 28
Yahusha, the manifested Creator who manufactured earth's birds and flowers, used them to teach His followers that one aspect of their intrinsic value was to relax and trust Yah unwaveringly. How many humans take the time to think about birds? Regularly we rush through days, weeks and months without ever once considering a flower. We walk by and ignore them. Why? Because we don't recognize the value of what they can teach us.
We should never allow our lives to become so hurried or myopic that we ignore the value of the resources around us- especially the people. People in general don't value people enough. Yahusha would pause in His teaching of a large crowd just to bless children, heal a man's servant, raise a synagogue leader's daughter or talk with two blind men whom the crowd was trying to shut up. (See Matthew 8:5-19; 20:29-34; Mark 5:35-43; 10:13-16.) Yahusha understood the value of the resources around Him, and because ofHis perception, He managed everything effectively.
5. The responsibility that comes with the assignment
The fifth management element that must be understood is the responsibility that comes with the management assignment. You will be a good manager when you know what you're accountable for and what is expected of you. Look at the example of the Israelites. Israel could have walked into Canaan in a month because of the resources of Yah's promise and His power to perform it. But they squandered their resources, and every one of the adults except Moses, Caleb and Joshua died in the sand.
Yahusha taught an indicting parable regarding the common neglect in the management of our affairs. You will find it in Luke 16 under the heading of "The Unrighteous Steward."
The unrighteous steward in Hamachiach 's parable was unscrupulous and lazy. When his employer discovered his self serving persona, he gave him two weeks (allegorically) to clear out his desk. The irresponsible manager responded by saying, "I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses" (Luke 16:4). He then used his power of attorney to clear the books of some of his master's debtors by lowering their payments as personal favors to them. Although this man knew exactly what he had been held accountable to-even using it to his own advantage-he failed miserably at fulfilling his managerial obligations in his master's business affairs.
Yahusha' indictment in verse 8 concludes the parable: "For the people of this world are more shrewd [wiser] in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light."
The people of the world know how to make money, both scrupulously and illegally. This is a historic fact. But the indictment Yahusha levels on the ministry in this parable is the fact that too many "children of light" neglect their responsibility in life's affairs. They allow the world to run over them because of their ignorance and irresponsibility in the business and social arenas. Yahusha said His called-out followers were to be in the world, but not of it. That means His ministry should be doing it smarter, bigger and better than those who have not embraced Yah's kingdom principle. To do that, we must be disciplined and shrewdly trained in the organizational realities of our day.
6. The standards of expectation
The sixth leadership element in effective management is the necessity of understanding one's standards of expectation. Every assignment for management comes with an expectation. The person who makes you a department manager has a quality expectation of you. He expects certain things to happen in that department because of the resources entrusted.
It's the same in our relationship with Yah. Yah has given us stewardship of the planet, and He has certain standards He expects us to uphold. Unlike many business enterprises, the most important qualitative standard Yah expects from us is integrity. He wants everyone we encounter to know they have encountered the living Yah. And when we manage the resources He has entrusted to us in accordance with His standards of expectation, everyone will profit, not just a few.
MANAGEMENT COMES FIRST
Because management begins in our personal lives, each of these elements starts and ends at home-when no one is watching. If you don't have a management mentality, your behavior will produce the kind of mismanagement experience Israel encountered in the wilderness. Proverbs 23:7tells us, "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he" (NKJv). The Israelites, like so many people of the world today, thought like slaves. And their thinking kept them out of their patriarch Abraham's Promised Land. Management is first of alla personal mental and spiritual decision. Management begins in the mind.
One of the points in Yahusha' parable of the irresponsible manager had to do with submitted trust: "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much" (Luke 16:10). Our management ability determines how much of the more that Yah has for us has to be held back from us. Yah will give us as much of His more as we can be entrusted with.
Efficient management allows Yah to increase the more. I advise young people who are going to school or college to study management, even if their call is to Bible college. Even if they know what they want to study-biology,nursing, engineering or whatever-I still encourage them to take a management course, too. Why? Because the manager understands the responsibilities of freedom, and therefore he will end up employing the employees and leading the followers in society's affairs.
When I went to school to earn my master's degree, I decided I would not study theology; I took business administration instead. It was that business administration degree that made the difference in my ability to organize the relationships in my life, business and ministry. It gave me an expertise in recognizing the dynamics of management, leadership, communication and the value of things.
If you are involved in professional ministry, perhaps you relish your position in ministry but have relinquished the management of your home. You may like the title "Reverend" or "Doctor" attached to your name and may be completely absorbed with your ministry duties. But Yah isn't concerned with your title; He is concerned first with your management.
Paulwrites:
He [the overseer] must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of Yah's ministry ?)
-1 TIMOTHY 3:4-5
So management is the key to life. If a pastor can't manage his own children, Paul says he is incapable of managing the children of Yah. Some Hebrew leaders are winning the world, but they are losing their own personal world. On amore administrative note, if a Hebrew leader can't manage his own bank account, how can Yah trust him with the $2 million bank account for an organization?
If in your current life experience, a willingness to change is the only distance that separates you from a thirty-five day walk and forty years in the wilderness, how successful has your journey been? Are you living in Yah's promised land of success and well-being today? Or are you wandering in the wilderness of mediocrity, with no vision for success? Whatever you mismanage, you will lose.
I hope you have located yourself by now in relationship to your current condition in respect to Yah's management call. If you have been wandering, it is my hope the Lord will use the principles in this book to help you. Yah has a plan for the future side of your life (across Jordan) that you will come to understand in the chapters that follow. A long walk to nowhere is not your destination. Yahusha wants to make known to you the resources that are at your fingertips. So I ask you to go ahead and quickly review this chapter's principles and the six elements of management. Then, once you are satisfied with your working knowledge of them, I invite you to move on for a detailed study on irresponsibility. Once this most common trait of man has been done away with ina person's life, responsibility can set in.
Remember:
1. The authority
2. The purpose of the authority
3. The resources to be managed
4. The value of the resources
5. The responsibility that comes with the assignment
6. The standards of expectation
The most important person to change is yourself.
CHAPTER 2
FALLING SHORT OF FREEDOM'S PROMISE
1. You are made of the sum total of the choices and decisions you make every day.
2. It's not what you are that holds you back; it's what you think you are not.
3. What you see and what you hear are small things compared to what you think.
4. Yah can empower our minds, but we must empower our wills .
5. True freedom must be personally managed.
6. Knowing the purpose of the authority placed in you is essential for success.
7. Nothing in the world is worse than someone who doesn't understand what he possesses.
8. You must understand both your own potential and the potential of those under your authority.
9. Management begins in the mind.
10. Management is the key to life.
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