The Day of the Lord is Coming

² 

“I will utterly consume everything

From the face of the land,”

Says the Lord;

³ 

“I will consume man and beast;

I will consume the birds of the heavens,

The fish of the sea,

And the stumbling blocks along with the wicked.

I will cut off man from the face of the land,”

Says the Lord.

-Zephaniah 1:2-3 (NKJV)

Consider yourself warned.  God will have a day of reckoning.  he prophets spoke of it.  In particular, Zephaniah spoke explicitly about it.  It would be the type of day that no one would want to see in their lifetime.

Think you have had a bad day? That's nothing like what will happen when this day comes about.  The Lord will not be slow to anger on that day.  He will set forth His wrath like it has never been unleashed before.

Take care of business, brothers and sisters.  Know that how you manage your business affairs is part of how you reflect God in your daily life to others, especially those who are not of the faith.

• Are you viewed as shrewd and crafty, ready to cut costs at the expense of the livelihood of your employees and vendors?

• Do you readily examine the bottom line or the heart of the matter when making decisions?

• Do you pray over your business decisions and seek godly counsel from other Christian business men and women?

Consider how you handle your business.  Others are watching you.  Others take into account that you say that you are a Christian.  God is watching.  God will not always be waiting.  One day, and we we do not know when, God is going to call us on what we have done and what we haven't done as His children.

Assess Your Board

The following statistics are based on a BoardSource Report (2007):

• Only 5% of nonprofits list fund raising as a "board strength"
• Nearly 50% of nonprofit board members are 50-64 years old
• 92% of boards have an external financial audit
• 87% of nonprofit organizations made governance policy changes
• 70% of surveyed nonprofits established a policy for board members to review the IRS Form 990

So where do you stand?

Do you even know?

The danger zone is not when you know that you are wrong.  The danger zone is when you do not know if you are wrong.  That's where the real danger lies for any nonprofit board of directors.

You need to know your challenges to face your challenges.  If you do not know them, how do you plan on facing them? Use a proven assessment tool.  Work with nonprofit consultants or business development specialists/ analysts.

Get informed on what you need to get your board back on track.

Starting at the Top

Gordon Gekko: "The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good." Wall Street (1987)

Truly, characters like Oliver Stone's Gordon Gekko should cause us to either applaud or cringe.  He either exemplifies all that we love about corporate-raiding moguls or everything we simply cannot stand about the stock-splitting takeover scumbags.  One major notion that Gekko's character shared at a stockholder's meeting on screen was that management had no vested interest in the company.

Management, beware! People are no longer going for the norm.  Know that you are one proxy vote mailer or quarterly earnings report from being ceremoniously dismissed.  CEO, COO and uh-oh go together these days.  Companies are no longer afraid to trim from the top.  Today's middle management and upper management are not securely in position like in the days of Carnegie, Ford and Mellon.

After the recent stock market dives and hedge fund scandals, most people are afraid of the words market and meltdown appearing in the same sentence anywhere near one another.  Mention Madoff in some circles and find yourself standing alone with your cocktail in your hand and egg all over your face.  The average Joe is no longer going to wait on his pension fund to tank or his 401(k) nest egg to burst like the market bubble.

Management and its bedfellows had better stay alert these days.  The masses are expecting results.  The investors have higher expectations these days.  The public has higher expectations of corporate managers, too.  Keep your eye out for the bold and brazen businessmen who sip brandy from goblets and snifters as they puff on imported Cuban cigars in exclusive clubs and brag about the mess that they made of a merger for the sake of corporate integrity.  For the sake of corporate integrity? Imagine that.  It seems to be more at the sacrifice of corporate integrity.

Decision Division

 ²⁶ They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land.

30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

- Numbers 13:26, 30-32 (NIV)



I read this book some time ago and still regard it as a revealing study in leading God's people.


Here is a lesson for some would-be promise-seeker in 2011.  Let His promises drown out the pessimists, the 'problem-seers."  The difference between problem-seers and promise-seekers is vast and wide.  They are almost galaxies apart. 

Problem-seers are exactly that; they only see the problem.  They have sat and thought of every imaginable way to solve their problem on their own and in their own power, but they just can't seem to match up with their obstacles or opposition.  They only see the problem.  These people argued from a pessimistic position in response to Caleb's promise-seeking perspective.  There objection started with "We can't" and went on from there.

Remember that, when you start failing to see your opportunities from the right perspective, you can easily become objectionable, outspoken and obstinate. Don't let that be you.  Take on positive thinking and see the possibilities that exist beyond the problems that you face.

Promise-seeking looks beyond the problem.  When you seek the promises of God, you do not simply see problems.  You seek His promises.  You are aware of His presence and rely upon His power to solve the problems in order to deliver on His promises.  God is a problem-solver in order to remain a promise-keeper.  The believer's stance should be that of a promise-seeker, benefiting from the blessing of God's unleashed power to solve even the most gigantic of problems.

Caleb saw more than giant-sized occupants of the land.  He saw a land promised to God's people by the same God who delivered this very people out of enslavement and hardships.  He recognized that the same Almighty God- I AM- had provided for them with safety and supply, even in a wilderness environment.  Caleb knew what God was capable of from what he had witnessed.

Outnumbered by nays to yeas? Seek God's promises.  Put down for standing up? Seek His promises.  Trouble and conflict keep finding their way to you, even in church? Keep seeking His promises.  God is faithful. He expects us to be as well.  He rewards the promise-seeker as He proves Himself as a promise-keeper.

Grasshoppers get squashed by giants when they fail to:

• Recall God's promises
• Recognize God's presence
• Rely on God's power
• Receive God's provision