Kingdom Institute

You likely didn’t get into ministry with the hope of getting rich. In fact, you’re probably putting in long days of work for much less pay than you’d make if you had never responded to God’s call to ministry. But the Lord still wants to bless you financially. He wants you to get out of debt so you can be financially free.

The Bible is filled with incredible promises of financial blessing that lead to financial freedom. But every promise in God’s Word has a premise. God always attaches a step of faith to his promises.

Here are eight habits that lead to financial blessing:

Trust God to be your source and supply. Deuteronomy 8:18 says, “But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (NIV).
Our jobs are not our suppliers. They are tools God uses to provide for our needs. When we forget this, we start to worry.

Worry is the warning light that we are trusting something other than God for our security and our supply. If that’s where you are right now, ask yourself: “What or who am I trusting to provide for me rather than God?”

Do your work as an act of worship. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly as though you were working for your real master and not merely for humans” (GW).
It doesn’t matter if you’re pastoring a church or sweeping the streets, God wants you to see your job as a way to honor him.

At first glance, that’s easy for those of us in full-time ministry. But we all have parts of our jobs we don’t like as much as others. God wants us to put our whole hearts into everything we do—not just the things we enjoy doing.

Keep good records of your finances. Proverbs 27:23 says, “Know well the condition of your flock, and pay attention to your herds” (CSB).
When the Bible urges us to “know the condition of your flock,” it’s describing how carefully we should watch our money. In biblical times, wealth was measured in the livestock people owned. We should know where our money is going, too. If you don’t know where your money is going, you’re already in trouble.

Give 10 percent back to God. Proverbs 3:9 says, “Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first produce of your entire harvest” (CSB).
God doesn’t need our money. He could have asked us to give 90 percent of our money back to him. He doesn’t want our money; he wants what it represents—our lives.

Save and invest for the future. Proverbs 21:20 says, “Wise people’s houses are full of the best foods and olive oil, but fools waste everything they have” (NCV).
God’s IQ test is our savings. Proverbs 21:20 tells us we’re foolish if we don’t save. And it’s not even about how much you save. It’s how consistently you’re doing it. Sadly, most people don’t save or invest because they spend everything they make.

Set up a repayment plan to get rid of your debt. Proverbs 3:27-28 says, “Don’t withhold repayment of your debts. Don’t say ‘some other time,’ if you can pay now” (TLB).
God wants us to get out of debt so we can be more responsive to him. If you’re in debt, you’re in bo***ge to that debt.

Budget your spending. Proverbs 21:5 says, “If you plan and work hard, you will have plenty; if you get in a hurry, you will end up poor” (CEV).
A budget is simply a plan that tells your money where to go, so you control it rather than it controlling you. When you don’t have a plan, you’re more likely to spend impulsively, which leads to debt.

Enjoy what you have. Ecclesiastes 6:9 says, “It’s better to enjoy what we have than to always want something else, because that makes no more sense than chasing the wind” (CEV).
God’s blessing comes when we’re satisfied with what we have rather than complain about what we don’t have. Don’t get caught up in the rat race of wanting more and more.

As you consistently live out these eight habits that lead to financial blessing, know that God is faithful to his promises.

Confronting Compromise: Stand for truth, no matter what

As leaders, we don’t get to write the script for our lives ahead of time, and there’s no way to predict the future and there’s no way to control every circumstance. The only thing we can control is our response. If we simply respond impulsively in the moment to the circumstances of the moment, we have no guarantee that our decision will be the right one. Instead, we must decide beforehand that, no matter what, we will not be redirected from the purpose God has called us to and we will not compromise the truth of who He is.

In early 2020, no one could have predicted the year we were heading into. Nothing could have prepared us for the chaos, uncertainty and outright craziness that we faced. By the grace of God, most of us survived the year. Churches adapted and refocused, taking services virtual and caring for people in crisis. Ministries redirected resources and redeployed in new directions. Businesses regrouped and adjusted strategies to respond to disruptive new realities.

But in the midst of it all, there were some who not only survived, but thrived. They leveraged new opportunities, stepped out in faith, pursued God through it all. In fact, many leaders and pastors were forced to confront where they had compromised in vision, in implementation, or in excellence. It was the perfect opportunity to make changes, which resulted in making a bigger impact.

THRIVING VS. SURVIVING

What’s the difference? Surviving is existing, breathing, continuing; thriving is growing, building, expanding. Surviving is paying the bills, paying the rent, paying the mortgage; thriving is paying someone else’s bills, someone else’s rent, someone else’s mortgage. Surviving is accepting; thriving is attacking. Surviving is hunkering down; thriving is building. Surviving is living by natural instinct; thriving is living by supernatural power.

Some leaders look at the world in flames and say to themselves, I’ll just wait until everything blows over to start something new or change the way I’m currently doing things.

The problem is, there will always be something that stands in the way of achieving the purpose God has placed on our lives. Were we to be truthful with ourselves, we’d admit that our instinct is usually to retreat rather than advance. If we allow the circumstances to delay or distract us, we’re like the man described in Proverbs who won’t leave his house: “The sluggard says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the public square!” (22:13)

There will always be a “lion in the street.” If we wait for the lion to leave, (or tiger because I went to LSU), we’ll never make a move.

It comes down to one simple decision, a mindset that says, “No matter what happens, no matter what takes place in my life or in the life of the organization I lead, I’m not going to compromise. I’m not going to change or alter, or I’m not going to allow anything that happens in this world to disconnect me from what God wants to do through me.”

There's no way to predict the future, and there's no way to control every circumstance. The only thing we can control is our response. - Joe Champion Click To Tweet
THE POWER OF OPPOSITION

We see this consistently in Scripture: opposition, threats and hostility provide an atmosphere for God to do something that would not happen under normal circumstances.

The Israelites, enslaved in Egypt, multiplied to such an extent that it terrified their Egyptian masters: “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so, the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly” (Exodus 1:12,13).

In other words, Egypt (like the world today) was doing whatever it could to apply pressure to God’s people, to force them to just give up and accept an enslaved mindset, to buckle under the weight of all the oppression.

But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, they just kept thriving, expanding, growing, multiplying. What was in them and what covered and enveloped them was greater than the Egyptians’ control over them. It was the favor of God over their lives.

The same principle applied to the early church. As the gospel spread, it was resisted by the Jewish authorities and the Roman government—along with all the powers of darkness. One by one, followers of Jesus were imprisoned, persecuted and even killed. We can hardly comprehend this in today’s western church. Yet, despite persecution, the church grew, multiplied, and made an amazing impact. Within a few hundred years, Christianity covered the Roman world. All this happened, not in ideal circumstances, but in the midst of opposition and bloody resistance.

The same principle that caused the Egyptians to multiply under slavery and the early church to explode under the thumb of the Roman Empire can work in us today. We live in a world that is doing whatever it can to drive the Word of God out of us and, with it, to drive out righteousness and holiness. But there needs to be something that is on the inside of us that resists this with all our might.

When this happens, the power of God will actually become more real to us in oppression than it is in prosperity. This seems counterintuitive, but it’s a biblical principle. When we are in crisis, it disengages us from this world and it causes us to hunger and thirst for God’s presence. When people come to Celebration Church in Austin, we want them to leave with a taste in their mouths that makes them want to come back for more. It’s like prime Texas barbecue or a perfectly seasoned Louisiana gumbo. We see through scriptures and I have witnessed in years of ministry, that the people who are most pain-filled are also the most desperate for God to do what only He can do.

This is because the weapons we are given access to in His presence are supernatural—not natural. As Paul writes, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4,5).

And when leaders quit living in prayer, quit living in fasting, quit living in the presence of God, they are wide open to be destroyed by the enemy. Instead of thriving, they’re just surviving, walking in fear and trepidation. In other words, there’s always a “lion in the road.”

RECIPE FOR RESILIENCE

So, what is it that will put us on the offensive, that will cause us to multiply in the midst of crisis, to thrive rather than just survive when everything around us is in chaos? I believe there are five simple principles, and they are modeled in the life of Daniel.

Exiled in Babylon, Daniel had distinguished himself above the pagan wise men in the king’s court with his supernatural insight. Of course, this invited jealousy and opposition from his enemies, and they sought to discredit him and portray him as disloyal to the king, by entrapping him in the one area he had most distinguished himself.

What was it that was distinct about Daniel? What was the only thing that they could get him on? It was his prayer life. He wouldn’t compromise his relationship with God. So, they manipulated the king to pass a law banning prayer to anyone but the king.

Like Daniel, Satan is attacking your prayer life. If he gets a leader’s prayer life, he gets their thought life, their faith life, their influence. Everything. If Satan can keep you from talking to God, he will do his talking to you.

Of course, we’re familiar with the story of Daniel. He held strong and thrived in the midst of opposition. On the other side of the lion’s den, he regained his stature and influence, and his enemies were defeated. But what were the principles that drove Daniel’s faithfulness and caused him to be fruitful and thrive in the midst of unspeakably difficult situations?

Stand for God

Daniel could have continued praying, but done so secretly, and possibly avoided exposure and arrest. But he didn’t. “Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (Daniel 6:10, emphasis added). Daniel stood for God. He was undeterred by the surrounding culture that disdained him and his God.

At some point—perhaps sooner, rather than later—you and the church or organization you lead will be given a choice: compromise or lose your influence, privileges, access, money or rights. You will be slandered, written about, ridiculed, and maybe even protested like we have been. If you don’t choose to stand for God in those moments, you won’t stand for anything. We can look at the world around us and see the unrighteousness and pray that the world will repent. However, the world will not repent unless it sees the people of God standing up for truth. When the church sets a standard of holiness, the world will see the difference. If we compromise, what reason will they have to do so? No matter what, we stand for God.

Worship

Paul writes, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1). No matter what, we worship. This is closely tied to the first principle. The reason there are martyrs in the world is because people stood for God in the face of opposition. But they didn’t just stand. Like Daniel, they openly declared in worship their allegiance to God. As Paul says, worship is not just an internal alignment, but it is the presentation of our entire lives—body, soul and spirit—as a living sacrifice.

Serve
Crisis can often cause us to become consumed with self-interest, to protect that which is ours, to preserve our autonomy and control. However, it is in these moments when God calls us to reach outside ourselves and serve—no matter what. Daniel’s service to the king and his fellow Jews in exile in Babylon continued, even as his life circumstances became tenuous. He recognized that the service he rendered was actually done for God. We have always led our church to serve our city and serving has never been more appreciated than it is right now.

Are you serving others in some capacity? At some point you’ve got to step up and begin to invest in others, recognizing that the reason you are who you are is that someone else took the same initiative to invest in you and created an opportunity for you to encounter God.

Pray
In Luke 18:1, Jesus told a parable of an unjust judge and a persistent widow who wouldn’t leave him alone, finally—due to her persistence—securing from him the justice she wanted. The reason Jesus gives for telling this parable is “to show [His disciples] that they should always pray and not give up.”

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll recognize that our anxiety level is tied to our prayer level. Every metric of our effectiveness or failure as leaders can be tied to our persistence in praying—no matter what. Daniel’s unwillingness to hide his commitment to prayer was what landed him in the den of lions, but I can assure you, it was his prayers that led him out of the den in one piece.

Trust God
Finally, we have a choice—when we have been obedient in standing for God, worshipping, serving and praying—to allow God to do His part. We trust God, no matter what. Like Daniel, we must have unshakeable confidence that what God has promised He will accomplish, that He will be faithful to fulfill His purposes in and through us, no matter what circumstances we face.

While we may be impressed with Daniel’s boldness in standing up to the pagan king’s blasphemous demands, even more impressive is his quiet certainty—while surrounded by ravenous lions—that God was in control, no matter what.

We don’t know what the future holds. I found it amazing (and a little amusing) that, emerging from the chaos of 2020, many people breathed a sigh of relief, perhaps assuming that the year of the pandemic was the worst year they would ever have to endure and that things could not possibly get any worse. But we have no guarantee of that. However, our confidence as leaders is that God’s purpose for our lives and ministries has not changed and we can trust him with an unknown future. So, let’s confront where we have compromised in our faith, values, and disciplines and let’s be reminded that God has called us for moments like this. We will trust Him, no matter what.

Compromise Conflict Joe Champion Truth Sep 02, 2021

What Are Humans? Animals, Mammals, or Neither?

by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on August 28, 2019

Are you an animal? Are you a mammal? People eager to use words correctly want to know!

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Are you an animal? If a man eats with deplorable table manners, his wife might ask him if he had been raised in a barn. If the guy down the street behaves wildly, you might call him an animal, though not to his face. If you hear on the news of a couple like Bonnie and Clyde going on a murder spree, you might remark that they are behaving like animals.

THE VERY FACT THAT WE MIGHT DERISIVELY CALL SOMEONE AN ANIMAL BASED ON “ANIMAL-LIKE” BEHAVIOR ILLUSTRATES THE FACT THAT WE HUMANS GENERALLY CONSIDER OURSELVES DIFFERENT FROM ANIMALS.

What is it about these behaviors that prompts us to call a fellow human an animal, whether in jest or seriously? It is any behavior that we deem less than civilized, behavior that we associate with animals more than with humans. But do those behaviors mean those individuals are actually animals? Of course not. The very fact that we might derisively call someone an animal based on “animal-like” behavior illustrates the fact that we humans generally consider ourselves different from animals.

Another indication of the general understanding that humans and animals are fundamentally different is found in our dietary choices. Your non-vegetarian neighbors eat animals, and this probably does not bother you. But if your neighbors included humans on their meaty menu, you would hesitate to go outside and you certainly would not attend their barbecue.

And what about the testing of new medicines? Thanks to ethical concerns for the welfare of animals, you might not be too happy about the latest drugs being tested first on animals, and you would doubtless demand any testing be conducted in a humane fashion, but you’d be a lot more unhappy to think they were initially tested on humans. Ethical concerns about the treatment of animals and moral aversion to cannibalism both reflect the common assumption that humans are not animals. Humans are in a special category all to themselves.

Context and Worldview
In ordinary, non-scientific conversation, the word animal excludes humans. In fact, if you hear someone consistently lumping humans in with animals in a non-scientific context, you probably have a clue about his or her worldview. People with an evolutionary worldview believe that all multicellular organisms evolved from single-celled organisms, with animals, plants, protists (such as multicellular algae), and fungi comprising the main lines of descent. Thus in an evolutionary worldview, humans are just highly evolved animals. Humans are not fundamentally different from animals according to an evolutionary worldview.

AS THE DIRECT DESCENDANTS OF THE TWO PEOPLE GOD MADE, WE TOO ARE MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE.

On the other hand, humans are fundamentally different from animals due to our unique origins, according to a biblical worldview. A person with a biblical worldview understands that God created the first humans in his image distinct from animals. As the direct descendants of the two people God made, we too are made in God’s image. Humans, not animals, are, in Genesis 1:26, given dominion over the earth, and that includes the animals. Thanks to this distinction, humans are accountable for moral choices in a way that does not apply to animals. And humans have the unique capacity to communicate with God, our Creator. Despite our sins, we may be restored to fellowship with God through the shed blood of God’s Son Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man.

Twenty Questions

The game twenty questions typically opens by indicating whether the secret word is “animal, vegetable (or plant), or mineral.” For instance, a wooden table and chair would be “vegetable” because they were made from a plant—wood from a tree. A silver spoon or a painted rock would be “mineral.” And a chimpanzee or a puppy would be “animal.” So would your grandmother. But you’d probably feel uncomfortable referring to your grandmother as “animal” for the reasons we’ve outlined above. Such a categorization would be insulting. Nevertheless, placing all that surrounds us into proper categories based on similarities is not just something we do in the game of twenty questions. It is also something we routinely do in science.

Biology is the study of living organisms. Many organisms are single-celled. Multicellular organisms belong to one of four groups, or kingdoms—Animalia, Plantae, Protista, or Fungi. Just exactly how many kingdoms living things should be divided into has varied a good bit over the years. Most of these changes have been based on the way single-celled organisms are classified, and usually on the basis of the increasing knowledge available about them as technology has advanced. Nevertheless, biological classification—or taxonomy—has historically been mostly based on shared observable characteristics.

What It Is, Or Where It Presumably Came From?
In an effort to fine-tune biological classifications, there has been a modern trend toward considering the evolutionary origins of living things when categorizing them. Classification according to observable characteristics is called Linnaean taxonomy, because in the 18th century Carolus Linnaeus developed this practical classification system based on the similarities and differences among living things. However, since the mid-20th century presumed phylogenetic considerations about the evolutionary relationships of living things over the unobservable millions of years has become increasingly popular, especially since the advent of technology to allow detailed comparison of DNA.

For example, the evolutionary claim that birds are the evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs has led to the notion that birds are dinosaurs. This “phylogenetic” line of thinking therefore sees birds as reptiles. Some authorities now also technically consider mammals to be reptiles too, though not dinosaurs. Both birds and mammals are believed by evolutionists to be distant descendants of the original reptile, with the mammalian branch and the dinosaur-bird branches separated by millions of years of evolutionary divergence. Is it possible to know that these evolutionary relationships are true? Did any scientist observe these alleged evolutionary divergences? No. These claims are based on anatomical and genetic comparisons of living creatures as well as the observable characteristics of fossils viewed through evolutionary assumptions.

What Is an Animal, Anyway?
SCIENTIFICALLY SPEAKING, WHAT IS AN ANIMAL?
So, scientifically speaking, what is an animal? Animals are multicellular organisms that must consume organic matter and breathe oxygen to stay alive and are generally able to move. Animals are also generally able to reproduce sexually, through the combination of gametes (egg and s***m) to form a zygote. An animal zygote then develops into a hollow ball of cells before going on to develop into a more mature form. Humans and hamsters both fall into this “animal” category, whereas apple trees and mushrooms do not. Based on observable biological characteristics only, then, without dependence on evolutionary assumptions, humans could technically be considered animals.

Yet humans do differ from animals. Recognition of this fact, even in the biological sciences, is acknowledged in the fact that zoology is the study of non-human animals. And despite the many anatomical and genetic characteristics we share with animals—footprints of the wisdom of our common designer, the Creator God—humans possess many anatomical traits, substantial genetic differences, and unique behaviors and abilities that no animal exhibits.

So, are humans animals by definition? The answer depends on the context of the question. If the question is purely a biological one in which all living things must be classified in the appropriate category, then the answer would be “yes” simply because the kingdom Animalia is the only one open to us. This is the case even apart from any evolutionary claims, as humans share all the necessary observable characteristics required for inclusion in the animal kingdom. Linnaeus, operating from a biblical worldview, placed humans—dubbed Homo sapiens—in the kingdom Animalia. Of course, evolutionary thinkers see humans as merely highly evolved animals based on their presumptions about the origins of all living things. In any other non-evolutionary context, however, the answer is “no”; humans are distinct from animals.

Are We Mammals?
If humans are not really animals, except in the purest biological sense, then why do we classify humans as mammals? The answer is again one of context. The word animal is routinely used in non-biological ways in ordinary conversation, and in those contexts humans are distinctly different from animals. However, the word mammal automatically carries scientific implications.

Remember that classification system business in which all living things must belong to a particular kingdom, with four kingdoms in the current taxonomic system containing multicellular organisms. Well, the modern version of the Linnaean classification system that includes all animals in the kingdom Animalia has a number of subcategories also based on observable shared characteristics. Those subcategories include phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. One of the classes in the Animalia kingdom is Mammalia.

Mammals are member of the Mammalia class. What characteristics do mammals share? The list has been refined since Linnaeus gave us his in the 18th century. Mammals are warm-blooded and breathe air. They have mammary glands with which females can feed their young. Mammals, including whales, possess some sort of hair or fur at some time in their lives, however sparse it might be. In addition, mammalian brains include a neocortex in which many higher order brain functions take place. Mammals have three bones in the middle ear and a lower jaw consisting of a single bone. Mammalian teeth are replaced no more than once over a lifetime. Mammalian hearts are all four-chambered, and mammals all have diaphragms to aid their breathing. By these criteria, humans would qualify as mammals.

Extinct Mammals
When it comes to classifying fossils of extinct animals, the presence of tissues observable only in living creatures, such as mammary glands, must be overlooked in favor of characteristics that can survive the fossilization process. Some of these characteristics are seen in all living mammals. These include, for example, a characteristic jaw joint attaching the single-boned lower jaw to the skull. Another example is the presence of two knobby bones at the base of the skull where the head articulates with the vertebral bones. If soft tissues and evidence of skin appendages like fur have been destroyed, only such traits as these can offer clues as to whether an animal was a mammal or not. Fossils certainly cannot nurse their young! Yet so often we see a news article reporting the discovery of a mammalian ancestor millions of years old.

Not surprisingly, as with other categories in biology, the modern tendency to include presumed evolutionary relationships in the classification scheme has led to some modifications. Furthermore, many evolutionary assumptions color the classification of fossils, as the fossil record is viewed by evolutionists as the fragmented record of evolutionary relationships over millions of years. And fossils themselves are often fragmented. Thus, in determining whether or not a particular fossil is mammalian or not typically involved not only the study of its observable characteristics but also assumptions about traits that are not in evidence and how those heritable traits may have changed over great spans of time. Such assumptions, within an evolutionary worldview, could suggest that reptiles diverged to produce the first mammal from which all mammals eventually evolved. Given that observational science has never demonstrated any way in which one kind of creature can obtain the genetic information to change into a new, completely different kind of creature, we must ignore the claims about mammalian evolutionary origins when considering how humans fit into the world of mammals.

WHETHER OR NOT A FOSSIL IS IDENTIFIED AS “HUMAN” OFTEN DEPENDS ON A CHECKLIST OF CHARACTERISTICS.
Fossilized bones that appear to have belonged to either an ape or human offer a particular challenge. You might think that it would be easy to tell whether old bones belonged to a person or an animal, but it can be tricky. Humans do share some characteristics with primate animals, so a partial skeleton or just a few isolated bones might not contain the necessary bits to make identification clear. This is especially a problem if you recall that there are some extinct varieties of humans, such as Neanderthals, who have some skeletal differences when compared with modern humans. Paleontologists trying to identify fossils can make mistakes as they examine bones possessing the common designs we humans share with many animals. Whether or not a fossil is identified as “human” often depends on a checklist of characteristics. This could leave someone thinking a human is nothing more than a sum of the appropriate parts, especially if the paleontologist has an evolutionary worldview that views humans as just highly evolved animals that have acquired the necessary parts to cross the line into humanity.

Are We Mammals?
So, are humans mammals? Yes. This question is one of scientific classification. And no matter what classification scheme one adheres to, humans fall into the mammalian category. Classifying humans as mammals—or biologically even as “mammalian animals”—should in no way imply belief that humans are the products of evolution. A mammalian classification is merely an acknowledgement of the many design features we share with many of the animals God created.

Though we are mammals, humans are nothing less than the amazing beings God created a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:4-5). Just as Linnaeus included humans in the Animal Kingdom, so we modern Bible believers can consider humans to be— in the scientific and biological contexts—both animals and mammals. Yet we are so much more. God created humans in his own image, distinct and separate from any other living thing he created. And our Creator God is so mindful of us that He sent Jesus Christ into the world as a human to take the penalty for our sin on himself so that we may have eternal life with him in heaven.