How to Be Productive for God, Society, Family, and Yourself?
Point Number One: Get a Lot of Rest
Wow, are you gonna need it? So if you get rest, you can be your best.
Point Number Two: It's Not About You - It's 100% God to Begin
Now, you have to participate, you have to be diligent, you have to be excited about it. You have to want to. But Who made you? Who gifted you? Who set you in certain places?
You know, God exalts people to offices of opportunity on His good timing. You know, we all laugh when God said, "Take no thought in that hour when they drag you in front of the councils and the chairman and they take you before the city and they try to, when they set you before the governors and the city founders and they ask you to articulate who do you believe? Who do you love? Why are you so passionate? Defend your position. Who are you to come tell us this new thing. Don't be careful. Don't be hesitant. Don't be fearful. Be courageous. Step up. Push the button. I will be with you. I will fill your soul, your spirit, your intellect, your mouth. I'll give you the tone, the tenacity, the diligence, the completion. It won't be just your eloquence. For people will take note that this person has spent time with Jesus and when they're in the presence of Jesus, it's just abundantly obvious that He does things superior, better, superfluous, above, beyond, overcapacity."
So, yes, a measure of diligence, a matter of willingness, but really comes down to your giftings, because the Holy Spirit, at the point of salvation, He not only sealed Himself within you, He becomes your source of new and better lasting, durable, divine comfort.
He promises never to leave. He will increase, heighten the awareness of your conscience, your sensitivity to things of spiritual nature. He'll provide a guide, a whisper, His gentle general nudges, He heightens your discernment.
But here's the thing, God is in the gifting business. And when He gives individuals a gift, you have gifts that are not your own. You're bought with the price, your skill set, your various gifts, they are yours to use, they are on loan to you, they are temporarily not your soul possession, but they're in your hands, your responsibility to utilize the gifts that you have.
Now, can a man who has received a gift glory as so he generated his own gift, no, the only way to exercise, to properly utilize the gifts is you can glory in that you employed the gift, like you exercised the gift. You gave the gift opportunity and space to flourish and grow and develop and blossom and become all that the gift should become while in your care.
You know, like the talents, when they, when the good master went away on a trip and he gave you the five talents, he was fully expecting that you would utilize the five talents to become more, significantly more. And if you do well, it should be come 10 talents, which means put your gifts in play.
You Don't Have to Force It - Let It Flow
All this to say how to be a productive human. You don't have to really force it. Now you do have to use it. You have to let it flow.
When Jesus said, "Come unto me, I'll use that labor," I'm going to add some context. I don't think I'm stretching Scripture. I'm saying if you're laboring and you're getting exhausted because life is labor. Everyone's got to work. Everyone's got to breathe. Everyone's got to move. But come on to me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Now the rest He spoke about is not 100% deep REM sleep. It was take my yoke upon you, like come to my job site, work alongside me, you will experience a new level of partnership, competency, cohesion, like you'll appreciate the flow of the labor here.
Somebody's got to toil till the field. Somebody's got to smash the hammer. Somebody's got to carve the thing. Like productivity is still going to happen in the world. Business will go forward. Monday through Friday, we're going to earn food, we're going to make transactions, we're going to shake hands and smile and make the connections dial the phone. We're going to work in business somewhere.
However, it's the unexplainable spiritual reality of the presence of the participation of the right partnership that gives your corporate culture this sense of spiritual elevation where you are on fire with God for God your loving life you are loving work it's a whole new world my yoke is easy my burden is light it's better it's fluid over here it flows out you'll be like rivers of living water will flow out of your belly you won't it won't have to be oppressed or stressed or overly overwhelmed overwhelmed.
You'll be doing it for the master, for the purpose, for eternity, joy of the Lord, full of the Spirit. You'll have access to the abundant life.
Be Around Diligent People
So how to be productive? Number next one, if there is such a thing, if we're numbering, I know you're probably not, or maybe you are taking good notes is be around diligent people you know and if if we assimilate that which with the with which we associate certainly the most diligent individual you have ever met in this lifetime is the life giver the creator I mean look to your left can you just pause breathe and look to your left you see all that over there look at that look at what He get over there.
I mean that's just the left hand. I mean the trees and the grass and everything and the construction and the sky. Tell me about the sky. What do you know about the sky? What's the composition? What's the mix of the ratio of components? How much nitrogen is in the air? What are you breathing? You know, this oxygen. Who cleans the sky? Who makes the air? You can't even see the air. How heavy are the clouds. How much are the clouds? How far away are the clouds?
You know, does it take any diligence to uphold all things by the word of His power? By Him, all things consist. He's the collaborator, the conglomerator. He's the cohesion. He's the connection. He's the everything. He's Who makes the lightning. Who makes the thunder? You know, what? Who are you to live an productive lifestyle if you claim to be a thing made by the greatest maker. Like shouldn't you reflect the glory of God by maximizing the design of the designer that He has placed on you as a signature of His identity?
Are you not on the team with the greatest producer of all time, you know, this whole word production, it has to resonate. It's not just a matter of a factory or, you know, the word production. What does it do to your imagination? Do you think about the Model T Ford and the production line? Do you think of assembly? Do you think of maybe a soap factory? It's like, oh, they're very productive.
Now, the word production is to produce a product, right? it's to kick out outputs. Now productive, you think of a productive person, you think of a person that's in motion, they are animated, they are ambitious, they are driven, they are productive, what they produce has lasting value.
A producer must be producing and the best way to produce is to be in the company of the one Who trained you how to be productive, you know physically speaking humanly speaking our fathers we had a mentor. We had a model. We had a pattern explained to us that this is the time this is what we do. This is where we go. This is how we do it. This is the system so the diligence of others is contagious.
That's true. However, is not our God the greatest producer? David showed up on the battlefield. Is there not a cause? So be around productive, be around the God of all productivity, the source of all energy, the self-sustaining one, the one Who gives us the drive, the desire, the will, to work, and to serve, and to go, and to be, and to do, and to have, and to give.
To be an overly productive person, God. Number two, hard workers, be around the diligent, and then number three, push the button.
Push the Button
I love this line, push the button. And I like what one pastor said one time. He said, be sensitive to every spiritual impulse.
Now, we are containers. Our body is a vessel. Maybe we're just a big windbag. But when in the course of human events to become self-evident that there's some swelling of content and there's a bubbling over and there's a gonna be an outflow and you've got something to say. What I'm encouraging you to do today is to grab your smartphone and to push the big red button. It's normally red. It's a big red button. You know where it is. I'm overemphasizing. I'm using humor and sarcasm to get your attention and to shake you left and right and shake you back and forth.
And I gotta tell you this. I'm not 10 because if you don't push the button, you're not sharing with the next generation. You're not capturing the content. You're not honoring the God Who gave you the idea. So my idea is not worth sharing. Who told you that lie? Who told you that your personality is shaded and that you are tainted and that you are unworthy and that nothing, that God can't do anything through you.
What if your personality, I mean, do we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us? Is there evidence of His personal participation in our word selection, our tone, our personality? Could not and did not God work historically through the fathers and the prophets? Cannot He pick up a dirty crusty pen and write beautiful penmanship? Can God not use a crooked stick? Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Are we limiting the most high? Are we unbelieving that God makes things possible?
Who are you to contaminate the Holy? Who are you to prevent the flow of goodness? If God has something to say, it doesn't matter if there's an audience. I have no idea who the audience is when I'm producing this content. I just know that me and God have something worthy of sharing and I push the red button.
"Thou Shalt Not Come Up with Excuses"
"Thou shalt not come up with excuses." I'll give you 16 excuses that are inadmissible in this court of law.
Number one, "I don't have the equipment." You do have the equipment, sir. What is that in thine hand, Moses? It's a stake. Fine. Drop the stake on the ground and see the snake see what God can do let it go see what God can do right well I don't have stop the I don't have work with what you do have do you have a smart phone well does the smartphone have a large red button I don't use that app that's fear Bible says the fearful and the unbelieving those are the top two things preventing people from going to heaven. Number one is fear.
Fear comes from who we are trusting. When I'm trusting myself, of course I'm supposed to be afraid. Who wouldn't be fearful if all they had was their own power? If we by our own power have made this man to walk again, it was not my own power, it's the flow of the fire of the electricity of the power of God. Listen up, men and brethren. Let me freely speak unto you that it was His name. Jesus of Nazareth hath made this man whole. It's not me. It's we. It's mostly He Who is working through us. You know, He's the wow. All the glory gives to God.
All right. So anyway, push the button. I cannot, I cannot properly provide you enough enthusiasm or zeal or encouragement or sharpening of the sword, the grating iron, sharpening iron. I cannot properly provide the polish or the sandpaper of any sort of encouragement or edification or build up enough sufficient to just encourage my fellow brothers and sisters, children, teenagers, handmaids of the Lord to plush the button.
I can't do it because there's not enough content. Oh, there's a oh, you know, I've heard excuses like, oh, it's overly saturated out there in the world. There's too much content already. I mean, there's already, you know, however many hours of content is, yeah, these are all excuses and God is not a fan of excuses. Look what He did with Moses. They were invalid, unwarranted excuses. He that believeth shall not be ashamed. Those who are not ashamed, they find the button and they push the button.
It makes me want to punch like I literally almost punched a hole through my window. I broke this handle on the door of my car earlier because I want my fellow believers to believe in God enough to push the button but they will not push the button for lack of content the world is starving spiritually for lack of content is the seed yet in the barn is the truth yet in your lungs why are life.
You have the cure for cancer. You have everlasting truth glowing through your skin. You have the countenance lit on the lava fire from on high, and you will not pour the baton.
Why do believers not believe? We will because of the unbelief of the heathen world, we, we who hold forth the light of the glorious Gospel, we hide it under a bushel. Believers believing enough to broadcast, "I don't have a voice, it's not your voice! You don't own the intellectual property to your personality! Who told you that you were your own God, that you could rule that you had do you have title can you show me the title deed where you are the person that controls your face and your body and your voice and your intellect are you the one in charge or are you a steward are you in fact a caretaker have you been gifted with intellect and articulation and verbosity and what is it called now?"
Brevelloquence. I like that word. I just learned it the other day. Brevelloquence. It means to speak spicy, short, distinctive, clarifying, haiku, snappy, powerful, pungent, condensed, simplified, passionate, zealous language that delivers the truth. Brevelloquence. Brevellequence, briefly eloquent.
You know, Apollos should be one of your heroes of the faith. Only good things, spoken of Apollos. He was zealous. He was diligent. He articulated. He took the time. He was out there. He was doing something. He pushed the button. The apostle Paul. The apostle Paul pushed the button. He pushed the button when he was in prison.
If someone gave you two years in prison a big pile of paper and unlimited pens and locked you in a pen said you have a nine by nine cell as your home you are free to breathe we will feed you food you have unlimited paper and unlimited pen but that's it what would you allow God to flow through that pen onto that paper?
Did Paul know how far his letters would go? Did Paul see the overreaching abundant overflow? God did not come to Paul that we know of and tell him, "Paul, I tell you of assurity that what you're writing today will be read by 10,000 he would have blown is my 10,000 people. What do you mean? 10 - well, the Holy Ghost is flowing through the person in the pen of Paul unto Papyrus the Parchments to reach the people of the Philippines what where's the Philippines? I've never heard of it before. Is that like the Philippians? No, you're writing the letter to the Philippians, but the letter to the Philippians will be so carried forth by the actual author because the author inspires holy men of God who are moved by the Holy Ghost, spake, as they were directed and God worked through them. He's the primary. He's the originator. He's the capital A author and we are just the humble pen."
But dear Paul, I don't believe he was ever promised that his work, his labor of love while in oppressive chains, rats, torture. Give me a pen. And under pressure, I will pour forth the glories of the God Who gifts me with the opportunity to share with you the Gospel. He says, "All these things have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel." I love that. Not as you supposed, but rather all this pressure, all this stoning and beating. It's all fallen out rather, fit together so beautifully well. It all unfolded. It just became architecturally glorious in how every section, no matter how the devil tried to work it for our evil, the opposition was met by the great omnipotent. One and He wove together a beautiful tapestry of outflow so that my letter to the Philippians, including the Philippian jailer will be then transposed and put into the language of the Philippines, which might have not even been a nation during the time of Paul's incarceration.
Use Up Your Energy to Qualify for a Refill
Another thing about productive people is they use up what energy they have and thereby qualify for a refill because if you have exhausted all of your earthly resources and you all of your your physical health is gone and you've run the race and you've come to the mile 37 and you're like I am in total collapse. My nutrition, my water, my bioavailable resources are at the end. The Bible says the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity and you're carried on by the fumes of the spiritual. This ethereal uplift, this everlasting drive, this internal, eternal, starts the churn and the burn and takes over and when the body leaves off, the soul and the spirit, the mind, the tenacity, the Holy Ghost takes you to another level.
And I'm telling you that productive people have fully produced all that can be produced and they've poured it out on the table. They are being used as a funnel tunnel to bring the news to those who need it, and when you have fully exhausted your horde of resources, when our feeble time, energy is at the end, we run out of language, then God says, "I will refill a vessel that poured forth all, like the lady with the oil, the cruise, pouring forth supernatural from the source."
He is self-sustaining. He has all the energy. God knows that our body needs oxygen and also the infusion of His Spirit. Who is God most likely to infuse with a fresh anointing of His Spirit. Somebody who is half full and they are holding and hoarding the truth for themselves, their cruise, their bottle of oil is half full or somebody who's out there just pouring it out, delivering it, bringing the noise, filling another jug, trying to be a servant, helping another and pushing the button, pushing out content, producing good news, being a distributor.
God appreciates productive people. Many have theorized as to why God would select the most ardent, animated, animositus, aggravated, angry, little, Napoleon-like man named Saul this guy Saul was a ballistic missile. He was driven. He wanted to be a political power and a financial gain. He was all about his name and he went out and he harassed and he crushed and he arrested and he destroyed and he decimated this way putting people in prison chopping off their head. He was the worst. He was the preacher killer and yet God said, "That guy," and many people have theorized, you know, God was maybe approving a point, who knows.
God works with unlikely people, but He doesn't work with lazy people. He will work with people who are willing to work, right? if there be first a willing mind, willing heart, willing soul, willing spirit, someone who has a proven track record of attempting great things, can then be directed to participate in partnership with God. All through Scripture, God never used a lazy person.
Now, there's a certain point at which He stops with stubborn people. He'll give Pharaoh 10 plus opportunities. He'll give him a pattern of options to choose righteousness, long term, not just in the short term. God will work with the Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar needed seven years in the field with the feathers and the claws, eating like an ox, under the weather, living out homeless in the field as a brute beast with the heart of an animal. Seven years of transformation before, God saw Nebuchadnezzar was now a humble willing servant willing to even write a chapter of the Bible and write a letter declaring the Gospel to all nations that this is the one true God. You can trust Him and His son, His savior, the messiah. You can believe that the God that we all have hated throughout the heathen world is now the one true God and has demonstrated it repeatedly by multiple means. And I, the king of the world, write this letter sealed with my signet, and people certainly knew that he was insane and had spent seven years as a beast, but now was in his right mind sober and connected with the true divine God of heaven.
Every Person Has a Voice
All this to say, every path along the way, every person has a voice. Never compare your gifts, your skill, your body, your purpose with anyone else's. That's so silly. stop looking horizontally and look straight up. Say, God, I have been gifted by you with this composition, this unique composition. And if there's an audience of zero, I still owe it to God to share, to properly arrange, to broadcast.
Noah was a preacher of righteousness many many years and had eight wherein that is few souls eight got on to the Ark Jeremiah weeping begging pleading direct fire explaining to the people in their face who God was what God expected very few if any listened most of them mocked and ridiculed and had him arrested and oppressed, they thought he was emotionally unstable, but God was working through Jeremiah and wrote out a massive book, massive chapters.
If God gave you opportunity to write, would you write? If God gave you opportunity to speak, would you speak? If He gave you opportunity to be on a podcast, would you be on a podcast?
Most people are afraid to speak in public because they don't think they have a gift or they don't have time to prepare. But if I gave you 24 hours to prepare, to be on a podcast, and you're gonna be on there for 2.4 minutes. So you have 2.4 minutes of content to get together have your outline read it pray about it saturate. You could pick out you have two 2.4 minutes big stage at least you know thousands of listeners you have 24 hours to prepare. What would you do?
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