Jeff's Blog: Influence

Everyone has influence with someone and everyone is influenced by someone. With influence comes responsibility. Within all of our lives are people whose feelings and well-being are within our influence. It is a simple fact we cannot escape.

This coming weekend we will be wrapping up our weekend series “Exponential” with a teaching called “My Life To The Power Of Influence”. So many people never consider the power of their personal influence nor the power of the influence that others are having in their life. Yet, our influence and the influence of others in our lives has an Exponential impact on our lives. This weekend as we finish this series this teaching will radically change the compounding affects in your life.

One of the key elements in our lives when it comes to how we handle our influence with others is integrity. That is that our lives match what we say and believe. I love this quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower: “In order to be a leader a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. Hence the supreme quality for a leader is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. If a man’s associates find him guilty of phoniness, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.”

Jeff's Blog: My Debt Ceiling

I’m sure that many of you are like myself, especial having spent my life in leadership, have a lot of thoughts (putting it nicely) about all that has been going on in Washington regarding the recent Debt Ceiling crises. However, I’m not going to talk about them here since I’m not a politician. (nor do I want to be!) It did get me to thinking about my personal debt and how it is paid in full.

No, I didn’t have a wealthy person pay off my mortgage. A mortgage doesn’t even compare to the debt that was paid in full. I owed a debt that I could never pay, had I spent every waking moment of life trying to. I could have never paid this debt even if I had all the financial resources of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined. So, as I think about it all I am so grateful that the ceiling on my life debt was not raised, but paid for instead by Jesus on the cross. All the debt from the sin and guilt of my past stamped with “paid in full”! Thank you God!!!

“For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20 God chose him as your ransom long before the world began…” 1 Peter 1:18-20 (NLT)

I don’t want to raise the debt ceiling when it comes to my guilt and sin. I’d rather just keep walking in the “paid in full” freedom that God gives me through Jesus.