Are you living in your sweet spot?  Doing what you do well—what  you’ve always loved to do? That last question trips up a lot of folks.  God wouldn’t let me do what I like to do—would he?  Yes he would.  “God is working in you to help you want to do and be able to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13).  “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart”  (Psalm 37:4). Your Father is too gracious to assign you to a life of misery.  See your desires as gifts to heed rather than longings to … Listen Now

“The child is the father of the man,” wrote William Wordsworth.  If you want direction for the future, then read your life backward.  Job placement experts asked over seventy thousand people this question:  “What things have you done in life that you enjoyed doing and believe you did well?”  In every case people reverted to the same pattern of functioning.  Or to put it succinctly, our past presents our future. The Bible says, “It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we … Listen Now

You are more than statistical chance— more than a marriage of heredity and society.  Thanks to God, you have been “sculpted from nothing into something” (Psalm 139:15).  He made you you-nique.  Secular thinking, as a whole, doesn’t buy this.  Society simply says, “You can be anything you want to be.” But can you?  God never prefabs or mass-produces people.  “I make all things new,” he declares (Revelation 21:5).  So, you can do something no one else can do in a fashion no one else can do it.  Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have … Listen Now

Scripture says, “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good” (Ecclesiastes 2:24). I just heard a groan.  “But Max, my work is simply that—work!  It pays my bills.”  “Job satisfaction? I have no clue how to find my skill.”  “Honor God?  After the mess I’ve made of my life?” Here’s the big idea:  Use your uniqueness to make a big deal out of God every day of your life.  At the convergence of all three: what you do, why you do it, and where you do it…is the cure … Listen Now

God views your work worthy of its own engraved commandment. “You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest” (Exodus 34:21 NASB).   Whether you work at home or in the marketplace, your work matters to God.  And your work matters to society.  Cities need plumbers.  Bones break.  We need people to repair the first and set the last.  Someone has to raise kids, raise cane, and manage the kids who raise cane. So, whether you log on or lace up for the day, you imitate God.  Jesus said, “My Father never stops working, and so I keep … Listen Now

God endows us with gifts so we can make him known. Period!  God endues the Olympian with speed, the salesman with savvy, the surgeon with skill. Why?  The big answer is to make a big to-do out of God. To brandish him. Herald him. God has given gifts to each of us from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well. . .then God will be given glory” (1 Peter 4:10-11 NLT).  Make it your life’s encore to the end of time that “he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything (1 Peter 4:11 MSG). And when … Listen Now

The Bible says that each person is given something to do that shows who God is!  (1 Corinthians 12:7 MSG).  When God gives an assignment, he also gives the skill.  Look at your life.  What do you consistently do well?  What do you love to do?  And what do others love for you to do? So much for the excuse, I don’t have anything to offer…or… I can’t do anything.  And enough of its arrogant opposite, I have to do everything!  Imitate the apostle Paul who said, “Our goal is to stay within the boundaries of God’s plan for us” (2 Corinthians 10:13 NLT). So … Listen Now

Da Vinci painted one Mona Lisa.  Beethoven composed one Fifth Symphony.  And God made one version of you!  God custom-designed you for a one-of-a-kind assignment—“to each according to each one’s unique ability” (Matthew 25:15). “The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others” (1 Corinthians 12:7).  Did the apostle Paul say, “The Spirit has given some of us. . .”? Or a few of us. . .?”  No!  “The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others.” You don’t have to do everything!  You’re not God’s solution to society, you are a solution in society.  Don’t worry … Listen Now

Friends, I urge you to find a church congregation that believes in confession. Avoid a fellowship of perfect people—you probably won’t fit in. Seek one where members confess their sins and show humility, where the price of admission is simply an admission of guilt.  Healing happens in a church like this. Jesus said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23).  1 John 1:8-10 says, “If we say we have no sin, we’re fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  But if we confess our sins, … Listen Now

What would an X-ray—an MRI—of your soul reveal?  Regrets over teenage relationships? Remorse over a poor choice?  You become moody, cranky…angry or irritable.  That’s understandable if you have shame lodged in your soul. Interested in an extraction?  Confess!  Request a spiritual  MRI.  Psalm 139: 23-24 is just that: “Search me, O God and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; see if there’s any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” We need a grace-based confession.  God, I’ve done what You say is wrong.  Would you wash away my guilt and make me clean … Listen Now