Straight From Pastor Ey

One of the recent books I read was Jim Collins’ best-selling management book, “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap, and Others Don’t.” It came out seven years ago and still it reportedly sells over 300,000 copies a year. The phenomenal hardcover featured 11 companies which, simply put, transformed from simply average to super amazing, making lots of money along the way. Collins and his team sought to pinpoint the principles that led them to that leap of greatness. When I looked at the “good-to-great” list, I immediately noticed the mortgage company Federal National Mortgage Association or, popularly known as, Fannie Mae. This year, it went belly up and the US government had to bail it out. Another “good-to-great” company, the giant electronics dealer and retailer Circuit City, filed for bankruptcy last month. A business columnist wisely pointed out, “‘Good to Great’ companies can fail, too.” The remaining nine in the list reportedly lost 45 percent of their value in the l...

Decisions are the stuff life is made of. I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said, “Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” Unless we think of life as just marking time, unless we see ourselves as prisoners scratching a notch on the wall to count their days in prison, then there’s more to the stuff of life than time. I believe it’s the decisions we make that define life. In his series, “The Best Question Ever,” Andy Stanley , senior pastor of North Point Community Church , pointed out that we never plan to mess up our lives. But, unfortunately, we never plan not to. That’s a fresh way of saying, “If we fail to plan, we plan to fail.” When faced with a decision, we usually ask whether it is a right or wrong decision. If we can’t find a verse in the Bible about it, we assume that it means God is for it because He apparently did not say anything against it. But then again when we are not careful we can make the Bible say anything we want it to say. So, Stanle...

A crisis is a door, not a dam. It is crisis that separates the decisive and the defeated. Those who are decisive would even expand their businesses for example during such dire times. That sets them apart from the rest. When the dust settles, they are already ahead of the competition. Those who are left behind missed out on an opportunity. Isaiah faced such a crisis. King Uzziah died. Even if he died a leper, Uzziah was still at that time a powerful king. There seems to be a power vacuum. But though the earthly throne was empty, the heavenly throne was not. “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” (Isaiah 6:1, ESV) God was (and still is and will always be) in control. The crisis became an opportunity for Isaiah to witness God’s sovereignty. Usually when we hear the word “crisis” we think of a time of intense dread or danger. But the Greek word for “crisis” denotes “decision.” It was, ac...